Fans likely know Jimmie Allen as a country musician, but soon they might know him for his skills at the bowling alley, too. The singer is currently working on becoming a professional bowler, and he plans to try out for the Professional Bowlers Association in January.
“I actually move my schedule around, like, move shows around and stuff like that, to get into bowling tournaments,” he reveals in a Billboard video as one item in a list of five little-known facts about himself.
“Being a professional bowler is on my bucket list and something I’m wanting to do,” he adds.
That’s not the only sport Jimmie says he’d like to take up. “I wanna be a WWE professional wrestler,” he says. “And, like, tour and do matches and stuff. I wanna do that. That’s in there, as well.”
Jimmie might encounter a conflict in achieving that dream, though, since he’s not a huge fan of going to the gym. Still, he says he’d be willing to do things he doesn’t necessarily love in the name of achieving his goals.
“I’m a competitive person. So whatever needs to be done to get that job done, that’s what I’ll do. So if I need to get a little stronger, put on a little size, look bigger for camera, I’ll do that. Because it’s required of the job,” he reasons.
In the more short-term future, though, Jimmie’s taking another step toward country superstardom with the release of his third album, Tulip Drive, on Friday.
Another day, another wild accusation about The Flash star Ezra Miller.
According to Rolling Stone, the actor, who identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, is currently staying on his 96-acre property in Stamford, Vermont, with a mother and her three young children.
The father, like the 25-year-old mother, was not identified. However, he reportedly feared the situation is “unsafe.” Video provided to Rolling Stone allegedly showed “unattended guns strewn around the home,” and that “one of the children — a one-year-old — allegedly picked up a loose bullet and put it in her mouth.”
The 29-year-old actor is allegedly using marijuana heavily in front of the children, the magazine reports. Miller also is accused of cultivating cannabis on their farm without a license, according to Rolling Stone.
However, the mother of the children tells the magazine that Miller helped her and her kids flee Hilo, Hawaii, and a “violent and abusive” ex — something the children’s father denies.
The Rolling Stone report is the latest in a series of recent accusations and legal entanglements for Miller.
Earlier this month, South Dakota attorney and activist Chase Iron Eyes and his wife, Sara Jumping Eagle, filed court documents alleging that Miller has been “physically and emotionally abusing” their 18-year-old daughter, Tokata Iron Eyes, whom Miller met when she was 12 and Miller was 23. The Fantastic Beasts series star was also accused of “psychologically manipulating, physically intimidating, and endangering the safety and welfare” of the young woman, according to court documents obtained by Entertainment Weekly.
However, in an Instagram post, Tokata denied the claims, insisting in part that her “comrade” Ezra has simply helped her through a difficult time.
Miller was also arrested in Hawaii in March and April and charged, respectively, with disorderly conduct and harassment in one case, and second degree assault in the other.
(NEW YORK) — Dr. Deborah Birx, a former White House COVID response coordinator under then-President Donald Trump, told Congress on Thursday that Trump’s focus on the 2020 election got in the way of a strong COVID response in the winter of 2021.
Birx, who has written a book on her time working with the White House in the early days of the pandemic, spoke to the House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis largely about what she said were the errors the Trump administration made and times she disagreed with its approach.
She told the committee that was told to delete recommendations of masks and social distancing in reports that went out to states’ governors and that those reports — once put out weekly — would only be provided if the states asked.
Birx said she thought the best approach would be complete transparency and to arm the states with all the data available
The former COVID coordinator and longtime public health official also said she put together a plan in September and October for how to go into the surge that she “knew was coming to the United States throughout that fall and winter of 2020 into 2021.”
MORE: ABC News Exclusive: Dr. Birx speaks to Trump disinfectant moment, says colleagues had resignation pact
She said she was given reason to believe that the plan would be used by the White House, but instead it never went anywhere.
“That strategy was never fully executed in all of its robust and comprehensive approach because the teams were never brought back together,” Birx testified.
“I believe it is because they were distracted by the post-election issues,” she said.
That fall and winter was the deadliest time of the pandemic in the US. More people died than at any other point in the pandemic to date.
Birx also said that she believes if Trump had followed her recommendations and data, lives would’ve been saved.
The misinformation circulating in the White House, Birx said, made it hard to act on plans.
“When you no longer agree on what is actually happening in the country and what needs to be done, and there’s not consensus on that, then you lose the ability to execute in the maximum efficient and effective way,” Birx said.
Going forward, Birx said the country still is not in a good place.
She argued that the Biden administration needs to be watching for new variants that could cause surges and launch quickly on proactively testing vulnerable people and prescribing Paxlovid, which can be lifesaving if given in the first five days of illness.
She also said the country shouldn’t overlook the toll that hospitalizations have taken on people, even as the country surpasses the tragic milestone of one million deaths.
“Hospitalizations in people over 70 is not benign. It’s not benign,” she said.
“I know everybody focuses on the deaths but I want to make it clear, many more Americans have suffered really significantly from being hospitalized and another whole group still has long COVID,” Birx said.
“And so you know, this isn’t trivial — this virus is not trivial, and should not just be immediately discarded as we’re doing fine. We are not doing fine yet.”
(NEW YORK) — Violence against abortion providers significantly rose in 2021, according to a report from the National Abortion Federation published Friday.
The report, which measures a variety of acts of violence and disruption, found the most significant increases were in stalking, blockades, hoax devices/suspicious packages, invasions and assault and battery, compared to 2020’s findings.
Vandalism and assault and battery continue to be the most common offenses, but other acts have seen major jumps, with stalking increasing 600% from 2020, according to the report.
Overall, the new data has found increased reported incidents of anti-abortion individuals “pushing, shoving, using pepper spray against, slapping, kicking, and physically fighting clinic escorts, staff and others outside of clinics.”
Melissa Fowler, chief program officer at National Abortion Federation, said that NAF found that abortion clinics are not facing peaceful protests, but rather a “coordinated campaign” that threatens abortion providers.
“It’s really important that people understand the trends… and also the people behind those numbers,” Fowler said. “We can’t sit back and let it be socially acceptable to harass abortion providers.”
The report also draws specific attention to the Jan. 6 insurrection, as NAF has found that many of those known to commit violence and disruption against abortion clinics have also been found to have been a part of the riots at the Capitol in early 2021.
Fowler told ABC News that it was important for the organization to include those details because they feel that it is important to make people aware of the overlap in activity by “extremist groups.”
Amanda Kifferly, vice president of abortion access and clinic security director of The Women’s Centers, told ABC News that while for many Americans the behavior of insurrectionists was shocking on Jan. 6, abortion providers like herself were familiar with it.
She said that she actually looked up one of the usual protestors at her clinic on Facebook and watched as he live streamed his participation in the Capitol attack.
“We were so familiar with the tactics that we saw. The bullying, the loud noises, the militia gear, the harassing language that was used,” she said. “They are pro-violence and the words that they were saying like ‘hang people’ was very familiar.”
Fowler said the connections between anti-abortion and white supremacy groups are not new and they’ve been noted since abortion was legalized in the 1970s.
Kifferly and Dalton Johnson, the CEO of Alabama Women’s Center, said that’ve had to work to have law enforcement officials, different security providers and deescalation tactics implemented to address the violence and disruption that their clinics face.
The report also found that the pandemic affected the type of violence and disruption against abortion providers, as well as how many incidents were actually reported.
At a Thursday press call, Fowler said that many of their member facilities struggled to stay open due to regulations from the government, as well as from staffing issues. The strain of the pandemic, Fowler said, also meant that providers were not as capable of recording all incidents of harassment.
Kifferly said that she and her clinic staff experienced this, as they were “exhausted and became under more scrutiny.” Specifically, Kifferly said she and her staff had difficulty proving they were essential workers during the pandemic.
Fowler, Kifferly and Dalton all said that they don’t believe that the anti-abortion protestors that they have encountered are able or willing to have respectful conversations about the issue of abortion.
NAF reports have found acts of violence and disruption not only committed at abortion clinic sites, but also at the homes, churches and schools of the children of abortion providers.
Fowler said that NAF’s priority continues to be the safety and well-being of their providers and their patients, and working to get patients the care that they need.
The NAF has been collecting data on incidents of violence and disruption against abortion providers since 1977, according to the release.
To do so, they collect monthly reports from their member facilities and allied organizations and conduct follow-up reports.
For the 2021 report, NAF received reports from 80% of their facility members, and suspect that there is underreporting in some areas, such as picketing, hate mail and calls, hate email, internet harassment, obstruction and trespassing.
(NEW YORK) — If you could give your child the gift of life, would you?
Pamela Bish, a Georgia mom of three, recently got the chance to do so and she immediately jumped at the opportunity. Her youngest son, Carter Bish, 2, needs a new kidney, and after multiple tests and processes, doctors finally gave her the green light to undergo the live organ donation.
Now, Pamela Bish and her son’s procedures are scheduled to go ahead on July 8.
“It’s not just about being a match. There’s other things that they have to consider,” Bish told Good Morning America.
“My vessels have to be a certain size. They had to make sure I had two kidneys. They had to make sure that I didn’t have any cysts on my kidneys. They had to make sure I don’t have high blood pressure. They have to make sure I’m not pre-diabetic,” she explained. “So there were all kinds of things that I had to go through in order to make sure that I, as a donor, could continue to be healthy and live a healthy life with only one kidney.”
She remembers the day she got the critical phone call telling her she was cleared.
“When I got that final call of, ‘I have good news. You have been approved,’ it was instant relief, and just instant peace and calm. And then, the excitement just kicked in,” Pamela Bish said.
Although Carter is only 2 years old, his health challenges began before he was even born.
“I went in for my 20-week ultrasound and the radiologist came in and they said that Carter, there was a lot of things wrong with him and he was not compatible with life, that he wouldn’t make it, he wouldn’t be able to live because I didn’t have much amniotic fluid,” Bish said. “[They said] his kidneys just looked awful. They looked just filled with cysts and a lot of fluid.”
It was devastating news for Pamela Bish and her husband, Dale Bish, who are both originally from Pittsburgh but moved to Dacula, Georgia, partway through her pregnancy with Carter. They decided to get a second opinion from doctors at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, where they were told it appeared that Carter had a urinary blockage.
“Throughout all those weeks, between weeks 20 and 30, I would have some fluid and then it would go down and Hopkins just said they wouldn’t recommend any other interventions because he does have a little bit of fluid and if he has enough to just breathe it in and develop his lungs enough, that he could make it,” Pamela Bish said.
“He would likely need dialysis and he would likely need a transplant down the road. But we just had to wait and see, and that was probably the most difficult part, carrying him knowing that we weren’t sure if we were going to have a baby to bring home or not.”
Against the odds, Carter did make it, and shortly after he was born, he was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Scottish Rite Hospital in Atlanta, where he was put on a ventilator and received various treatments before he could be placed on peritoneal dialysis, a type of treatment for kidney failure, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
Pamela Bish estimates that her son has had at least 11 surgeries, and multiple setbacks and different health issues, but her little boy has fought through them all. She describes Carter as a happy child who loves baseball and was, naturally, one for Halloween this past October.
Last year, Carter’s kidneys also improved to the point where he could even be removed from dialysis.
“He made it a year without dialysis treatment and maintaining his levels. But then things just started to get bad again. His labs started to look not so good,” Pamela Bish explained. “He could create urine but his urine was not good urine, so it wasn’t clearing his body of all the toxins.”
Carter started undergoing dialysis again but would eventually need a transplant. He also had to recover from hip surgery before he would be well enough to receive a kidney.
Now, his mother is looking forward to being the lifeline he needs and giving him a shot at what she hopes is a long life ahead of him.
“I want him to know that during the times in his life that people were telling him that his life wasn’t worth saving or keeping, that his family and his friends and the people around him never believed that for one minute,” Pamela Bish said. “They all believed that his life was worth it and that he would be OK.”
“If you would see him today, you would not know a thing is wrong with him. He is the most adorable, cutest, sweetest little guy. He never stops talking. He has won the hearts of everyone around him,” she added.
Denise Richards is following in the footsteps of her daughter, Sami Sheen, and launching an OnlyFans account.
Taking to social media on Thursday, the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum shared a 15-second clip of herself wearing a white dress and walking from the beach into the water.
“Ready…here we go,” she captioned the video, adding #onlyfans. “Link in bio.”
In a follow-up Instagram post, the 51-year-old wrote, “It’s summer!!! My favorite time of year. Chatting with all of you on #onlyfans right now. I personally will answer all of your messages.”
Subscriptions to Richards’ OnlyFans account are currently listed at $25 per month, or $67.50 for a three-month bundle.
Richards’ OnlyFans account comes after her 18-year-old daughter, Sami, whom she shares with ex Charlie Sheen, launched her own page earlier this month.
Charlie voiced his disapproval of his daughter’s account, telling E! News in a statement, “I do not condone this but since I’m unable to prevent it, I urged her to keep it classy, creative and not sacrifice her integrity.”
Richards, on the other hand, commended Sami for her confidence.
“Lots of negative comments on my social this past week. I have to say, I wish I had the confidence my 18 yr old daughter has,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “And I also can’t be judgmental of her choices. I did Wild Things & Playboy, quite frankly her father shouldn’t be either.”
Kendrick Lamar made an appearance at Paris Fashion Week, performing at the Louis Vuitton Men’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection show, where he paid tribute to the late designer Virgil Abloh.
During the show, which took place Thursday, Kendrick performed a number of songs, including hits from his new album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. It was the rapper’s outro to “Count Me Out” in which he paid tribute to Abloh, who was the artistic director for the fashion house before he died last November from cardiac angiosarcoma. “Long Live Virgil,” Kendrick said, before repeating Virgil’s name over and over.
This isn’t the first time the “N95” rapper paid tribute to Abloh. During the Super Bowl halftime show, he wore LV by Abloh.
Chris Brown‘s tenth studio album Breezy is finally here.
After much anticipation, the R&B singer dropped the 24-track project Friday, which includes his previously released Normani-assisted song “WE (Warm Embrace),” as well as “Iffy,” which appears as a bonus track.
Brown’s new album is a star-studded affair, with features from some of the hottest names in R&B and hip-hop. Ella Mai contributes her vocals to the track “Sex Memories,” while Jack Harlow appears on “Psychic,” and both Lil Wayne and BLEU contribute to “Possessive.” The album also has features from Fivio Foreign, Lil Durk, Capella Grey, Lil Baby, H.E.R., Bryson Tiller, EST Gee, Blxst, and Tory Lanez.
Breezyis Brown’s first album in three years. His last album, Indigo, was released in 2019.
Talk about a real estate boom! The real estate reality show Selling Sunset has been renewed for seasons 6 and 7, Netflix announced Thursday. The streaming platform will also be debuting a spin-off series, Selling the OC, on August 24. Netflix also announced a bunch of new home renovation programming, including How to Build a Sex Room, which features an interior designer helping couples spice up their space. The series debuts July 8 …
The Spy Kids reboot has found its stars. Deadline reports Gina Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Everly Carganilla and newcomer Connor Esterson are set to star as the spy family in filmmaker Robert Rodriguez‘s new adaptation of the franchise, which he’s on board to write, direct and produce. The original Spy Kids debuted in 2001 with Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino in the adult roles, and Alexa PenaVega and Daryl Sabara as the kids …
Chrissy Teigen will be returning for more Chrissy’s Court on the Roku Channel, Varietyreports. Her show has been renewed for a third season after its second season broke viewership records for Roku. “The cases in Season 3 of ‘Chrissy’s Court’ are wilder, the people are more fun than ever, and no claim is too petty for my courtroom,” Teigen said in a statement to Variety. The new season will debut on October 21 …
(UVALDE, Texas) — One month has passed since a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, and a series of new revelations about the May 24 shooting has done little to abate the frustrations of Uvalde’s residents as they continue to heal.
State and local officials have spent weeks trying to reconcile incomplete and, at times, conflicting reports on the shooting and the questionable police response. And while multiple investigations remain ongoing — including one being conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice — some critical facts remain elusive following one of the deadliest school shootings in the nation’s history.
Some information emerged this week when Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw, whose agency is conducting one of the probes, testified before the Texas state legislature. McCraw, who presented an updated timeline of events that he said was based on video surveillance and police communications, characterized the police response as an “abject failure,” and offered what appeared to be the most complete account of what occurred during the deadly rampage.
In McCraw’s telling, enough officers and equipment arrived on the scene within three minutes to “neutralize” the 18-year-old shooter. He also made the stunning assertion that the door to the classroom containing the gunman might have been unlocked all along — even as officers waited more than an hour to find a key that would open it.
“One hour, 14 minutes and eight seconds. That’s how long the children waited, and the teachers waited, in rooms 111 and 112 to be rescued,” McCraw said. “And while they waited, the on-scene commander waited for radios and rifles. Then he waited for shields. Then he waited for SWAT. Lastly, he waited for a key that was never needed.”
Police officers arrived on-scene almost immediately, but failed to overcome logistical and communications challenges in time to limit the carnage. McCraw said officers had difficulty communicating because their radios had no reception inside the building, contributing to a leadership vacuum that crippled the police response.
McCraw reserved his harshest criticism for Pete Arredondo, the embattled school district police chief who was the on-scene incident commander. McCraw called Arredondo “the only thing stopping a hallway of dedicated officers from entering” the classrooms and killing the gunman.
“[Arredondo] decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children,” McCraw said.
McCraw’s condemnation of Arredondo has added to a growing chorus of outrage over the police response on May 24. Emotional accounts from survivors and first responders before Congress and in the press have cast a critical eye on law enforcement.
“They’re cowards,” teacher Arnulfo Reyes, who lost 11 students and sustained multiple gunshot wounds, told ABC News in an exclusive interview. “They sit there and did nothing for our community. They took a long time to go in … I will never forgive them.”
Meanwhile, after several weeks of community members calling for Arredondo’s resignation, the Uvalde school superintendent on Wednesday placed Arredondo on administrative leave. Arredondo has not responded to multiple requests for comment from ABC News.
“He should never be allowed to work in law enforcement again,” one member of the Uvalde community told ABC affiliate KSAT on Wednesday. “My personal opinion.”
Many Uvalde residents say the shifting narrative has fostered an immense distrust of authorities — while the lack of information has provided little solace to relatives of the victims. A number of family members hope that an upcoming report from the county medical examiner will answer some of their most pressing questions.
“[The medical examiner] can tell us more or less what happened to our child. Was [her death] immediate or could she have been saved if [police] went in faster?” Kim Rubio, the mother of Uvalde victim Lexi Rubio, told ABC News’ Mireya Villareal. “I just think about how long she was there. Was she scared? Was she in pain? It just worries me.”
Demands for investigative documents also reached new heights this week, prompting a new round of infighting among officials.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin on Tuesday accused McCraw of “[having] an agenda, and it’s not to present a full report on what happened and to give factual answers to the families of this community.”
On Wednesday, a Texas state senator who represents Uvalde filed a lawsuit against McCraw’s agency seeking access to its investigative records. The Department of Public Safety did not respond to the lawsuit nor to McLaughlin’s criticism.
“From the very start, the response to this awful gun tragedy has been full of misinformation and outright lies from our government,” state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a Democrat, wrote in an eight-page complaint.
During his Tuesday appearance before the state legislature, McCraw said the district attorney who covers Uvalde, Christina Busbee, told him to cease contact with lawmakers and the press. McCraw pledged to release investigative records and video surveillance footage of the shooting once Busbee approves their release.
Uvalde residents say they hope they won’t have to wait much longer.
