Nonpoint has premiered the video “Back in the Game,” a track off the band’s new EP, Ruthless.
The clip, streaming now on YouTube, captures footage from Elias Soriano and company’s recent run of live shows, and showcases the group’s dedicated fanbase.
“This song sums up our view on how we approached independence from the very beginning,” Soriano says. “We will be small but mighty.”
“Like the song says, ‘I may be one man, but I’m a death squad,'” he adds. “We give everything we got with ultimate absolution.”
Ruthless is out now. The five-track collection also includes the previously released single “Ruthless” and a cover of Prince’s “When Doves Cry.”
Virginia Sherwood/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Another Broadway show bites the dust due to COVID-19.
The Temptations musical Ain’t Too Proud announced it will be closing for good next month, after the latest pandemic surge forced the show to cancel performances.
“Come groove with us one last time on Broadway!” the show tweeted Tuesday. “The Tony-winning Ain’t Too Proud will play its final performance on Broadway January 16, 2022. Don’t miss your chance to see us in our final three weeks.”
Ain’t Too Proud has not run since December 15, but hopes to resume shows tonight.
Jagged Little Pill, Waitress and the play Thoughts of a Colored Man all announced last week that they were closing amid rising COVID-19 cases.
Come groove with us one last time on Broadway! The Tony-winning Ain’t Too Proud will play its final performance on Broadway January 16, 2022. Don’t miss your chance to see us in our final three weeks: https://t.co/FJkMMNEe7rpic.twitter.com/etkZIrbGaS
Bebe Rexha is a champion of body positivity, but even she has days where she doesn’t feel her best.
In an emotional TikTok video posted Monday, captioned “Honest update,” the singer admits she’s struggling to feel comfortable in her own body.
“So it is the holidays and I know we’re all supposed to be, like, merry and like, ‘Yay, it’s the holidays,’ which I am … ish,”she says. “I think I am the heaviest I have ever been. I weighed myself just now and I don’t feel comfortable sharing the weight ’cause I feel embarrassed.”
“I just feel disgusting, you know, like in my own body,” she adds, tearing up.
Bebe explains that’s the reason why she hasn’t posted much to social media over the past year. She acknowledged that she’s struggling with how to help herself and love herself, sparking a ton of supportive and understanding comments from fans.
Back in June, Bebe posted a viral TikTok video of herself in lingerie, asking viewers to “normalize” weighing 165 pounds. And earlier this month, she posted a video in front of the Christmas tree wearing a red bra and captioning it “Who said curvy girls can’t wear lingerie?”
(WASHINGTON) — For half a century, American women have had the right to choose to end a pregnancy at any point before a fetus is viable outside the womb. If 2021 saw that freedom start to crumble, 2022 could see it more widely wiped away.
“I think this is the time,” said an anti-abortion rights activist from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who declined to share her name this fall while outside the state’s only remaining abortion clinic in Jackson.
Mississippi, which has asked the Supreme Court to end constitutional protection for abortion, appears likely to at least win affirmation of its 15-week ban on the procedure — more than two months earlier than the current standard allows.
Texas, which now forbids abortions after six weeks, has become the first state to effectively eliminate most procedures statewide since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. SB8, which has been in effect for nearly four months, has defied repeated legal challenges with its novel enforcement mechanism that pits citizen against citizen.
Other Republican-led states are racing to follow suit. A record number of states have enacted more than 100 stringent new restrictions on abortion access in the last year alone, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights research organization.
In the months ahead, the nation’s highest court could give states a green light to go even further, potentially scrapping the viability line for abortion bans and shredding decades of precedent.
“The Supreme Court is in dialogue with social movements, with political institutions, with health care providers, and that’s what brought us to this moment,” said Florida State University Law professor Mary Ziegler, a leading abortion law historian.
The moment is especially pivotal for social conservatives who have spent decades laying legal and political groundwork to roll back abortion access despite broad public support for Roe.
“Could the days of the Court’s ‘abortion distortion’ jurisprudence finally be behind us? I’m optimistic,” said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal advocacy group that has advocated for the reversal of Roe.
A dozen states have so-called trigger laws set to ban all or nearly all abortions the moment the Supreme Court delivers a favorable decision. Ten more have similar laws that could quickly follow suit.
The anti-abortion movement is “well-organized, well-funded, and they stick together,” said Derenda Hancock, co-founder of the Pink House Defenders, a volunteer patient escort group at Jackson Women’s Health in Mississippi. “In the meantime, the pro-choice movement has a lot of inner fighting, inner stress.”
To counter the momentum, abortion providers and women’s health advocates have been scrambling to advance new initiatives.
Whole Woman’s Health, a leading abortion care provider in Texas, is now providing the procedure for free before six weeks of pregnancy, in accordance with state law.
The Biden administration announced this month that the abortion pill mifepristone can now be distributed by mail or at commercial pharmacies if authorized by a physician, rather than in-person at a hospital, clinic or medical office.
It “did not come a moment too soon,” ACLU attorney Julia Kaye said.
But the moves to shore up abortion access so far only have a limited impact.
Nineteen states have laws banning distribution of mifepristone by mail: 13 are in the South, and six in the Midwest, according to Guttmacher.
Only 15 states and the District of Columbia have laws that protect the right to abortion.
The House of Representatives for the first time passed a bill to protect abortion rights, but it faces long odds in a narrowly divided Senate.
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, the battle over abortion rights in 2022 would shift to state legislatures, legal analysts said.
“At least in the short term, this would mean it would be a state-by-state issue, and even more than is already the case,” Ziegler said. “Your ability to get an abortion would depend on where you live.”
There would likely be renewed attempts to enshrine abortion protections into either state law or state constitutions, as well as emboldened efforts by abortion opponents to legislate rights for a fetus.
“I think that the end game for many opponents of abortion is actually enshrining in the law a constitutional protection for the fetus,” said Cardozo Law professor and ABC News Supreme Court contributor Kate Shaw.
The Supreme Court is expected to deliver its decision in June, just months before the midterm elections.
“The trend around the globe is toward liberalization of abortion,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said. “If the U.S. takes this step back, we’re just going to have to go forward.”
(NEW YORK) — A new trend on TikTok could lead some teens to believe they have a serious mental disorder, according to some experts.
The app, which has become a community for users to connect and for teens to show off dance moves and share other fun videos, has recently had some trending videos of young people claiming to have a borderline personality, bipolar or dissociative identity disorder, which is spreading like wildfire on the platform.
Posts with the hashtags, “dissociative identity disorder” and “borderline personality disorder” have been viewed hundreds of millions of times. And some of those videos list possible signs to look out for and encourage viewers to self-evaluate.
Samantha Fridley, 18, said these videos influenced her to believe that she was suffering from a mental disorder.
“I remember seeing these videos on my ‘For You’ page of people saying, like, ‘These are signs that you have this disorder,’ bipolar or borderline and all these other weird disorders that I’ve never even heard of before,” Fridley told GMA. “My mind would be like, ‘Maybe I don’t have just depression and anxiety, maybe I have something else.'”
“After working with a therapist for a long time, I started realizing that I don’t have borderline personality, I don’t have disassociated identity, I don’t have bipolar. I just have what I’ve always had, which is depression and anxiety,” she added.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, borderline personality disorder is extremely rare — only 1.4% of the U.S. adult population is estimated to have this condition and it is rarely diagnosed in adolescents.
Mental health professionals say these videos may pose an alarming risk to a potentially vulnerable population.
“If you spend 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes viewing people talk about these disorders over and over again, that can make it seem like these conditions are a lot more prevalent than they actually are in the world,” said psychologist Ethan Kross, the author of Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It.
To help teens on TikTok, experts are urging parents to maintain an open line of communication with their kids about mental health.
“Take the time to empathetically hear them out,” Kross said. “How intense are these symptoms? How long are they lasting? Does it seem like they’re interfering with your child’s ability to live the life that they want to live? Again, if the answer to those questions is yes, that’s a cue to then take the next steps to get a formal diagnosis.”
In a statement to ABC News, TikTok said, “We care deeply about the well-being of our community, which is why we continue to invest in digital literacy education aimed at helping people evaluate and understand content they engage with online. We strongly encourage individuals to seek professional medical advice if they are in need of support.”
(NEW YORK) — As athletes returned to the playing field and fans returned to the stands, there was some level of normalcy in the sports world in 2021.
Still, COVID-19 left its mark on athletics this year — from the empty venues at the delayed Tokyo Olympics to controversies over vaccination with players like Aaron Rodgers and Kyrie Irving.
COVID wasn’t the only way health was spotlighted in sports in 2021, though. Stars like Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles brought renewed attention to mental health as well. While not a sports moment, the health of all-time golf great Tiger Woods made worldwide headlines after he was seriously injured in a car accident in February.
When it came to winning trophies, it was a very good year to be a Tampa sports fan.
Here’s a look at the top 10 moments in sports from 2021, in reverse order:
10. Lightning win back-to-back Stanley Cups (July 7)
The first of two Tampa Bay championships on this list came from the Lightning, which won its second straight Stanley Cup and denied the Montreal Canadiens’ pursuit of the first Canadian championship since 1993. Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the series MVP with a shutout in the Stanley Cup-clinching Game 5. Pat Maroon, who played for the Stanley Cup-winning St. Louis Blues in 2019, also became the first player to win three straight titles in almost 40 years.
9. Braves win the World Series (Nov. 2)
The Braves meandered through an unremarkable 2021 season, sitting at or below .500 into August. When Ronald Acuña Jr., the team’s superstar outfielder, blew out his knee on July 10 there were no expectations Atlanta would make the playoffs, let alone win the World Series. But the Braves snuck into the postseason by winning the lowly NL East with just 88 wins — the lowest of any team in the playoffs. And then the magic happened. They first knocked off the 95-win Brewers and shocked the juggernaut Dodgers in the NLCS. MVP Jorge Solar’s magic at the plate, including a homer leading off the World Series and a game-winning blast in Game 4, carried Atlanta to its first title since 1995.
8. US dream team wins women’s 4-x-400 meter relay gold (Aug. 7)
Track aficionados will tell you the 4-x-400 meter relay is the best event of any track meet. So when the U.S. women’s team strode to the track in Tokyo at the biggest meet in five years it was hard not to get giddy. The runners were a dream team across multiple disciplines — all of whom dominated in their own individual events. Sydney McLaughlin, who had already set a world record in the 400-meter hurdles, led off the relay. She handed the baton to the legendary Allyson Felix, who passed it off to former 400-meter hurdle world record holder and 2016 gold medalist Dalilah Muhammad. Muhammad made the final pass to 19-year-old sensation Athing Mu, who had torched the competition for gold in the 800 meters in Tokyo and brought home the relay win by 4 seconds. It was a breathtaking display of American dominance. The gold was also Felix’s 11th Olympic medal — the most by any U.S. track and field athlete.
7. Emma Raducanu wins battle of the teens at US Open (Sept. 11)
Britain’s Emma Raducanu came into the U.S. Open in the qualifier bracket, but she left as women’s tennis’ new teenage sensation. The 18-year-old wasn’t even born on 9/11 — the U.S. Open women’s final was played on the 20th anniversary of the attacks — but neither was her opponent for the title: 19-year-old Canadian Leylah Fernandez. It was a most unexpected final in the last major of the year, but that made for edge-of-your-seat drama throughout the three weeks in Queens. Fernandez first garnered headlines for upsetting Naomi Osaka, whose breakdown during and after the match sparked new discussion of mental health and sports, before beating two top-5 opponents in the quarterfinals and semifinals. Raducanu bounced back from a mid-match panic attack at Wimbledon to not drop a set the entire tournament.
6. Bryce Young rallies Alabama to beat Auburn in four OTs (Nov. 27)
The Iron Bowl wasn’t supposed to be close this year, but the Tigers’ stifling defense gave them a 10-3 lead with 1:35 left in the game and the Crimson Tide pinned at their own 3-yard line. It was just the type of Heisman moment sophomore quarterback Bryce Young needed. He led them 97 yards, spreading the ball around to Alabama’s arsenal of offensive weapons, culminating with a beautiful 28-yard touchdown pass to Ja’Corey Brooks with 24 seconds left to play to tie the game. In the third and fourth overtimes, Young found star receiver John Metchie III for two-point conversions and a 24-22 win. We’ll have to wait until New Year’s Eve to see if Young can lead Alabama to the title game in 2022.
5. Gonzaga beats UCLA at the buzzer in the Final Four (April 3)
In one of the greatest basketball games in Final Four history, Gonzaga and UCLA traded blows for a chance to head to the national championship game. The undefeated Bulldogs were a big favorite against No. 11 seed UCLA, but the Bruins answered every score. Bruins guard Johnny Juzang had a chance to win it at the buzzer, but was called for an offensive foul. The game went to overtime tied 81-81 when All-American Drew Timme took over. He scored three quick baskets in the post for the Zags who pulled ahead to 87-83. But UCLA stuck with it. Down two with 3 seconds left, Juzang missed a floater in the lane but got his own rebound and put it back in to tie the game. Off the make, Jalen Suggs, a freshman phenom and eventual top-5 NBA draft pick, took the inbound pass for Gonzaga, crossed midcourt and threw up a prayer that he banked in for the walk-off win. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the Baylor Bears ruined their dream season two days later with a dominant, upset title win.
4. Suni Lee steps up to win gold in all-around (July 29)
The Tokyo Olympics were supposed to be Simone Biles’ time to cement herself as the greatest gymnast of all-time. Her struggles to perform still stole the headlines, but an 18-year-old from Minnesota stole the competition. When Biles dropped out of the individual all-around, despite being the No. 1 qualifier, the hopes of the U.S. fell on Suni Lee’s shoulders. The U.S. had won the individual all-around at the last four Olympics, so there was no small amount of pressure on Lee. Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, the highest qualifier remaining, took first in her best discipline: the vault. Lee took first in her best discipline: the uneven bars. The gold medal came down to the fourth rotation: the floor. Lee performed admirably, but Andrade was the last to go. After stepping out twice on tumbling passes, Lee knew she had become the fifth straight American gold medalist.
3. Giannis goes for 50 as Bucks win the NBA title (July 20)
Giannis Antetokounmpo already had a league MVP, multiple All-Star appearances and a killer nickname (“The Greek Freak”), but he simultaneously became an NBA champion and a worldwide superstar when he dropped 50 points on the Phoenix Suns in Game 6 of the Finals. Antetokounmpo became just the seventh player in NBA history to score 50 in an NBA Finals game and that was after a pair of 40-point games earlier in the series. He also became the first person to score 50 in a clinching Finals game. The same series saw the ascension to stardom for the Suns’ Devin Booker — who had 40-point performances in Games 4 and 5 — but it was Giannis’ Game 6 performance that will live in history.
2. Simone Biles overcomes obstacles to compete on beam (Aug. 3)
Simone Biles is used to winning gold, but it was a bronze medal that captured the attention of the world in Tokyo. After getting a case of “the twisties” — a term gymnasts use to explain getting lost in midair — and struggling with her mental health, it appeared as though Biles’ Olympics were slipping away with each event she dropped. She dropped out of the team all-around midway through and then removed herself from the individual all-around and event finals in the vault and floor. Heading into Tokyo, she was expected to win gold in all of them with relative ease. She dropped the uneven bars as well, not her strongest apparatus, but announced she would compete in the last event of the Olympics: the balance beam. She wasn’t at her competitive best, but she called the bronze her proudest accomplishment nonetheless.
1. Brady goes it alone, leads Bucs to Super Bowl win (Feb. 7)
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously wrote “there are no second acts in American lives.” Tom Brady surely would’ve helped him change his mind. The future Hall of Famer shocked the NFL — and countless Patriots fans — by exiting New England to sign with Tampa Bay prior to the 2020-2021 season. It was a gamble to leave Bill Belichick in the dust, but one that paid off. Brady’s first season was an up-and-down affair, but the team secured a wild card berth and hit its stride in the playoffs. The Super Bowl itself, played in Tampa, turned into a one-sided affair thanks to a porous Kansas City offensive line and, of course, a commanding performance by Brady (21-for-29, 201 yards, three touchdowns) and his former Patriot running mate Rob Gronkowski (two touchdowns). Away from Belichick and the New England machine, Brady’s seventh title was one of a kind.
(MOSCOW) — Russia’s deputy defense minister warned foreign ambassadors of a “high risk” of conflict between the country and its neighbor Ukraine — one day after President Vladimir Putin threatened “diverse” military and technical responses if the West doesn’t address his stated concerns.
These latest messages from Moscow are the kind that have had U.S. and other western officials on edge that Putin will launch an assault on Ukraine, even after President Joe Biden warned him doing so would bring massive penalties.
The Biden administration has repeatedly called for diplomacy with Russia to de-escalate tensions and end the war in Ukraine’s eastern provinces, nearly eight years after Russian troops armed separatist forces in a conflict that continues to simmer and claim lives.
But Russia’s demands for security guarantees, including that Ukraine be barred from joining NATO, have been called “unacceptable” by U.S. officials — possibly purposefully so, so that Russia can later claim to have given diplomacy a shot.
Russia has said it has no plans to invade but demanded the U.S., NATO, and Ukraine take seriously its concerns.
“We didn’t make the proposals just to see them blocked in terms of the diplomatic process, but for the purpose of reaching a negotiated diplomatic result that would be fixed in legally binding documents. We will aim at this,” Putin said Sunday.
His Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin blamed NATO again Monday for provoking conflict by sending warships and reconnaissance planes to back Ukraine. That echoes a statement last week by his boss, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who claimed Ukraine, with U.S. mercenary help, is preparing a chemical weapons attack.
“The alliance has recently switched to the practice of direct provocations accompanied by the high risk of turning into armed confrontation,” Fomin said during a meeting that included envoys from 14 NATO countries.
It’s the kind of false pretext for an invasion that U.S. officials and analysts have warned Russia may create to justify an invasion.
“Russia is ostensibly outraged by a crisis of their own making,” said Mick Mulroy, a senior Trump administration Pentagon official and ABC News national security analyst. “It was Russia that put around 175,000 troops on the border and threatened to invade again if its demands were not met — ‘Do what I ask, or I will attack and occupy a sovereign country against all international norms.'”
The estimated number of Russian troops near Ukraine have ranged from 60,000 to over 100,000, with one leaked U.S. intelligence document warning Russia could be prepared to swiftly deploy as many as 175,000. U.S. officials have cited those troop movements, along with Russian propaganda attacks on Ukraine, which they say have increased tenfold, and bellicose rhetoric as evidence of a possible invasion.
But diplomacy could stave off war. The U.S. and Russia have agreed to hold talks in January to address each side’s concerns, along with talks between NATO and Russia and meetings at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, according to U.S. officials. The OSCE, a key security forum, has deployed a war monitor in eastern Ukraine for years as the conflict has taken some 14,000 lives.
After coordinating a meeting between the Ukrainian government and the Russian-controlled separatists last week, the OSCE declared Thursday that both sides showed a “strong determination to fully adhere” to a July 2020 ceasefire agreement. The statement was heralded by Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and the State Department, whose spokesperson said, “We hope the resultant peace will create the diplomatic space necessary to de-escalate regional tensions and provide a positive atmosphere for further discussion.”
There has been no “resultant peace.” Three Ukrainian soldiers were wounded in shelling that last for hours on Sunday. There had been five times more ceasefire violations this month than last December, according to the OSCE.
But there was some notable Russian troop movements, according to state-run Interfax news agency, which reported that more than 10,000 troops pulled back from near Ukraine’s borders after military drills. The Kremlin also said Monday that it made sense to engage NATO directly about its security concerns, in addition to the U.S.
Whether that is yet a sign for hope that war can be avoided is unclear. U.S. officials have said it’s still unknown whether Putin has decided to invade, with tens of thousands of troops still in the area, including in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula Russia invaded and seized in 2014.
(NEW YORK) — The omicron variant continues to wreak havoc on holiday travel from coast to coast.
Over the weekend, airlines reported more than 3,000 flight cancellations with at least one stop in the U.S, according to FlightAware, and the travel troubles don’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. As of 11:30 a.m. Monday morning, nearly 1,000 flights had already been canceled, and the number was steadily creeping up by the hour.
United, Delta, JetBlue, American and Alaska cited the recent COVID-19 surge as one of the reasons for the cancellations because it has left them with crew shortages. In an effort to avoid more disruptions, JetBlue and Alaska have even resorted to offering extra pay to healthy employees who can pick up additional shifts.
Winter weather in the western part of the country didn’t help — slamming airports in Seattle, Los Angeles and Denver. Those three airports accounted for more than 600 flight cancellations on Sunday alone.
“COVID delivered this disruption,” Spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association Capt. Dennis Tajer said. “And it just shows you how tight the buffer is in the airline business right now, where they’re trying to fly as many flights as possible with just a handful of folks. So this is a little bit of a, you can’t plan for something like this, but you certainly should have a little bit better of a buffer, especially in this important travel period where folks are trying to get to their families.”
A majority of the flight cancellations luckily landed on traditionally slow travel days — Christmas Eve and Christmas — but there are still an estimated 16.5 million more fliers before the end of the holiday travel rush, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
“Omicron places airlines in a very tough position,” aviation expert Henry Harteveldt told ABC News. “Still reeling from major financial losses in 2020, airlines don’t want to forfeit any opportunity to generate revenue and, possibly, profits. Plus, no airline wants to cancel fully booked flights at any time — especially at Christmas. Given the random nature of how omicron strikes people, it’s also impossible for airlines to know who will get sick.”
He says that for now there is no end in sight to the travel chaos.
“It’s impossible to predict an end date for the omicron-related cancellations,” Harteveldt said. “Unlike when an airline suffers a disruption caused by weather, this virus is random. The best way to estimate its impact on airlines and other industries is to look at the broader trend.”
Airlines for America, the group that lobbies on behalf of all major U.S. airlines, has been calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to shorten the quarantine time for fully vaccinated individuals in attempt to minimize disruptions from the omicron surge.
“The omicron surge may exacerbate personnel shortages and create significant disruptions to our workforce and operations,” Nick Calio, A4A’s CEO, said in a letter on Thursday to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
Calio proposed the isolation period to be shortened to five days from symptom onset for breakthrough infections.
“In turn, those individuals would be able to end isolation with an appropriate testing protocol,” Calio wrote.
The letter comes after Delta Air Lines and JetBlue Airways, both A4A members, also asked for isolation periods for fully vaccinated individuals to be shortened.
ABC News’ Joanne Aran and Erielle Reshef contributed to this report.
(DENVER) — A shooter allegedly went on a “killing spree” across the Denver area, killing four and wounding three, including a police officer, officials said on Monday.
The violence unfolded in Denver, with gunshots reported in at least four locations, and ended more than an hour later in neighboring Lakewood, where the suspect died, officials said. Authorities did not publicly identify the suspect.
“We believe that this individual was responsible for this very violent series of events that took place in the Denver metro area,” Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen said in a press conference.
The incident began at about 5 p.m. on Monday in downtown Denver, where the suspect shot three people, Pazen said. Two women were killed and a man was injured, he said.
Police received a call moments later about a second shooting nearby, where one man was killed, Pazen said. Gunshots were then reported at a third location, but no injuries were reported, he said.
“Denver police officers identified a vehicle associated with this incident. There was a pursuit that ensued,” Pazen said. “There was an exchange of gunfire between the individual, the suspect, here, and our officers.”
There were no injuries in that exchange, Pazan said, but the suspect disabled a police vehicle and fled into neighboring Lakewood.
Lakewood Police then responded to a report of a shooting at about 6 p.m., said John Romero, the department’s public information office. One person was killed in that incident, he said.
Lakewood police then located the suspect’s vehicle at a shopping center, Romero said. The suspect shot at officers, before fleeing on foot to a nearby store and then a Hyatt Place hotel, he said. The suspect shot a clerk at the hotel, Romero said.
The suspect shot and injured a Lakewood officer while fleeing the hotel, Romero said. That officer was in surgery, Romero said during the press conference.
The suspect and officers then exchanged gun fire, and the suspect was shot and killed, Romero said.
“This is the holiday season. To have this type of spree take place is not normal for our community,” Pazen said. “We cannot lose sight of the victims in this, the people who are still fighting for their lives, including a Lakewood agent.”
An investigation is ongoing, officials said. Neither the FBI nor the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are currently involved in the investigation, spokespeople for each said.
This is a developing story, please check back for updates.
TV viewing choices ran the gamut in 2021, from the wholesome Ted Lasso to the brutal Squid Game. Here are some of the highlights:
— Red light, green light — if you didn’t watch Squid Game this year, really, what were you doing with your life? The addictive Korean Netflix series — in which needy people were kidnapped and forced to compete in children’s games for money, with death the punishment for losing — was all anyone was talking about following its September release.
— Disney+’s Marvel series offerings also had a big year, starting with the release of WandaVision, followed by The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, then Loki, the animated What If…?, and then the Christmas-themed Hawkeye closing out the year.
— The Crown and The Queen’s Gambit won big at the 73rd Annual Emmy Awards in September, with each series earning 11 awards. Saturday Night Live followed behind with eight trophies, while Ted Lasso and The Mandalorian won seven. Kate Winslet’s buzzy HBO miniseries Mare of Easttown picked up four awards.
The Emmys weren’t without controversy, however. #EmmySoWhite began trending after the winners were counted, and not a single Black, Brown or Asian actor won an acting award. This, despite heading into the night with the most diverse nomination field in the show’s history, with 49 people of color up for acting and reality competition awards.
— After tons of hype, Friends: The Reunion Special aired on HBO Max in May, featuring the entire core cast and special guests including Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.
— The Sex and the City sequel, And Just Like That…, debuted on HBO Max in December and pretty much immediately sparked fan ire for how it handled the absence of Kim Cattrall’s Samantha, and for killing off Chris Noth’s Mr. Big. Following his departure from the show, Noth was soon after accused of sexual assault by multiple women and was dropped from his other show, CBS’ The Equalizer.
