In honor of late Rush drummer Neil Peart, Modern Drummer magazine has announced the launch of an annual scholarship in his name that’s geared toward inspiring a young drummer to pursue a career as a musician.
The “Neil Peart Spirit of Drumming Scholarship” will provide the chosen recipient with 52 weeks of free drum lessons from respected drum instructor Dom Famularo, as well as a one-year subscription to the Modern Drummer All Access service, and a selection of classic Rush albums.
Entrants must be between 14 and 21 years old, not a professional musician, and not under any entertainment contract or sponsorship that Modern Drummer would consider a conflict with scholarship’s spirit.
To be considered for the scholarship, potential recipients must submit a video displaying their drumming skills running two minutes or less, as well as a brief essay explaining why the scholarship will make a significant positive impact on their life and playing, and how they’ve been inspired by Peart and his legacy.
Submissions, which can be made at ModernDrummer.com, must be received before November 26 of this year.
The scholarship originally was announced during the 2020 Modern Drummer Festival by Neil’s widow, Carrie Nutall-Peart. The first recipient of the scholarship will be revealed at this year’s festival, and the honoree will be featured in an upcoming issue of Modern Drummer.
Peart, widely considered one of the greatest rock drummers of all time, died in January 2020 of brain cancer. He was 67.
Ken Jeong has starred in the blockbuster movies like The Hangover, had his own sitcom, Dr. Ken, and been a part of beloved TV shows like Community. But he’s also famous for being famously bad as a judge on The Masked Singer.
The Nick Cannon-hosted hit has Ken, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke trying to figure out whose pipes are piping out of a collection of crazy mascot-like costumes — and bad guesses turn out to be just as fun as the reveals.
Jeong, who pursued a dream of acting after years of being a physician, explained to ABC Audio that his gig on the show is all about having a good time.
“Personally, I’ve achieved everything I want to achieve, and then some, and I feel like the rest of my life is just trying to have fun…for the rest of my days,” he admits.
“Like if you watch me on The Masked Singer… I literally just have fun being bad at that game, you know?” he says with a laugh. “And so I think if the public now just senses that I’m just trying to have a good time, you know, all the time, I think that’s I think that’s part of connection. I think that’s part of entertainment.”
You can check out Ken doing what he does worst, and loving it, when The Masked Singer airs tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on Fox.
(CHICAGO) — A battle pitting the mayor of Chicago and the superintendent of the police department against some officers defying a vaccine mandate for all city employees heads to a courtroom on Wednesday where the police union is asking a judge for a temporary restraining order.
The courtroom showdown comes even as police Superintendent David Brown said compliance with the COVID-19 shot mandate by officers and civilian employees of his agency went up to 67% on Tuesday from 64% a day earlier.
“I will say and do anything to save an officer’s life,” Brown said during a news conference on Tuesday. “If it takes going through a counseling session, going to a no-pay status, going to internal affairs or a direct order, if that’s what it takes, I’m willing to do it.”
As of Tuesday, about 2,000 officers had yet to upload their vaccine or testing status on a city online portal and, so far, 21 officers have been stripped of their police powers and sent home without pay, Brown said.
Brown said “several hundred” hold-out officers were summoned to police headquarters this week and given a chance to change their minds and hear of the consequences they face for refusing.
“I don’t know if we’ve changed their minds or if they’ve made the decision themselves to get in the portal,” Brown said.
City officials released an update on the vaccine mandate on Monday showing that 79% of all city employees had complied and registered their vaccine status on the online portal. Officials said 84% are fully vaccinated.
The police department has the lowest level of compliance, officials said.
The mandate set a deadline of last Friday for employees to comply.
The Fraternal Order of Police, the union that represents officers, has asked Cook County Circuit Court Judge Cecilia Horan to issue a temporary restraining order against the mandate. A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Wednesday.
At the same time, the union is asking Horan to recuse herself from the case after she granted the city a temporary restraining order on Friday barring FOP President John Catanzara from publicly telling union members to defy the mandate.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Catanzara’s statements are allegedly putting the public in danger.
“By doing so, and by predicting that 50% or more officers will violate their oaths and not report for duty, Catanzara is encouraging an unlawful strike and work stoppage which carries the potential to undermine public safety and expose our residents to irreparable harm, particularly during an ongoing pandemic,” Lightfoot wrote in a court filing.
Following the ruling, Catanzara posted a video on the union’s YouTube channel informing members that he has been silenced.
“Everybody has to do what’s in their hearts and minds, whatever that is,” Catanzara said in the video. “But I will just leave you with this: policy starts at the top in this city and it has proven time and time again that the top of this city’s policy needs to change.”
Holding up a sign bearing a so-called “Thin Blue Line” flag with the words “John Catanzara for Mayor 2023,” he said “enough is enough.”
With Chicago in the midst of a surge in violent crime with shootings up 9% this year over 2020, some city leaders said they fear Lightfoot and Brown are playing with fire by taking officers who don’t comply with the vaccine mandate off the streets.
“We are simply not in a position to fire 2,000 police officers right now,” Second Ward Alderman Brian Hopkins told ABC station WLS in Chicago. “We can’t do that. That is not in our best interest.”
If you’re a female music star, it seems to be a rule that you have to release a signature fragrance. So, following in the footsteps of Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande, Christina Aguilera and more, Billie Eilish is getting into the perfume business, too.
Billie announced that her new fragrance, called Eilish, is “coming this fall.” She paired the announcement with a glam shot of herself holding a bottle of the perfume, along with a link to the website BillieEilishFragrances.com, where you can sign up for updates on when exactly you can buy the stuff.
On the website’s Instagram account, you can get a good look at the bottle. It’s bronze-colored and is in the shape of a female bust that’s been cut off underneath the breasts; the top of the head above the nose is also cut off, as are the arms.
The friendship between James Taylor and Carole King has lasted 50 years, and now it’s being examined in a new concert documentary that’s coming to CNN and HBO Max.
The movie is called Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name, and is being directed and produced by Frank Marshall. Marshall is pretty comfortable with projects involving superstars of the 1960s and ’70s: He directed HBO’s acclaimed Bee Gees documentary How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, and produced Hulu’s McCartney 3, 2, 1.
The documentary takes as its starting point the concert that Carole and James did together in 2007 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Los Angeles’ famous club The Troubadour, where they’d first played together in 1970. The ’07 show, which featured them collaborating on songs like “You’ve Got a Friend,” led to a 2010 arena tour.
The film documents the tour and also features interviews with the now-legendary session musicians who played with the duo in 1970, 2007 and 2010, including guitarist Danny Kortchmar, bass player Lee Sklar and drummer Russ Kunkel.
On October 30, King will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for the second time; she was previously inducted as a songwriter in 1990. Inducting her will be Taylor Swift, who, incidentally, was named after James Taylor.
If you’re still in the hunt for a Halloween costume, Florence Pugh has an idea for you: go as her Black Widow character, Yelena.
On Tuesday, the actress took to Instagram to made a case for why people should dress up as the on-screen spy and assassin. The reason is actually really simple — because the vest has pockets, “a lot of handy pockets.”
Standing in front of a display window that featured costumes from Scarlett Johansson and David Harbour‘s Black Widow characters, Pugh wrote, “What the..Apparently Yelena didn’t make the cut.”
“GUYS. I LITERALLY TALK ABOUT POCKETS IN NEARLY EVERY SCENE. Halloween= A LOT OF FREE SWEETIES.”
May I remind you that the vest has A LOT OF HANDY POCKETS,” Pugh continued. “Costume+vest+POCKETS= someone who came prepared.”
“IT IS with great importance we understand how vital Yelena is for Halloween,” Pugh concluded, before adding, “Rant over, thanks for listening.”
So, what are you waiting for? After all, all that candy has to go somewhere.
(NEW YORK) — The Westchester, New York, district attorney’s office has had an ongoing criminal investigation into the Trump Organization’s Westchester golf course, sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell ABC News.
The probe, which is separate from a similar, and broader, investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, has included records subpoenaed from Trump National Golf Club Westchester, as well as the town about 30 miles north of New York City where the course in located, sources said.
News of the Westchester DA’s probe was first reported by the New York Times.
A spokesperson for the Trump Organization said the probe was the continuation of a “witch hunt” against former President Donald Trump.
“The Club’s request for a review of its tax assessments was amicably resolved earlier this year and signed off by the Town Board, the Town Assessor, Special Counsel for the Town … the Briarcliff Manor School District, the Office of the Westchester County Attorney and the Westchester County Supreme Court judge presiding over the matter,” the spokesperson said. “Accordingly, the suggestion that anything was inappropriate is completely false and incredibly irresponsible. The witch hunt continues.”
A spokesperson for Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah declined to comment.
The investigation marks the third probe by a prosecutorial office in Trump’s home state of New York looking into the former president’s business dealings.
In July, following a nearly two-year investigation, Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance charged the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO, Allen Weisselberg, with tax fraud. Weisselberg and the company have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has been conducting a parallel probe into Trump’s business dealings.
Among the issues being probed by investigators is how the Trump Organization has valued its holdings for tax purposes.
The Trump Organization owns or operates more than a dozen golf course worldwide. Earlier this year, following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S, Capitol, the PGA of America, the proprietors of one of golf’s four major championship tournaments, announced it would move its 2022 PGA Championship away from Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
(NEW YORK) — Survivors of a previous kidnapping by the notorious Haitian gang 400 Mawozo have revealed details about what life was like as a hostage, with the group currently demanding a $17 million ransom to set free 16 Americans and one Canadian they have captive.
The group of missionaries affiliated with Christian Aid Ministries were kidnapped at a checkpoint in the capital of Port-au-Prince on Saturday, officials told ABC News, and the FBI, State Department and other U.S. agencies have sent a team to the country to secure their safe release. A senior Haitian police official involved in the efforts to free the Americans told ABC News that the kidnappers have demanded a ransom of $1 million per person.
Christian Aid Ministries, based in Ohio, revealed more details about the hostages on Tuesday, saying that the adults held captive were between the ages of 18 and 48, while there were also five children, the youngest of whom is 8 months old.
In Haiti, a majority Catholic country, 400 Mawozo gang members are known for their brutal tactics and targeting of clerical groups. Gédéon Jean, the director of Haiti’s Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, told the Washington Post that the gang was responsible for the most abductions.
Haiti has the highest kidnapping rate per capita in the world, and 400 Mawozo members are believed to have been responsible for kidnapping ten French missionaries in April of this year, who were released after 20 days. In interviews with ABC News, two survivors recounted their experience and offered their prayers for the current hostages.
Father Jean Millien, who was among the group of missionaries and is still based in Haiti, told ABC News that he was hopeful the hostages would be set free.
“The message I have for them is not to be impatient,” he said. “I do think that one day all of them will be free.”
And another of the survivors from the April kidnapping, Sister Agnes Bordeau, 81, of the Sisters of Providence, who has since returned to France, shared details with ABC News about what life is like under hostage conditions. They were kidnapped after being given repeated warnings from the French Embassy in Haiti about the dangers of operating in the country.
After they were kidnapped by the armed gunmen, Bordeau said that the group changed locations three times; their captors able to evade the authorities in a country that is roughly the same size as the state of Maryland.
“We were sleeping on cardboard outdoors in the middle of the forest,” Bordeau told ABC News. “Five days outdoors without moving. Of course, if we needed to go to the restrooms we had to ask permission and we were followed by an armed guard. [When we were moved inside] we were afraid for our lives as the room was very dirty and it was very hot. Only one person could stand or sit.”
In the forest they experienced perhaps the most terrifying event of their ordeal — when they suspected their captors were digging makeshift graves.
“At some point, I could hear noises of people digging and I asked a priest what it was about and he told me very peacefully that the ang was preparing for us a pauper’s grave,” she said. “They tied our hands, one of the gang members [ripped] a priest’s robe to make strips to blindfold us altogether, but it did not last for a very long time.”
Despite the harrowing ordeal, during which they were only fed one meal a day, Bordeau said, the missionaries eventually engaged in dialogue with their captors, even though all of their possessions — with the exception of their personal bibles, were stolen.
They survived, she said, through their collective faith.
“We supported each other, we took care of each other, we paid attention to our own words as well,” she said. “We were never discouraged and we had very deep moments of prayers… And personally I can say I could really feel the presence of God in the middle of us.”
After 20 days of captivity, Bordeau said they were abruptly released in the middle of the night. It is unknown whether or not a ransom was paid.
“When we were released, the big chief of the gang asked us to pray for them,” she said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has vowed that the U.S. will do all it can to secure the release of the hostages.
“Gangs dominate many parts of Port-au-Prince and other parts of Haiti, the national police can’t even operate in many of these areas,” Blinken said, noting the practical difficulties of life on the ground.
ABC News’ Conor Finnegan and Marcus Moore contributed to this report
(PARKLAND, Fla.) — Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty Wednesday to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder for killing 17 and injuring 17 others in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting.
Cruz replied “guilty” when Judge Elizabeth Scherer asked how he wanted to plea to the slaying or wounding of each victim. Parents of the slain students watched from the courtroom and wiped tears from their eyes.
Cruz said in court, “I am very sorry for what I did and I have to live with it every day. … It brings me nightmares and I can’t live with myself sometimes.”
Cruz said he believes the victims should be the ones to decide whether he gets the death penalty.
A jury will decide if Cruz, 23, will get the death penalty or life in prison.
Manuel Oliver, father of 17-year-old victim Joaquin Oliver, told ABC News Live Friday, “I can’t wait for this to be over so I can move on, at least without the weight of not knowing what’s going to happen to this person.”
Last week Cruz pleaded guilty to charges in connection to his attack on a jail guard in 2018.
Jury selection for the penalty phase will begin on Jan. 4.
(NEW YORK) — One day after making a surprise revelation on live television that he has multiple sclerosis , CNN anchor John King said he hopes his openness inspires people to take precautions against COVID-19 seriously.
“I’m not supposed to be part of the story, I’m supposed to cover stories,” King said Wednesday on “Good Morning America, adding, “If my personal experience can help anybody or help people understand, again, that the person next to you, you may not know, on the subway, or on the bus, in a coffee shop might need your help and you can do a couple easy things to make them feel safer, if I can help with that, then so be it.”
The “Inside Politics” host opened up about his own MS battle Tuesday during a segment in which COVID-19 vaccine mandates were discussed, following the death of former secretary of state Colin Powell, who died Monday morning due to complications from COVID-19.
Powell, who was fully vaccinated, was being treated for multiple myeloma, which compromises the immune system. He had also been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, according to his spokesperson.
“I’m going to share a secret I have never spoken before. I am immunocompromised,” King said on his show. “I have multiple sclerosis. So I am grateful you are all vaccinated. I am grateful my employer says all of these amazing people who work on the floor, who came in here in the last 18 months when we are doing this, are vaccinated now that we have vaccines. I worry about bringing it home to my 10-year-old son who can’t get a vaccine. I don’t like the government telling me what to do. I don’t like my boss telling me what to do. In this case, it’s important.”
King, 58, who is CNN’s chief national correspondent, told “GMA” that he had not planned to reveal his MS diagnosis live on-air, but felt compelled in order to help combat what he called “reckless and dangerous” rhetoric around COVID-19 vaccines and other safety measures.
“We should be willing to do hard things to help other people,” he said. “Rolling up your sleeves and getting a safe vaccine is easy. Putting on a mask in a crowded place is easy. So why can’t we do the easy things?”
“These steps are easy and they could help a friend or a neighbor or a stranger get through the day,” King added.
Currently, just 66.8% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
King said he has taken extra safety precautions himself during the pandemic, for his own health but also to protect his family, including his 10-year-old son, who is currently too young to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
Studies have shown vaccinated individuals are significantly less likely to spread coronavirus to family members within a household, National Institutes of Health director Frances Collins wrote in a blog post Tuesday on the safety of the vaccines.
In addition to being fully vaccinated, the CNN anchor said he also received a vaccine booster shot.
“I don’t like being told what to do. I don’t want my employer telling me you have to get a vaccine. I don’t want the government telling me I have to do things, but this is bigger than that,” he said. “Moments in American history when we’re all challenged, when we’re all at risk, we’re supposed to come together and set the politics stuff aside and just love thy neighbor, protect thy neighbor.”
King said he has relapsing-remitting MS, which is the most common disease course, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
He said he takes medication to slow the progression of the disease and considers himself “lucky,” but still faces days where the MS is “very frustrating.”
“Today I’m having a problem with my hands. I have not been able to really have full sensation in my legs since late in the Clinton administration,” he said, noting that his MS diagnosis came several years later. “There are some days this knocks me on my you know what, there are other days it’s just a little nagging.”
“But it has made me stronger. I hope, I certainly hope it has made me a better person,” King continued. “And it’s made me aware, again, that a lot of these symptoms, a lot of the stress people are going through is hidden. You cannot see it, but we should just be aware that it’s out there.”
