Wednesday, December 15, marked the 30th anniversary of Green Day‘s sophomore album, Kerplunk! In celebration of the milestone, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong shared a series of photos from the Kerplunk! days, as well as a retrospective essay written by Larry Livermore, co-founder of the punk label Lookout Records, which first released the album.
The photos, which Armstrong shared in an Instagram post, is about par for the course for what you might expect from the then-teenage punk trio in 1991, including a shot of Billie smoking a makeshift bong.
The essay, meanwhile, finds Livermore reflecting on Kerplunk!‘s unusual week-before-Christmas release date, and recalling how his “idiotically large” order of 10,000 copies sold out in a single day. Livermore also wrote about his inspiration for the infamous “Laurie L” character, whose letter declaring she’d killed her parents so they couldn’t stop her from touring with Green Day.
Mostly, though, the essay paints the picture of a band on the precipice of becoming world rock stars.
“People typically assume Dookie, which came out in 1994, was Green Day’s breakthrough, but it was with Kerplunk!, more than two years earlier, that the band reached escape velocity,” Livermore wrote. “We who had known them since the beginning could only watch in awe as they headed for the stars.”
And just like that, Chris Noth‘s much-hyped Peloton ad has been pulled.
The fitness company has dropped its brand-new spot starring the Sex and the City star — and scrubbed it from YouTube — after Wednesday’s Hollywood Reporter article in which two women accused the actor of sexual assault.
“Every single sexual assault accusation must be taken seriously. We were unaware of these allegations when we featured Chris Noth in our response to HBO’s reboot,” a Peloton spokesperson said in a statement provided to ABC News. “As we seek to learn more, we have stopped promoting this video and archived related social posts.”
The two women — one now 40, and another, now 31 — claimed Noth forced himself on them in two separate incidents: one in Los Angeles in 2004 and the other in New York in 2015.
Noth flatly denied the claims. “The encounters were consensual,” he said in a statement. “The accusations against me made by individuals I met years, even decades, ago, are categorically false.”
The Peloton ad poked fun at Noth’s character’s death on last Sunday’s episode of HBO Max’s …And Just Like That: his character Mr. Big, who suffered from heart problems, collapsed and later died after working out on a Peloton bike. The ad showed he’s alive and well.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration has blacklisted and sanctioned dozens of Chinese government research institutes and private-sector tech firms, accusing them of weaponizing technology for use at home and abroad, the U.S. departments of Commerce and Treasury announced Thursday.
In particular, the U.S. warned that these entities were working as part of a broader Chinese government strategy to develop and deploy biotechnology, including “brain-control weaponry,” for possible offensive use and as part of its crackdown on Uighurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities — a campaign that the U.S. has determined constitutes genocide.
The penalties seek to bar U.S. technology from being exported to these projects or block their access to the U.S. financial system.
“The scientific pursuit of biotechnology and medical innovation can save lives. Unfortunately, the PRC is choosing to use these technologies to pursue control over its people and its repression of members of ethnic and religious minority groups,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, using an acronym for China’s formal name, the People’s Republic of China.
“We cannot allow U.S. commodities, technologies, and software that support medical science and biotechnical innovation to be diverted toward uses contrary to U.S. national security,” she added in a statement.
In total, 12 Chinese research institutes and 22 Chinese tech firms have been blacklisted by her agency and barred from any exports or transfers of U.S. technology, except in limited cases with a license. Chief among them is China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and its 11 research institutes.
Taken together, they “use biotechnology processes to support Chinese military end uses and end users, to include purported brain-control weaponry,” the Commerce Department said in its public notice Thursday.
It’s unclear what kind of weaponry might already exist, but Chinese military leaders have talked for years about biotechnology as creating new “offensive capability,” including “brain control” weapons and “specific ethnic genetic attacks.”
“China’s research focus on these technologies is not unique. What is unique is their declared intent to weaponize their inventions,” said retired Lt. Col. Stephen Ganyard, the former top U.S. diplomat for military affairs.
These inventions could include “the stuff of science fiction, such as brain-controlled weaponry” that would allow “a Chinese commando to discharge a weapon with just a thought, not a trigger finger,” according to Craig Singleton, a former U.S. diplomat who is now an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank.
That could give China military and intelligence advances over the U.S., per Singleton, although it’s unclear if the Pentagon is developing similar weapons programs.
“Some of these technologies may not be easily contained and could have disastrous second- and third-order consequences on civilian populations. China’s seeking to weaponize advanced technologies is putting the whole world at risk of unforeseen and uncontainable consequences,” added Ganyard, an ABC News contributor.
For now, it seems China has focused their alleged use against domestic targets, including the Uighurs in the country’s westernmost province, known formally as Xinjiang.
“Private firms in China’s defense and surveillance technology sectors are actively cooperating with the government’s efforts to repress members of ethnic and religious minority groups,” said Brian Nelson, the senior Treasury Department official for terrorism and financial intelligence.
The Treasury Department designated eight more private firms, cutting them off from the U.S. financial system and threatening sanctions on those that do business with them, for reportedly working with Xinjiang authorities.
That includes developing facial recognition software, cloud computing, drones, and GPS technology, among other artificial intelligence tools.
“One such AI software could recognize persons as being part of the Uyghur ethnic minority and send automated alarms to government authorities,” according to the Treasury, while another firm helped “develop a transcription and translation tool for the Uyghur language to enable authorities to scan electronic devices.”
It’s estimated between one and nearly two million Uighurs and other minorities, like Kazakhs, have been detained in mass “re-education” camps where they are used as forced labor and are taught Chinese Communist Party propaganda.
In addition, independent researchers, Uighur activists, and the U.S. government have accused China of a mass sterilization campaign to sink Uighur birth rates, which have declined precipitously in recent years.
While the majority of the blacklisted firms were designated because of their ties to China’s so-called “civilian-military fusion strategy,” where civilian fields like medicine and biotechnology are allegedly weaponized to support the military, a handful were also designated for exporting sensitive technology to Iran.
That strategy has alarmed U.S. officials in recent years, starting with the Trump administration, which launched a robust all-of-government effort to stymie it. That included deploying this Commerce Department blacklist repeatedly to ban U.S. exports to Chinese firms that the People’s Liberation Army could then access.
The Biden administration has carried that policy on and expanded it — announcing last week during Biden’s Summit for Democracy a small group of countries committed to blocking similar technology exports to China, including the United Kingdom, France, and Australia.
Gwen Stefani is helping to ring in the holidays with her brand-new series on Facebook Watch, Live from the Orange Grove, where she will serenade fans with performances from her biggest holiday hits.
The No Doubt frontwoman unveiled her upcoming project on Thursday and shared a brief teaser of what fans can expect from the live concert series.
“Introducing a special series, #LiveFromTheOrangeGrove watch me perform four of my fave tracks from #YouMakeItFeelLikeChristmas,” Gwen announced. “First up: ‘My Gift Is You.'”
She urged fans to “stay tuned for the rest” as more episodes arrive because “there may be a special guest coming.”
You can watch the first episode of Live from the Orange Grove now on Facebook Watch, which features Gwen decked out in her Christmas best as she belts out her 2017 holiday hit while accompanied by her band. As an added bonus, the short now serves as the official music video for “My Gift Is You.”
Eric Clapton has won a court case he brought against a 55-year-old German woman who put up for sale on eBay a CD featuring a bootlegged performance of a concert Clapton played in the U.S. during the 1980s.
German news website DW.com reports that a regional court in Dusseldorf sided with Clapton in issuing an injunction stopping the woman from selling the disc after Eric sent an affidavit that said the recordings were illegal.
According to the German newspaper Bild, the woman, who was identified only as Gabrielle P., was ordered to pay legal fees of 3,400 euros, or about $3,850 U.S.
The woman, who was selling the CD for 9.95 euros — about $11.30 — claimed that she had inherited the disc from her late husband, recalling that he told her he’d purchased it at a well-known department store, and that she didn’t realize the disc was bootlegged.
The court ruled that it didn’t matter that the defendant was unaware of the status of the CD. Bild also reports that if the woman continues to try to sell the disc on eBay, she could face a fine of 250,000 euros — about $283,000 — or six months in prison.
ABC Audio has confirmed that fan favorite Sam Waterston will be back as Jack McCoy on NBC’s revival of the original Law & Order.
The actor, who earned six Emmy nominations for playing the dogged district attorney on Dick Wolf’s series, will be back in action when the series returns for its 21st season on Thursday, Feb. 24 at 8 p.m. ET. The revival will be part of a crossover event with spin-offs Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime.
Waterston joined the long-running legal drama in its fifth season and stayed on until season 20, when NBC pulled the plug.
NBC has previously announced that black-ish star Anthony Anderson will also return, reprising as NYPD Det. Kevin Bernard. The series has also cast Burn Notice‘s Jeffrey Donovan and Camryn Manheim, late of ABC’s The Practice.
(ATLANTA) — The CDC’s advisory committee recommended Thursday that people who have a choice should get an mRNA vaccine, either Pfizer or Moderna, over the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine after a review of new CDC data on rare blood clots linked to J&J.
The rare blood clots are not a new safety concern, and the J&J vaccine has already become far less common in the U.S. after it was given an FDA warning label about the clotting condition. But more data that confirmed a slightly higher rate of clotting cases and deaths than was previously reported caused the CDC and FDA to take another look at the data this week.
The CDC has now confirmed a total of at least 54 cases and nine deaths from the severe clotting event, which is called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia or TSS, out of the 17 million people who have gotten the J&J vaccine in the US.
Though it’s very rare, the data led CDC experts to favor mRNA vaccines by comparison, particularly because there are so many mRNA vaccines available in the US and people are less likely to be limited.
There could also be more cases and deaths, because TSS is under-diagnosed and could be underreported, the CDC said.
The clotting is more common among women in their 30s and 40s but has also been seen in adult men and women of all ages.
The experts were very clear, however, that the J&J vaccine should not be taken off the shelves and is still far more beneficial than not getting any vaccine at all.
In certain parts of the U.S., particularly among prison populations, people dealing with homelessness, or rural parts of the country, the J&J vaccine is most common. And outside of the U.S., J&J has played a huge role in vaccinating populations in low-income countries — a growing priority as it becomes clear that variants will continue to emerge until vaccination is widespread around the globe.
“In the setting where there are no alternative COVID-19 vaccines, the benefits of the J&J vaccine outweigh the risk. This is important in global situations where there may not be other COVID vaccines available,” CDC’s Dr. Sara Oliver said in a presentation to the committee on the cost-benefit analysis of J&J vaccines.
With the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, though, the protection against COVID was considered better and the side effects less severe, the CDC analysis found.
“Due to both higher vaccine effectiveness of the mRNA vaccines and the severity of safety issues seen with J&J vaccines, in the setting of widely available mRNA vaccines in the U.S., the benefit-risk balance of the mRNA vaccines is more favorable than for the Janssen vaccine,” she said.
There was also discussion about the recovery from TSS, which often leads to brain bleeding and can be a harder recovery than myocarditis, the heart inflammation condition linked to the mRNA vaccines that is also a rare safety concern.
“It’s important to note that there are differences in the severity of these vaccine associated events. In myocarditis after mRNA COVID-19 vaccines … at a three-month follow up, over half reported no symptoms and over 90% were fully recovered by cardiologist or health care provider, and there have been no confirmed deaths,” Oliver said.
“For TTS after the Janssen COVID vaccines, there’s around a 15% mortality rate and 17% required discharge to a post-acute care rehabilitation facility,” she said.
The experts on the committee were largely in agreement with the recommendation, supporting a push toward Pfizer or Moderna over J&J when available but continuing to offer J&J as opposed to no vaccination.
“I recognize the drawbacks of the Janssen vaccine. However, I look at this as an issue of the trolley problem in ethics, where you’re driving the trolley and you have to decide whether you’re going to go down one track and have one person die or go down a different track and have 10 people die,” said Dr. Jamie Loehr, a doctor in Ithaca, New York.
“If we take away the Jansen vaccine, and people … cannot get the mRNA vaccine, we have all these complications from getting COVID disease. And so even though there are significant risks to the vaccine, if it’s the only one that is an option, I want it to be available,” he said.
Dr. Beth Bell, a professor of public health at the University of Washington, said she thought the “preferential recommendation” would make it very clear that experts were concerned about the side effects but wanted to maintain individual choice.
“I would not recommend the Janssen to my family members. On the other hand, I think we do have to recognize that different people make different choices and if they are appropriately informed, I don’t think we should remove that option,” she said.
Some were more determined to avoid it, however.
“I just have a real problem with a recommendation for anyone to give a vaccine that 1 per 100,000 women ages 30-49 years old will have a condition with a case fatality rate of 15%,” said Dr. Pablo Sanchez, a pediatrician at The Ohio State University Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
“And so I really have a problem. I’m not recommending it to any of my patients’ parents and I tell them to stay away from it,” Sanchez told the committee.
For its part, J&J said it remained very confident in the positive impact of its vaccine, particularly in low-income countries.
“Let me just state at the outset that based on the data we are confident in the positive benefit-risk profile of our vaccine. It is saving lives here in the U.S. today and on every continent around the globe,” Dr. Penny Heaton, global head of vaccines for J&J, said at the meeting.
“Our vaccine is different, it’s long lasting, it offers high levels of protection and it provides breadth of protection. Our vaccine has flexible dosing, it’s easy to store and transport. In many low- and middle-income countries, our vaccine is the most important and sometimes the only option, even in the U.S.,” Heaton said.
After ribbing Justin Bieber over his partnership with Tim Hortons, Michael Bublé finally decided to see what the hype was all about.
The Grammy-winning Canadian crooner shared a hilarious video on Thursday and shows him taking an eco-friendly ride on his scooter to the local Tim Hortons and ordering some of Justin’s Timbiebs — a.k.a. the chain’s Bieber-themed version of the donut holes that they call Timbits.
“Now that I’m home in Vancouver for the holidays, there’s something I have to do,” Michael says dramatically at the start of the video while zipping up his puffer jacket. After scooting off to Canada’s beloved coffee chain and ordering a “big box of Timbiebs,” he sits down on the sidewalk to feast.
He also is comically singing Justin’s “Holy” as he reaches into the box and takes a bite, only to exaggeratedly belt out the “Good God!” part, as if to convey he finds the treat absolutely delicious. He continues to sing-talk incoherently as he chews before breaking down into a fit of giggles.
“Beliebe the hype,” Michael captioned the video.
Justin’s Timbiebs are available to purchase now through December 28 at Tim Hortons and come in the limited-edition flavors of chocolate white fudge, sour cream chocolate chip and birthday cake waffle.
Måneskin, Blink-182‘s Travis Barker, Avril Lavigne and AJR will be ringing in 2022 on the West Coast.
All four artists are performing during the LA Party segment of the Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2022 special on ABC.
Måneskin will be playing their viral cover of The Four Seasons‘ “Beggin’,” as well as their latest single, “MAMMAMIA.” Barker will join Lavigne for renditions of her new tune “Bite Me” and her classic “Sk8ter Boi,” while AJR will perform their hit “Bang!” and their collaborative song with Daisy the Great, “Record Player.”
The Rockin’ gets to startin’ December 31 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
Nash and Taylor, both of whom were romantically involved with Mitchell back in the day, are among a variety of artists who’ll pay tribute to Joni at the event by performing her classic songs.
The bill also includes Herbie Hancock, Brandi Carlile, Jon Batiste, Leon Bridges, country star Mickey Guyton, Pentatonix, singer/songwriter Maggie Rogers and Black Pumas.
“We are crafting a once-in-a-lifetime evening in honor of Joni,” says MusiCares executive director Laura Segura. “I thank each of these artists for lending their talents to celebrate Joni and her impact on the music community.”
Carlile and Batiste also will serve as the evening’s artistic directors. Earlier this month, Carlile and Hancock were tapped to pay tribute to Mitchell at the 2021 Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C.
Hancock’s album of Mitchell covers, River: The Joni Letters, was named Album of the Year at the 2008 Grammy Awards.
In addition to the tribute concert, the MusiCares Person of the Year gala features a dinner and a silent auction offering VIP experiences, celebrity memorabilia and more. The event benefits the MusiCares Foundation, which provides medical, financial and personal assistance to in-need members of the music community.
