(NEW YORK) — An analysis of preliminary data published Wednesday indicates that many candidates for top election administration roles are fundraising at a record-setting clip, with some of the biggest hauls going to those who have made 2020 election denial a central tenet of their message to voters.
In Georgia, Michigan and Minnesota, the key battleground states where data is already available, “fundraising in secretary of state races is two and a half times higher than it was by the same point in either of the last two election cycles,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan organization that tracks elections and voting rights.
Brennan Center analysts credit increased political polarization and controversy over the 2020 election for the deluge of money flooding these races, which have historically been low-profile affairs involving modest sums of fundraising.
As chief election officials in many states — who often wield immense power over the administration of federal, state and local elections — secretaries of state have taken center stage as the nation grapples with core democratic issues.
“Formerly contested on dry issues of bureaucratic processes, these elections are being infused with substantive politics, with more and more candidates making election denial, or opposition to it, central to their campaigns,” the Brennan Center authors wrote.
“Indeed, as far as we are aware,” the authors continued, “this is the first time in the modern era that questions about the legitimacy of elections have played such a prominent role in contests for election officials.”
Many Republican candidates for election administrator posts are campaigning on the false notion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from President Donald Trump — a dangerous falsity that is rewarding those pedaling it most fervently, according to the Brennan Center analysis.
In Georgia, for example, where Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is seeking reelection in a crowded field, challenger Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., who, as a member of Congress, objected to certifying President Joe Biden’s victory, outraised all other candidates — including Raffensperger — through mid-2021.
Hice landed more than $500,000 in the three months after launching his campaign, the Brennan Center found, backed by a mix of small-dollar supporters and national GOP donors such as Richard Uihlein of Uline Inc. Hice has said that if 2020 was a “fair election, it would be a different outcome.”
In Michigan, however, a different story is emerging. Through mid-October of last year, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic incumbent, had raised $1.2 million — more than five times what she had brought in at that point in the 2018 contest.
Benson has attracted national attention for her outspoken criticism of Trump and those who have cast doubt on the 2020 presidential race.
“There is a growing understanding that what’s on the ballot in 2022 is, in some measure, nonpartisan election administration,” Larry Norden, a co-author of the report, told ABC News. “And that’s attracting a lot more money.”
While it is too early to identify the new sources of fundraising, Norden said one trend has already emerged: a flood of out-of-state donations. In Georgia, 22% of donations have come from donors based in other states, a marked uptick from 2018, when only 13% of donations came from elsewhere.
Some strategists say Trump’s proclivity to endorse loyalists up and down state and local ballots has motivated major national donors and political organizations to play a more active role in elections that, in past election cycles, would not have gotten their attention.
“[Trump and his allies are] trying to run out establishment Republicans and elect Trump loyalists at every level of government,” said Sarah Longwell, strategic director at Republican Voters Against Trump, a coalition of conservatives opposed to Trump. “Trump is running a widespread insurgent strategy that is meant to continue to undercut traditional Republican candidates.”
It is not uncommon for fundraising to increase each cycle with the cost of elections. But the amount of money being pumped into races for election administrators is unprecedented. In the coming weeks, new disclosure filings are expected to show how these campaigns fared in fundraising through the end of the year, allowing a better glimpse at where candidates stand now.
Wednesday’s reporting from the Brennan Center is the first installment in a forthcoming series on contests for governors, secretaries of state and local election officials — offices that carry an outsized role in administering the vote.
Analysts will examine fundraising trends and messaging in those races, with a particular focus on how candidates discuss the false notion that the previous election cycle was somehow compromised.
“Nowhere will this issue be more important than in the contests for the offices that will have a direct role in the administration and certification of election results,” the authors of Wednesday’s report wrote.
The Old Fourth Ward neighborhood in Atlanta, Ga. – Raymond Boyd/Getty Images
(ATLANTA) — When Michelle Lockhart was a teenager in Atlanta, she had to work two jobs — as a camp counselor and fast-food worker — to take care of her family.
She said her mother became disabled at that time due to a brain tumor, but it took months of cutting through red tape to qualify for desperately needed federal assistance.
If they had gotten more help then, “I could have focused on going to college and doing what people my age were doing: going to prom and enjoying their teen years,” Lockhart, now 41, told ABC News.
In the early months of this year, 650 Black women across Georgia — a demographic hit particularly hard by poverty — will get some of that help. Payments of $850 per month will roll out over the next two years in one of the biggest guaranteed income experiments in the country. Some participants in the $13 million initiative may receive lump sum payments totaling the same amount they would have received over two years. For now, the process of inviting and selecting participants is ongoing.
The program will run alongside Atlanta’s own basic income program which plans to serve about 300 residents that live below 200% of the federal poverty line. The initiative is currently working on making its first round of payments to the starting cohort of 25 participants, according to Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ office.
Guaranteed income programs like these have seen a resurgence in recent years amid attempts to address racial and economic equality and reduce poverty. The scope can be either targeted or universal. They have had successes, but some critics say these initiatives have to be multifaceted to work and address the nuances of poverty. Others claim it will stop people from working (though the claim has been debunked) or be too expensive to maintain.
As a community advocate and member of the Old Fourth Ward Economic Security Task Force, Lockhart said many of her neighbors continue to experience similar hardships, despite working day and night in an effort to escape poverty. many of her neighbors continue to experience similar hardships, despite working day and night in an effort to escape poverty.
“Everybody’s on this hamster wheel,” Lockhart said. “They’re working two or three jobs … they’re working low wage jobs, but they’re still in poverty.”
Burden on communities of color
Black residents in Atlanta are more four times as likely to be living under the federal poverty line than their white neighbors, with 46% of Black households earning below $25,000 a year, according to recent research by the Old Fourth Ward Economic Security Task Force.
Some 38% of Black women and 26% of Black men in the city are living in poverty, compared to 8% of white women and 5% of white men in the same city, the task force reports.
“We’re working, we’re tired, we’re stressed,” Lockhart said. “With an extra $850 a month, people will be able to enjoy the sunlight and will be able to spend more time with their babies.”
Hope Wollensack, the executive director of the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity Fund, said the program is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is needed to address inequality.
“It’ll take a multifaceted approach — and probably many different policies — to even begin to address the racial wealth gap,” she said. “But we do know that stabilizing one’s income can be a powerful tool not only to improve one’s material circumstances in the short term and to improve quality of life and opportunities but also to enable individuals across the board to plan for the long term.”
The program, called “In Her Hands,” was shaped by discussions and surveys from community members that examined the causes of economic insecurity and wealth disparities in the city.
The project, run by the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity Fund, is an initiative from the Atlanta City Council, as well as the nonprofit cash assistance service GiveDirectly. It will begin rolling out in the Old Fourth Ward, the childhood neighborhood of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who was a fierce advocate for universal basic income as a way of addressing racial wealth inequities.
“We have economic insecurity that is pervasive and it’s the result of decades of policies, if not more, that have made it harder for the majority of Americans to get ahead,” Wollensack said.
The ability to access quality education, transportation and higher-paying jobs, the burden of childcare or predatory debt — factors like these, Wollensack said, are also more likely to burden communities of color.
Poverty and food insecurity can impact a community’s physical and mental health, and is considered one “of the most serious and costly health problems,” according to the Food Research & Action Center, a national nonprofit research organization working to eradicate poverty.
‘Hard to budget from zero’
Cash assistance and guaranteed income have been repeatedly proven to be a major force against poverty, according to researchers at the Columbia University, Center on Poverty & Social Policy.
Past studies and research has shown evidence that basic income experiments improved the happiness and health of its recipients and appeared to affect crime rates in the regions where it was implemented.
The program won’t offer any financial literacy courses and advise how participants will use the money. Wollensack says that, in surveying and researching the community and its financial needs, people can be trusted to make the right choices using their resources, but don’t have a lot of resources to start with.
“It’s hard to budget from zero,” Wollensack said. “In fact, we’ve seen oftentimes community members with some of the fewest resources are the most resilient and resourceful.”
She added, “Instead of viewing communities that may have experienced cash shortfalls as a deficit, we actually know and believe that these communities were huge assets.”
Lockhart said she expects to see the effects of the income boost almost instantaneously.
She says that when the COVID-19 stimulus reached the bank accounts of Old Fourth Ward residents, she saw a mood shift among her neighbors. She says people were out and chatting with neighbors, engaging with neighborhood businesses — the weight of financial stress lessened for just a while.
“They want to get out and work. They want to start their own businesses. They want to spend more time with their children,” Lockhart said “This will help slow people down a little bit so that they can focus and center themselves and center their energy right.”
(NEW YORK) — The Orlando Police Department created a new unit in 2021 that sends behavioral health experts instead of law enforcement officers to respond to 911 calls for mental health crises.
It’s in an effort — one of a number around the country — to avoid confrontations with law enforcement responding to non-violent calls and potentially avoidable fatal police shootings. More than 20% of people fatally shot by police since 2015 had mental illness, according to the Washington Post‘s “Fatal Force” database.
Initiatives like these to address community concerns about policing have been ongoing for years but picked up renewed momentum in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the nationwide protests that followed.
Fatal police shootings have been a stubborn and increasingly visible flash point for tensions between communities and police, and the racial dynamics that underpin them, thanks in part to a proliferation of bystander video and police body camera footage.
But experts say there are some glimmers of hope — early indications that a shift may be taking place.
With greater attention being paid to police-community relations, de-escalation training and diversity in the ranks, there were 888 fatal police shootings nationwide in 2021 — down 133 from 1,021 in 2020, according to data from the Washington Post‘s database.
That’s a decrease of 13% year-over-year. The lowest number of fatal shootings in a full calendar year in the database, which stretches back to 2015, is 957 in 2016 and the average is about 991.
There is no comprehensive nationwide database of police use of force, though the FBI has been attempting to build one for years, so it is difficult to get an overall sense of how often police use their weapons.
Instead, private organizations have led the charge in compiling a more complete set of data.
The Washington Post, as well as Mapping Police Violence and the Gun Violence Archive, track and verify police-involved shooting deaths based on a collection of news accounts, social media postings and police reports.
Mapping Police Violence also reports a small decrease in the number of shooting deaths attributed to police, but says the 2021 fatal shooting totals are “similar” to those of years past.
Lowest numbers in 6 years for some states
There is notable variation, however, in the number of fatal police shootings on a state level where many states experienced a drop, according to the Washington Post database.
From 2020 to 2021, Florida saw the largest numeric drop in deadly police shootings, from 93 to 44, followed by decreases in California and Washington, according to the Washington Post data.
While some states saw declines, others saw increases. Illinois saw 10 more fatal police shootings in 2021, Mississippi experienced a rise of eight and New Mexico, Georgia, Nebraska and Idaho had six more shootings.
Some experts caution that a one-year decline doesn’t tell us very much and a decline in the number of police interactions may be a factor (arrests, for instance, declined dramatically from 2019 to 2020, the most recent year for which FBI data is available).
Police violence has been on the rise since the 1980s, according to University of Washington research that has been published in the Lancet. The research compiled independent and federal data in an attempt to get a full picture of police killings in the U.S.
However, other police reform experts interviewed by ABC News are cautiously optimistic about a potential inflection point in police use of force.
They say the call for accountability from protesters and leaders may be behind this apparent change, including what could be an increased conscientiousness on the part of officers in what otherwise may have become deadly altercations.
“We’ve seen the power of protesting in reshaping the public consciousness,” said Howard Henderson, the director of the Center for Justice Research at Texas Southern University. “We’ve been able to see the role of protesting and making sure that the policymakers recognize the concerns of the constituents.”
In Orlando, where the department has been working to change community policing, there were five fatal police shootings in 2020. In 2021, there was one. The numbers, though small, are significant, the department says, in highlighting the impact of efforts made to address community criticisms of police and reduce violence.
“The Orlando Police Department is dedicated to protecting our residents, visitors, and businesses,” an OPD spokesperson said in a statement about the drop in fatal police shootings and the efforts to improve policing. OPD has averaged 3.3 fatal shootings a year since 2015, the data shows.
“We are fully committed to listening to our community’s concerns and to engaging in conversations that will yield a path to positive and long-lasting relationships with our community members,” the statement read.
Tools for change
OPD’s Community Response Team launched in March 2021, but it has already answered 827 calls, assisted 815 people, and helped more than 300 of them access mental health treatment, according to Capt. Lovetta Quinn-Henry, who oversees the program.
Black men, Quinn-Henry said, make up the largest demographic of users.
“I’m just super proud that our agency has taken the first step to be one of the leading agencies to look at an alternative response to police for individuals in a mental health crisis,” Quinn-Henry said.
With these calls, she says responders focus on de-escalating situations, helping people in distress and connecting them with their needed treatment, support and resources.
This effort has reduced referrals to the criminal justice system for distressed individuals, decreased potential for violent interactions and lessens the burden of work on law enforcement officers, Quinn-Henry said.
Some of the seemingly minor mental health-related calls that this team responds to have the potential to escalate into police shootings when law enforcement is involved.
“We really weren’t servicing the individual [before],” Quinn-Henry added. “Having this alternative response gives us a little bit more opportunity to connect them to services. So, now the officers aren’t having those repeat calls. And we get them at the initial crisis level and prevent them from getting to that very acute aggressive level.”
This idea isn’t completely new: This kind of model has effectively been implemented in Oregon, Colorado, Washington and more.
Another initiative replicated across the country is OPD’s citizen review board.
Orlando, like many other cities, established a citizen review board — an independent citizen-run oversight committee — about 10 years ago, to address concerns with local policing.
But board member Tom Keen said that after Floyd’s death and the movement against police use-of-force that followed, CRB meetings went from having just a few participants to having dozens. Community engagement increased dramatically, Keen said, offering citizens and police more insight into civilian relations with the police.
“We can’t take our eye off the ball,” Keen said. “We have to stay focused on making sure that our police department is well-trained and that they are serving the community and that’s one of the jobs of the board.”
Some community members have said they wish the board had more say in the investigative and punitive efforts in cases of abuse of power and use of force, but for now, Keen said, the board has been a valuable venue for citizens to speak directly with law enforcement to voice and plan a way to address concerns.
“We’re one of many voices for change and we’ve been fortunate that we’ve had very good leadership with both the mayor and with our current police chief,” Keen said.
OPD is also implementing a Response to Resistance policy that outlines a new use-of-force framework that is intended to mitigate the potential for excessive force. A recent independent review of the department by the police accountability research organization The Bowman Group is helping the agency fix its “very weak policy system,” according to OPD.
The power of protest
Millions have taken to the streets around the world since Floyd’s murder by former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin.
“I think people are conscientious over what looks like a disconnect between the police and, particularly, communities of color,” said James E. Wright II, an assistant professor at Florida State University.
“Police officers are more conscientious of their actions now,” he added. “They understand they don’t want to end up on the six o’clock news. If they’re conscientious of this behavior, they’re also conscientious of when they’re negligent.”
ABC News contributor and former NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said that the protests are likely to have had a large impact on how officers engage with and police communities.
“What happens across the country, due to the 24-hour news cycle, affects everywhere in the country,” Boyce said in an interview. “If we had strong federal leadership on this, we would be able to have national standards in law enforcement where you wouldn’t have these [abuse of force] behaviors.”
Local leaders have also started to answer the demands of the public in several ways, according to Henderson.
Since Floyd’s death in May 2020, at least 3,428 state bills or executive actions on policing have been introduced, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks state-based law enforcement legislation.
There has also been a rise in protocol changes that reduce the potential for confrontation or incarceration, like ending the enforcement of minor traffic violations or decriminalizing marijuana.
And there has also been a push to implement alternative policing units, civilian review boards, and beef up use-of-force and de-escalation training.
However, some researchers say a single-year push for reform and a drop in shootings isn’t enough to signal progress. Experts say the real test of how much impact these new tools are having remains to be seen in the years to come.
“Research shows that since 1980, 17,000 killings by police have gone uncounted,” Henderson said, citing the University of Washington report. “In order to adequately deal with it, you’ve got to know the extent to which it exists.”
Secondly, he emphasized decreasing unnecessary interactions between the police and the community.
“There’s just way too much interaction that we don’t necessarily need to have being responded to by police officers,” he said.
Lastly, Henderson also said the “qualified immunity” of police officers may also be a sticking point in the path against reducing police use-of-force. Qualified immunity means that officers are protected from many civil lawsuits for their conduct while on duty if it “does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known,” according to the FBI.
The recent efforts and the progress being made can’t be ignored though, Wright said.
“Moving forward, [the trend] will hold up if people continue to put political pressure on their local officials as well as their local leaders to hold not just police officers, but public servants, accountable,” Wright said.
(NEW YORK) — An open door to an apartment unit where a space heater caught fire allowed the smoke to spread throughout all floors of a 19-story building in New York City on Sunday, Mayor Eric Adams told ABC News.
At least 17 people, including eight children, have died from the incident and more than 60 others were injured, according to the New York City Fire Department. All 17 victims died of accidental smoke inhalation, the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner ruled Tuesday.
The city passed a law in 2018 mandating self-closing doors in all apartment buildings. It’s unclear whether those were operating properly at 333 East 181st St., located in the Tremont section of the Bronx. The high-rise was built as affordable housing in 1972 and has 120 units, according to city records.
“It appears the ability to have the smoke spread is due to the door being open,” Adams told ABC News in an interview Monday on “Good Morning America.” “There may have been a maintenance issue with this door and that is going to be part of the ongoing investigation.”
So far, investigators believe the building met all other standards for fire safety. There were a couple violations documented over the last few years but no outstanding issues, according to the mayor.
“This is all going to come out during the investigation,” he added. “This is really early in the investigation.”
The flames ignited Sunday morning before 11 a.m. ET, due to a malfunctioning electric space heater in a bedroom of a duplex apartment on the third floor. In less than three hours, smoke enveloped all 19 floors. The building’s smoke alarms were operable at the time of the blaze, according to the New York City Fire Department.
More than 200 firefighters rushed to the scene of the five-alarm fire, smashing windows to rescue trapped residents. The mayor described the incident as “horrific” but praised the firefighters as heroes.
“Many of them, of their oxygen tanks were on empty,” Adams told ABC News. “But instead of turning back and exiting the building, they pushed through, through the smoke.”
Many of the injured were located on the upper floors and likely suffered from severe smoke inhalation. Approximately 13 people are in Bronx hospitals with life-threatening injuries, according to the New York City Fire Department.
The New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner has released the identities of the deceased victims, with the youngest being just 2 years old. Many of them were from the same families and had similar names, while none were carrying identification, the medical examiner’s office said.
The victims were identified as Sera Janneh, 27; Seydou Toure, 12; Haouwa Mahamadou, 5; Haji Dukary, 49; Haja Dukureh, 37; Mustapha Dukureh, 12; Mariam Dukureh, 11; Fatoumata Dukureh, 5; Fatoumata Drammeh, 5; Foutmala Drammeh, 21; Muhammed Drammeh, 12; Nyumaaisha Drammeh, 19; Omar Jambang, 6; and Fatoumata Tunkara, 43; Isatou Jabbie, 31; Hagi Jawara, 47; Ousmane Konteh, 2.
The New York City Fire Department previously reported that 19 people, including nine children, had died from the blaze, but the death toll was revised Monday due to a miscount.
All residents in need of a place to stay have been provided temporary shelter. They will later be moved into permanent housing as the building undergoes repairs, according to Adams.
“One thing about New York City, unfortunately, is that we are capable of dealing with crises,” he said. “We’ve dealt with so many of large proportion and we immediately kick in gear our coordinated efforts.”
The ongoing investigation into the deadly inferno is being led by the New York City Fire Department’s marshals.
The Bronx Park Phase III Preservation LLC, the name of the joint venture that owns the building, said in a statement Sunday that it was “devastated” over the tragedy.
“We are devastated by the unimaginable loss of life caused by this profound tragedy,” the statement read. “We are cooperating fully with the Fire Department and other city agencies as they investigate its cause, and we are doing all we can to assist our residents. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those who lost their lives or were injured, and we are here to support them as we recover from this horrific fire.”
Sunday’s blaze was the deadliest to occur in New York City in three decades. A total of 73 people died in fires citywide in all of 2021.
ABC News’ Joshua Hoyos, Julia Jacobo, Aaron Katersky and Ileana Riveros contributed to this report.
Break out the pom-poms! Season two of Cheer arrives on Netflix today, two years after season one took the country by storm, with the COVID-19 pandemic, along with a serious criminal accusation leveled against one of the Navarro College teammates threatening to upend the 2020 cheer season.
After season one made cheerleader Jerry Harris a star, he was charged with multiple counts of child sex abuse and pornography. Cheer creator and director Greg Whiteley tells ABC Audio season two will devote an entire episode to the allegations.
“The moment Jerry is arrested and there is a ripple effect and the team can think of nothing else. A lot of this is happening while we are dark as a film crew because of the pandemic,” he explains.
“We’re seeing the aftermath of all of it, and that whole storyline cast a very long shadow on this particular team…something [they’re] continuing to wrestle with and grapple with,” Whiteley adds.
Season two starts in early 2020, with the next big competition scheduled for April, after the team has “spent hours and hours and hours, each day…preparing for this competition.”
“And as they’re getting closer to [the pandemic], we are filming this drama in real time. And they get the news that in fact, Daytona was shut down.”
Season one made coach Monica Aldama and her Navarro College cheer team super famous, something Whiteley admits none of them could’ve predicted, and that brings up some questions as we start season two.
“Are they still able to put in the very rigorous preparation that’s necessary to be ready for Daytona? How do other teammates feel about certain teammates of theirs that are becoming famous and they’re not quite as famous?” he tells ABC Audio. “And all that was interesting to us.”
Lee Brice‘s latest single “Soul” finds him experimenting with a pop-leaning sound, and he admits he was a bit hesitant to release it.
“It’s funny, I was worried a little bit. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to put it out as a single because I don’t know if my country music listeners are going to dive into it,'” he explains of his mindset about the catchy tune that boasts steamy lyrics like “Your body’s got me weak/You’re Mozart in the sheets/You make a sinner out of me/Imma need a priest.”
Despite his hesitancy, Lee took the leap of faith and released the single to country radio. It’s clear his instincts were correct, as he got approval from an unlikely source – his Uncle Al, who lives in a small rural town in South Carolina.
“I get a call from my Uncle Al from New Zion, South Carolina, ‘hey Lee, it’s your Uncle Al.’ I’m like, ‘Well hey Uncle Al,’ [he] never call me for anything ever in his whole life. ‘Man, I heard ‘Soul’…I’m telling you right now…it’s going to be your bad, biggest number one bud,'” the singer recalls of his uncle’s positive reaction. “I’m like, well, if he’s into it, I think I’m OK with the country music listeners.'”
“Soul” follows Lee’s latest #1 hit, “Memory I Don’t Mess With,” which topped the charts in 2021.
The Topps trading card company has just announced plans for a new collection of cards focusing on the life and career of the “King of Rock and Roll,” the late Elvis Presley.
The first three cards in the collection were released on Tuesday, January 11, and three new cards will be issued every week on Tuesday throughout 2022 until the entire 150-card series is available.
Each card will share details about a historic moment, highlight, or achievement in Presley’s life.
The first three cards will be available for purchase until January 18 — individually for $9.99 or in a three-card bundle priced at $24.99. The cards include a photo of Elvis as a toddler with his parents, a pic of Presley as a child and a school photo taken when he was 13.
Visit Topps.com for more details about the “Elvis Presley: The King of Rock and Roll” card collection.
Ludacris is continuing his quest to become a master chef, as second two of Luda Can’t Cook will debut February 15 on Discovery+.
“I put 100% into everything I do, including learning how to cook, and exploring different cuisines from across the globe with world-renowned chefs has been incredible,” the Fast & Furious star says in a statement. “I’m excited for viewers to experience Haitian, Korean and Cuban food with me — and see how I put my own style into each dish.”
In each of the one-hour episodes, the rapper/actor immerses himself in a specific type of cuisine guided by an expert.
In the first episode, the 44-year-old entertainer visits Little Haiti in Miami to learn the fundamentals of Haitian cuisine from Haitian-born chef Alain Lemaire. Then he throws a block party featuring a three-course tasting menu for guests, including Chef Gregory Gourdet.
In the next episode, Ludacris teams up with Chef Seung Hee Lee in Atlanta to learn about Korean food, and then prepares a three-course meal for Chef Edward Lee and comedian Lil Duval.
Finally, the three-time Grammy winner travels to the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami to master Cuban cuisine with Chef Michael Beltran. Timbaland drops by to taste his food, and best-selling author and restaurateur Chef Lorena Garcia critiques Luda’s three course menu.
Judas Priest is preparing to relaunch their 50 Heavy Metal Years tour in March, and the legendary British rockers have now revealed that they’re planning to perform as a quartet rather than a five-piece outfit moving forward.
In a new Facebook message, the band says, “We are chomping at the British Steel bit to return to World touring…celebrating 50 Years of Judas Priest as an even more powerful, relentless four piece Heavy Metal band.”
In 2018, longtime Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton announced that he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and would no longer be able to tour regularly with the group. The band’s recent co-producer Andy Sneap was then tapped to take Tipton’s place on the road, although Glenn has frequently made guest appearances at select concerts.
Now, Sneap is stepping away from the Judas Priest touring lineup, although the band notes that Tipton will be “coming out on stage with us here and there as before.”
In the Facebook post, Priest thanks Sneap “for all you’ve done and continuing to be in the production team for our new album.”
As previously reported, Judas Priest was forced to postpone most of its 2021 North American tour dates after guitarist Richie Faulkner suffered an aortic aneurysm onstage during the band’s set at the Louder than Life festival in Kentucky in September.
Thankfully, Faulkner announced in November that his recovery was going well, and he’s expected to be back out with the band when the tour kicks off March 4 in Peoria, Illinois.
You can check out the band’s full itinerary at JudasPriest.com.
Twenty One Pilots would’ve probably liked an extra 21 degrees during their first concert of 2022.
The “Stressed Out” duo took the stage in Indianapolis for the outdoor show this past weekend, where temperatures dropped to below-freezing levels. In a newly released recap video of the show, we see Tyler Joseph prepare for the cold by trying on one of his signature ski masks.
Drummer Josh Dun, however, was undeterred by the cold, and still took off his shirt for the performance.
“The first show of 2022 was outside in the 20 [degree] chill of Indianapolis,” reads the recap video’s caption. “Wasn’t cold enough to keep Josh’s shirt on his back, though.”
Ironically, the Indianapolis show was not part of Twenty One Pilots’ upcoming Icy tour, named after their 2021 album, Scaled and Icy. The Icy tour is set to kick off August 18 in Minneapolis, when it will — hopefully — be much warmer.
the first show of 2022 was outside in the 20° chill of indianapolis. wasn’t cold enough to keep josh’s shirt on his back, though. pic.twitter.com/NajOxol0wG
