Disturbed frontman David Draiman guests on a new song from guitarist Nita Strauss called “Dead Inside.”
Strauss, who plays in Alice Cooper‘s live band, previously released an instrumental album called Controlled Chaos in 2018, but her collaboration with Draiman marks her first solo offering with a guest vocalist.
“This is my first time releasing my own music with a vocalist, and I am so honored to take this step alongside a legend like David Draiman,” Strauss says. “David’s voice and powerful lyrics took this song to a level I could never have imagined! And we are so excited to unleash this song on the world.”
Draiman adds that he and Strauss have been “friends for years,” and calls the collaboration “serendipity.”
“Nita sent me the track…I didn’t have time to work on it right away…then in literally a couple of days, while killing time in Santa Monica, the whole thing just came together,” he says. “Incredibly proud of how it turned out and honored to be a part of it.”
You can download “Dead Inside” now via digital outlets. Its accompanying video is streaming now on YouTube.
Last year, Draiman collaborated with artists including Saul and Hyro the Hero, while Disturbed released a cover of the Sting tune “If I Ever Lose My Faith in You.” Disturbed’s most recent album is 2018’s Evolution.
Thirty-six of the Fab Four’s classic songs are now available for TikTok members to use to soundtrack their own video creations.
The debut of The Beatles’ TikTok account coincides with the release today of the deluxe reissue of the band’s final studio album, 1970’s Let It Be. It’s also in advance of the upcoming three-part Disney+ documentary series The Beatles: Get Back that will feature hours of unseen film footage shot of the band while they recorded the album.
Beatles songs available to TikTok users include all of Let It Be‘s 12 tracks, as well as the many #1 hits the band scored throughout its existence, including “Love Me Do,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Day Tripper,” “Paperback Writer,” “Hey Jude” and “Something.”
In the weeks leading up to the late-November premiere of The Beatles: Get Back, the band’s TikTok page will debut exclusive behind-the-scenes footage from the Let It Be sessions, as well as videos looking at the making of individual songs from the album that feature interviews with surviving Beatles members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
The launch of The Beatles’ TikTok account also marks the arrival of the platform’s month-long #Rocktober campaign, a celebration of significant rock artists on TikTok.
All four Beatles members — McCartney, Starr and the late John Lennon and George Harrison — already have official solo TikTok accounts.
It appears that Simon Gallup‘s departure from The Cure was short-lived.
Back in August, the bassist announced that he was “no longer a member” of the goth icons after 40 years in the band, adding that he was “fed up of betrayal.” Well, that relationship’s, ahem, disintegration, is seemingly now on the mend.
In a social media post first spotted by NME, and seen by ABC Audio, a commenter asks, “Is Simon still a member of The Cure?” Gallup then responds, “Yes I am.”
Given that Gallup, who played in The Cure from 1979 to 1982, and then again from 1984 to this year, is the band’s longest-tenured non-Robert Smith member, it did seem odd that his departure would be announced with such little fanfare via a personal Facebook post. Not only that, but neither Smith nor The Cure publicly commented on Gallup’s initial announcement.
Smith, by the way, previously called Gallup his “best friend” in a 2019 NME interview, adding that the bassist has been the “heart” of The Cure’s live band. Gallup was one of 10 Cure members to be inducted along with the band into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.
(LIPSK, Poland) — It was pitch black as the activists entered the forest. Even with headlamps and torches, their beams shone only small windows into the darkness, illuminating the trunks of birch trees.
The activists, from the migrants rights group, Grupa Granica, were looking for a small group of men who a short while ago had crossed the border from Belarus into a corner of northeastern Poland.
The men being sought were among hundreds of people trapped in forests where the European Union shares borders with Belarus; men caught in a worsening — and highly unusual– migration crisis on the bloc’s eastern frontier.
For months, the border between Belarus, Poland and Lithuania has seen a surge of migrants, that European countries allege is orchestrated by Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko in retaliation for their support of the pro-democracy protest movement that came close to toppling him last year.
Lukashenko — often dubbed ‘Europe’s last dictator’– is accused of luring migrants, mostly from the Middle East, to Belarus by offering easy access to Europe and then pushing them over the border into Poland and Lithuania. The number of migrants crossing has soared in recent months from what is normally a few dozen to thousands, with many headed to Germany and other Western European countries, according to Polish and Lithuanian authorities.
But in response, Poland and Lithuania have begun blocking the arrivals, deploying extra border guards, erecting fences and also allegedly pushing back many without allowing them to file for asylum, a violation of international law.
The result is that dozens — likely hundreds — of people are now reportedly trapped in a no-man’s land throughout the dense forests between Belarus and Poland, bouncing between the countries’ security forces and without food or shelter, often for weeks, according to testimonies from those trapped.
At least five migrants have died already, according to Polish and Belarusian officials, as temperatures fell close to freezing.
In Poland, activists from human rights groups and charities say they are trying to help the migrants, bringing food, clothes and assistance with asylum claims to prevent border guards from forcing people back across the border
The activists ABC News accompanied last week said they had received a call for help from three men around midnight one day last week. As the activists searched the woods, they shouted, “Don’t be afraid. We are not the police,” and made low whistles, a previously agreed upon signal with the men.
Eventually they found three terrified, shivering men from Yemen. One was without shoes.
“We were there fifteen days, without food, without anything,” one man, Rami Olaqi told the activists as they quickly gave Olaqi and the other men snack bars and tea. “We are drinking from streams and we’re eating from trees. The Belarusian army said, ‘If we see you again, we will kill you,'” he said.
Olaqi, an IT engineer, said he was fleeing Yemen’s civil war. They had been in the woods almost since landing in Belarus’ capital, Minsk, and were from a group of 16 Yemenis, the remainder still stuck on the border’s Belarusian side. They said they had tried to cross the border four times, but each time had been pushed back by Polish guards.
Back on the other side, Olaqi said Belarusian border guards had grabbed them and forced them back toward Poland. Olaqi says the guards shoved them back, and that Belarusian guards had beaten and robbed them, taking anything they wanted from the men’s bags.
He said after catching them again, the Belarusian guards had thrown the men into a river.
“They don’t care,” he said. “It will be better for them if we die, you know. Because ‘Look, Poland is killing refugees.’ That’s what we understand now.”
It’s just a way “for the Belarusian state to intimidate Europe. And using the refugees as a bullet in their war,” Olaqi said.
Lukashenko has publicly threatened to flood Europe with migrants, presumably in retaliation for EU sanctions on his regime for its crackdown on the protests and for hijacking a Ryanair passenger flight in May.
“We were stopping drugs and migrants — now you will catch them and eat them yourselves,” Lukashenko said in a speech in May.
Belarus has eased visa restrictions for many countries. In July, Lukashenko issued a decree allowing citizens of 73 countries to travel to Belarus without a visa for five days. WhatsApp and Facebook groups have sprung up where smugglers offer passage to Germany and other western European countries via Belarus and many migrants said they had used travel agencies to acquire invitations to come.
At the border, several migrants told ABC News that Belarusian security forces were coordinating migrant crossings.
Boushra Al-Moallem, a teacher from Syria who said she had spent 20 days in the forest, said Belarusian guards had separated people into groups and then led them to crossing points at the border, picking the time they would cross.
“They were choosing the people who should go in each group,” she said. Al-Moallem said people like her had been caught up in the conflict between Belarus and Poland. “It’s a bad war — and we are the weapons,” she said.
Several migrants alleged they were robbed of their money, phones and documents by Belarusian guards before being pushed over the border into the forest. When they try to return, Belarusian police shove them back again and threaten them, they said.
Under international and European law, Poland is obligated to consider any asylum applications made on its territory. But some of the migrants and activists say Polish border guards are refusing to accept the applications and instead push people back across the border.
That meant a harrowing choice for Olaqi and other men fleeing from Yemen. The activists helped them fill out asylum papers on the forest floor. But in order to apply they would need to summon the Polish border guards — the same guards that had repeatedly driven them back into the woods.
The activists explained said that they hoped the presence of foreign media would prevent the guards from doing so again but there was no guarantee. With no other plan, Olaqi and another man decided to risk crossing the border.
When the guards arrived they were polite and said they would take the men to a nearby border station, something the activists credited to the media cameras on-site. Poland’s border service later confirmed the two men had been permitted to apply for asylum and would now be sent to a migrant center while they awaited the decision.
Such cases, though, are still the exception. Activists are responding to almost daily calls of people being pushed back from Poland, regardless of whether they claim asylum, said Kalina Czwarnog, from the immigrant rights group Fondacja Ocalenie. Czwarnog said she had witnessed young children being pushed back and that injured migrants were sometimes transported from hospitals back into the woods.
Poland’s government has defended its border service’s actions, arguing it is permitted to push people back to Belarus since they are not in danger there, an argument disputed by most experts in asylum law.
“We are not pushing back those people to Syria or, I don’t know, Afghanistan,” Poland’s deputy foreign minister Marcin Przydacz told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle this week. He did not deny that Polish border guards were pushing people back across the border, saying most wanted to apply for asylum in Germany, not Poland. He said the focus should be on the fact that this was an “artificial crisis, orchestrated by the Belarusian regime.”
By declaring a state of emergency Poland has created a closed zone along the border, which critics say is mostly intended to prevent activists and media from documenting the treatment of migrants. Police checkpoints block access to many villages in the zone and journalists entering risk arrest. The activists are only able to help those that make it outside the zone.
Lithuania initially allowed more asylum seekers to enter the country, taking in over 4,000 and housing them at first, mainly in tent camps. As the weather grows colder, the country has moved many migrants to more permanent facilities, including a prison at Kybartai.
When ABC News visited last week nearly 700 men were housed at Kybartai, living in a former cell block. Families and more vulnerable people are kept in different centers.
But Lithuania so far has granted just one asylum request of 900 already processed, according to its interior ministry. Over 2,500 more are pending.
On Wednesday there was a possible sign that Lukashenko might be backing down. A travel agency,Anex Tour, published a notice that Belarus was no longer issuing visas on arrival at Minsk airport for citizens Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and Nigeria. Belarus’ foreign ministry however has not confirmed that to ABC News.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Lukashenko’s main opponent, who was forced into exile last year during the mass protests, said she was urging European countries not to lose sight that Lukashenko is the root cause of the crisis.
“I always remind them, don’t forget who’s guilty in this,” she told ABC News in an interview last week. “Migrants are also a hostage of this regime.”
She said EU countries needed to show a unified front against Lukashenko and warned that calls for Poland and Lithuania to accept all migrants arriving would play into his hands. She said Lukashenko was counting on criticism over human rights in European countries forcing them to give in before he did.
“Lukashenko knows that organizations in Europe are worrying about the situation and they can put pressure on the Polish government, Lithuanian government, but they can’t put any kind of pressure to the dictator because he doesn’t care,” she said. “He knows the rules and misuses them. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia are being blackmailed by Lukashenko. That’s why unity is crucial here.”
(FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.) — Nikolas Cruz wants to enter a guilty plea in the killing of 17 people in the Parkland, Florida, mass shooting, a defense attorney said in court Friday.
On Feb. 14, 2018, Cruz, then 19, gunned down 14 students and three staff members at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He was taken into custody that day.
Fred Guttenberg, father of 14-year-old victim Jaime Guttenberg, tweeted Friday, “My only comment is to remember the victims. Remember Jaime. Rather than talk about the murderer.”
Manuel Oliver, father of 17-year-old victim Joaquin Oliver, told ABC News Live Friday, “I think it’s time to put some — speed it up a little bit. Every day is a new day that we suffer.”
“I can’t wait for this to be over so I can move on, at least without the weight of not knowing what’s gonna happen to this person,” he said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Penn Badgley returns as Joe Goldberg, an unassuming serial killer, stalker, and book enthusiast turned suburban dad, in season three of Netflix’s You.
Badgley tells ABC Audio that although he appears to have met his match in his partner Love Quinn, there’s no certainty that he’ll ever change his killer ways.
“I don’t know that he can be reformed,” Badgley says. “I don’t know what that really would look like for him. I don’t know if he came to terms with who he really is and what he’s done.”
Badgley says Joe’s inability to hold himself accountable is because “he’s a fugue state,” a person who temporarily loses their sense of personal identity and impulsively wanders off.
“Fugues are interesting. Fugues are actually very powerful,” he explains. “Maybe within their own kind of thing they go somewhere, but they always return. They always return to the beginning. And that’s really what Joe is.”
Similar to Badgley who offers some much needed insight into Joe’s troubled mind, Victoria Pedretti, who plays Love Quinn, shares her personal take on Love’s erratic behavior.
“Her behavior is obviously a lot of extremes, but I think we find her relatable because she is programed… through the media, and schools… that teach us our roles as women,” she says, before noting that Love’s season three motivations come from “familial trauma,” “being deeply neglected” and a lack “of self-worth.”
Still, Pedretti believes that as problematic as Joe and Love may be, they both are “worthy” of “empathy and sympathy.”
“I think it’s valuable to try to understand people, at least a little bit,” she shares.
Season three of You is now available to stream on Netflix.
It’s been a lot longer than 30 seconds since we last heard new music from Thirty Seconds to Mars, but that changes today.
Jared Leto and company have collaborated with DJ and producer Illenium for a new song called “Wouldn’t Change a Thing.” The track is available now for digital download, and will also appear on the upcoming deluxe version of Illenium’s Fallen Embers album, due out October 22.
“Wouldn’t Change a Thing” is the first new tune from Thirty Seconds to Mars since their 2018 album AMERICA, which spawned the singles “Walk on Water,” “Dangerous Night” and “Rescue Me.”
Illenium, by the way, has previously worked with rock and alternative artists including Angels & Airwaves and I Prevail. He also earned a top-five alternative radio single with “Good Things Fall Apart,” featuring Jon Bellion.
In less than a month, Netflix’s dystopian thriller Squid Game has officially become a cultural phenomenon, with record viewers on the streaming platform.
The success was a surprise to the hyper-violent show’s creator, Hwang Dong-Hyuk. But he tells Good Morning America he always envisioned the global appeal of the show.
“If you look at the cast of characters, you have the elite member of society, Sang-woo. You have the…middle-class man, Gi-hun. You have the migrant worker, Ali…and you have Il-nam, who…represents the senior class,” he said. “…I think they constitute the minority in any country in the world.”
Dong-Hyukwas 38 and broke — and living off his mom, like the show’s main character Gi-hun — when he wrote Squid Game more than 10 years ago.
“The first game — was the most difficult and scary thing to film,” recalls the creator. It was a grown-up version of the kid’s activity “Red Light/Green Light” — except the penalty for moving is death. “It was like seeing 456 characters all move according to choreography, like watching a K-Pop band, because all these people had to move and stop in unison,” Hwang says.
Squid Game has reached #1 in 94 countries and has been translated into over 30 languages, but Dong-Hyuk pleaded, “please, please watch the subtitle” version. “Because if you don’t see — the acting, the performance from the real actor…You’re missing — most of [the] Squid Game fun.”
For a second season, Dong-Hyuk’s gotten inspiration from many fans, thanks to their own Squid Game challenges on social media.
“Some of them [were] really brilliant, you know?” he said. “So maybe I’ll go through…YouTube again…Then I’ll steal the ideas from the fans,” he added with a laugh.
(ESSEX, England) — David Amess, a conservative British member of Parliament, died Friday after being stabbed multiple times, officials said.
Amess, 69, represented Southend West in Essex.
He was attacked while holding his monthly “meet and greet” with voters at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, British outlet Sky News reported.
The motive behind the attack is unknown.
Essex Police were called to reports of a stabbing shortly after 12:05 p.m. local time and found a man injured.
“He was treated by emergency services but, sadly, died at the scene,” police said in a press release.
Police said a 25-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after the stabbing and a knife was recovered at the scene. Authorities are not looking for any other suspects in the incident.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(ESSEX, England) — David Amess, a conservative British member of Parliament, was stabbed multiple times during a visit to Essex Friday, officials said.
The motive behind the attack is not yet known.
He was attacked while holding an open meeting for his constituents at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, British outlet Sky News reported.
Police were called to reports of a stabbing shortly after 12:05 p.m. local time.
Essex Police tweeted that a man has been arrested following an incident at Leigh-on-Sea. Authorities said they are not seeking any other suspects.
Amess, 69, represents Southend West in Essex.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
