October is close enough to December that the avalanche of Christmas music is already starting. Kelly Clarkson‘s new holiday album …When Christmas Comes Around is out today, while former Journey frontman Steve Perry has released a new track from his album The Season, due out in early November.
Kelly’s album features duets with country stars Chris Stapleton and Brett Eldredge, but fans were probably most excited about the fact that she’s also singing with her fellow The Voice coach, Ariana Grande, on a song called “Santa Can’t You Hear Me.” Kelly and Ariana trade verses on the track, which is about telling Santa that you don’t want material things — you only want what’s under the mistletoe, i.e., love.
“thank you so much @kellyclarkson for inviting me to be a part,” Ariana tweeted.
Meanwhile, Steve Perry has released his take on “Winter Wonderland,” which is a very different arrangement than the one we’re all used to. “’Winter Wonderland’ is one of my favorite tracks on The Season,” he says in a statement. “I have always felt a close love for Motown’s music and how it shaped my early school years. This track is a homage to that.”
The Season, featuring eight tracks in all, arrives November 5. It’s the follow up to 2018’s Traces, which marked the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s return to music after 24 years.
Clueless star Stacey Dash opened up about her battle with addiction during Thursday’s episode of TheDr. Oz Show.
Dash revealed that her parents were both drug addicts and that she first tried drugs when she was eight years old, according to E! Online. Additionally, says Dash, her parents supplied her with her first line of cocaine when she was 16.
She later told Oz that she relapsed after being 20 years sober when she was prescribed Vicodin to help with her painful fibroid cysts.
At one point, Dash admits to “taking 18 to 20 pills a day,” adding she “lost everything.” When Oz asked how much money she had spent on drugs each month, Dash guessed about $5,000 to $10,000.
“I almost died,” recalls Stacey. “That’s what stopped me. My kidneys were so infected that my blood was septic, and my organs were shutting down. So, I got rushed to the hospital and I had to have a full blood transfusion and I was in there for three weeks. And by the grace and mercy of god, I lived.”
However, after leaving the hospital, Dash says she continued to abuse drugs. After once again contemplating suicide, she says, “I called my sister and I told her ‘Come over right now.’ And then I called my attorney and I said, ‘I need help.'”
Dash, now five years sober, hopes that by sharing her story, she can help those battling with addiction.
“I feel like telling my story — letting people know that there is no shame in being an addict,” she said, “And for people who are not addicts, I would ask them to please look at people with more compassion and empathy… They need help. They can’t do it on their own.”
Radiohead‘s Jonny Greenwood has released the first preview of his score for the upcoming Princess Diana film, Spencer.
The orchestral piece is titled “Crucifix,” and you can download it now via digital outlets. The whole soundtrack is set to be released November 12.
Spencer, which stars Kristen Stewart as the beloved Princess of Wales, will premiere in theaters a week earlier on November 5.
Greenwood has composed music for several films before, and is known for his work in collaboration with director Paul Thomas Anderson on projects including There Will Be Blood, The Master, Inherent Vice and Phantom Thread. His scoring work has been nominated for the Oscars, Golden Globes and Grammys.
With representatives from the massive Hollywood union the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and those from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers still at the bargaining table, things are tense in Tinseltown.
The showbiz union, representing tens of thousands of behind-the-scenes workers, says its workers will gp on strike Monday, hitting the picket lines at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time if the union’s needs aren’t met.
The strike would spell a massive shutdown of countless productions in Hollywood and elsewhere.
Last week, IATSE’s membershiip authorized its first nationwide strike in its 128-year history, but both sides continue to negotiate.
Union members say they’re seeking adequate compensation and safe working conditions in an industry that pushes work days far longer than most realize. The boon in production from streaming services has compounded the overwork problem, union members say.
“Assume there will be a strike and hope there isn’t,” Deadline says a representative told members of one of the IATSE’s groups, Local 800, at a virtual town hall Thursday.
Another source told the trade the odds are “about 50-50” whether the union will strike or not, “but that could change quickly either way…”
IATSE’s “most grievous problems” with producers and studios include: “excessively unsafe and harmful working hours; unlivable wages for the lowest paid crafts; consistent failure to provide reasonable rest during meal breaks, between workdays, and on weekends,” and its assertion that, “workers on certain ‘new media’ streaming projects get paid less, even on productions with budgets that rival or exceed those of traditionally released blockbusters.”
(NEW YORK) — Holiday travel may be more chaotic this year, experts warn, as looming vaccination deadlines threaten airline and airport staffing.
Forty percent of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workforce hasn’t received a single dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the agency said Thursday, and they only have until Nov. 22 to get fully vaccinated.
“Even if they get half of that done by Thanksgiving, that leaves 20% not available to work,” aviation expert Henry Harteveldt told ABC News. “Something’s going to have to give. I’m really worried.”
TSA said it is currently developing contingency plans, but anticipates “that the vast majority of TSA employees will get vaccinated.”
Several major U.S. airlines are also grappling with the fast-approaching vaccine requirement deadlines.
American Airlines and Jet Blue are requiring U.S.-based workers to provide proof of vaccination the day before Thanksgiving.
“This is happening at perhaps the most difficult time ever,” spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association Capt. Dennis Tajer said. “We have a very high volume of flying and it’s created a lot of uncertainty about the holiday travel period. Now you have some unknown quantity of pilots that that may go away and go through termination.”
Out of the 14,000 American pilots Tajer’s union represents, 4,000 pilots remain unvaccinated.
“We’ve heard about all the staffing issues that happen,” Tajer said. “It’s not just on the flight deck in the cockpit, it’s happening throughout corporations everywhere.”
Southwest’s operational meltdown last weekend served as a potential warning of what’s to come this winter.
Tens of thousands of passengers were stranded at U.S. airports due to the more than 2,000 flight cancelled within three days.
The airline blamed the multi-day mess on air traffic control issues, bad weather and “other external constraints.”
On Thursday, Southwest said it’s going to hire more than 5,000 employees by the end of the year to mitigate future issues and has 50% of the goal met.
With airlines booking their flights to 100% capacity, experts are concerned there is no wiggle room left in the system to recover if a major airline melts down during the busy travel season.
“The chaos that is the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday travel season will be even more chaotic this year,” Harteveldt said.
He recommends traveling on off-peak days and to book on the airline that has the most flights to your destination, even if that’s not the airline you normally fly.
“Take the earliest possible departure in the morning that you can, because it gives you more leeway if something goes wrong,” he added.
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.
