Still of Gold tier crypto artwork created by Diana Sinclair from the Whitney Houston Collection
Add the late Whitney Houston to the growing list of celebrities joining the growing world of NFTs. A demo song recorded by a then-17-year-old Whitney is about to hit the auction block.
OneOf, the NFT platform backed by Quincy Jones, announced that the track is a “never-before-heard full-length song.” The lucky winner of the auction “will have personal access to this recording in their OneOf Vault.”
The recording will be sold as part of an NFT collection that includes an accompanying music video created by 17-year-old artist Diana Sinclair featuring rare archival footage of Houston’s early days.
Joshua James, who co-founded OneOf, added, “We couldn’t be more excited to be releasing this historical song from the very beginning of her journey as an artist.”
Details of the two-day auction event are set to go live December 1. Proceeds from the sale will benefit the Whitney E. Houston Foundation, a nonprofit that continues the singer’s legacy in empowering and supporting young women.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, allow buyers to exercise sole ownership over a unique piece of digital media, such as individual songs, videos and images.
The seven-track collection features previously unheard early recordings of Aerosmith playing several songs in their rehearsal room, one year before the band was signed to Columbia Records. The release will be limited to only 10,000 vinyl copies and 2,000 cassettes, available exclusively at participating independent record shops on Friday, November 26.
Among the songs Aerosmith performs on the recording are versions of five tunes that went on to appear on the band’s 1973 self-titled debut album — the aforementioned “Movin’ Out,” the classic rock anthem “Dream On,” “Mama Kin,” “Somebody,” and a cover of Rufus Thomas‘ 1963 hit “Walkin’ the Dog.”
Here’s the full track list of 1971: The Road Starts Here:
Side A
“Rehearsal Room”
“Somebody”
“Reefer Headed Woman”/”Walkin’ the Dog”
Side B
“Movin’ Out”
“Major Barbra”
“Dream On”
“Mama Kin”
Weatherly and Dushku in “Bull” — Barbara Nitke/CBS via Getty Images
(NOTE CONTENT) Actress Eliza Dushku appeared via video before a House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to detail the “near-constant” sexual harassment she claims she suffered on the set of the CBS legal drama Bull.
According to a video of her testimony posted by Page Six, Dushku participated in a virtual hearing titled “Silenced: How Forced Arbitration Keeps Victims of Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment in the Shadow.”
Dushku claimed that she was subjected to “relentless…crude” comments, from her co-star, whom she didn’t identify by name as Michael Weatherly — whom she’d formerly and formally accused, eventually winning a multimillion dollar settlement from the network.
“[I]n my first week on my new job I found myself the brunt of crude, sexualized and lewd verbal assaults,” and “near-constant sexual harassment from my co-star,” she said.
The actress called the treatment “beyond anything I had experienced in my 30-year career.”
What’s more, the 40-year-old actress claimed that she was “fired and silenced when I attempted to address it.”
Many of the comments she claimed were directed at her were unprintably “crude.”
Dushku alleged that the co-star in question said he wanted to take her “to his rape van,” and that he’d “smell me and leeringly look me up and down.”
She added that the harassing comments “were incessant and demeaning and directed at me in the middle of what was supposed to be a professional workplace.”
CBS has not responded to Dushku’s new comments.
However, the network acknowledged in 2019 that Weatherly and executive producer Glenn Gordon Caron were receiving “leadership coaching.”
CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl said then, “[A]s the head of a show, [they want] to make the set a positive place to work.”
The network also noted at the time, “The allegations in Ms. Dushku’s claims are an example that, while we remain committed to a culture defined by a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace, our work is far from done.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 766,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 68.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-Moderna asks FDA to authorize booster for all adults
-27 states see at least 10% jump in daily cases
-FDA may issue guidance on boosters for adults as soon as this week
-Pfizer asks FDA for COVID-19 pill authorization
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Nov 17, 2:26 pm
Moderna asks FDA to authorize booster for all adults
Moderna has now asked the FDA to authorize its COVID-19 booster for all adults.
Pfizer has already asked the FDA to amend its booster authorization to all adults.
The FDA could make an authorization decision by Friday. The CDC also needs to sign off. The CDC’s advisory committee will meet on Friday to discuss new booster recommendations.
Johnson & Johnson boosters are already authorized for everyone 18 and older.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman
Nov 17, 1:24 pm
2.6 million kids to be vaccinated by end of day: White House
Nearly 10% of the 28 million eligible 5- to 11-year-olds will be partially vaccinated by the end of Wednesday, White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said at a White House briefing.
The kids vaccine program has been operational for about 10 days.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Nov 17, 12:43 pm
27 states see at least 10% jump in daily cases
The Northeast and Midwest have seen the greatest increase in cases and hospitalizations as the weather gets colder and people head indoors, according to federal data.
Twenty states have reported at least a 10% increase in hospital admissions over the last week: Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin.
Twenty-seven states have seen at least a 10% jump in daily cases over the last two weeks: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, New York City, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Nov 17, 12:28 pm
Kansas, Maine offering boosters to all adults
All fully vaccinated adults in Kansas and Maine can now get a booster if it’s been six months since their Pfizer or Moderna dose or two months since their Johnson & Johnson shot, the governors said.
“Expanding access to booster shots will help us put an end to this deadly pandemic,” Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said in a statement.
Nirav D. Shah, director of the Maine CDC, said, “Given the high level of COVID-19 transmission occurring in Maine, we want Maine people to be clear that all adults are now eligible for a booster.”
Booster eligibility has been expanded to all adults in several other states, including New York, New Jersey, Arkansas and Colorado.
(LONDON) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson commented in a meeting Tuesday with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that the decision to return the famous Parthenon marbles to Greece would be left to the British Museum, rather than the coming from Downing Street.
This is a break from his previous comments to Greek newspaper Ta Nea in March, when Johnson said the marbles shouldn’t be sent back as they’d been “legally acquired” at the beginning of the 19th century.
The marble sculptures are part of a Frieze previously wrapped around the walls of the Parthenon, which represents the procession of the Panathenaic festival, a commemoration of the birthday of the goddess Athena. Built 442 to 438 BC by the great Greek sculptor Phidias, the Frieze is composed on 115 marble panels, adorned with carved reliefs that represent humans, divine figures, mythological creatures and animals honoring Athena.
In 1801, while Greece was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, several of these blocks were taken by Thomas Bruce, the lord of Elgin, who was then the British ambassador to Constantinople. According to the museum’s website, “Elgin’s workmen cut off with saws or crowbars only the faces of the blocks that bore the relief decoration.”
Elgin claimed he had secured a permit from the then Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Selim III, a fact still disputed — some say his permit only allowed for conducting research on the site.
“He secured a permit from the Sultan to conduct research on the Acropolis which was under Ottoman-Turkish rule. However, he did not limit himself to that, but went ahead and removed numerous sculptures,” according to the Acropolis museum website, which says the sculptures were “forcibly removed” and “looted.”
Upon Elgin’s return to Britain, the pieces where moved to the British Museum, where they’ve remained.
“His actions were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal, prior to the sculptures entering the collection of the British Museum by Act of Parliament,” says the British Museum’s website.
A large part of the Parthenon already had been destroyed in 1687, during a bombardment orchestrated by the Venetian army of Francesco Morosini against the Ottomans. The temple continued deteriorating until 2009, when the Acropolis museum was built at the foot of the monument, and all the marbles were transferred there for safekeeping.
While most of the remaining marbles are divided between the British Museum and the Acropolis Museum, some fragments can be found at the Louvres in Paris, at the Vatican and in other major western European capitals. Mitsotakis has offered to exchange the marbles for other Greek artifacts that could be shown in their place.
While the Louvres temporarily sent back some of its marbles to Greece in 2019, in exchange for other artifacts, the British museum has not relented.
Paul Cartledge, a professor emeritus of Greek culture at Cambridge University and vice-chair of the British Committee for the Return of the Parthenon Marbles, told ABC News that the responsibility lies with the British government, which would have to approve the museum’s final decision by rescinding the 1816 parliamentary act that legally recognized ownership of the marbles.
“As the recent September 2021 UNESCO conference on cultural property reaffirmed,” Cartledge wrote in an email, “the decision and prior negotiations have to be ultimately nation-to-nation, Greece-to-Britain, and it has to be the decision of the U.K. Parliament.”
(NEW YORK) — Sixty-thousand inmates potentially did not properly receive credits for time served under the First Step Act’s recidivism programs, the Department of Justice inspector general found.
“We are concerned that the delay in applying earned time credits may negatively affect inmates who have earned a reduction in their sentence or an earlier placement in the community,” Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote in the report released Tuesday.
The inspector general also found that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) failed to incentivize or reward inmates who completed First Step-related programs.
After the implementation of the sweeping First Step Act, a recidivism program was put into place with time-served credit for inmates who completed it.
The BOP told the inspector general the credits weren’t applied because they “must be negotiated with the national union because it would create changes to conditions of employment, including determinations and application of earned time credits for inmates, for Unit Team staff working in BOP institutions who are bargaining unit employees,” according to the report.
The DOJ report noted that a lack of in-person negotiations with BOP union members slowed the implementation of the act and inspector general recommendations. BOP union negotiations weren’t taking place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite BOP staff going into federal prisons across the country.
The Bureau of Prisons union has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
“BOP disagrees with OIG’s characterization of the agency’s delayed implementation of FSA requirements,” the Bureau of Prisons wrote in a written response attached to the report. “Although the COVID- 19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for the federal government, BOP has taken significant steps in implementing the FSA’s requirements, consistent with the FSA’s phased approach, and has complied with all mandatory statutory guidelines to-date.”
On Tuesday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin called for Attorney General Merrick Garland to dismiss BOP Director Michael Carvajal after The Associated Press released a report detailing an amalgamation of federal charges against BOP employees.
“Director Carvajal was handpicked by former Attorney General Bill Barr and has overseen a series of mounting crises, including failing to protect BOP staff and inmates from the COVID-19 pandemic, failing to address chronic understaffing, failing to implement the landmark First Step Act and more,” Durbin said. “It is past time for Attorney General Garland to replace Director Carvajal with a reform-minded director who is not a product of the BOP bureaucracy.”
The Bureau of Prisons has been under scrutiny for more than half a decade for a multitude of issues.
Following the suicide of Jeffery Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, there were calls to revamp BOP totally, and former Attorney General Barr brought in former Director Kathleen Hawk Sawyer to run the agency. After she left, Caravajal took over.
Summer Walker and Taylor Swift now share a record for the most songs by a female artist simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Atlanta singer has 18 tracks on the chart this week, tying the record previously set by Swift in September 2019 from her RIAA double-Platinum album, Lover. All the songs are from Summer’s new album, Still Over It, which debuted this week at number one on the Billboard 200. Drake holds the overall record for the most single-week entries, 27, in July 2018, from his five-times platinum Scorpion album.
Walker’s highest entry is “No Love,” with SZA, at number 13, followed by “Bitter,” featuring Cardi B, at number 25.
As previously reported, Still Over It earned 166,000 units in its first week. That marks the biggest week for an R&B album in 2021, and Still Over It is the first R&B album by a woman to top the Billboard 200 in more than five years. Solange’s A Seat at the Table ruled for one week in October 2016.
Summer’s 20-track project also set the record for the largest streaming week ever for an R&B album by a woman, with 201 million on-demand streams, surpassing her first album, Over It, which earned 155 million streams in its debut week in October 2019.
Plus, Still Over It achieved the biggest sales week for an R&B album by a woman since Beyoncé’s Lemonade earned 202,000 units in May 2016.
In addition to Cardi B and SZA, Still Over It features Pharrell Williams, Ciara, Omarion, Lil Durk and Ari Lennox, plus JT from City Girls, who teamed with Summer for the first single, “Ex for a Reason.”
(BELLINGHAM, Wash.) — Devastating flooding in western Canada forced 184 people to evacuate overnight in Abbotsford in British Columbia, Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun said.
Bill Blair, a Member of Parliament, tweeted, “In response to extreme flooding across Southern BC, we have approved the deployment of @CanadianForces air support personnel to assist with evacuation efforts, support supply chain routes, and protect residents against floods and landslides.”
At least one person has died in British Columbia from mudslides sparked by the heavy rain, The Associated Press reported.
A fire has also erupted in Abbotsford in British Columbia. Police said the blaze is blowing large plumes of smoke and they urged residents to stay inside “due to the potential of the smoke being toxic.”
Just to the south, in Washington state, over 1 foot of rain fell in five days, flooding neighborhoods, shuttering roads, forcing evacuations and bringing rivers into major flood stage.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou, Chris Looft and Hilda Estevez contributed to this report.
Adele isn’t allowing her divorce to ruin her opinion on marriage. In fact, she hopes notorious bachelor John Mayer settles down with the love of his life one day.
“You should get married,” she told John during their recent interview on SiriusXM. “Yes, I think it is a really incredible thing, marriage.”
Adele, 33, acknowledged that her advice may come as a surprise, especially since some believe she “gave up” on her marriage with ex Simon Konecki, with whom she shares a nine-year-old son, Angelo. The “Easy on Me” singer explained she doesn’t regret marrying Konecki and, although she couldn’t “really say why,” revealed she is “definitely open to marriage again.”
“The feeling I had in being married was the safest feeling I’ve ever had in my life and, sadly, it didn’t work out, but I miss being married,” Adele confessed before flashing a thumbs-up to John, who was clearly moved by her honesty. He placed a hand to his chest and let out a small “aww” before promising Adele, “I’m gonna get myself married… one of these days.”
“You should,” Adele shot back with a grin.
John, whose past romances have included Jessica Simpson, Taylor Swift, Jennifer Aniston, Katy Perry and others, is not believed to be dating anyone at the moment.
Elvie Shane’s star continues to rise, as the “My Boy” hitmaker has shared plans to hit the road next year. His first-ever headlining trek, the My Kinda Trouble Tour, will launch February 17 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Extending through late April, the run will take Elvie to cities like Chicago, Nashville and Birmingham, and includes two dates in his home state of Kentucky. Police officer turned burgeoning Texas country star Frank Ray will accompany him as opening support.
“I’ve never been more ready to break the chains!” the singer says. “Getting to go out on the road for my first headlining tour is something we’ve been plotting for a while, and feels just like the kinda trouble I could get into. I can’t wait to get out there and play this record live.”
The record in question is Elvie’s full-length major-label debut, Backslider, which came out late in October. It includes his first-ever country radio chart-topper, “My Boy,” a heart-tugging ode to his stepson that went viral over the summer. Not only did the song land Elvie his first number-one hit, but it also earned him some RIAA hardware, as the song was recently certified Gold.
Tickets for the My Kinda Trouble Tour go on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. local time. For dates and details, visit Elvie’s website.
