Stone Temple Pilots pull out of final five shows of tour with Halestorm due to positive COVID-19 test

Stone Temple Pilots pull out of final five shows of tour with Halestorm due to positive COVID-19 test
Stone Temple Pilots pull out of final five shows of tour with Halestorm due to positive COVID-19 test
Scott Legato/Getty Images

Stone Temple Pilots have canceled their performances at the last five shows of their U.S. tour with Halestorm and Black Stone Cherry because “a member of [their] touring party … tested positive” for COVID-19 during routine testing for the virus.

STP announced the news in a post on their social media sites: “Out of an abundance of caution, we must regretfully cancel the remaining shows on our tour with HALESTORM,” adding, “HALESTORM and BLACK STONE CHERRY will still be performing as scheduled.”

The five affected dates were last night’s show in Evansville, Indiana; tonight’s concert in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and performances on May 27 in Deadwood, South Dakota; May 28 in Moorhead, Minnesota; and May 30 in Missoula, Montana.

STP’s message concludes, “Thank you to everybody who has come out to see a show, and an extra special thank you to HALESTORM. We’ll be back out there as soon as we can.”

In November of last year, the band canceled the final two dates of their fall tour after someone in their organization tested positive for COVID-19, while the following month bassist Robert DeLeo announced that he had caught the virus.

Stone Temple Pilots’ next concert is scheduled for June 4 in Addison, Texas.

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Nick Jonas speaks about being first-time dad: “It’s pretty wild!”

Nick Jonas speaks about being first-time dad: “It’s pretty wild!”
Nick Jonas speaks about being first-time dad: “It’s pretty wild!”
Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal

Nick Jonas is counting his lucky stars his baby girl, Malti Marie, whom he shares with wife Priyanka Chopra, is home after spending “100 plus days in the NICU” shortly after birth.

Appearing Wednesday on The Kelly Clarkson Show, the youngest member of the Jonas Brothers raved about being a first-time dad, “It’s pretty wild.” He also said of his adorable daughter finally coming home, “She’s the best. It’s just been a magical season of our life.”

“It’s a blessing to have her home. It’s been wonderful,” he continued. Nick kept details under wraps and instead extended his congratulations to Kelly for scoring nine Emmy nods for her daytime talk show.

The two celebrated with a cocktail, with Kelly announcing, “I love it when we drink on my show … Y’all had fabulous drinks at your house when I came [over].”  

As previously reported, Nick and Priyanka spoke openly about finally being a family of three earlier this month after news broke in January that they welcomed their first child. The couple revealed on Mother’s Day that their daughter spent “100 plus days in the NICU” after she was born.

Nick and Priyanka had thanked the medical teams at Rady Children’s La Jolla and Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles “who were there selflessly every step of the way,” but declined to reveal the health complications that caused Malti’s NICU stay.

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Austin Butler was hospitalized after playing Elvis

Austin Butler was hospitalized after playing Elvis
Austin Butler was hospitalized after playing Elvis
Alon Amir

Playing the King of Rock & Roll did a number on Austin Butler.

The Elvis actor, 30, told British GQ that he was hospitalized and bedridden for a week after completing the upcoming film back in March 2021.

“I woke up at 4 in the morning with excruciating pain, and I was rushed to the hospital,” Butler said. “My body just started shutting down the day I finished Elvis.”

According to GQ, Butler was diagnosed with a virus and was hospitalized for treatment of the virus, which simulates appendicitis.

The role meant a lot to Butler, who related to Elvis Presley‘s life story on a deep, emotional level. “I’ve never loved somebody I’ve never met more than Elvis,” he said. “His mother passed away when he was 23, and my mom passed away when I was 23. So when I learned that, it was one of those things where I got chills and I just thought, ‘OK, I can connect to that.’”

His portrayal has already been given the stamp of approval from Presley’s family. The singer’s ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, took to Instagram on May 6 to sing her praises. “I’ve seen Elvis the film, I watched the trailer over a dozen times,” she wrote alongside the movie’s trailer. “But the words I heard from my daughter on how much she loved the film and that Riley will love it too when she sees it brought tears.”

Riley Keough, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, has since seen the film. She gave her thoughts during a Variety Women in Motion panel at the Cannes Film Festival, calling the experience of watching it “very emotional.”

“I started crying five minutes in and didn’t stop,” Keough said. “I felt honored they worked so hard to really get his essence, to feel his essence. Austin captured that so beautifully.”

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Johnny Depp takes stand again to refute Amber Heard testimony

Johnny Depp takes stand again to refute Amber Heard testimony
Johnny Depp takes stand again to refute Amber Heard testimony

Johnny Depp returned to the stand Wednesday in the final week of his ongoing defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard.

During his testimony, he responded to some of the claims Heard made during her time on the stand. Among them, her assertion that Depp had nothing to do with getting her a role in Aquaman.

Depp said that after Heard auditioned for the role, “She asked me if I’d speak to [Warner Bros.].”

“I made a phone call and I spoke to three upper-echelon Warner Bros. executives …,” Depp said before an objection was sustained. “I can only say that she ultimately did get the job in the film. I suppose I curbed their worries to some degree.”

Depp also addressed insinuations from Heard that he had pushed his ex-girlfriend Kate Moss down the stairs. Earlier on Wednesday, Moss dialed in via video link to dispute those claims. Depp testified that Heard took a story he had shared with her about what happened and “turned it into a very ugly incident all in her mind.”

Additionally, Depp refuted claims that he attacked Heard during their 2015 honeymoon and called Heard’s testimony, in which she alleged Depp repeatedly physically and sexually abused her, “unimaginably brutal, cruel and all false.”

Judge Penney Azcarate has set closing arguments for May 27.

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High-def audio disc featuring new version of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” to be auctioned in July

High-def audio disc featuring new version of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” to be auctioned in July
High-def audio disc featuring new version of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” to be auctioned in July
Gus Stewart/Redferns via Getty Images

A new studio version of Bob Dylan‘s classic folk song “Blowin’ in the Wind” will be sold at a Christie’s auction in London on July 7.

Billboard reports that Dylan recently recorded his new version of the tune with acclaimed producer T Bone Burnett using Burnett’s new ultra-high-definition Ionic Original audio format, details of which were unveiled last month.

The recording will be up for bid as part of Christie’s “Exceptional Sale,” and its value is estimated between $752,000 and $1.2 million. Prior to the auction, people will be able to listen to the Ionic Original disc by appointment at Christie’s locations in Los Angeles on June 8 and New York on June 15, and in conjunction with a public exhibition in London from July 2 to July 7.

The auction of the updated version of the tune coincides with the 60th anniversary of the original recording of “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

“Sixty years after Bob first wrote and recorded ‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’ he is giving us a new recording of his song; one that is both deeply relevant for our times and resonant with decades of the artist’s life and experience,” Burnett says in a statement. “We’re grateful to Christie’s for their belief in the ‘Ionic Original’ and for presenting Bob’s masterful recording to the world in a unique and meaningful way.”

The new rendition of “Blowin’ in the Wind” is the first recording to use the Ionic Original technology, which was developed by Burnett’s NeoFidelity Inc. company.

As reported last month by Variety, Dylan recorded a series of new versions of his well-known songs that will be released by NeoFidelity on a new Ionic Originals medium, which resembles a vinyl LP but is made of aluminum.

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Watch The Offspring’s Dexter Holland give commencement speech at USC medical school

Watch The Offspring’s Dexter Holland give commencement speech at USC medical school
Watch The Offspring’s Dexter Holland give commencement speech at USC medical school
Scott Dudelson/Getty Images

The Offspring frontman Dexter Holland gave the commencement address at this month’s graduation ceremony for the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.

Holland detailed his circuitous journey to graduating from USC with a Ph.D. in molecular biology in 2017, which, of course, was interrupted by singing in a Platinum-selling punk rock band. He also shared a story about how working in the lab when he was a graduate student led to him coming up with the line “You gotta keep ’em separated” from the Offspring song “Come Out and Play.”

“I believe that there’s an intersection between art and science,” Holland said. “And that even in our scientific field we draw upon our creativity.”

You can watch a stream of the USC Keck School of Medicine 2022 commencement ceremony now via YouTube. Holland’s remarks begin around the 42:20 mark.

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Comfort dogs sent to Texas to offer support following elementary school shooting

Comfort dogs sent to Texas to offer support following elementary school shooting
Comfort dogs sent to Texas to offer support following elementary school shooting
Lutheran Church Charities

(UVALDE, Texas) — Several dogs are among the responders traveling to Texas Wednesday, one day after a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in the city of Uvalde, killing at least 19 children and two teachers.

The trained animals are all part of Lutheran Church Charities (LCC) K-9 Ministries, a K-9 unit that travels across the U.S. to provide comfort and support to people impacted by disasters such as mass shootings.

Eight of the group’s canines, all golden retrievers, will be dedicated to the Uvalde community. They range in age from 3 to 9, according to Lutheran Church Charities’ K-9 crisis response coordinator Bonnie Fear.

Canine responders Cubby and Devorah are traveling from Fort Collins, Colorado, while Miriam is being sent over from Kingfisher, Oklahoma. Abner, Elijah, Gabriel, Joy, and Triton are already in Texas and will head over to Uvalde from Austin, Houston, Plano and Wichita Falls.

The dogs will offer a unique form of support to anyone impacted by the Robb Elementary shooting, including children, adults, local residents and first responders.

“We are going to attend a mass vigil at the fairgrounds in Uvalde at 7 p.m. tonight,” Fear told “Good Morning America.” “We are also aware and have been directed to the civic center in Uvalde where school staff, teachers, families are gathering, and from there, we hope to connect with first responders, the school staff, families, any churches that request the dogs.”

Some of the dogs have responded to past school shootings as well.

“Cubby has been to all the mass shootings and crises with me since 2016,” Fear told GMA, including the Oxford High School shooting last November in Oxford, Michigan.

“We just see a lot of shock, crying, [people who are] distraught, especially coming in the day after a mass shooting,” Fear said. “People are not ready to process or listen or answer questions. So we just show up with the dogs.”

“We listen if they talk,” she added. “We’re silent. We let the dogs connect with people and they can express their feelings at that time and we’re not counselors, so we are just present, standing with them in their sorrow.”

Lutheran Church Charities’ president and CEO Tim Hetzner recalled to GMA one comfort dog visit that made a particularly lasting impression on him.

“I remember one situation in Sandy Hook, four days after the shooting,” Hetzner said, referring to the 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 children and six adults dead. “We were at a community center and this couple was there with their young boy. … I had a dog named Howe at that time.”

“Howe looked up at the boy, got up, walked over to the boy, rolled into his legs and the boy came down on top of him. They just laid there. After about 10 minutes, the boy lifted up Howe’s ear and told him everything that happened in that classroom. Parents started crying because it was the first time the boy had talked in four days. First time and it was a dog.”

Hetzner said the charity has seen an increase in requests for comfort dogs in the last two years. The group’s K-9 unit has expanded from four dogs in 2008 to over 130 dogs in 27 states.

The dogs will be deployed in Uvalde until at least Monday and will be given ample breaks to recuperate in between working shifts, the group said.

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Alanis Morissette joins Olivia Rodrigo onstage to perform “You Oughta Know”

Alanis Morissette joins Olivia Rodrigo onstage to perform “You Oughta Know”
Alanis Morissette joins Olivia Rodrigo onstage to perform “You Oughta Know”
Kevin Mazur/MG22/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue / Ernesto Distefano/Getty Images

Olivia Rodrigo did it again — she invited another major pop star to duet with her onstage during her SOUR World Tour. This time it was the legendary Alanis Morissette.

Olivia took over Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre on Tuesday night, where she and Alanis belted out a resounding rendition of “You Oughta Know.”

Fans captured video of the unexpected moment, which saw Alanis leading the audience into an impassioned singalong to her 1995 breakup anthem.

Olivia and Alanis have crossed paths before. Last year, they interviewed each other for Rolling Stone, where the “Ironic” singer promised Olivia that, in celebration of her first headlining tour, “I’ll send you a kit. A survive-on-the-road kit for the sensitive soul.”

Alanis revealed on The Kelly Clarkson Show earlier this month that a “survival” kit consists of “little tricks up our sleeve of what to bring to survive, for self-care. So for me, it’s about bringing the equivalent of my ‘blankie’ everywhere I go.”

Whether or not Alanis hand-delivered the package and what kind of goodies she stashed away especially for the young pop star is yet to be seen.

This isn’t the first time a pop rock legend has crashed Olivia’s stage. Previously, the Grammy winner had Avril Lavigne take over her show in Toronto to belt out “Complicated.”

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Cole Swindell casts Travis Denning, Ashley Cooke in “Down to the Bar” video

Cole Swindell casts Travis Denning, Ashley Cooke in “Down to the Bar” video
Cole Swindell casts Travis Denning, Ashley Cooke in “Down to the Bar” video
Mickey Bernal/Getty Images

Cole Swindell put a fun twist on heartache in the music video for his new song “Down to the Bar.” He enlisted his recent tour openers, Travis Denning and Ashley Cooke, to play its lead characters.

In the clip, Travis and Ashley are recent exes, and Ashley drops Travis off on Nashville’s honky tonk-filled Lower Broadway strip as she’s leaving him. There, Travis wanders into a bar — Luke Bryan’s 32 Bridge — and finds Cole Swindell, who plays a bartender serving up shots.

It’s only fitting that Cole enlisted these two opening acts, as they joined him on a tour that took its name from the song. “We just carried that good time over to this video and I hope fans can see how much fun that tour was for all of us,” Cole said in a statement.

Also making an appearance in the video is Hardy, who is Cole’s duet partner for “Down to the Bar.”

Hardy co-wrote “Down to the Bar,” too. In fact, Hardy lent his pen to several tracks on Stereotype, Cole’s latest album. He’s also a writer on the project’s chart-topping lead single, “Single Saturday Night,” and its title track.

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Gap postpones Kanye West, Balenciaga launch in light of Texas school shooting

Gap postpones Kanye West, Balenciaga launch in light of Texas school shooting
Gap postpones Kanye West, Balenciaga launch in light of Texas school shooting
Lester Cohen/WireImage

Ye, aka Kanye West, and Gap have announced a brief pause in the launch of their Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga collection, which was set to roll out Wednesday. The postponement comes in the wake of Tuesday’s Texas school shooting, in which 18-year-old Salvador Ramos opened fire at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, killing 19 children and two adults.

Instead, the new collection will release this Friday, May 27.

A statement posted to the collection’s website and Twitter page reads, “In light of the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, we are postponing the Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga launch until Friday, May 27. As we pause, our hearts go out to the families and communities impacted.” 

Ye debuted the new partnership in February at the time of his live performance experience of songs from Donda 2, which dropped exclusively on the rapper’s Stem Player on February 23. 

A recent announcement about his upcoming single “True Love” with late rapper XXXTentacion, expected this Friday, hinted at a rerelease of Ye’s 11th studio album, Donda 2. 

Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga will be available at YeezyGap.com and Farfetch.com.

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