CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Hulk Hogan, the mustachioed, headscarf-wearing icon in the world of professional wrestling, has died at the age of 71, Florida police and WWE said Thursday.
In Clearwater, Florida, authorities responded to a call Thursday morning about a cardiac arrest. Hogan was pronounced dead at a hospital, police said in a statement on Facebook.
Hulk Hogan’s entrance video (WWE via YouTube)
Hogan, whose real name was Terry Bollea, was perhaps the biggest star in WWE’s long history. He was the main draw for the first WrestleMania in 1985 and was a fixture for years, facing everyone from Andre The Giant and Randy Savage to The Rock and even company chairman Vince McMahon.
He won at least six WWE championships and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005.
Hogan was also a celebrity outside the wrestling world, appearing in numerous movies and television shows, including a reality show about his life on VH1, “Hogan Knows Best.”
In 2016, a Florida jury awarded Hogan $115 million in his sex tape lawsuit against Gawker Media. Hogan sued after Gawker in 2012 posted a video of him having sex with his former best friend’s wife. Hogan contended the post violated his privacy.
WWE posted a note on X saying it was saddened to learn the WWE Hall of Famer had passed away.
“One of pop culture’s most recognizable figures, Hogan helped WWE achieve global recognition in the 1980s. WWE extends its condolences to Hogan’s family, friends, and fans,” it said.
The meeting in Florida, which Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Tuesday he was working to arrange, is part of an ongoing Justice Department effort to cast itself as transparent following fierce backlash from parts of President Donald Trump’s base over an earlier refusal to release additional records in the Epstein investigation.
In a social media post Tuesday, Blanche said that Trump “has told us to release all credible evidence” and that if Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the Justice Department “will hear what she has to say.”
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment on Thursday. The person who confirmed the meeting insisted on anonymity to describe a closed-door encounter to The Associated Press.
A lawyer for Maxwell confirmed on Tuesday there were discussions with the government and said Maxwell “will always testify truthfully.”
The House Committee on Oversight issued a subpoena on Wednesday for Maxwell to testify before committee officials in August.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence and is housed at a low-security federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida. She was sentenced three years ago after being convicted of helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.
Officials have said Epstein killed himself in his New York jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019, but his case has generated endless attention and conspiracy theories because of his and Maxwell’s links to famous people, including royals, presidents and billionaires.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department said it would not release more files related to the Epstein investigation, despite promises that claimed otherwise from Attorney General Pam Bondi. The department also said an Epstein client list does not exist.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Bondi told Trump in May that his name was among high-profile people mentioned in government files of Epstein, though the mention does not imply wrongdoing.
A subcommittee on Wednesday also voted to subpoena the Justice Department for documents related to Epstein. And senators in both major political parties have expressed openness to holding hearings on the matter after Congress’ August recess.
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, has introduced legislation with bipartisan support that would require the Justice Department to “make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein and his associates.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republican majority leader, Rep. Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana, have said they will address whatever outstanding Epstein-related issues are in Congress when they return from recess.
Epstein, under a 2008 non-prosecution agreement, pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. That allowed him to avert a possible life sentence, instead serving 13 months in a work release program. He was required to make payments to victims and register as a sex offender.
In 2019, Epstein was charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for nearly identical allegations.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks set more records on Wednesday following a trade deal between the world’s No. 1 and No. 4 economies, one that would lower proposed tariffs on Japanese imports coming to the United States.
The S&P 500 added 0.8% to its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 507 points, or 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.6% to hit its own record.
Stocks jumped even more in Tokyo, where the Nikkei 225 rallied 3.5% after President Donald Trump announced a trade framework that would place a 15% tax on imports coming from Japan. That’s lower than the 25% rate that Trump had earlier said would kick in on Aug. 1.
“It’s a sign of the times that markets would cheer 15% tariffs,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “A year ago, that level of tariffs would be shocking. Today, we breathe a sigh of relief.”
Trump has proposed stiff taxes on imports from around the world, which carry the double-edged risk of driving up inflation for U.S. households while slowing the economy. But many of Trump’s tariffs are currently on pause, giving time to reach deals with other countries that could lower the tax rates. Trump also announced a trade agreement with the Philippines on Tuesday.
So far, the U.S. economy has seemed to hold up OK despite the pressures on it. And tariffs already in place may be having less of an effect than expected, at least when it comes to the prices that U.S. households are paying at the moment.
“The main lesson about tariffs so far is that passthrough to consumer prices is tracking somewhat lower than in 2019,” according to Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle.
Tariffs are certainly having an effect, to be sure, as big U.S. companies across industries have been showing through their profit updates in recent days.
Hasbro took a $1 billion, non-cash hit to its results for the spring to write down the value of some of its assets following a review triggered by the implementation of tariffs. It said tariffs have had no impact yet on how much profit it’s making from each $1 of its sales, but it expects to see costs ramp during the current quarter.
Hasbro’s stock fell 0.9% even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, when not including the $1 billion charge.
Texas Instruments’ stock also fell despite delivering results for the latest quarter that were above analysts’ expectations. It gave a forecasted range for profit in the current quarter whose midpoint fell a bit shy of Wall Street’s.
Analysts pointed to some cautious commentary from Texas Instruments executives about how the uncertainty created by tariffs could slow demand. Its stock sank 13.3%.
Most of the stocks on Wall Street nevertheless rose, including a 14.6% jump for GE Vernova. The energy company not only delivered a stronger profit than analysts expected, it also raised its forecasts for revenue from its power and electrification businesses.
GE Vernova said that the inflation it’s expecting to see as a result of tariffs may be trending toward the lower end of $300 million to $400 million, net of mitigating actions.
Lamb Weston rallied 16.3% after the supplier of French fries and other potato products delivered better results for the latest quarter than analysts expected and said it expects customers will continue to eat fries even with an uncertain economy. It also announced a plan to cut at least $250 million in costs by cutting about 4% of its workforce and making other moves.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, several stocks jumped as traders search for the next “meme stock” that could ride a wave of online enthusiasm to high prices, regardless of what the company’s profits are doing. Krispy Kreme, which came into the day with a 58.4% loss for the year so far, jumped nearly 39% shortly after trading began. It then gave back most of it and ended with a gain of 4.6%. GoPro rose 12.4%.
That’s even as other potential meme stocks lost their momentum. Opendoor Technologies, which had more than tripled between the last two Mondays, fell 20.3%.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 49.29 points to 6,358.91. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 507.85 to 45,010.29, and the Nasdaq composite gained 127.33 to 21,020.02.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across Asia and Europe following Trump’s announcements of trade deals.
Japan’s market was the big winner, where a series of automakers gave no public reaction as their stock prices rallied. Japanese companies tend to be cautious about their public reactions, and some business officials have privately remarked in off-record comments that they hesitate to say anything because Trump keeps changing his mind.
Elsewhere, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1.6%, and France’s CAC 40 gained 1.4% for two of the world’s bigger moves.
In the bond market, Treasury yields ticked higher.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.38% from 4.35% late Tuesday.
A Black college student shown on video being punched and dragged from his car by Florida law officers during a traffic stop faces a long recovery from injuries that include a concussion and a broken tooth that pierced his lip and led to several stiches, his lawyers said Wednesday.
At a news conference in Jacksonville, 22-year-old William McNeil Jr. spoke softly as he made a few brief comments with his family and civil rights attorneys by his side.
A video of Florida deputies punching and dragging a Black man from his car during a traffic stop has caused national outrage, with civil rights lawyers accusing authorities of fabricating their arrest report. (AP Video)
“That day I just really wanted to know why I was getting pulled over and why I needed to step out of the car,” he said. “I knew I didn’t do nothing wrong. I was really just scared.”
McNeil is a biology major who played in the marching band at Livingstone College, a historically Black Christian college in Salisbury, North Carolina, Livingstone President Anthony Davis said.
The encounter with law enforcement happened in February, but the arrest didn’t capture much attention until the video from McNeil’s car-mounted camera went viral over the weekend. That’s when the sheriff said he became aware of it and opened an internal investigation, which is ongoing. The sheriff said a separate probe by the State Attorney’s Office cleared the officers of any criminal wrongdoing — a finding fiercely criticized by McNeil’s lawyers.
Video from inside the car captures him being punched
Footage of the violent arrest has sparked nationwide outrage, with civil rights lawyers accusing authorities of fabricating their arrest report.
The video filmed by McNeil’s camera shows him sitting in the driver’s seat, asking to speak to the Jacksonville officers’ supervisor, when they broke his window, punched him in the face, pulled him from the vehicle, punched him again, and threw him to the ground. He was then knocked to the ground by an officer who delivered six closed-fist punches to the hamstring of his right thigh, police reports show.
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday defended law enforcement officers and implied the video was posted to advance a “narrative” and generate attention on social media.
“That’s what happens in so many of these things,” DeSantis said. “There’s a rush to judgment. There’s a, there’s a desire to try to get views and clicks by creating division.”
DeSantis says he hasn’t seen the video, but backs law enforcement
DeSantis said he hasn’t reviewed the viral video but has “every confidence” in Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters, who has urged the public not to cast judgement based on the footage alone.
“If people get out of line, he’s going to hold them accountable,” DeSantis said.
Body camera footage of the encounter shows McNeil had been repeatedly told to exit the vehicle. And, though he earlier had his car door open while talking with an officer, he later closed it and appeared to keep it locked for about three minutes before the officers forcibly removed him, the video shows. The vantage point of the body camera footage that was released makes it difficult to see the punches that were thrown.
The cellphone footage from the Feb. 19 arrest shows that seconds before being dragged outside, McNeil had his hands up and did not appear to be resisting as he asked, “What is your reason?” He had pulled over and had been accused of not having his headlights on, even though it was daytime, his lawyers said.
On Wednesday, civil rights lawyer Ben Crump said his client had every right to ask why he was being pulled over and to ask for a supervisor.
Sheriff: Officers have been cleared of committing any crimes
The State Attorney’s Office determined that the officers did not violate any criminal laws, the sheriff said. No one from the State Attorney’s Office ever interviewed McNeil, said Crump.
Daniels called their investigation “a whitewashing.”
“But for that video, we would not be here,” Daniels said. “And we thank God Mr. McNeil had the courage to record.”
Asked about the criticism of the State Attorney’s review, a spokesman for the office said Wednesday that “a memo to McNeil’s file will be finalized in the coming days that will serve as our comment.”
Shortly after his arrest, McNeil pleaded guilty to charges of resisting an officer without violence and driving with a suspended license, Waters said.
Civil rights attorneys call for accountability
“America, we’re better than this, we’re at a crossroads,” Crump said. “We are a Democracy, we believe in the Constitution. We are not a police state where the police can do anything they want to citizens without any accountability.”
Crump said his client remained calm while the officers who are trained to deescalate tense situations were the ones escalating violence. He said the case harkened back to the Civil Rights movement, when Black people were often attacked when they tried to assert their rights.
“What he exhibited was a 21st century Rosa Parks moment where an African American had the audacity to say ‘I deserve equal justice under the law. I deserve to be treated like a human being with all the respect that a human being is entitled to.’”
The sheriff has pushed back on some of the claims by Crump and lawyer Harry Daniels, saying the cellphone camera footage from inside the car “does not comprehensively capture the circumstances surrounding the incident.”
“Part of that stems from the distance and perspective of the recording cell phone camera,” the sheriff said in a statement, adding that the video did not capture events that occurred before officers decided to arrest McNeil.
Cameras “can only capture what can be seen and heard,” the sheriff added. “So much context and depth are absent from recorded footage because a camera simply cannot capture what is known to the people depicted in it.”
Many of the speakers at Wednesday’s news conference said they hope the Florida case results in accountability so that what happened to McNeil doesn’t happen to others.
“It’s incumbent upon everyone to understand that this could have been us, this could have been me, this could have been you,” civil rights lawyer Gerald Griggs said.
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Associated Press writer Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, contributed.
NEW YORK (AP) — They’re not going their own way anymore. After much speculation, Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham announced Wednesday the reissue of “Buckingham Nicks,” more than 50 years after the release of their only full-length album as a duo.
Since its initial release in 1973, “Buckingham Nicks” has never been reissued and is not currently available on streaming platforms. The remastered version arrives Sept. 19 via Rhino Records’ high-fidelity series and was sourced from the original analog master tapes. The album will also receive a CD and digital release for the first time, and the opening track, “Crying in the Night,” was available to stream Wednesday.
Buckingham and Nicks were in their early to mid-20s during the making of their album. “It was a very natural thing, from the beginning,” Nicks says in the re-release’s liner notes, written by music journalist David Fricke.
Despite their relative inexperience, “it stands up in a way you would hope it would, by these two kids who were pretty young to be doing that work,” Buckingham says, according to the announcement release.
The reissue announcement was foreshadowed by cryptic Instagram posts last week. Both Nicks and Buckingham shared handwritten lyrics to their official social media accounts.
“And if you go forward…” Nicks posted, a line from their song “Frozen Love,” which appears on “Buckingham Nicks.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Buckingham shared, completing the lyric.
In 2011, Buckingham told Uncut that he and Nicks had “every intention of putting that album back out and possibly even doing something along with it, but I can’t put any specifics on that.” In 2013, on the album’s 40th anniversary, Fleetwood Mac released “Extended Play,” their first new studio material since 2003’s “Say You Will.” The four-track collection featured a song titled “Without You,” which had been originally slated for “Buckingham Nicks.”
The reissued version of “Buckingham Nicks” features the same album cover as the original, despite Nicks’ public dissatisfaction with the photograph, telling classic rock magazine MOJO that she “felt like a rat in a trap” during the shoot.
“I’m actually quite prudish. So when they suggested they shoot Lindsey and I nude I could not have been more terrified if you’d asked me to jump off a speeding train,” Nicks told MOJO in 2013. “Lindsey was like, ‘Oh, come on — this is art. Don’t be a child!’ I thought, ‘Who are you? Don’t you know me?’”
“Buckingham Nicks” was released one year before they joined Fleetwood Mac, and was met with little commercial success. But it did attract the attention of Mick Fleetwood, who invited Buckingham to join Fleetwood Mac. Buckingham in turn insisted Nicks come, too. The two, then a couple, became the central faces, voices and songwriters of the group for the four decades that followed.
The pair’s tumultuous relationship appeared across the band’s discography: She wrote “Dreams” about him. He wrote “Go Your Own Way” about her. Infamously, they broke up while writing the 1977 hit album “Rumours.” Footage of Nicks staring down Buckingham 20 years later during a performance of “Silver Springs” routinely goes viral (“You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you,” Nicks and Buckingham sing in unison, at one point, holding each other’s gaze.)
Buckingham left the band in 1987, returning in 1996. The last time the band reunited, however, for a 2018-2019 tour, the rest of the members kicked Buckingham out, and as a result, he sued them. He claimed he was told five days after the group appeared at Radio City Music Hall that the band would tour without him. He says he would have been paid at least $12 million for his share of the proceeds. Later that year, Buckingham said they had settled the lawsuit.
Both Buckingham and Nicks have also released reams of solo music. Some fans had theorized that Nicks and Buckingham were teasing a Fleetwood Mac reunion, which would have been the first since the death of vocalist, songwriter and keyboard player Christine McVie in 2022.
Last year, Nicks told MOJO that without McVie, “there is no chance of putting Fleetwood Mac back together in any way.”
No question is too small when Kayla Chege, a high school student in Kansas, is using artificial intelligence.
The 15-year-old asks ChatGPT for guidance on back-to-school shopping, makeup colors, low-calorie choices at Smoothie King, plus ideas for her Sweet 16 and her younger sister’s birthday party.
The sophomore honors student makes a point not to have chatbots do her homework and tries to limit her interactions to mundane questions. But in interviews with The Associated Press and a new study, teenagers say they are increasingly interacting with AI as if it were a companion, capable of providing advice and friendship.
“Everyone uses AI for everything now. It’s really taking over,” said Chege, who wonders how AI tools will affect her generation. “I think kids use AI to get out of thinking.”
For the past couple of years, concerns about cheating at school have dominated the conversation around kids and AI. But artificial intelligence is playing a much larger role in many of their lives. AI, teens say, has become a go-to source for personal advice, emotional support, everyday decision-making and problem-solving.
‘AI is always available. It never gets bored with you’
More than 70% of teens have used AI companions and half use them regularly, according to a new study from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for using screens and digital media sensibly.
The study defines AI companions as platforms designed to serve as “digital friends,” like Character. AI or Replika, which can be customized with specific traits or personalities and can offer emotional support, companionship and conversations that can feel human-like. But popular sites like ChatGPT and Claude, which mainly answer questions, are being used in the same way, the researchers say.
As the technology rapidly gets more sophisticated, teenagers and experts worry about AI’s potential to redefine human relationships and exacerbate crises of loneliness and youth mental health.
“AI is always available. It never gets bored with you. It’s never judgmental,” says Ganesh Nair, an 18-year-old in Arkansas. “When you’re talking to AI, you are always right. You’re always interesting. You are always emotionally justified.”
All that used to be appealing, but as Nair heads to college this fall, he wants to step back from using AI. Nair got spooked after a high school friend who relied on an “AI companion” for heart-to-heart conversations with his girlfriend later had the chatbot write the breakup text ending his two-year relationship.
“That felt a little bit dystopian, that a computer generated the end to a real relationship,” said Nair. “It’s almost like we are allowing computers to replace our relationships with people.”
How many teens are using AI? New study stuns researchers
In the Common Sense Media survey, 31% of teens said their conversations with AI companions were “as satisfying or more satisfying” than talking with real friends. Even though half of teens said they distrust AI’s advice, 33% had discussed serious or important issues with AI instead of real people.
Those findings are worrisome, says Michael Robb, the study’s lead author and head researcher at Common Sense, and should send a warning to parents, teachers and policymakers. The now-booming and largely unregulated AI industry is becoming as integrated with adolescence as smartphones and social media are.
“It’s eye-opening,” said Robb. “When we set out to do this survey, we had no understanding of how many kids are actually using AI companions.” The study polled more than 1,000 teens nationwide in April and May.
Adolescence is a critical time for developing identity, social skills and independence, Robb said, and AI companions should complement — not replace — real-world interactions.
“If teens are developing social skills on AI platforms where they are constantly being validated, not being challenged, not learning to read social cues or understand somebody else’s perspective, they are not going to be adequately prepared in the real world,” he said.
The nonprofit analyzed several popular AI companions in a “ risk assessment,” finding ineffective age restrictions and that the platforms can produce sexual material, give dangerous advice and offer harmful content. The group recommends that minors not use AI companions.
A concerning trend to teens and adults alike
Researchers and educators worry about the cognitive costs for youth who rely heavily on AI, especially in their creativity, critical thinking and social skills. The potential dangers of children forming relationships with chatbots gained national attention last year when a 14-year-old Florida boy died by suicide after developing an emotional attachment to a Character. AI chatbot.
“Parents really have no idea this is happening,” said Eva Telzer, a psychology and neuroscience professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “All of us are struck by how quickly this blew up.” Telzer is leading multiple studies on youth and AI, a new research area with limited data.
Telzer’s research has found that children as young as 8 are using generative AI and also found that teens are using AI to explore their sexuality and for companionship. In focus groups, Telzer found that one of the top apps teens frequent is SpicyChat AI, a free role-playing app intended for adults.
Many teens also say they use chatbots to write emails or messages to strike the right tone in sensitive situations.
“One of the concerns that comes up is that they no longer have trust in themselves to make a decision,” said Telzer. “They need feedback from AI before feeling like they can check off the box that an idea is OK or not.”
Arkansas teen Bruce Perry, 17, says he relates to that and relies on AI tools to craft outlines and proofread essays for his English class.
“If you tell me to plan out an essay, I would think of going to ChatGPT before getting out a pencil,” Perry said. He uses AI daily and has asked chatbots for advice in social situations, to help him decide what to wear and to write emails to teachers, saying AI articulates his thoughts faster.
Perry says he feels fortunate that AI companions were not around when he was younger.
“I’m worried that kids could get lost in this,” Perry said. “I could see a kid that grows up with AI not seeing a reason to go to the park or try to make a friend.”
Other teens agree, saying the issues with AI and its effect on children’s mental health are different from those of social media.
“Social media complemented the need people have to be seen, to be known, to meet new people,” Nair said. “I think AI complements another need that runs a lot deeper — our need for attachment and our need to feel emotions. It feeds off of that.”
“It’s the new addiction,” Nair added. “That’s how I see it.”
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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has effectively barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports, telling the federations overseeing swimming, athletics and other sports it has an “obligation to comply” with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump.
The new policy, announced Monday with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and confirmed in a letter sent to national sport governing bodies, follows a similar step taken by the NCAA earlier this year.
The USOPC change is noted obliquely as a detail under “USOPC Athlete Safety Policy” and references Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed in February. That order, among other things, threatens to “rescind all funds” from organizations that allow transgender athlete participation in women’s sports.
U.S. Olympic officials told the national governing bodies they will need to follow suit, adding that “the USOPC has engaged in a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials” since Trump signed the order.
“As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations,” USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes wrote in a letter. “Our revised policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women. All National Governing Bodies are required to update their applicable policies in alignment.”
The National Women’s Law Center put out a statement condemning the move.
“By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes,” said that organization’s president and CEO, Fatima Goss Graves.
The USOPC oversees around 50 national governing bodies, most of which play a role in everything from the grassroots to elite levels of their sports. That raises the possibility that rules might need to be changed at local sports clubs to retain their memberships in the NGBs.
Some of those organizations — for instance, USA Track and Field — have long followed guidelines set by their own world federation. World Athletics is considering changes to its policies that would mostly fall in line with Trump’s order.
A USA Swimming spokesman said the federation had been made aware of the USOPC’s change and was consulting with the committee to figure out what changes it needs to make. USA Fencing changed its policy effective Aug. 1 to allow only “athletes who are of the female sex” in women’s competition and opening men’s events to “all athletes not eligible for the women’s category, including transgender women, transgender men, non-binary and intersex athletes and cisgender male athletes.”
The nationwide battle over transgender girls on girls’ and women’s sports teams has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans portray the issue as a fight for athletic fairness. More than two dozen states have enacted laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some policies have been blocked in court after critics challenged the policies as discriminatory, cruel and unnecessarily target a tiny niche of athletes.
Female eligibility is a key issue for the International Olympic Committee under its new president, Kirsty Coventry, who has signaled an effort to “protect the female category.” The IOC has allowed individual sports federations to set their own rules at the Olympics — and some have already taken steps on the topic.
Stricter rules on transgender athletes — barring from women’s events anyone who went through male puberty — have been passed by swimming, cycling and track and field. Soccer is reviewing its eligibility rules for women and could set limits on testosterone.
Trump has said he wants the IOC to change everything “having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject.” Los Angeles will host the Summer Games in 2028.
Ozzy Osbourne, the gloomy, demon-invoking lead singer of the pioneering band Black Sabbath who became the throaty, growling voice — and drug-and-alcohol ravaged id — of heavy metal, died Tuesday, just weeks after his farewell show. He was 76.
“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time,” a family statement from Birmingham, England, said. In 2020, he revealed he had Parkinson’s disease after suffering a fall.
Ozzy Osbourne, the frontman of the pioneering band Black Sabbath –who became the throaty, growling voice of heavy metal, died Tuesday, just weeks after his farewell show. He was 76. (July 22) (AP Video)
Either clad in black or bare-chested, the singer was often the target of parents’ groups for his imagery and once caused an uproar for biting the head off a bat. Later, he would reveal himself to be a doddering and sweet father on the reality TV show “The Osbournes.”
The Big Bang of heavy metal
Black Sabbath’s 1969 self-titled debut LP has been likened to the Big Bang of heavy metal. It came during the height of the Vietnam War and crashed the hippie party, dripping menace and foreboding. The cover of the record was of a spooky figure against a stark landscape. The music was loud, dense and angry, and marked a shift in rock ’n’ roll.
The band’s second album, “Paranoid,” included such classic metal tunes as “War Pigs,” “Iron Man” and “Fairies Wear Boots.” The song “Paranoid” only reached No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100 but became in many ways the band’s signature song. Both albums were voted among the top 10 greatest heavy metal albums of all time by readers of Rolling Stone magazine.
“Black Sabbath are the Beatles of heavy metal. Anybody who’s serious about metal will tell you it all comes down to Sabbath,” Dave Navarro of the band Jane’s Addiction wrote in a 2010 tribute in Rolling Stone. “There’s a direct line you can draw back from today’s metal, through Eighties bands like Iron Maiden, back to Sabbath.”
Sabbath fired Osbourne in 1979 for his legendary excesses, like showing up late for rehearsals and missing gigs. “We knew we didn’t really have a choice but to sack him because he was just so out of control. But we were all very down about the situation,” wrote bassist Terry “Geezer” Butler in his memoir, “Into the Void.”
Osbourne reemerged the next year as a solo artist with “Blizzard of Ozz” and the following year’s “Diary of a Madman,” both hard rock classics that went multiplatinum and spawned enduring favorites such as “Crazy Train,” “Goodbye to Romance,” “Flying High Again” and “You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll.” Osbourne was twice inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — once with Sabbath in 2006 and again in 2024 as a solo artist.
The original Sabbath lineup reunited for the first time in 20 years in July for what Osbourne said would be his final concert. “Let the madness begin!” he told 42,000 fans in Birmingham.
Metallica, Guns N Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Gojira, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Halestorm, Anthrax, Rival Sons and Mastodon all did sets. Tom Morello, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Billy Corgan, Ronnie Wood, Travis Barker, Sammy Hagar and more made appearances. Actor Jason Momoa was the host for the festivities.
“Black Sabbath: we’d all be different people without them, that’s the truth,” said Pantera singer Phil Anselmo. “I know I wouldn’t be up here with a microphone in my hand without Black Sabbath.”
Outlandish exploits and a classic look
Osbourne embodied the excesses of metal. His outlandish exploits included relieving himself on the Alamo, snorting a line of ants off a sidewalk and, most memorably, biting the head off the live bat that a fan threw onstage during a 1981 concert. (He said he thought it was rubber.)
Osbourne was sued in 1987 by parents of a 19-year-old teen who died by suicide while listening to his song “Suicide Solution.” The lawsuit was dismissed. Osbourne said the song was really about the dangers of alcohol, which caused the death of his friend Bon Scott, lead singer of AC/DC.
Then-Cardinal John J. O’Connor of New York claimed in 1990 that Osbourne’s songs led to demonic possession and even suicide. “You are ignorant about the true meaning of my songs,” the singer wrote back. “You have also insulted the intelligence of rock fans all over the world.”
Audiences at Osbourne shows could be mooned or spit on by the singer. They would often be hectored to scream along with the song, but the Satan-invoking Osbourne would usually send the crowds home with their ears ringing and a hearty “God bless!”
He started an annual tour — Ozzfest — in 1996 after he was rejected from the lineup of what was then the top touring music festival, Lollapalooza. Ozzfest has gone on to host such bands as Slipknot, Tool, Megadeth, Rob Zombie, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park.
Osbourne’s look changed little over his life. He wore his long hair flat, heavy black eye makeup and round glasses, often wearing a cross around his neck. In 2013, he reunited with Black Sabbath for the dour, raw “13,” which reached No. 1 on the U.K. Albums Chart and peaked at No. 86 on the U.S. Billboard 200. In 2019, he had a Top 10 hit when featured on Post Malone’s “Take What You Want,” Osbourne’s first song in the Top 10 since 1989.
In 2020, he released the album “Ordinary Man,” which had as its title song a duet with Elton John. “I’ve been a bad guy, been higher than the blue sky/And the truth is I don’t wanna die an ordinary man,” he sang. In 2022, he landed his first career back-to-back No. 1 rock radio singles from his album “Patient Number 9,” which featured collaborations with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Mike McCready, Chad Smith, Robert Trujillo and Duff McKagan. It earned four Grammy nominations, winning two. (Osbourne won five Grammys over his lifetime.)
At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2024, Jack Black called him “greatest frontman in the history of rock ‘n’ roll” and “the Jack Nicholson of rock.” Osbourne thanked his fans, his guitarist Randy Rhoads and his longtime wife, Sharon Osbourne.
The beginnings of Black Sabbath
John Michael Osbourne was raised in the gritty city of Birmingham. Kids in school nicknamed him Ozzy, short for his surname. As a boy, he loved the Four Seasons, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. The Beatles made a huge impression.
“They came from Liverpool, which was approximately 60 miles north of where I come from,” he told Billboard. “So all of a sudden it was in my grasp, but I never thought it would be as successful as it became.”
In the late 1960s, Osbourne had teamed up with Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward as the Polka Tulk Blues Band. They decided to rename the band Earth, but found to their dismay there was another band with that name. So they changed the name to the American title of the classic Italian horror movie “I Tre Volti Della Paura,” starring Boris Karloff: Black Sabbath.
Once they found their sludgy, ominous groove, the band was productive, putting out their self-titled debut and “Paranoid” in 1970, “Master of Reality” in 1971, “Vol. 4” in 1972 and “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” in 1973.
The music was all about industrial guitar riffs and disorienting changes in time signatures, along with lyrics that spoke of alienation and doom. “People think I’m insane because I am frowning all the time,” Osbourne sang in one song. “All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy/Think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t find something to pacify.”
The Guardian newspaper in 2009 said the band “introduced working-class anger, stoner sludge grooves and witchy horror-rock to flower power. Black Sabbath confronted the empty platitudes of the 1960s and, along with Altamont and Charles Manson, almost certainly helped kill off the hippy counterculture.”
After Sabbath, Osbourne had an uncanny knack for calling some of the most creative young guitarists to his side. When he went solo, he hired the brilliant innovator Rhoads, who played on two of Osbourne’s finest solo albums, “Blizzard of Ozz” and “Diary of a Madman.” Rhoads was killed in a freak plane accident in 1982; Osbourne released the live album “Tribute” in 1987 in his memory.
Osbourne then signed Jake E. Lee, who lent his talents to the platinum albums “Bark at the Moon” and “The Ultimate Sin.” Hotshot Zakk Wylde joined Osbourne’s band for “No Rest for the Wicked” and the multiplatinum “No More Tears.”
“They come along, they sprout wings, they blossom, and they fly off,” Osbourne said of his players in 1995 to The Associated Press. “But I have to move on. To get a new player now and again boosts me on.”
Courting controversy — and wholesomeness
Whomever he was playing with, Osbourne wasn’t likely to back down from controversy. He had the last laugh when the TV evangelist the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart in 1986 lambasted various rock groups and rock magazines as “the new pornography,” prompting some retailers to pull Osbourne’s album.
When Swaggart later was caught with a sex worker in 1988, Osbourne put out the song “Miracle Man” about his foe: “Miracle man got busted/miracle man got busted,” he sang. “Today I saw a Miracle Man, on TV cryin’/Such a hypocritical man, born again, dying.”
Much later, a whole new Osbourne would be revealed when “The Osbournes,” which ran on MTV from 2002-2005, showed this one-time self-proclaimed madman drinking Diet Cokes as he struggled to find the History Channel on his new satellite television or warning his kids not to smoke or drink before they embarked on a night on the town.
Later, he and his son Jack toured America on the travel show “Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour,” where the pair visited such places as Mount Rushmore and the Space Center Houston. Osbourne was honored in 2014 with the naming of a bat frog found in the Amazon that makes high-pitched, batlike calls. It was dubbed Dendropsophus ozzyi.
He also met Queen Elizabeth II during her Golden Jubilee weekend. He was standing next to singer-actor Cliff Richard. “She took one look at the two of us, said ‘Oh, so this is what they call variety, is it?’ then cracked up laughing. I honestly thought that Sharon had slipped some acid into my cornflakes that morning,” he wrote in “I Am Ozzy.”
Thelma Riley and Osbourne married in 1971; Osbourne adopted her son Elliot Kingsley, and they had two more children, Jessica and Louis. Osbourne later met his wife, then Sharon Levy, who became her own celebrity persona, when she was running her father’s Los Angeles office. Her father was Don Arden, a top concert promoter and artist manager. She went to Osbourne’s hotel in Los Angeles to collect money, which Osbourne had spent on drugs.
“She says she’ll come back in three days and I’d better have it. I’d always fancied her and I thought, ‘Ah, she’s coming back! Maybe I have a chance.’ I had pizza hanging from my hair, cigarette ashes on my shirt,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. They married in 1982, had three children — Kelly, Aimee and Jack — and endured periodic separations and reconciliations.
He is survived by Sharon Osbourne and his children.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Jim Phillips stood in the same spot Tuesday morning that he did exactly one year earlier as he officially opened the Atlantic Coast Conference’s preseason football media days.
The league has successfully quelled a rebellion in the form of the lawsuits by member schools Clemson and Florida State, which represented a threat fueling doomsayers’ chatter about the league’s long-term stability. Instead, the settlement that ended the legal fight spawned a new revenue-distribution model set to benefit the league’s biggest brands. There was also ESPN’s extension on its long-running partnership with the league.
And that sends the ACC into the 2025-26 sports season with the closest thing to peace as a college landscape churning with constant change can muster.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Phillips described recent months as “the restabilization of a great league that went through a very bumpy period.” He also talked about working to “make this a league that teams want to be in, not have to be in” at the start of the revenue-sharing era.
“We’re as healthy of a league as we’ve ever been based on having to go through some really tough moments,” Phillips told the AP.
“I give our presidents/board credit for it, and I give our ADs a ton of credit for it as well. … So we’ve moved away from some of the legal issues that we’ve had and now we’ve been able to work on things that I think have been put on the backburner.”
A summer earlier, FSU, Clemson and the league were entangled in a crossfire of lawsuits over the ACC’s ability to charge hundreds of millions of dollars in exit fees for schools that leave for another league.
Had the Clemson or FSU lawsuits proceeded, there was potential a ruling might defang the league’s exit fees. Or its grant-of-rights deal, signed by all ACC schools to give the conference control of their media rights — and the TV money that comes with them — as a deterrent to moving elsewhere.
Either could have triggered more teams to exit and chase revenue elsewhere, with the 2024 disintegration of the Pac-12 offering a worst-case harbinger.
The stakes were clear last summer when Phillips took an assertive stance that was downright pugilistic by his own measured-tone standards in promising the league would fight “as long as it takes.” He now touts a successful “reconciliation” and what he calls “a really good story about the ACC.”
“People had various opinions about how unstable it was — I never felt ever that it was going to lose its way or anything like that,” Phillips said. “It was never going to have the demise that I had heard that may happen. I never believed that for a second.
“But you have a staff that you’re dealing with. You have other schools that you’re dealing with. So to me, part of my responsibility was to be incredibly level and strong and unwavering about (how) we would get to the place that we’re experiencing now, where we have stability.”
ESPN’s decision in January to pick up its base-rights option through 2035-36 provided a key perception boost, aligning that deal’s timeline with a second covering the partnership for the ACC Network. The legal settlement followed in March, featuring a revised revenue-distribution model incorporating TV viewership as a way for top programs to make more money.
Throw in the last season’s implementation of a “success initiative” allowing teams to keep money generated by their own postseason success, and big-brand names like Clemson and FSU in football, or Duke, North Carolina and Louisville in basketball, have avenues to offset the gap with Big Ten or SEC peers.
That said, it didn’t sound like the legal fight produced constant stress at the team level.
Miami coach Mario Cristobal said he never focused on uncertainty surrounding the conference’s future, while linebacker Wesley Bissainthe and offensive lineman Francis Mauigoa said they essentially knew nothing about the lawsuits.
“I live in a cave,” Mauigoa said with a grin.
Still, reaching resolution was a welcome sign all the same.
“For me,” Virginia coach Tony Elliott said, “really to see the commissioner stand up there and have confidence and say the things he’s said just gives me confidence.”
Longer-term questions await, though. The settlement included a rollback of the ACC’s grant-of-rights provision that ensured schools would bring no TV value to a new league. It also created a schedule of declining exit fees from its current nine-figure status to $75 million for the 2030-31 season, then leveling off there through the duration of the ESPN deals.
That 2031 date would largely align with expiration of media deals for the Big Ten (2029-30 season) and the Big 12 (2030-31), while the SEC’s deal runs through 2033-34. That confluence could set up a potential countdown for massive realignment impacting all Power Four leagues, maybe even through the formation of super league.
Asked about that looming potential, Phillips could only chuckle.
“We’re trying to get through this next year,” he said, “and all the rest of it.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street inched to another record on Tuesday following some mixed profit reports, as General Motors and other big U.S. companies gave updates on how much President Donald Trump’s tariffs are hurting or helping them.
The S&P 500 added 0.1% to the all-time high it had set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 179 points, or 0.4%, though the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.4% from its own record.
General Motors dropped 8.1% despite reporting a stronger profit for the spring than analysts expected. The automaker said it’s still expecting a $4 billion to $5 billion hit to its results over 2025 because of tariffs and that it hopes to mitigate 30% of that. GM also said it will feel more pain because of tariffs in the current quarter than it did during the spring.
That helped to offset big gains for some homebuilders after they reported stronger profits for the spring than Wall Street had forecast. D.R. Horton rallied 17%, and PulteGroup jumped 11.5%. That was even as both companies said homebuyers are continuing to deal with challenging conditions, including higher mortgage rates and an uncertain economy.
So far, the U.S. economy seems to be powering through the uncertainty created by Trump’s on-and-off tariffs. Many of Trump’s proposed taxes on imports are currently on pause, and the next big deadline is Aug. 1. Talks are underway on possible trade deals with other countries that could lower the stiff proposals before they kick in.
Trump said he reached a trade agreement with the Philippines following a meeting Tuesday at the White House, that will see the U.S. slightly drop its tariff rate for the Philippines without paying import taxes for what it sells there.
Companies are already feeling effects. Genuine Parts, the Atlanta-based company that sells auto and industrial replacement parts around the world, trimmed its profit forecast for the full year in order to incorporate “all U.S. tariffs currently in effect,” along with its updated expectations for business conditions in the second half of the year.
Its stock rose 7.6% after it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
RTX fell 1.6% after cutting its forecast for profit in 2025 but also raising its forecast for revenue. It made the changes to incorporate what CEO Chris Calio called “our current assessment of the impact of tariffs,” along with other changes anticipated from Washington’s recent approval of big tax changes.
Coca-Cola slipped 0.6% even though it delivered a stronger profit than forecast. Its revenue for the quarter only edged past analysts’ expectations, and it said that higher prices that it charged helped offset sales of fewer cases during the spring.
Opendoor Technologies, a company that caught interest among investors looking for the next “meme stock” that could rise regardless of how its profits are doing, lost momentum and dropped 10.3% to $2.88. It had climbed as high as $3.99 in the morning, more than quintuple its price of 78 cents from just two Fridays ago.
All told, the S&P 500 rose 4.02 points to 6,309.62. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 179.37 to 44,502.44, and the Nasdaq composite fell 81.49 to 20,892.68.
In the bond market, Treasury yields sank as traders continue to expect the Federal Reserve to wait until September at the earliest to resume cutting interest rates.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell has been insisting he wants to see more data about how Trump’s tariffs are affecting inflation and the economy before the Fed makes its next move. That’s despite often angry criticism from Trump, who has been lobbying for more cuts to rates to happen sooner.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.34% from 4.38% late Monday.
In overseas markets, Japan’s benchmark jumped and then fell back as it reopened from a holiday Monday following the ruling coalition’s loss of its upper house majority in Sunday’s election. The Nikkei 225 shed 0.1%.
Analysts said the market initially climbed on relief that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba vowed to stay in office despite a loss for his ruling coalition in an upper-house election Sunday. But the results have only added to political uncertainty and left his government without the heft needed to push through legislation.
A breakthrough in trade talks with the U.S. might win Ishiba a reprieve, but so far there’s been scant sign of progress in negotiating away the threat of higher tariffs on Japan’s exports to the U.S. beginning Aug. 1.
