Rascals singer, keyboardist and songwriter Felix Cavaliere will release his autobiography, aptly titled Memoir of a Rascal, on March 22.
The book follows Cavaliere from his childhood in Pelham, New York, to his years with one of the world’s great blue-eyed soul groups, to the band’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and beyond.
Prior to co-founding The Rascals, which initially were known as The Young Rascals, Cavaliere played in the pop group Joey Dee and the Starliters along with future band mates Gene Cornish and Eddie Brigati.
In The Rascals, Cavaliere co-wrote — with Brigati — and sang many of the band’s biggest hits, including “You Better Run,” “Groovin’,” “I’ve Been Lonely Too Long,” “Beautiful Morning” and “People Got to Be Free.”
In addition to his highlights with The Rascals, Cavaliere writes in the book about his spiritual journey and the influence of guru Swami Satchidananda, as well as such achievements as induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Vocal Group Hall of Fame, Musicians Hall of Fame and the aforementioned Rock Hall.
“I know fans have been asking me for years to finish my autobiography,” Cavaliere says in a statement. “This is for the fans. It’s a blessing to revisit memories and hopefully my story can inspire the next generation of singers and songwriters.”
The book features a foreword penned by legendary radio DJ “Cousin Brucie” Morrow. You can pre-order it now at FelixCavaliereMusic.com.
In other news, Cavaliere is working on a new studio album titled Then and Now that’s expected to be released by the end of the summer. Felix also has over a dozen concerts lined up this year, including several joint “Legends Live” shows with The Monkees‘ Micky Dolenz.
Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson has teamed with psychedelic blues-rock band Howlin Rain to record covers of two Mott the Hoople songs that have been released digitally and also are available to order as a limited-edition seven-inch vinyl single.
The songs are “Sucker” and “Death May Be Your Santa Claus,” the original versions of which appeared, respectively, on Mott the the Hoople’s early 1970s albums All the Young Dudes and Brain Capers.
The single’s cover art features a cartoonish psychedelic “black light” painting of Robinson and Howlin Rain singer/guitarist Ethan Miller riding reindeer.
You can order the vinyl disc at Howlin Rain’s Bandcamp page. The album, expected to ship this Friday, February 25, can also be streamed and downloaded at the site. A retail version will be available at independent record shops on April 23 as part of the 2022 Record Store Day event.
(ATLANTA) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its COVID-19 vaccine guidance on Tuesday to recommend that some Americans over the age of 12 who have received a first mRNA vaccine dose, wait up to eight weeks before getting their second dose, instead of the previously recommended three to four.
Several studies suggest that an extended interval between initial dosing may help improve vaccine effectiveness and decrease the small, but potential risk of myocarditis, a rare form of heart inflammation that occurs after vaccination, the agency wrote.
Although an increased risk of myocarditis, particularly among young men, has been identified with both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, extensive data analysis over the course of the pandemic has shown that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are overwhelmingly safe, not only in clinical trials, but also in the real world. The risk of myocarditis is also higher if you get COVID-19 itself than with the vaccine.
“mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at the FDA-approved or FDA-authorized intervals, but a longer interval may be considered for some populations,” the agency wrote in its updated recommendations.
In particular, the CDC emphasized that young men, between the ages of 12–39 years, who may be at increased risk for myocarditis, should consider this extended time series.
“Extending the interval between the first and second mRNA vaccine dose to 8 weeks might reduce the risk [of myocarditis],” the agency wrote.
The original waiting period between the first and second dose is still recommended for immunocompromised Americans, adults over the age of 65, and those who may need more rapid protection, due to an increased risk of infection or severe disease.
Experts emphasize that at this time, there is no new safety risk associated with COVID-19 vaccines. This change in guidance is not directly relevant for the 215 million Americans who have already been fully vaccinated. Rather, it is a consideration for those who have yet to be fully vaccinated.
Experts say that Americans should talk to their doctor about potentially spacing out the dosing.
Booster doses continue to be recommended for most Americans, five months after completion of the primary mRNA series, or two months after a Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccination.
(NEW YORK) — Dozens of stolen antiquities, including “The Kouros,” a sculpture valued at $14 million, were repatriated to Greece in a ceremony at the New York District Attorney’s office in Manhattan on Wednesday.
“After many years of wandering, they now return to their homeland where they belong,” Greek Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni said at the ceremony.
Forty-seven of the antiquities were seized from the collection of billionaire investor and philanthropist Michael Steinhardt in December 2021 after a multi-year, multi-national investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Another eight items were seized as part of another investigation.
Steinhardt had to give up 180 stolen antiquities, which court records said were looted and illegally smuggled out of 11 countries, trafficked by 12 criminal smuggling networks and lacked verifiable provenance prior to appearing on the international art market.
“On behalf of Homeland Security Investigations, this is a major area that we enjoy investigating and that we need to investigate, and it truly is a privilege to be a part of this grand repatriation ceremony today,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Ricky Patel of Homeland Security Investigations.
The 55 pieces are collectively valued at over $20 million. In addition to “The Kouros,” which dates back to 560 BCE, the returned items include a gold broach dating back to 600 BCE that is valued at $1.3 million and a spouted bowl dating back to 2700 to 2200 BCE, valued at $600,000. They come from central Greece, Crete, the Cyclades islands, Samos and Rhodes.
One piece, a larnax — or small coffin — from Crete dating back to 1400 to 1200 BCE had been in Steinhardt’s office, according to investigators, and when asked about it, he reportedly told an Antiquities Trafficking Unit investigator, “There’s no provenance for it. If I see a piece and I like it, then I buy it.”
Other items from Steinhardt’s collection are being returned to their respective homelands.
“Today is a day of great joy for Greece because all these artifacts, all these items, could be back in the place that borne them, in Greece,” Mendoni told ABC News.
Mendoni, who called illegal trafficking a “trauma” in addition to a crime, has been in her role since 2019 and has made the repatriation of Greek antiquities a priority. This includes working to try to get the United Kingdom to return the Parthenon Marbles, which are currently at the British Museum, to Athens.
“I would like to thank, from the bottom of my heart, all the staff of the District Attorney’s Office, and of course Matthew Bogdanos for his dedication to this work,” she said Wednesday, referring to Assistant District Attorney Bogdanos, who is chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit and has Greek roots himself.
After the papers were formally signed to signal the repatriation, Bogdanos called out, “Madam Minister, they’re all yours.”
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — After more than 30 months in detention centers, Kelvin Silva was deported last week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the Dominican Republic. His mother, children and siblings continue to live in the U.S.
Silva, 45, legally moved to the United States when he was 11. His father was residing in the U.S. as a naturalized citizen, and Silva became a lawful, permanent resident. He had a Social Security card and paid taxes — until an immigration judge revoked his status.
“My belief was that I was a citizen through my father,” Silva previously told ABC News.
But that was not the case. Silva, whose parents were not married, never became a U.S. citizen. At the time he immigrated, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1940 was still the law. It barred children like Silva, whose parents were never officially married, from gaining citizenship status through their fathers.
That law was repealed by Congress in 2000, but the new legislation was not applied retroactively to people over the age of 18, which Silva was at the time.
“There’s this group of people that we maintain are unfairly being punished under the old rule,” Peter Isbister, one of Silva’s lawyers and a senior lead attorney with the Southeast Freedom Initiation at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told ABC News.
After his father died when he was a teenager, Silva said he became involved in illegal activities. He was convicted in 2013 for possession with intent to distribute marijuana and cocaine and sentenced to 127 months in federal prison. He earned his GED behind bars and completed a drug abuse program.
But two days before he was tentatively supposed to be released from the custody, ICE began his removal proceedings. That was on July 16, 2019. Since then, Silva remained in ICE custody as he continued to fight to earn his citizenship retroactively. Up until last week.
Silva, whose deportation proceedings began under former President Donald Trump, thought the Biden administration would be his “miracle.”
Just a few months after President Joe Biden was inaugurated, ICE issued an administrative stay in his case at the direction of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Silva remained in the U.S.
But there were several times Silva thought he would be deported. He was “toyed with” multiple times, according to Isbister. On several occasions, he was put on a bus or a plane, expecting to be deported, only to be brought back to a detention center, his attorney said.
“He was shackled the whole time,” Isbister said of these moments.
But after more than 30 months in ICE custody, Silva’s hope vanished. He was deported on Feb. 15.
Silva, who has not been to the Dominican Republic since he was 11, has no immediate family members in the country, his family says.
ICE has previously told ABC News that Silva entered the U.S. legally but violated the terms of his admission with multiple drug convictions.
The agency said Silva is “an aggravated felon who falls within the current priorities for civil immigration enforcement arrest and removal set forth by the current administration.”
People who “pose a threat to public safety” are prioritized for deportation, an ICE spokesperson said.
According to Isbister, Silva, his family, and his attorneys are all disappointed in the Biden Administration, which had the discretion to keep him in custody as his case continued to be litigated.
A spokesperson for ICE did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on Wednesday.
“The divergence between the Biden administration’s rhetoric on racial justice and racial equity, and the positions that they took when they had a choice in this case – that’s what’s upsetting,” Isbister told ABC News.
“To have him removed in Black History Month, where with one hand the Biden administration is rightfully elevating the first black woman to the highest court in the land… and with the other hand, really not lifting a finger in the face of the Guyer rule and Kelvin’s removal,” Isbister said, referencing the 1940 law that deprived Silva of citizenship.
“When push comes to shove, the immigrant community comes out on the bottom,” Isbister said.
Despite his deportation, Silva’s attorney says he will continue to fight to be recognized as a U.S. citizen as his case is fought in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
(NEW YORK) — New York City will pilot a program to install platform barriers at three subway stations, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials announced Wednesday, a month after a woman died when a stranger pushed her in front of an oncoming train.
The doors, which will create a barrier between the platform and track to prevent people from falling onto the tracks, will be installed at the Times Square station along the 7 line, the Third Avenue station on the L and the Sutphin Boulevard-JFK station stop on the E, MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said on NY1’s “Mornings On 1” Wednesday.
“It’s going to take a while and we’re going to have to put the money together, which is a little complicated,” Lieber told NY1. “But our goal is to try out these technologies at different places in the system, including three stations, trying out platform doors.”
The pilot program is expected to cost more than $100 million, with the doors likely to be installed at the three locations in 2024, the MTA said. The project is scheduled to be discussed at Thursday’s MTA board meeting.
The announcement comes amid safety concerns in the nation’s largest public transit system. On Jan. 15, Michelle Go, 40, died after she was shoved in front of an oncoming train on the N/Q/R/W line inside the Times Square-42nd Street subway station in what police said was an unprovoked attack.
Following Go’s death, several city officials, including Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, called on the MTA to install the platform barriers, which are used in transit systems in cities including Paris, London and Hong Kong, as well as along the John F. Kennedy International Airport AirTrain.
Previously, the MTA had said installing platform barriers would be prohibitively expensive and complicated due to the age of the subway system. Last month, the agency released a 3,000-page report from 2020 that found that most of the city’s 472 stations can’t accommodate the protective barriers and that it would cost about $7 billion to install them at the 128 stations that could.
In recent weeks, though, Lieber said the MTA was revisiting the issue. On Wednesday, he said the MTA identified the three stations in the pilot as locations “where the engineering does work.”
Levine called the pilot program a “huge win for safety & efficiency.”
“Truly a milestone in the history of NYC’s subways. Congrats to all who fought for this,” he said on Twitter.
From January 2021 to July 2021, 37 people died after getting struck by a train, according to the MTA.
In 2021, 30 people were pushed onto the tracks, according to the New York Police Department’s public information office. So far this year, as of Jan. 23, five people have been pushed onto the tracks, the NYPD said. A further breakdown of injuries or fatalities was not available.
Among other safety measures, the MTA is looking at piloting new technologies, including thermal sensors and lasers, that would detect when someone has fallen onto the tracks, Lieber said.
The city also recently launched a subway safety plan in response to a spike in crime that involves sending more police, mental health clinicians and social service outreach workers into the subways.
(DENVER) — Colorado will become the first state to accept cryptocurrency as payment for state taxes and fees, Governor Jared Polis announced Wednesday.
Polis said the state, which was also the earliest to use blockchain technology for government infrastructure, will take the digital coin payments and deposit the equivalent value in dollars into the state’s treasury.
“In Colorado, we’ve been laying the groundwork to be a center of crypto and blockchain innovation for a number of years,” Polis said in a statement. “We see it as a critical part of Colorado’s overall innovation ecosystem.”
The announcement comes as legislators in other states, including Arizona and California, are proposing laws which, if ratified, would deem cryptocurrency an accepted form of payment statewide, not just for tax purposes.
Governor Polis has long been a vanguard in the intersecting world of cryptocurrency and politics. In 2014, he accepted Bitcoin for campaign donations during his run for the U.S. Congress following a Federal Exchange Commission ruling that went in his favor.
Although Colorado will be the first state to officially welcome cryptocurrency payments for taxes, Ohio implemented a similar program for a test run in 2018, which was ultimately deemed unsuccessful and abandoned in 2019.
Outside the U.S., El Salvador has been on a similar path for the better part of nine months. In June 2021, the country’s Legislative Assembly passed a law that made Bitcoin legal tender, allowing it to be used for everyday purchases.
Critics of accepting cryptocurrency highlight the volatility of digital currencies and inflation fears as reasons the initiative could cause economic destruction in El Salvador. In January, the International Monetary Fund called for the Central American nation to reverse its decision.
Cryptocurrency investment and interest have skyrocketed throughout the pandemic, with Bitcoin—the original digital currency—seeing gains of more than 300% between March and December 2020, only to crash down almost 45% from an all-time high in November 2021.
Polis has expressed an interest in having the state be able to process and accept cryptocurrency by the summer, although he has yet to provide a more specific timeline.
KISS, Judas Priest, Foo Fighters and Stone Temple Pilots are among the many acts that will be performing at the 2022 Aftershock festival, taking place October 6-9 in Sacramento, California.
STP are part of the lineup for the fest’s first day, which will be headlined by Slipknot and also will feature Rob Zombie, Evanescence, Killswitch Engage and Bad Religion, among others.
KISS will headline day two, October 7, which also will see performances by Judas Priest, Lamb of God, Chevelle, GWAR, Helmet, Alice Cooper band guitarist Nita Strauss, Bullet for My Valentine, and more.
Headlining on October 8 will be My Chemical Romance, while other performers that day will include Papa Roach, Halestorm, A Day to Remember, The Distillers and Theory of a Deadman.
Foo Fighters will headline Aftershock’s final day, while the bill also will feature Shinedown, Bring Me the Horizon, The Pretty Reckless, The Struts, Zakk Sabbath, and more.
Dua Lipa is headlining the OSHEAGA Music and Arts Festival with Foo Fighters and Rihanna‘s boyfriend, A$AP Rocky. The show runs July 29 to July 31 in Montreal, with Dua performing on the final day. The Kid LAROI, Charli XCX, Machine Gun Kelly and more will also be there. Weekend passes are available now and single-day tickets go on sale February 25 on the OSHEAGA website.
Pink can read your kid a bedtime story. The singer, who partnered with Calm, voiced a new story called The P!nk Sheet that’s available now. The story is about “Ring, a little girl with big dreams and an even bigger circus tent,” the app teases. Pink hopes the tale will help her young listeners feel “less afraid of the dark and of being alone” and let their “imaginations run wild as they drift off to peaceful rest.”
The Weeknd was kissing DJ Simi Khadra at his 32nd birthday bash in Vegas, reports TMZ. This isn’t the first time the “Save Your Tears” singer was spotted with Simi — the two were seen having dinner in Los Angeles on February 3. Previously, The Weeknd was romantically linked to Angelina Jolie, who’s believed to be the subject of his latest single, “Here We Go… Again,” in which he sings about his “movie star” girlfriend.
Doja Cat revealed her plans for 2022, telling Billboardthat she is excited to perform at the upcoming Grammy Awards and doing nothing at home. “I cook and I play video games and I go on [Instagram] Live and I make an a** of myself,” she declared. Doja also revealed how she wastes time on Instagram — by looking “at pictures of makeup and fashion and cats, and that’s pretty much it.”
Earlier this week, country fans were shocked to learn that Sam Hunt’s wife, Hannah Lee Fowler, had filed for divorce from her superstar husband, as well as the fact that she’s about six months pregnant — something that the couple hadn’t shared before their divorce news broke.
Over the course of the couple’s five-year marriage, and the years of on-again, off-again dating that led up to it, fans got to know Hannah Lee through Sam’s music.
His first album, Montevallo, was named after her Alabama hometown, and lots of its songs — like “Take Your Time,” “Break Up in a Small Town” and “Make You Miss Me” — seem to point to their tumultuous love story and powerful connection.
But Sam took the guesswork out of who he was writing songs about on “Drinkin’ Too Much,” a heartbreak ballad presumably written during a period of separation. The lyrics call Hannah Lee by name, and read “I’m sorry I named the album Montevallo/ I’m sorry people know your name now/ And strangers hit you up on social media.”
The singer’s record-breaking mega-hit, “Body Like a Back Road,” isn’t nearly as obviously directed toward Hannah Lee, but it’s safe to say that she served as at least part of the inspiration behind it. When Sam performed it at the 2017 ACM Awards, Sam walked out into the crowd and sat beside her in the audience as he sang.
Hannah Lee filed for divorce late last week, according to TMZ. She cited adultery as her reason for requesting the divorce, and asked for primary custody of their unborn child. However, on Tuesday, she withdrew her divorce complaint, according to People. She asked that the petition be “voluntarily nonsuited without prejudice,” which means she can file for divorce again in the future.
