Luke Combs fans have the chance to win a lot more than “a hundred bucks on a scratch-off ticket” with his new lottery experience.
The country superstar is teaming up with Atlas Experiences for the “Living Lucky With Luke Combs” campaign, which gives lottery players the chance to not only attend one of Luke’s concerts, but also to win half a million dollars.
Luke’s likeness will be featured on select lottery tickets distributed by Atlas and North American Lotteries across 15 states in the U.S., beginning with Wisconsin. Over the next year, players can purchase the Luke-themed scratch-off tickets in participating states and enter to win the grand prize, which includes a private concert from Luke at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on February 6, 2024. One fan in attendance will have the chance to win $500,000.
“I’m truly honored for the opportunity to give my fans the chance to live out the song ‘When It Rains It Pours,’ and a shot at half a million dollars. The lottery brought this great idea to me, and I had to get involved,” Luke shares in a statement. “Good luck to everyone!”
The lottery is currently underway in Wisconsin, with the remaining states rolling out over the course of a year.
Slim Jxmmi, one half of the duo Rae Sremmurd, was arrested Sunday in connection to a drug case. The rapper was taken into custody by Customs and Border Patrol agents upon his arrival at the Los Angeles International Airport from Canada.
TMZ reports Slim Jxmmi was brought in on an outstanding warrant stemming from a prior marijuana-related arrest. He remains in an LA jail, where he’s currently being held without bail. He will reportedly be extradited to Georgia, where he was initially charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell.
Jxmmi’s lawyer, Steve Sadow, has since released a statement, claiming the arrest was the result of a “miscommunication.” He claimed the rapper filed a plea in the offense and was placed on probation. As for the warrant, Sadow said it was wrongfully issued in June 2022, when the mother of Jxmmi’s child “filed a untruthful complaint with the Cobb County Police Department.” It was later dismissed, but Cobb County authorities were not made aware, thus leading to Jxmmi’s Sunday arrest.
Sadow expects the rapper will be released as soon as the warrant is withdrawn.
Beyoncé is out with a new remix of “Break My Soul,” and this one features Madonna and her 1990 track “Vogue.” The track is fittingly titled “Break My Soul (THE QUEENS Remix).”
Bey, who recently dropped a new visualizer for the remix, sent Madonna a gorgeous bouquet of flowers as thanks.
Madonna took to her Instagram Story to share the sweet note Bey wrote her. “Thank You, Queen,” the letter begins. “I’m So Thankful For You You Have Opened So Many Doors For So Many Women.”
The “Halo” singer continues in her message, “You Are A Masterpiece Genius. Thank You For Allowing Me To Sing In Your Song And Thank You For Naming The Remix!!!!”
Bey signs the note “Love Always And Forever.”
Madonna was touched by the kind gesture and wrote in the caption, “Thank you !! From one [queen] to another [queen] I love the Re-Mix !”
As for the bouquet itself, which Madonna showed off in full in another slide, it includes white roses, orchids and tulips.
Beyoncé recently released her new album, Renaissance, which is currently the #1 album in the country. Aside from topping the Billboard 200, the lead track “Break My Soul” is currently #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The “Single Ladies” singer penned a message of gratitude on her official website to celebrate the accolades, writing, “We did it!!! Thank you all so much for your love and support… This was years of experimentation. This was years of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears. I’m so grateful and it was worth it.”
(WASHINGTON) — The House Jan. 6 committee was expected Tuesday to interview Donald Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
ABC News first reported in July that Pompeo was in negotiations to sit with committee investigators behind closed doors. (CNN and The New York Times, respectively, first reported Mastriano and Pompeo’s appearances before the panel.)
Mastriano has not agreed to the terms of his own closed-door interview with investigators. Mastriano’s attorney wants to record the deposition or have access to the committee’s recording after the fact. The committee has not agreed to that.
That has raised the possibility that in his virtual appearance, Mastriano may not answer questions or refuse to proceed. Mastriano has said he would walk out of a deposition with investigators if they didn’t agree to his terms.
Mastriano, who has baselessly challenged the results of the 2020 election, was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but he has said he left when rioting broke out — calling the violence “unacceptable.”
His attorney previously told the Associated Press that he spoke with the FBI and “told them the truth about everything that happened that day.”
The previous outreach to Pompeo, meanwhile, was an indication of the committee’s continuing interest in gathering information and testimony from high-level Trump administration officials as the panel moved closer toward the release in the fall of a public report on its findings.
The committee’s vice chair, Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, said in late July that the group’s work continued apace after wrapping its public hearings for the summer.
More hearings are expected related to the committee’s report.
“We have a number of many interviews scheduled that are coming up. We anticipate talking to additional members of the president’s Cabinet. We anticipate talking to additional members of his campaign,” Cheney told CNN in July, adding, “We’re very focused as well on the Secret Service and on interviewing additional members of the Secret Service and collecting additional information from them.”
ABC News’ Adam Carlson and Jonathan Karl contributed to this report.
(DALLAS) — Jurors heard closing arguments Tuesday in the capital murder trial of Yaser Said, who is accused of fatally shooting his two teenage daughters, 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said, in a taxi in the Dallas area in 2008.
Said was placed on the FBI’s most-wanted list and evaded arrest for more than 12 years. Said, who had worked as a cab driver, was arrested in August 2020 in Justin, Texas. He entered a not guilty plea and faces an automatic life sentence if convicted.
Prosecutors claim Said, who is Muslim, murdered his daughters because he was upset that the girls were dating.
“He wouldn’t even let these girls go to a movie. He wouldn’t let them date,” a prosecutor said during closing statements Tuesday.
ABC News local affiliate WFAA reported that police have described the murders as “honor killings” — defined as the killing of a relative, especially a girl or woman, who is perceived to have brought dishonor on the family in certain cultures.
During the trial, prosecutors read a December 21, 2007, email Amina wrote to her history teacher 10 days before she and her sister were killed, saying their father “made our lives a nightmare” and that she and her sister wanted to run away.
“I am so scared right now,” Amina wrote, according to prosecutors. “OK, well as you know we’re not allowed to date and my dad is arranging my marriage. My dad said I cannot put it off any more and I have to get married this year.”
“He will, without any drama nor doubt, kill us,” she also wrote.
The girls, along with their mother and their boyfriends, fled their Texas home to Oklahoma on Christmas Day 2007, four days after Amina sent the email. Witnesses said the girls returned to the Dallas area on New Year’s Eve when their mother, Patricia Owens, said Said convinced her to return home.
The girls’ bodies were found on New Year’s Day 2008 in a taxi cab prosecutors said Said drove.
Last Wednesday, the prosecution played the 911 call Sarah allegedly made the night of her death. During the call, a woman can be heard frantically screaming that her father had shot her and that she was dying.
During her testimony in court last Thursday Owens pointed to her ex-husband, calling him “that devil.” She testified that Said was controlling and abusive throughout their relationship, adding that she and her daughters left him several times over the years, but they always returned out of fear.
Owens declined to comment on the case until her ex-husband is convicted, she told ABC News.
In a letter written to the judge overseeing the case, Said said while he disapproved of his daughters’ “dating activity,” he denied killing the girls.
“I was upset because in my culture it’s something to get upset about,” said Said, who took the stand Monday. He testified that he immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt in 1983 and later became a U.S. citizen.
Said told jurors that the evening his daughters were killed, he was taking them to dinner because he wanted to smooth things over and “solve the problem.”
However, Said claims he left the vehicle, fleeing into a wooded area before the girls were killed because he thought someone wanted to murder him, testifying that he spotted an unknown person in a car stalking them while they were driving to dinner.
Said said he did not turn himself in after the murders because he didn’t think he would get a fair trial.
The defense team claims that Said was targeted by law enforcement because of his Muslim faith and cultural beliefs.
“Everybody has a preference and how they discipline their kids, just like they have a preference for what kind of food they eat, what kind of people they date, what religion they want to practice,” Baharan Muse, Said’s defense attorney, said in closing arguments Tuesday. “Discipline does not mean you murdered your children. Your culture does not mean you murdered your children.”
Said’s defense team alleged prosecutors sought to “generalize” and “criminalize an entire culture, to fit their narrative.”
The prosecution rejected the claim that Said was unjustly accused for his religious beliefs.
“If you intentionally or knowingly cause the death of another in Dallas County, we are coming for you. Period. You will be prosecuted. Period. It has nothing to do with your race or religion,” prosecutor Lauren Black said in her closing argument.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed a multibillion-dollar bill to boost domestic computer chip manufacturing and more, touting the bipartisan package as “a once-in-a-generation investment in America itself.”
The law — known as the CHIPS and Science Act — spends nearly $53 billion to spur research in and development of America’s semiconductor industry. It is intended to address a nearly two-year global chip shortage that stemmed from supply chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Semiconductors are common in everyday items from cell phones to cars to microwaves and more; experts compare them to the “brain” for any machine with a computer system.
Tuesday’s event coincided with GlobalFoundries, Micron and Qualcomm announcing partnerships and investments that total nearly $45 billion.
Micron’s $40-billion investment “will bring the U.S. market share of memory chip production from less than 2 percent to up to 10 percent over the next decade,” the White House said in a statement.
The bill enacted Tuesday also has a national defense angle, its supporter say, as Congress and the White House look to bolster chip production domestically.
According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, a lobbying group focused on semiconductor manufacturing, the U.S. produces 12% of the world’s chips, down from 37% in 1990.
At the signing event, Biden was joined by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“In the last six weeks alone, we passed not only CHIPS and Science, but also veterans’ health care, gun safety, NATO and now the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has passed the Senate,” Schumer said, referring to the recent reconciliation spending bill that Democrats narrowly approved last weekend.
That package had temporarily created turmoil for CHIPS in Congress.
Following a surprise agreement between Schumer and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia that revived the IRA, some Republicans said they felt slighted by the Democratic progress on a party-line reconciliation package mere hours after CHIPS passed the upper chamber with a bipartisan majority.
Despite that consternation, Republican Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Todd Young of Indiana attended Tuesday’s bill signing. Young led the GOP in negotiations on the bill, which ultimately passed the Senate 64-33 on July 27.
“I don’t want to get you in trouble, but you did a hell of a job,” Biden said to the two Republicans.
The president, at times, spoke through a thick, wet cough during the ceremony. The White House has said he repeatedly tested negative for COVID over the weekend, and he subsequently left isolation after a rebound case of the infection.
Biden did not mention the FBI’s Monday search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, which Trump decried as political persecution. (Sources told ABC News the operation was related to the 15 boxes of documents that Trump took when he departed the White House, some of which the National Archives has said were marked classified.)
A White House official previously told ABC News the administration was not aware of the search in advance, referring questions to the Department of Justice.
ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
The 1975‘s upcoming album, Being Funny in a Foreign Language, lives up to at least the first part of its title. And you don’t need to take our word for it, just ask Taylor Swift.
In a new profile of frontman Matty Healy, Pitchfork reports that Swift “got an early listen” of Being Funny in a Foreign Language. Her thoughts? Three words: “It’s so funny.”
The “Shake It Off” singer isn’t the only music superstar who’s a 1975 fan. Healy reveals he received a text from Coldplay‘s Chris Martin calling the lead Being Funny single, “Part of the Band,” a “brave song.”
“And I was, like, ‘I don’t know how to be brave,'” Healy laughs.
Elsewhere in the interview, Healy reveals that he “hate[s]” Metallica — “My worst band of all time,” he says — but also shares he once got weed from another “Big Four” thrash rocker: Megadeth‘s Dave Mustaine.
Being Funny in a Foreign Language drops October 14. The 1975 will launch a U.S. tour in support of the album in November.
If you, like many others, are working from home because of the ongoing pandemic and find yourself struggling to be productive, you should listen to Taylor Swift‘s music.
A new study from Voices looked into the kind of music that shakes the most motivation back into remote workers, and songs by Taylor were found to be the most effective. They based their findings on the Spotify API, which tracks what artists are being featured in what kind of playlists based off of key words.
Taylor was the artist most commonly found in playlists using key words like “focus” and “work.” As for her most popular work-from-home songs, the survey suggests the “Taylor’s Version” of the Red and Fearless albums are taking up the most real estate in people’s playlists.
Harry Styles is the second-most popular WFH artist, while Ed Sheeran comes in third. Rounding out the top five are, respectively, The Weeknd and Rihanna.
But, when it comes to who has the most popular WFH songs, the honor goes to Harry. His singles “As It Was,” “Watermelon Sugar” and “Golden” are respectively in first, second and fourth place. Glass Animals‘ “Heat Waves” comes third.
So why is pop music better to listen to than classical or jazz music? Apparently, peppy lyrics are pretty effective at dragging people out of the work-from-home doldrums. The study adds those working from home are turning to more energetic music to soundtrack their day.
Research has already backed up claims that listening to music during a task boosts one’s happiness, creativity and efficiency. Apparently, while lyrics are viewed as distracting in some settings, the research finds working from home is a little more monotonous — so listening to someone singing helps break up the static.
Beyoncé is expressing gratitude for the reception Renaissance has received thus far. Following reports about her #1 album and #1 single “Break My Soul,” she took to her official website with a message of gratitude to the Beyhive and all those who helped bring her project to fruition.
The project, Bey says, was the result of “years of experimentation,” “hard work, blood, sweat, and tears.” So, seeing peers show up to her private Renaissance-themed event in New York over the weekend brought her joy.
“We did it!!!” she wrote. “Thank you so much for your love and support. Nothing made me happier than seeing a club full of people sing every single word to every song from top to bottom.”
“I’m thankful that it was received and understood,” she continued of her album. “Thank you to my beautiful team for your heart and grind. Thank you to all of the brilliant collaborators and musicians, composers and everyone involved in creating this piece of art. And thank you to the absolute best fans on the planet. I’m grateful to be loved by you. I love ya’ll deep.”
Beyoncé’s Renaissance-themed party featured star-studded appearances from Chlöe Bailey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kendrick Lamar, Donald Glover and Questlove, who tweeted about his experience.
“don’t even know if I’m allowed to say it but I literally watched an entire club LOSE IT. Renaissanceplayed from start to finish 3 times…,” he penned. “I never seen nothin like this.”
(LOS ANGELES) — The parents of a 12-year-old California girl who died last year after an accident involving an electric bike, or e-bike, say they want to see change.
Kaye and Jonathan Steinsapir, the parents of Molly Steinsapir, have filed a lawsuit against Rad Power Bikes, a Seattle-based e-bike company.
According to the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior County Court, Molly and her 11-year-old best friend were riding a RadRunner bike on Jan. 31, 2021, with Molly riding on the back. As the friends were going down a steep hill, the bike, “began to shake and wobble, causing the bike to crash.”
Molly died on Feb. 15, 2021, after undergoing multiple brain surgeries and spending more than two weeks in the hospital, with her parents by her side.
“I massaged her hands and her feet and sang to her and read to her,” Kaye Steinsapir, whose tweets about Molly’s fight to survive started a following known as “Team Molly,” told ABC News. “I read the book that her class was reading because I didn’t want her to be behind when she woke up.”
In their lawsuit, the Steinsapirs claim that the model of bike Molly was riding, Rad Power Bikes’ RadRunner, has “multiple design defects,” including an issue with the brakes and front wheel that, according to the lawsuit, “in some cases can cause the wheel to come all the way off.”
The family claims in the lawsuit that Rad Power Bikes, “knew or should have known that this was an unsafe and defective design.”
“Rad Power Bikes was aware of this issue or had been made aware of this issue, and they never redesigned their bike,” Jonathan Steinsapir told Good Morning America in his family’s first television interview about the lawsuit. “So this was, what we believe, was preventable.”
E-bikes have a motor and often have more power than a normal bike.
Rad Power Bikes’ RadRunner model is capable of reaching speeds up to 20 miles per hour, according to the lawsuit.
Molly was wearing a helmet while riding the e-bike, according to her parents. The maker of the helmet Molly was wearing, Giro Sport Design, is also named in the lawsuit.
Giro Sport Design did not reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
Rad Power Bikes told ABC News in a statement it “extends its deepest condolences to the Steinsapir family.”
The company said it does not comment on pending litigation.
In the lawsuit, the Steinsapirs claim the owner’s manual for the RadRunner, the type of bike Molly was riding, says in small print on page 49, out of 57 pages, it is “designed for use by persons 18 years and older. The lawsuit alleges that Rad Power Bikes “knows children will operate” the bike since the company’s website includes what the suit describes as “glowing reviews from adults” about buying the bike for their children.
“Let’s be honest, no one reads manuals. We all know that,” Jonathan Steinsapir said. “The first step Rad should have is something on the bike itself warning about age appropriateness.”
The Steinsapirs said they are filing the lawsuit in hopes of preventing tragedy for another family.
“I would much rather just walk away from this and just go on with my life,” Jonathan Steinsapir said. “But you know, the next child who dies or is paralyzed because of this issue that they refuse to address, I mean I couldn’t possibly live with myself with that.”
Added his wife, Kaye, “Every single time I just hear Molly. I hear her voice say, ‘Mom, it’s not okay. It’s not right,’ that that’s who Molly was. She is somebody who stood up for what is right and no matter what the personal cost, and there is tremendous personal cost to us in pursuing this litigation.”
Dr. Charles DiMaggio, a faculty member in the department of surgery, division of trauma and critical care at New York University School of Medicine, told ABC News that e-bikes represent “potentially a revolution” in how people get around, but that they need to be considered with safety first.
“They need to be introduced in a safe way,” DiMaggio said. “Engineering them in a way so that they stop and brake appropriately and safely, so that they are not necessarily going faster than they need to go and by marketing them to the appropriate age groups.”
Greg Billing, executive Director at the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, told ABC News in an interview in 2020 that accidents with e-bikes can and do happen — that’s why it’s imperative for users to practice safety.
“It is a different skill than just riding a bike,” Billing said then. “Which is why we encourage people when they are starting to use e-bikes to really practice and understand how to handle the power of the bike and make sure that they feel comfortable before they get out on the road or on a trail around other people or cars.”
