(LOS ANGELES) — A Boeing 747 pilot near Los Angeles reported Wednesday night another “possible jet pack man in sight.” It’s the latest in a string of mysterious jet pack sightings near the City of Angels since last year.
“A Boeing 747 pilot reported seeing an object that might have resembled a jet pack 15 miles east of LAX at 5,000 feet altitude around 6:12 p.m. Wednesday,” a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration told ABC News. “Out of an abundance of caution, air traffic controllers alerted other pilots in the vicinity.”
Air traffic controllers could be heard directing pilots in the area to “use caution towards the jet pack.” The FAA spokesperson said there were no “unusual objects” that had appeared on the radar around LAX around that time on Wednesday.
“We were looking but we did not see Iron Man,” one person said on the air traffic recording.
The supposed jet pack sighting follows several others dating back to early 2020. In December 2020, a Southern California pilot captured a video of what appeared to be a person with a jet pack flying off the Palos Verdes Peninsula at around 3,000 feet.
Another sighting was reported in August 2020, after two different commercial airline pilots reported seeing a man in a jet pack hovering near LAX, ABC News reported.
“Reports of unmanned aircraft sightings from pilots, law enforcement personnel and the general public have increased dramatically over the past two years,” the FAA said on its website.
The agency says it receives more than 100 such reports each month.
Unauthorized operators flying around airplanes, helicopters and airports is illegal and may be subject to fines and criminal charges, including jail time, the FAA Says. The FAA spokesperson said the agency works with the FBI to investigate these sightings.
“The FAA has worked closely with the FBI to investigate every possible jet pack sighting report,” said the spokesperson. “We have not been able to validate any of the reports.”
ABC News’ Alex Stone and Mina Kaji contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The New York Jets have announced rookie quarterback Zach Wilson has signed his rookie contract.
According to ESPN, Wilson signed a four-year, $35.15 million contract that is fully quaranteed. The contract includes a fifth-year team option.
Wilson has missed the first two days of the Jets training camp.
“Every rep is important, so my concern is that it’s two days too many for him,” head coach Saleh told reporters before the news of the contract. “As far as the installs go and the way we’re preparing the rest of the team, that doesn’t concern me. But this young man has a chance to do something special around here that hasn’t been done in a while and every rep matters for him.”
The Jets have only two other quarterbacks the roster with Mike White and James Morgan. Neither players have appeared in a regular season game.
When your shoes clash with your wine…ugh, so embarrassing, right? Well, Jon Bon Jovi is here to save you from that fashion faux pas.
As Wine Spectator reports, Hampton Water rosé, the acclaimed wine created by Jon Bon Jovi and his son, Jesse Bongiovi, is teaming with the Italian sportswear brand Superga to create Hampton Water-branded shoes. According to Jesse, he first encountered the Superga team at a wine event; they “hit it off,” he says, and that led to the idea for the footwear.
The limited edition “Superga x Hampton Water 2750 Cotu Classic 2021” is a canvas sneaker with a hand-painted Hampton Water logo. It also has the words “Hampton Water” stitched across the heels and comes with two colors of dip-dyed shoelaces — one in “rosé pink,” of course, and the other in “Mediterranean blue.”
Two hundred pairs are now available for pre-order, via Superga’s website for $99. The official release date is August 30, which means you won’t be able to spend Summer 2021 sipping Hampton Water in your Hampton Water sneakers. But there’s always 2022, and maybe Bon Jovi will be back on the road by then.
Previously, Hampton Water teamed with the high-end candy brand Sugarfina to sell a line of branded rosé-flavored gummies.
L-R: Brittany Daniel and Pooch Hall in 2006; Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Brittany Daniel and Pooch Hall, two of the original The Game stars, are coming back for the Paramount+ reboot.
The two have signed on to make special appearances on the ten-episode series, with Daniel to reprise her role as Kelly Pitts and Hall as Derwin Davis. New cast members include Adriyan Rae, Vaughn Hebron and Analisa Velez. As previously reported, the new series is set in Las Vegas and centers on a “modern-day examination of Black culture through the prism of pro football.” A release date for The Game has yet to be announced.
In other news, BET+ has given a greenlight to a six-episode revival of BET’s reality TV parody show Real Husbands of Hollywood, Deadline has learned. The limited series will include original series stars Kevin Hart, Boris Kodjoe, Duane Martin, JB Smoove, Nelly, Nick Cannon, Robin Thicke, Cynthia McWilliams and Jackie Long. Other celebrity guest stars have yet to be announced. Real Husbands of Hollywood is currently in production in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, DeWanda Wise has joined the upcoming Showtime series Three Women, Variety reports. Based on Lisa Taddeo‘s novel of the same name, the series follows three women on “a crash course to radically overturn their lives.” Wise will play Sloane, a “glamorous entrepreneur in a committed open marriage” that is threatened by two sexy new strangers.
Finally, Spotify is launching LOUD, a new investigative podcast focused on reggaeton. Hosted by Puerto Rican singer-rapper Ivy Queen, the new series will chronicle the history and evolution of the reggaeton movement as well as the artists that expanded the genre. Special guests include Nicky Jam,Raw Alejandro, Maluma and more. LOUD premieres Wednesday, August 4, with new episodes released every week.
L-R: Brittany Daniel and Pooch Hall in 2006; Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Brittnay Daniel and Pooch Hall, two of the original The Game stars, are coming back for the Paramount+ reboot.
The two have signed on to make special appearances on the ten-episode series, with Daniel to reprise her role as Kelly Pitts and Hall as Derwin Davis. New cast members include Adriyan Rae, Vaughn Hebron and Analisa Velez. As previously reported, the new series is set in Las Vegas and centers on a “modern-day examination of Black culture through the prism of pro football.” A release date for The Game has yet to be announced.
In other news, BET+ has given a greenlight to a six-episode revival of BET’s reality TV parody show Real Husbands of Hollywood, Deadline has learned. The limited series will include original series stars Kevin Hart, Boris Kodjoe, Duane Martin, JB Smoove, Nelly, Nick Cannon, Robin Thicke, Cynthia McWilliams and Jackie Long. Other celebrity guest stars have yet to be announced. Real Husbands of Hollywood is currently in production in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile, DeWanda Wise has joined the upcoming Showtime series Three Women, Variety reports. Based on Lisa Taddeo‘s novel of the same name, the series follows three women on “a crash course to radically overturn their lives.” Wise will play Sloane, a “glamorous entrepreneur in a committed open marriage” that is threatened by two sexy new strangers.
Finally, Spotify is launching LOUD, a new investigative podcast focused on reggaeton. Hosted by Puerto Rican singer-rapper Ivy Queen, the new series will chronicle the history and evolution of the reggaeton movement as well as the artists that expanded the genre. Special guests include Nicky Jam,Raw Alejandro, Maluma and more. LOUD premieres Wednesday, August 4, with new episodes released every week.
The upcoming archival Joni Mitchell compilation Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971) includes a full unreleased live performance Mitchell gave in March 1968 at Le Hibou Coffee House in Ottawa, Canada, that — amazingly — was recorded by Jimi Hendrix.
Hendrix had been performing at another Ottawa venue at the same time that Mitchell was playing a residency at the coffee house and he decided to catch her show there on March 19, 1968, and record it on a reel-to-reel tape machine he owned. The guitar legend documented his plan in a diary entry that reads, “talked with Joni Mitchell on the phone. I think I’ll record her tonight with my excellent tape recorder.”
After Joni’s two-set show, Jimi wrote about her, describing her as a “fantastic girl with heaven words.”
In a new interview featured in the Archives Vol. 2 liner notes, Mitchell recalls giving Hendrix permission to record the concert. “He beautifully recorded this tape,” Joni remembers. “Of course I played part of the show to him. He was right below me.”
Unfortunately, Hendrix’s tape was stolen a few days later, but the recording recently was rediscovered in a private collection that was donated to the Library and Archives Canada. The recording was then given to Mitchell, and it now will be released on Archives Vol. 2.
The five-CD collection features numerous previously unreleased live, studio and demo recordings from Joni’s early career, leading up to the release of 1971’s Blue.
The studio version of “The Dawntreader” appeared on Mitchell’s 1968 debut album, Song to a Seagull.
Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for Funimation Entertainment
In an interview with AARP magazine, Jamie Lee Curtis revealed that her 25-year-old child with acclaimed director Christopher Guest is transgender.
With their daughter’s permission, Curtis made the revelation to the magazine.
“We have watched in wonder and pride as our son became our daughter Ruby,” the Halloween series star, philanthropist and ordained minister said. “And she and her fiancé will get married next year at a wedding that I will officiate.”
The article mentions that Ruby works as a gaming editor. Married since 1984, Curtis and the Best in Show director and This Is Spinal Tap veteran also have a 34-year-old daughter, Annie, who’s a married dance instructor.
Curtis says she and Guest have no grandchildren at the moment: “Not yet, but I do hope to.”
The interview with AARP reveals the “constant metamorphosis” in the 62-year-old Knives Out star’s life, detailing her recovery from Vicodin and alcohol addiction in 1999. Curtis declares that had she not straightened out when she did, she would have been “dead for sure.”
Clean and sober ever since, Curtis is enthusiastic about the future, and sees herself as “just a sober person — flawed, contradictory, broken and redeemed.”
Curtis explains, “I wake up every day at 4 a.m. and have so much on my mind. I’m just so crazy excited and creative right now. And I don’t want to squander any of it.”
(WASHINGTON) —The Biden administration on Thursday called on Congress to extend a federal freeze on evictions set to expire on Saturday, arguing its hands are tied by the Supreme Court.
The new statement comes as the country grapples with a COVID-19 surge fueled by the highly contagious delta variant.
The moratorium, essentially a nationwide ban on evictions, was put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last September. In June, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow the eviction ban to continue through the end of July but signaled in its ruling that it would block any further extensions unless there was “clear and specific congressional authorization.”
Amid public outcry, House Democratic leadership was looking to possibly take legislative action by the end of the week, before legislators leave for a six-week recess, to extend the freeze until the end of December, ABC News was told. Senate Democrats were also preparing legislation to extend the moratorium for the same duration, according to a Democratic aide.
“Given the recent spread of the Delta variant, including among those Americans both most likely to face evictions and lacking vaccinations, President Biden would have strongly supported a decision by the CDC to further extend this eviction moratorium to protect renters at this moment of heightened vulnerability,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Thursday.
“Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made clear that this option is no longer available. In June, when CDC extended the eviction moratorium until July 31st, the Supreme Court’s ruling stated that ‘clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium past July 31,'” she added, citing Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion.
By a vote of 5 to 4, the court rejected a request from two associations of relators in Alabama and Georgia and group of property management companies seeking an emergency injunction against the CDC, which imposed the moratorium.
The Biden administration had previously said it would not extend the moratorium beyond July, so the Court allowed the moratorium to remain in place, though Justice Kavanaugh made clear that he and the other conservative justices believe the CDC exceeded its authority.
“In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling,” Psaki continued, “the President calls on Congress to extend the eviction moratorium to protect such vulnerable renters and their families without delay.”
In the meantime, Biden has asked the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Agriculture and Department of Veterans Affairs to each extend their respective eviction bans through the end of September, which Psaki said “will provide continued protection for households living in federally-insured, single-family properties.”
“The President has also asked these and other departments to do everything in their power so that owners and operators of federally-assisted and financed rental housing seek Emergency Rental Assistance to make themselves whole while keeping families in secure and safe housing — before moving toward eviction,” she added.
Psaki described the federal eviction moratorium as a “critical backstop to prevent hard-pressed renters and their families who lost jobs or income due to the COVID-19 pandemic from being evicted for nonpayment of rent.”
“This moratorium prevented hundreds of thousands of Americans from experiencing the heartbreak, homelessness, and health risks that too often emanate from evictions — particularly during a pandemic,” she said.
The Biden administration has faced mounting pressure from some Democratic lawmakers to address the looming deadline amid growing concerns that vaccinated people can spread the delta variant to others — evidence of which has prompted the CDC to advise vaccinated Americans to wear face masks indoors in areas with high or substantial levels of COVID-19 transmission.
“I urge the Biden Administration to extend the CDC’s eviction moratorium. It is reckless not to extend the deadline when rental assistance funds have not gone out fast enough to protect people. Eviction filings have already spiked in anticipation of the moratorium being lifted,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., tweeted on July 23.
When asked during Tuesday’s press briefing if the Biden administration was discussing an extension of the nationwide eviction ban, Psaki had little to add.
“I don’t have anything to preview for you at this point in time,” she said. “But certainly, we will be watching this closely,” she added, citing “ongoing discussions about how we can continue to help renters.”
ABC News’ Mariam Khan and Trish Turner contributed to this report.
Disney+’s next small-screen MCU spin-off, Hawkeye, is coming to the streaming service on November 24.
The series, which was teased in an end-credits scene in Black Widow — setting up Florence Pugh‘s character Ylena’s hunt for Jeremy Renner‘s archer Avenger — stars Hailee Steinfeld as his protégé.
In an exclusive, Entertainment Weekly just posted a “first look” photo at Renner’s Clint Barton meeting Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop, who eventually takes up the Hawkeye mantle.
The cat was let out of the bag last year that Steinfeld was starring in the series, when photographers caught the pair seemingly running for their lives on a New York City subway platform. Laughing about that, Steinfeld told ABC Audio, “We were just trying to get somewhere and a couple of pictures were taken and now here we are.”
On a more serious note, the Dickinson producer and star said she was “so, so honored obviously to be part of the MCU and be playing alongside Jeremy,” calling the experience “amazing.”
As for his onscreen trainee, Renner tells EW, “Outside of acting in the thing, I was protecting her and giving her the CliffsNotes on how it goes with this kind of filmmaking: Green screen, superhero life, all that stuff. I just wanted to protect her, because there’s a lot of physical stuff.”
He added, “She’s a wonderful actress, a wonderful human, and I can’t wait to see all the cool stuff that she’s able to do.”
After the debut, a new episode of Hawkeye will drop every Wednesday.
(WASHINGTON) —The Senate swiftly passed the $2.1B emergency security supplemental bill Thursday in a rare unanimous vote.
The bill now heads to the House for expected passage this week. Then it heads to the president for his signature.
The move staves off critical funding cuts that both the U.S. Capitol Police and National Guard were expected to enact following weeks of congressional inaction. Both forces were crushed by the emergency needs in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection, each relying on Congress to reimburse them in the months after the attack.
But some Republican lawmakers argued that after spending trillions to battle the pandemic, it would be irresponsible to spend billions more without enacting spending cuts to cover the expenses.
The emergency supplemental bill also has $1.125 billion to cover the Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa program — a little less than what the White House requested — to provide asylum to allies there who aided the U.S. mission and now face retribution from a resurgent Taliban.
Sen Mike Braun, R-Ind., said, “We need to protect our National Guard — and we will. And we need to protect our allies who kept our troops safe, and we will. Emergencies arise and the biggest threat to dealing with them in my opinion is fiscal irresponsibility in D.C. We could have easily paid for the major parts of this legislation with offsets within the DOD.”
This is a developing news story. Please check back for updates.
