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Brad Pitt reportedly "heartbroken" over Angelina Jolie domestic abuse claims

No Comments Entertainment News

Steve Granitz/WireImage(LOS ANGELES) — Brad Pitt is reportedly “heartbroken” over the latest revelations in his custody battle with ex Angelina Jolie. 

Last week, leaked court documents revealed that the Maleficent star said she is prepared bring forth “proof and authority in support” of her allegations of domestic abuse violence against Pitt. 

A source close to the 57-year-old actor tells Entertainment Tonight, “Brad is anxious to get custody worked out so that the family can finally move on. He just wants to spend time with his children and move in a positive direction. His priority has always been his relationship with his children.”

The former couple, who share children — Maddox, 19; Pax, 17; Zahara, 16; Shiloh, 14; and twins Knox and Vivienne, 12 — are gearing up for their custody trial.

“Brad is heartbroken it has come to this,” the source adds. “Those around him feel Angelina’s claims are to sway the court in her favor.” 

Page Six source also shared, “Brad feels like he’s being more and more isolated from his children, and he’s devastated about it.”

Angelina and Brad confirmed their relationship in 2006 and married in 2014. They divorced two years later citing irreconcilable differences. 

By Danielle Long
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Chevy Chase recovering at home after "heart issue" hospitalizes him for five weeks

No Comments Entertainment News

Jean Baptiste Lacroix/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — (NOTE LANGUAGE) After spending five weeks at the hospital for a “heart issue,” actor Chevy Chase is recuperating at home.

The National Lampoon’s Vacation star confirmed to Page Six on Monday that he is back home at his residence in Westchester, New York.

“These are my first few days home. I can only say how happy I am to now be back with my family. I’m feeling good,” Chase, 77, explained. “I was in the hospital five weeks. A heart issue.”

The Emmy Award-winning comedian added that he will be staying put for awhile and will be spending all his time “around the house” and “not going anywhere.”

Says Chase, he doesn’t want to tangle with the ongoing pandemic.

“I used to go out and do anything. I’d do slapstick in front of 3,000 people. But at this moment I have no need to go out and meet COVID,” the Caddyshack star expressed before confessing that he is not exactly happy to be confined to his house.

“I read. Turn on TV. Watch the news. All drek,” said Chase, who gave a blunt review of the current state of entertainment and comedy.

“I see actors, comedians, producers, screenwriters working and, God bless them, but I don’t see anything great on television,” he lamented. ” It all became a generation of [morons] laughing at the world.”

Adds the Golden Globe nominee, “The humor today’s giving the next generation worse stuff than they already have in their own lives. It drives me nuts.”

While Chase did not go into detail about his heart condition, this isn’t the first time the comedian had a medical emergency.

While filming Modern Problems in 1981, he was electrocuted when the lights attached to his body for a dream sequence short-circuited.

By Megan Stone
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

NFL, class counsel poised to remove race-norming from concussion settlement program

No Comments Sports News

by_nicholas/iStockBy PETE MADDEN, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — As the NFL and the class counsel representing former players in the league’s landmark concussion settlement program prepare for a court-ordered mediation to address concerns about race-norming, both sides appear to agree that race should no longer be a factor in determining eligibility for compensation for head injuries.

The controversial practice has sparked a firestorm of criticism against the league for what critics says is a two-tiered system — one for Black players and one for white players — to calculate payouts to some former players who claim to be suffering from the lingering effects of head trauma sustained during their careers.

Instead, the looming negotiations will likely focus on how to measure and address the impact of race-based adjustments on past claims, with millions of dollars in potential compensation hanging in the balance.

On Monday, Christopher Seeger, who negotiated the terms of the original 2014 concussion settlement, filed a scathing motion outlining a pair of goals for the upcoming mediation and pushing back on claims from attorneys for former players Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport that he had failed to adequately represent Black former players in the settlement.

“Class Counsel has worked assiduously to ensure that no Class Member has been, or will be, adversely affected by race norming,” Seeger wrote. “Class Counsel’s objectives are two-fold. The first goal is to eliminate the use of demographic norms that adjust for race, and put into place purely race-neutral demographic norms. The second is to investigate whether any Class Member has been disadvantaged by race norming. The process is not simple, and it will take time.”

In response to questions from ABC News, Seeger seemed to acknowledge that he is taking up the issue in order to regain the trust of some former players.

“This settlement can only continue to be successful if former players believe they will be treated fairly and equally,” Seeger told ABC News through a spokesperson, “and eliminating these adjustments is the best way to restore their confidence.”

But attorneys for Henry and Davenport, the former NFL players who have petitioned the court to allow them to participate in the mediation, told ABC News that Seeger’s position underscores the need for their intervention.

“This filing also reinforces our concern about how large numbers of Black players — who never qualified or submitted claims because of race-norming — will fare in any mediation. Today’s filing brushes those concerns aside by asserting there is no evidence of ‘claims’ denied ‘solely’ because of race-norming,” Cy Smith, from the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder, said in a statement. “Black players are asking, ‘How can their rights be protected by someone who helped create the problem and then ignored it for years?’ The only answer is to give Black players their own voice in these settlement talks.”

Earlier this month, following an ABC News investigation into allegations of racial bias in the program, the federal judge overseeing the settlement sent the league and class counsel back to the negotiating table “to seek to address the concerns relating to the race-norming issue” that critics say has skewed compensation for some football-related head injuries along racial lines.

At the crux of the controversy: The NFL’s concussion settlement program manual recommends the use of a “full demographic correction,” in which a player’s cognitive test scores are compared to average scores, or “norms,” for supposedly similar demographic groups, and then adjusted to account for expected differences in age, gender, education — and race.

The practice of adjusting test scores for race, widely known as “race-norming,” is in use across several different medical fields as a supposed safeguard against misdiagnosis. But because these “norms,” as used in a neuropsychology context, assume that the average Black player starts at a lower level of cognitive functioning than the average white player at the outset of their careers, Black players need to show larger cognitive declines than white players to qualify for compensation.

ABC News uncovered emails between clinicians who evaluated former NFL players for compensation through the program in which they contend they were all but required to apply race-based adjustments to players’ cognitive test scores and express concerns that the league’s protocols discriminate against Black players. ABC News was also able to obtain a data analysis that suggests that the impact of the practice on payouts could be significant, making it much more difficult for Black players to qualify.

In response to questions from ABC News, an NFL spokesperson defended the program and its protocols, saying that the concussion settlement, which has paid out more than $800 million to retirees and their families to date, was “agreed to by all parties, with the assistance of expert neuropsychological clinicians and approved by the courts more than five years ago” and “relied on widely accepted and long-established cognitive tests and scoring methodologies.”

Last week, an NFL spokesperson appeared to change course, issuing a statement signaling that the league “is committed to helping find alternative testing techniques that will lead to diagnostic accuracy without employing race-based norms.”

But the NFL has continued to deny that any discrimination has taken place, saying claims to the contrary have “no merit.” The league argued that the impact of the practice on past denials was minimal and pledged only to “work with the Court on the appropriate scope of review.”

“The number of players potentially affected by the use of race-based normative adjustments is a fraction of what has been alleged,” a spokesperson said, “because, among other reasons, not all players are Black, several diagnoses do not use the subject tests, the application of the norms in those that do was discretionary, and many claims were denied for reasons that have nothing to do with the norms and any rescoring would have no impact on those denials.”

Seeger’s position, meanwhile, appears to have evolved as well, fueling doubts among some Black former players and their advocates about his appetite for a battle with the NFL over race-norming.

Earlier this month, Seeger said that his firm had previously “investigated this issue” and “not seen any evidence of racial bias in the settlement program.” He has declined to provide those findings or release demographic data about program payouts.

On Monday, however, Seeger seemingly adopted a full-throated commitment to the elimination of race as a factor in neuropsychological evaluations in the settlement and beyond it.

“There is a societal importance in what Class Counsel has undertaken and seeks to accomplish – i.e., removal of race as a factor in neurocognitive testing and use of solely race-neutral demographic norms,” Seeger wrote. “In effect, Class Counsel would be creating a model that is both new and accurate, and which may lead to significant changes in the way that people of all races are evaluated for neuropsychological problems. This is a daunting task but one of paramount importance. It is one that Class Counsel is confident can, and will, be accomplished.”

A spokesperson for Seeger has declined multiple requests from ABC News to clarify his position in an on-camera interview.

“Further information will be released when a proposal is submitted to the court for consideration,” Seeger told ABC News through a spokesperson. “Class members and their Counsel will have an opportunity to review it, and we intend for the process to be transparent.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Scoreboard roundup — 3/22/21

No Comments Sports News

iStockBy ABC News

(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Monday’s sports events:

NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Sacramento 119, Cleveland 105
Oklahoma City 112, Minnesota 103
Charlotte 100, San Antonio 97
Utah 120, Chicago 95
Milwaukee 140, Indiana 113
Houston 117, Toronto 99
Memphis 132, Boston 126 (OT)
LA Clippers 119, Atlanta 110

NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Carolina 3, Columbus 0
Ottawa 2, Calgary 1
NY Rangers 5, Buffalo 3
NY Islanders 2, Philadelphia 1 (OT)
Minnesota 2, Anaheim 1
Winnipeg 4, Vancouver 0
Vegas 5, St. Louis 1
Colorado 5, Arizona 1
San Jose 2, Los Angeles 1
Edmonton at Montreal (Postponed)

TOP-25 COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Gonzaga 87, Oklahoma 71
Michigan 86, LSU 78
Alabama 96, Maryland 77
Oregon 95, Iowa 80
Southern Cal 85, Kansas 51
Florida St. 71, Colorado 53
Creighton 72, Ohio 58

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The simple life: "We Didn't Have Much" gets a thumbs-up from Justin Moore's mom and dad

No Comments Country Music News

Cody VillalobosJustin Moore‘s taking listeners on a sentimental journey back to a simpler time with his heartfelt single, “We Didn’t Have Much.” And the country star who still lives in his hometown of Poyen, Arkansas says it’s a big hit with mom and dad.

“They really like it,” he tells ABC Audio. “And they’ll be honest now. They’ll tell me if they don’t, so I assume they really do.”

“But, you know, the song really kinda reminded me of my youth and how simple we lived,” he continues. “And, you know, throughout this thing, especially early on, we were forced as a family to lead a much more simple life, you know, and I really thought the song kind of spoke to the beauty in that simplicity.”

As the father of four navigates the COVID-19 pandemic with his wife Kate, his three daughters, and his son, “We Didn’t Have Much” evokes memories of his own childhood.

“It reminds me of my dad and me going to baseball practice for hours,” he reflects, “or being out in the yard and me begging him to play catch with me till it gets dark, or shooting basketball and he’s rebounding for me, those kinds of things.”  

These days, Justin’s carrying on those traditions, coaching his daughters’ basketball and softball teams. 

“We Didn’t Have Much” is the first taste of new music, following Justin’s Late Nights and Longnecks album from 2019.

By Stephen Hubbard
Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.