Cellphone video showed pop-punk band Green Day literally running offstage Wednesday in Detroit after a drone was spotted inside Comerica Park.
"There was an individual that flew a drone into Comerica Park, so Green Day was taken off stage," Detroit police Cpl. Dan Donakowski said, according to the Detroit News. "Shortly after that, they went back on stage to perform. DPD located this individual outside of Comerica Park. He is being detained pending further investigation."
'How you guys doing? Everybody OK?' lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong asked crowd of around 35,000 fans after the drone incident.
The paper said the band members were rushed from the stage at 8:50 p.m. — about 20 minutes into the concert and during the second chorus of the hit single "Longview." The News said after a few minutes, a message showed up on the concert video screens saying, "Show Pause. Please standby for details."
The delay lasted about 10 minutes, then Green Day returned to the stage, the paper said.
"How you guys doing? Everybody OK?" lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong asked crowd of around 35,000 fans after the drone incident, the News said, adding that the band kicked into "Longview" at the spot when the drone interrupted them. The paper said that after the next song, "Welcome to Paradise," Armstrong told the crowd, "There ain't no motherf***er that's gonna stop us, I'll tell you that."
The News said in a follow-up story that federal authorities are investigating the suspect.
Detroit Police Sgt. Daren Zhou said the drone pilot was questioned but not arrested, the paper reported. "We've forwarded the case to the [U.S. Federal Aviation Administration]," Zhou said, according to the News.
The paper said the FAA bans flying drones in and around a radius of three nautical miles from stadiums or venues starting one hour before and ending one hour after the scheduled time of major event.
FAA spokesperson Eva Ngai told the News that although the agency lacks the authority to pursue criminal charges, it can fine "drone operators who endanger other aircraft or people on the ground" to fines "that exceed $30,000. In addition, the FAA can suspend or revoke drone operators’ pilot certificates."
The paper, citing the FAA's website, added that drone operators who conduct unsafe or unauthorized operations face fines up to $75,000 per violation.
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A 19-year-old terror suspect who pledged allegiance to ISIS was arrested Wednesday morning in Austria over an alleged attack plot targeting now-canceled Taylor Swift shows this week in Vienna.
A second suspect in the alleged plot, who also reportedly radicalized himself online, was arrested later in the day, ABC News reported.
The 19-year-old has 'North Macedonian roots' and 'lived with his family in Ternitz' and was arrested 'under strong suspicion of terrorism,' according to the Los Angeles Times, which cited Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung.
The 19-year-old — an Austrian citizen — allegedly pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State in the beginning of July and was particularly focused on Swift's concerts, ABC News said, citing Franz Ruf, director-general for public safety in the Ministry of the Interior.
Swift's shows scheduled for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion in Vienna were canceled Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. Each show was expected to draw 65,000, ABC News noted. Event organizer Barracuda Music said in an Instagram post that “we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone’s safety," the AP added.
Amid the 19-year-old's arrest, a bomb squad allegedly found chemical substances, NBC News said, adding that investigators are working to determine whether the substances could have been used to build a bomb.
The 19-year-old has "North Macedonian roots” and “lived with his family in Ternitz" and was arrested “under strong suspicion of terrorism,” according to the Los Angeles Times, which cited Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung. Ternitz is around 43 miles south of Vienna, the Times added.
It's far from clear whether there's any connection to Wednesday's arrests, but none of the aforementioned news outlets mentioned the deadly July 29 mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed children's dance class in Southport, England, during which a 17-year-old male killed three and injured numerous other victims.
Officials initially said there was no evidence that terrorism was a motive for the attack, which angered many who accused the government of covering up evidence. Police identified suspect Axel Rudakubana and charged him with three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder. Officials identified him as being from Cardiff but also noted that his parents are Rwandan.
Unrest and violence erupted the day after the stabbings and has spread across the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Keir Starmer denounced the violence and blamed "far-right thuggery."
Radio host Glenn Beck, co-founder of Blaze Media, on Tuesday opined that "two-tier justice" — in which police more or less ignore Muslim immigrant crime but come down hard on non-Muslims — has been laid bare in the U.K. in the wake of the deadly knife attack.
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Louis Tomlinson fans were hammered Wednesday by golf ball-sized hail at the former One Direction singer's Red Rocks concert in Colorado.
According to West Metro Fire Rescue, which worked to aid the injured with the help of Stadium Medical well into the night, seven people were taken to area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries, including broken bones and lacerations. Over 80 people were treated for injuries on the scene.
Earlier in the evening, the National Weather Service warned there might be sizable hail, 60 mph winds, and tornadoes. Sure enough, tornadoes touched down and tore through various parts of the state. Then, around 9:30 p.m., all hail broke loose over Red Rocks Park.
"It started like an instant. They gave us a warning and then it just started immediately," concertgoer Olivia Santangelo told CBS Colorado.
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Another concertgoer named Nicole, who captured the punishing natural phenomenon on video, tweeted that the evening amounted to the "scariest night of [her] life."
"It started pelting people with hail at Red Rocks and my sister and I luckily found shelter under a sign," said Nicole, adding, "I am bleeding and have huge bumps on my head from the hail. Hoping everyone made it out safely."
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Responding to the well-wishes of Andrew Cushin, one of the musicians who had taken the stage Wednesday evening, Nicole noted that she had "made it out safe thanks to some great strangers who let us in their car."
The Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre initially told concertgoers to seek shelter in their vehicles pending notification that the weather delay had been lifted. Shortly thereafter, the venue indicated the Louis Tomlinson show would resume after all. The planned resumption was short-lived, however; the park soon warned of "severe weather," then half an hour later announced the show had "officially been postponed."
Hail shattered the windows of numerous vehicles and pummeled those caught out in the open with little more than cardboard taken from the merchandise stands to cover themselves, reported the Guardian.
Photographer Nikolai Puc indicated that theater staff were among those helping the injured and fans "be as safe as they could."
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West Metro Fire Rescue similarly shared images of the hail that piled up as a result of the storm.
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Tomlinson, who did not ultimately get to play, later wrote, "Devastated about the show tonight, hope everyone’s ok, I’ll be back! Even though we didn’t play the show I felt all of your passion! Sending you all love!"
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Two people have died and three more were injured in a shooting at a campground outside a concert venue in George, Washington Saturday evening, according to the Grant County Sheriff's Office.
"The shooter continued to shoot randomly into the crowd, and the suspect was eventually taken into custody," Grant County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Kyle Foreman said at a press conference Saturday night.
Foreman confirmed two people were killed and three more were injured in the shooting. The suspect was among the injured. The concert was in progress while the shooting took place.
The incident took place at a campground several hundred yards away from the "Beyond Wonderland" electronic dance music festival underway at the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Washington, Foreman said.
Reports of an active shooter were received at approximately 8:25 p.m., according to the GCSO.
A Nixle alert from GCSO at 8:47 p.m. advised people that there was an active shooter at Gorge Amphitheatre, and that people there should seek cover. The alert further advised people to "run, hide, or fight" if they encountered "him."
A second Nixle alert from GCSO went out at 9:17 p.m. notifying people the Gorge shooter was in custody.
"Officers pursued, closed-in on the suspect," a GSCO Facebook post said in an update, adding that the suspect was in custody and that Saturday's concert would continue as planned.
Foreman said the name and age of the shooter would be released at some point after the investigation was underway, and that he had no age ranges of the victims.
The weapon or weapons used could "not be disclosed right now," Foreman said, adding that the weapon or weapons used were investigative pieces that would be disclosed "later on."
Motives and intentions of the shooter are unknown at this juncture, Foreman said.
Foreman said that at some point, the agency's investigative information would be passed on to Washington's Office of Independent Investigations. The OII is an independent state agency charged with investigating officer-involved shootings, he also said.
The festival announced Sunday morning in a tweet that the second day of the Beyond Wonderland event had been canceled, adding condolences to those affected by the tragic event.
"No firearms or weapons of any kind on your person or in your vehicle" are permitted at the Gorge Campground, according to the site's safety rules.
Two young boys in Maine had an evening they will likely never forget after their country music star hero Luke Combs publicly acknowledged them for working hard to earn the money to attend one of his concerts.
Bo Fenderson, 12, of Cornish, Maine, and his friend Tanner both reportedly earned $100 a piece chopping wood so that they could purchase tickets to attend one of two Luke Combs "Middle of Somewhere" concerts in Bangor over the weekend. Not only did Combs notice the signs they held to explain their story, but he read the signs to the entire concert audience, reimbursed the boys for the tickets they bought, and then invited them both backstage to spend more time with him and the other musicians.
"We made $100 bucks stacking 5 cords of wood, bought two Luke Combs tickets," the boys' sign read. "Man, he sounds good. Our Dads swore it was a waste of time, oh but they were wrong. Today’s my 12th birthday, oh Lord when it rains it pours."
Once Combs understood that the two boys had spent their own hard-earned money to attend the concert that Friday, he decided to pay them back for all their effort.
"How much were you tickets? $100? $200? Y’all paid $200, a hundred dollars apiece. Oh my God, I only got $140 right here," Combs told the boys as he handed them cash from his pocket. "Y’all want that, pay yourselves back. I’ll get you some more."
Combs was better than his word. Not only did he give the boys the full $200, but he autographed their hats, and then spent time with them backstage after the concert was over — all on young Bo's 12th birthday.
"I prayed for it to happen," Bo said. "I hoped. I prayed, and it happened."
The mothers of the two boys were equally impressed by Combs's efforts to connect with his fans and reward them for their hard work.
"He’s a great role model to take the time and do that and really acknowledge what they did," said Bo's mom Desiree.
"It wasn’t just Luke," she continued. "It was the rest of the staff too that made it happen and made it a point to come find us and the boys and fulfill that promise that he made to them. I think for all of the sisters, the cousins, and the friends that they all learned a valuable lesson."
The boys recalled that Combs told them backstage that the two most important things in life are kindness and hard work.
"Hard work pays off," Tanner agreed.
Combs's kindness and generosity didn't stop with Bo and Tanner either. During his concert on Saturday night, Combs regretfully informed attendees that he would have to cut the show short because he was struggling with a throat issue. However, he reimbursed the entire crowd for the cost of their tickets — and still proceeded to give them a full performance, despite his struggles.
Singer Halsey gave a pro-abortion speech at her Phoenix concert Sunday, and it apparently prompted some attendees to leave the venue, the Los Angeles Times reported.
At least one of the singer's like-minded fans was not happy about the audience departure, calling it "sickening":
\u201cTHE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE WHO JUST WALKED OUT OF THE HALSEY CONCERT AFTER NIGHTMARE WHEN SHE SPOKE ABOUT ABORTION WAS SICKENING. FIGHT FOR WHAT IS RIGHT. #AbortionRightsAreHumanRights #MYBODYMYCHOICE #halsey @halsey\u201d— Maria doesn't feel like feeling sad today (@Maria doesn't feel like feeling sad today) 1656312597
Halsey took her own shot at those who departed her show, writing in response to the above fan's tweet, “Downside of doing outdoor venues: no door to hit them on the way out."
\u201cdownside of doing outdoor venues: no door to hit them on the way out \ud83d\udc4b\ud83c\udffc\u201d— h (@h) 1656377990
Halsey's clap back at those who left her concert has received over 91,000 likes since Monday night.
While one might expect a ton of support for Halsey on her Twitter page, a surprising number of commenters blasted the singer right back for her comment. Here are but a few examples:
In one clip, Halsey — stalking the stage from one end of it to the other — told audience members that if they're "sharing statistics on Instagram and infographics and saying ... ‘That’s really f***ed up,’ what you should do instead is you should be sharing stories about how you’ve benefited from abortion somehow."
She added, “The truth is that my heart breaks looking out into this audience, because I see so many people ... who deserve the right to health care that they need. Who deserve the right to choose themselves in a situation where there is a choice.”
Halsey also said "some of the people I’m looking at right now are going to need an abortion one day, and you deserve that. Whether it’s a life-threatening situation, or it’s not, you deserve it. And here in Arizona, you guys gotta promise me that you’re gonna do that work so that the person to the left of you and to the right of you has that right for the rest of their lives.”
She then told detractors in the crowd, "If you don’t like it, you can go home right now. I don’t care," as she motioned such attendees to the exits. "If you don’t like it, I don’t know why you came to a Halsey concert ...” Apparently some of them took her up on her offer.
Here's the clip. Content warning: Language:
\u201chalsey\u2019s speech about abortion in arizona tonight. i love them forever\u201d— emo steph (@emo steph) 1656319931
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on Friday, Halsey tweeted, "I have been advocating for abortion, reproductive rights, and bodily integrity for as long as I’ve had a platform, and I’m running out of ways to word and frame the severity of the impact that fundamentalism has on our country."
She added, "I know some of you look to my page for information or guidance, but I need a little bit of time to speak to some people with more authority and experience than me and gather my thoughts. I don’t want to just contribute to antagonistic noise. I’m just defeated at the moment."
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