Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos via Getty Images; ABC/Randy Holmes
A pair of rock artists went through some big life events over the weekend.
Jack White not only got engaged to his longtime partner, Olivia Jean, they also got married. Immediately after he proposed to her during his concert in Detroit last Friday, White and Jean were officially wed in a onstage ceremony officiated by Third Man Records co-founder Ben Swank.
White celebrated the news in an Instagram post featuring a photo of himself alongside Jean immediately after the surprise proposal. In the caption, he wrote, “Let’s get married in a big cathedral by a priest,” a lyric from the beloved White Stripes song “Hotel Yorba.”
The same day of White’s wedding, Twenty One Pilots frontman Tyler Joseph welcomed his second child with wife Jenna Black.
“New baby arrived yesterday,” Joseph wrote in a tweet Saturday. “I had a great time.”
The tweet includes a photo of Joseph beaming over an exhausted Black as she holds the newborn.
Joseph added, “Already named her, but still open for suggestions.”
Black gave birth to her and Joseph’s first kid, Rosie Robert Joseph, in February 2020.
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Olivia Rodrigo is the Songwriter of the Year. That’s according to the performance-rights organization ASCAP, which has handed out its annual Pop Music Awards.
Olivia, who just won several Grammys and Kids’ Choice Awards, won Songwriter of the Year because of the success of the songs from her debut album, SOUR: specifically, “drivers license,” “deja vu” and “good 4 u.”
Meanwhile, Dua Lipa‘s hit “Levitating” has been named the ASCAP Pop Music Awards’ Song of the Year, thanks to its status as one of the longest-charting Billboard Hot 100 Hits of All Time.
ASCAP also honored a list of songs as ‘Most Performed,’ based on data from terrestrial and satellite radio, as well as on-demand audio streams, provided by Luminate, formerly PMRC Data. Those songs include Silk Sonic‘s “Leave the Door Open,” Duncan Laurence‘s “Arcade,” Maroon 5′s “Beautiful Mistakes,” Justin Bieber‘s “Peaches,” The Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears,” and Justin Bieber and The Kid LAROI‘s “Stay.”
The winners will be celebrated starting April 11 through April 14 on ASCAP’s Instagram, Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Paramount+ (C) 2022 MTV Entertainment Studios. All Rights Reserved./Emerson Miller
(NOTE LANGUAGE) Veteran actor Sam Elliotthas apologized for his pre-Oscars comments about Academy Award winner Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog.
To Marc Maron‘s WTF Podcast last month, Elliott made waves when he called the Western “a piece of sh**,” and, among other things, slammed the movie’s “allusions to homosexuality.”
However, the Lonesome Dove and 1883 star took a more thoughtful tone at a Deadline television event on Sunday. “First, don’t go do a podcast whose call letters are ‘WTF,'” he joked.
“I told…[Maron] that I thought Jane Campion was a brilliant director, and I want to apologize to the cast of The Power of the Dog. Brilliant actors all,” he commented. “And in particular Benedict Cumberbatch…I can only say that I’m sorry, and I am. I am.”
Elliot also commented of his criticisms, “…I didn’t articulate it very well…And I said some things that hurt people and I feel terrible about that.”
He added, “The gay community has been incredible to me….my entire career, from before I got started in this town. Friends on every level and every job description up until today. I’m sorry I hurt any of those friends and someone that I loved. And anyone else by the words that I used.”
As reported, Campion didn’t take kindly to Elliott’s criticism, spelling out her opinion, literally, by calling the actor a “B-I-T-C-H.”
Cumberbatch was less personal, but addressed Elliot’s “odd reaction” without naming him during the British Academy of Film and Television Arts series Film Sessions, saying that while Elliott took issue with the British actor’s gay cowboy Phil Burbank, “These people still exist in our world…”
He added, “There’s no harm in looking at a character to get to the root causes of that. This is a very specific case of repression, but also due to an intolerance for that true identity that Phil is that he can’t fully be.”
Ukrainian forces fire GRAD rockets toward Russian positions in Donbas, Ukraine on April 10, 2022 – Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian troops invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Russian forces have since been met with “stiff resistance” from Ukrainians, according to U.S. officials.
In recent days, Russian forces have retreated from northern Ukraine, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. After graphic images emerged of civilians lying dead in the streets of Bucha, a town northwest of Kyiv, the United States and European countries accused Russia of committing war crimes.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Apr 11, 10:03 am
Ukraine agrees to 9 humanitarian corridors from the east
Nine humanitarian corridors are expected to open in eastern Ukraine on Monday to allow civilians escape heavy fighting, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
She said in a statement via social media Monday that evacuation routes were agreed upon for those traveling by private cars from besieged Mariupol in the Donetsk Oblast, as well as from Berdyansk, Tokmak and Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast — all of which lead to the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia. Buses from Zaporizhzhia city were also waiting to pass a checkpoint in Vasylivka, according to Vereshchuk.
In the Luhansk Oblast, Vereshchuk said routes were established from the cities of Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, Popasna, Hirske and Rubizhne, leading to the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk Oblast.
Apr 11, 8:48 am
Russia may use phosphorus munitions in Mariupol, UK warns
The United Kingdom is warning of Russia’s possible use of phosphorus munitions in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
Russian forces have already been accused of using phosphorus bombs in Ukraine since launching an invasion on Feb. 24. When deployed as a weapon, phosphorus can inflict excruciating burns and lead to infection, shock and organ failure.
After withdrawing troops from the north, the Russian military is said to be refocusing its offensive on the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatist forces have been battling Ukrainian soldiers since 2014. Mariupol, in the Donetsk Oblast, and its residents have been under heavy Russian bombardment for over a month, but Moscow has so far failed to win full control of the strategic port.
“Russian forces prior use of phosphorous munitions in the Donetsk Oblast raises the possibility of their future employment in Mariupol as fighting for the city intensifies,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Monday in an intelligence update.
Meanwhile, Russian shelling has persisted in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, according to the ministry, “with Ukrainian forces repulsing several assaults resulting in the destruction of Russian tanks, vehicles, and artillery equipment.”
“Russia’s continued reliance on unguided bombs decreases their ability to discriminate when targeting and conducting strikes while greatly increasing the risk of further civilian casualties,” the ministry added.
Apr 10, 11:11 pm
Forces preparing to respond to Russian attack on eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy says
Ukrainian forces are preparing to respond to a planned Russian attack on the eastern side of the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced in his address on Sunday.
Russian troops are expected to move to an even larger operation in the east of Ukraine, which will enable them to carry out even more bombardments, Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukrainian forces are ready for the attack.
“We are preparing for their actions,” Zelenskyy said. “We will respond. We will be even more active in providing Ukraine with weapons. We will be more active in the international arena. We will be even more active in the information field.”
Zelenskyy added that he and other government officials are doing everything they can to ensure that Ukraine gets the world’s attention, especially as Russia continues to attempt to influence the narrative and justify the invasion.
This coming week will be just as important as previous weeks, Zelenskyy said.
“It will be just as tense and even more responsible,” he added.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Apr 10, 5:00 pm
Thousands of refugees return to Ukraine
Nearly 23,000 Ukrainian refugees returned to Ukraine on Saturday after fleeing the country following the Russian invasion in February, according to Ukrainian and United Nations officials.
The repatriated Ukrainians are among the more than 4.5 million who left the country between Feb. 24 and April 9, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
More than half of the Ukrainian refugees fled to neighboring Poland, officials said.
The Polish border guard service is reporting that despite the war still raging in Ukraine, the number of refugees voluntarily returning to Ukraine reached the highest figure for a single day on Saturday since the war began, according to Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information.
The UNHCR estimated that as of April 8, more than 7.1 million people in Ukraine have been displaced due to the war.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Apr 10, 3:58 pm
Death toll from Kramatorsk train station attack rises to 57
The death toll climbed to 57 on Sunday from an alleged Russian rocket attack Friday on a crowded train station in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, Ukrainian officials said.
Among those killed in the attack were five children, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk Oblast in the Donbas region. Another 109 people were wounded when two Russian rockets struck the train station.
“There are many people in a serious condition, without arms or legs,” said Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Goncharenko according to the Associated Press.
The number of dead victims in the attack grew from 50 on Friday, officials said.
Ukraine’s state-owned railway company issued a statement on Facebook calling the attack “a purposeful strike on the passenger infrastructure of the railway and the residents of the city of Kramatorsk.”
Graphic images provided by Ukrainian officials showed the aftermath of the attack — bodies lying on the ground next to scattered luggage and debris, with charred vehicles parked nearby.
The remnants of a large rocket with the Russian words painted on its side reading “for our children” was also seen on the ground next to the main building of the train station.
Russia has denied involvement in the attack. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed involvement of Russian forces was already ruled out by the Russian Ministry of Defense, based on the type of missile that was used — a Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile.
“Our armed forces do not use missiles of this type,” Peskov told reporters during a press briefing Friday. “No combat tasks were set or planned for today in Kramatorsk.”
(LONDON) — Britain’s Queen Elizabeth spoke for the first time publicly about her own battle with COVID-19, saying the virus leaves “one feeling very tired and exhausted.”
The queen, 95, tested positive for COVID-19 in February, just days after it was confirmed that her son, Prince Charles, and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, had also tested positive for COVID-19.
Buckingham Palace said at the time that Queen Elizabeth had “mild cold-like symptoms” as a result of the virus.
Last week, the queen virtually attended the official opening of the Queen Elizabeth Critical Care Unit at Royal London Hospital, of which she is patron. The 155-bed unit was built in five weeks to help care for the surge of patients during the pandemic.
Queen Elizabeth spoke on a video call with health care workers who treated patients during the pandemic as well as a man named Asef, who recovered from COVID-19 in the unit.
Buckingham Palace released video of the call on Sunday.
“I’m glad that you’re getting better,” the queen told Asef. “It does leave one feeling very tired and exhausted doesn’t it, this horrible pandemic.”
Queen Elizabeth has attended most events virtually over the past several months, due to her battle with COVID-19 and other health conditions. In October, she was hospitalized overnight for what Buckingham Palace described as “preliminary investigations.”
The queen’s first in-person appearance since battling COVID-19 was last month, when she attended the Thanksgiving service for her husband, Prince Philip, who died last April at age 99.
Buckingham Palace has announced the queen will not attend the Maundy Service on Thursday, an annual tradition in which she distributes special Maundy money to pensioners ahead of Easter Sunday.
Queen Elizabeth appeared upbeat on the Royal London Hospital call, during which she thanked health care workers for their service during the pandemic.
“It’s been very nice to be able to join you and also to hear what happened and how well it has been achieved,” said the queen. “Thank you very much indeed, all of you.”
Ukrainian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that an attack from Russian forces in the east is looming. But he said Ukrainian troops are ready.
“Russian troops will move to even larger operations in the east of our state. They can use even more missiles against us, even more air bombs,” Zelenskyy said in a televised address late Sunday. “But we are preparing for their actions. We will respond. We will be even more active in providing Ukraine with weapons. We will be more active in the international arena. We will be even more active in the information field.”
After Russian forces invaded Ukraine from the north, east and south on Feb. 24, they quickly reached the outskirts of Kyiv, but ultimately failed to seize the Ukrainian capital and other major cities in the north. Russian forces were met with strong resistance from Ukrainian troops, despite weeks of relentless bombardment that decimated entire neighborhoods and claimed civilian lives.
The Russian military announced on March 29 it would scale down activities in the north around Kyiv and Chernihiv and instead focus its efforts on the “liberation” of the contested Donbas region in the east, which is home to a mostly Russian-speaking population. Russia-backed separatist forces have controlled two breakaway republics of eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhanks oblasts in Donbas since 2014, following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
The Russian troops that have retreated from northern and northeastern Ukraine in recent days are now resting and resupplying in neighboring Belarus and Russia, according to observers, who noted it could take weeks before those troops are redployed for a fresh attack in the east.
“At least some of these forces will be transferred to East Ukraine to fight in the Donbas,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update on April 8. “Many of these forces will require significant replenishment before being ready to deploy further east with any mass redeployment from the north likely to take at least a week minimum.”
Nevertheless, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that “this is a crucial phase of the war.”
“In the coming weeks, we expect a further Russian push in eastern and southern Ukraine to try to take the entire Donbas and to create a land bridge to occupied Crimea,” Stoltenberg said at a press conference on April 5.
Satellite images collected on April 8 by Maxar Technologies show a large military convoy of hundreds of vehicles, including tanks, that extends for at least 8 miles, moving south through the eastern Ukrainian town of Velykyi Burluk, about 55 miles east of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and some 65 miles from the border with Russia. Ukrainian authorities have warned citizens in the east that this is their last chance to flee, as Russian forces are expected to push south from Kharkiv and north from Donetsk in an attempt to encircle the battle-hardened Ukrainain troops in Donbas.
In his address on Sunday night, Zelenskyy said this coming “week will be no less important than” the previous ones.
“It will be just as tense and even more responsible. Russia will be even more afraid. Afraid to lose,” he said. “I will continue to address the parliaments and nations of the world. We will meet our partners, leaders of other states in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. We will attract even more funds and resources to help Ukraine.
(PARIS) — French President Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, a far-right presidential candidate, took the top two spots in the first round of the presidential elections on Sunday, according to preliminary results.
The two, who led a crowded field of twelve candidates, will advance to a second and final round of voting on April 24.
Macron, who is seeking reelection, placed first with about 28% of votes cast on Sunday, according to preliminary results. Le Pen carried about 23%.
Experts say the latest trends showed a strong and rapid rise in the number of voters in favor of Le Pen, while those of Macron were falling.
“We’ve seen a positive dynamic in favor of Marine Le Pen,” Henri Wallard, deputy CEO at Ipsos polling, told ABC News. “She has progressed clearly in the last two or three weeks before this first phase.”
The far-right candidate’s message has reached French people concerned about the cost of living.
“The most important concern expressed by the French voters is the purchasing power and and the social issues in general,” Wallard said. “And the fact is Marine Le Pen was early on in the campaign well-positioned on this topic … and the fact is that we have seen as a consequence of the current international crisis a surge in the price of oil and gas and the impact on inflation.”
The war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted this atypical presidential campaign and added uncertainty for voters.
France risks breaking the 2002 record of non-voters, which reached 28% in the whole of France, according to Jean Chiche, emeritus researcher at the SciencesPo Center for Political Research. Abstention hovers over the elections, as the majority of French people don’t feel represented by political office-holders, he said.
“There is a rejection of the political class,” Chiche told ABC News. “It is the young people of the working classes who live in isolated cities, or in peri-urban areas; they are the most abstaining.”
Macron achieved high scores in the first 15 days of the war in Ukraine, according to Chiche, a major boost for the president seeking reelection.
“Faced with the war in Ukraine, he fully assumed his responsibilities as head of state, everyone in France understands that,” Maud Bregeon, spokesperson for Macron’s La République En Marche party told ABC News.
Critics have pointed to Macron’s absence on the campaign trail since the beginning of the war as one cause for his dropping popularity.
Macron is also facing possible trouble at the polls since his government came under fire in February for hiring and paying large amounts to a U.S. consulting firm, as first revealed by two journalists from French newspaper L’Obs. The French government paid up 1.5 billion euros in 2020 to several private consulting firms for services such as counting health masks at the beginning of the pandemic or drafting a military strategy, the newspaper reported.
A senatorial commission of inquiry into the government’s frequent and expensive payments to those firms later unveiled that one of them, McKinsey & Company, did not pay taxes in France between 2011 and 2020, despite the large sums received. The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office opened a preliminary investigation on April 6 for aggravated money laundering of tax evasion.
McKinsey responded the same day, saying in a statement that “the tax approach applied by McKinsey is similar in the countries where it is present and has been consistent for years.”
“As it stands, if Macron doesn’t campaign more, if Marine Le Pen makes it to the second round and at the same time she doesn’t collapse like she had did in 2017, then the probability of her being elected is non-zero; it is between 15 to 30%,” Chiche before Sunday’s vote.
The rise of Le Pen’s party also led to the emergence of new candidates on the far-right, such as polemist Eric Zemmour.
Zemmour, who was found guilty in January of hate speech by a Paris court, has stood out with a campaign focused on what he calls the fight against Islamism, calling on French Muslims to “renounce the practice of Islam, which imposes a legal and political code.”
Proposals from conservative and far-right camps targeting Muslim populations — such as requiring French nationals to have certain first names — have come under strong criticism.
“It’s a reaction of disgust,” Abdallah Zekri, president of the National Observatory for the Fight against Islamophobia, told ABC News. “When he says we have to change our first names? Why change our first names? Zemmour is completely out of bounds.”
Other proposals targeting migrants, such as the conservative candidate Valérie Pécresse’s bid to systematically remove illegal immigrants accompanied by a “zero visa” policy for countries that refuse to take them back have also hit a nerve with migrant communities.
Zekri says speeches like that of Zemmour, conservative party candidate Valérie Pécresse and Le Pen tend to lead to an increase in Islamophobic acts.
“I have been following anti-Muslim acts for over 11 years,” Zekri said. “Whenever an election approaches, Islamophobic acts automatically increase; and it’s getting worse.”
Captain Marvel‘s Brie Larson has been tapped for a role in Fast & Furious 10, the penultimate film in the Fast and Furious saga. “Yeah yeah yeah… you see this angel over my shoulder cracking me up, you say to your self ‘that’s captain Marvel,'” Vin Diesel shared Sunday on Instagram, next to a photo of of the two sharing a laugh. “Clearly there is love and laughter in this image. What you don’t see however, is the character you will be introduced to in Fast10. You have no idea how timeless and amazing she will be in our mythology,” he added. F10 is slated for May 29, 2023 release. Prior to that, Larson will appear in The Marvels, a sequel to Captain Marvel, slated for a February 2023 opening. Marvel is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News…
Kathryn Hays, the actress best known for playing the trouble-making home-wrecker Kim Sullivan for nearly four decades on the CBS daytime drama As the World Turns until the soap’s cancellation in 2010, died March 25 in Fairfield, Connecticut, according to the funeral home. She was 87. In addition to her long-running role on ATWT, Hays is remembered by fans of the original Star Trek for her memorable guest portrayal as Gem, the beautiful alien who rescued an injured Captain Kirk by briefly absorbing his injuries, in the 1968 episode “The Empath.” Her other TV appearances include The High Chaparral, Mannix, Here Come the Brides, Marcus Welby, M.D., Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law and Night Gallery…
Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the live action-CGI animated sequel to 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog, opened in first place at the box office with an estimated $71 million — a bigger three-day debut than its predecessor and a new record opening for a video game adaptation.
Overseas, where the film starring Jim Carrey, James Marsden and Ben Schwartz as the voice of its titular character, opened a week earlier in some markets, it pulled in an estimated $70 million so far, bringing its current worldwide tally to $141 million.
Sonic also knocked last week’s number-one, Morbius, into distant second with an estimated $10.2 million. That brings its two-week domestic total to $57.1 million. Internationally, Morbius has earned an estimated $69.3 million, bringing its total global haul to $126.4 million.
The Channing Tatum/Sandra Bullock rom-com The Lost City took in an estimated $9.2 million in its third week of release. The film, which has only opened in a few foreign markets, has taken in $9.7 million to date, bringing its three-week worldwide tally to $78.6 million.
The Jake Gyllenhaal-led thriller Ambulance disappointed with an estimated $8.7 million, good for just fourth place. The film, from director Michael Bay, did slightly better overseas, where it delivered an estimated $22.5 million, bringing its worldwide box office total to $3.2 million.
Rounding out the top five was The Batman, grabbing a little under $6.6 million. The film has raked in $359.1 million in North America after six weeks and $376.1 million overseas, bringing its global tally to $735.2 million.
Jake Gyllenhaal hosted Saturday Night Live for the second time this weekend, and used his opening monologue to reminisce about his first appearance, back in 2007.
“That was like 400 Marvel movies ago,” the Ambulance star joked.
“To give you an idea of what it was like in 2007, in the show I hosted, there was a George W. Bush sketch, there were jokes about the first iPhone, and this is a photo of me from my monologue,” he continued, as a photo of Gyllenhaal in “full drag” flashed on the screen.
“There I am…singing a song from Dreamgirls, to promote a movie where I played a gay cowboy,” Gyllenhaal noted. “That was actually the least problematic thing in that episode, but looking back, I feel like I was a totally different person.”
Gyllenhaal may have ditched the dress and wig for Saturday’s monologue, but he once again closed with a musical number — Céline Dion‘s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” with SNL‘s Chloe Fineman, Ego Nwodim and Cecily Strong as backup singers.
Gyllenhaal’s sketches included one involving a couple’s therapy session, opposite Melissa Villaseñor, Punkie Johnson and Nwodim, and one where he was a spring flower that drew the affections of a horny bee, played by Bowen Yang.
Saturday’s musical guest was Camila Cabello, who performed “Bam Bam” and “Psychofreak” — the latter with the help of Willow Smith — from her new album, Familia.
