'Friends' star Matthew Perry dies, Maine mass killing suspect found dead, and more of the week's top news

Matthew Perry, Emmy-nominated 'Friends' star, dead at 54

LOS ANGELES — "Friends" star Matthew Perry, the Emmy-nominated actor whose sarcastic but lovable Chandler Bing was among television's most famous and most quotable characters, has died at 54.

The actor was found dead at his Los Angeles home, according to coroner's records. An investigation into how Perry died is ongoing, and it may take weeks before his cause of death is determined.

Perry's body was found in a hot tub at his home, according to unnamed sources cited by the Los Angeles Times and celebrity website TMZ, which was the first to report the news. LAPD Officer Drake Madison told The Associated Press on Saturday that officers went to that block "for a death investigation of a male in his 50s."

"This truly is The One Where Our Hearts Are Broken, "Friends" co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane, and executive producer Kevin Bright, said in a statement. "We will always cherish the joy, the light, the blinding intelligence he brought to every moment - not just to his work, but in life as well. He was always the funniest person in the room. More than that, he was the sweetest, with a giving and selfless heart."

Perry's 10 seasons on "Friends" made him one of Hollywood's most recognizable actors, starring opposite Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer as a friend group in New York.

As Chandler, he played the quick-witted, insecure and neurotic roommate of LeBlanc's Joey and a close friend of Schwimmer's Ross. During the show's hijinks, he could be counted on to chime in with a line like "Could this BE any more awkward?" or another well-timed quip.

Perry was open about his long and public struggle with addiction, writing at the beginning of his 2022 million-selling memoir: "Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead."

"Friends" ran from 1994 until 2004, winning one best comedy series Emmy Award in 2002. The cast notably banded together for later seasons to obtain a salary of $1 million per episode for each.

Some of his "Friends" guest stars paid tribute on social media, posting photos, GIFS and bloopers from their favorite episodes.

"What a loss," actress Maggie Wheeler, who played Perry's on-again, off-again girlfriend Janice, wrote on Instagram. "The joy you brought to so many in your too short lifetime will live on."

Actress Morgan Fairchild, who played Perry's mother on the show, said the loss of a "brilliant young actor" was a shock. "I'm heartbroken about the untimely death of my 'son,'" she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

By the "Friends" finale, Chandler is married to Cox's Monica and they have a family, reflecting the journey of the core cast from single New Yorkers trying to figure their lives out to several of them married and starting families.

The series was one of television's biggest hits and has taken on a new life — and found surprising popularity with younger fans — in recent years on streaming services.

Perry described reading the "Friends" script for the first time in his memoir, "Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing."

"It was as if someone had followed me around for a year, stealing my jokes, copying my mannerisms, photocopying my world-weary yet witty view of life. One character in particular stood out to me: it wasn't that I thought I could 'play' Chandler. I 'was' Chandler."

On Sunday, Perry's book was ranked No. 1 on Amazon, supplanting Britney Spears' memoir.

Perry struggled with addiction and an intense desire to please audiences.

"I felt like I was gonna die if the live audience didn't laugh, and that's not healthy for sure. But I could sometimes say a line and the audience wouldn't laugh and I would sweat and sometimes go into convulsions," Perry wrote. "If I didn't get the laugh I was supposed to get I would freak out. I felt that every single night. This pressure left me in a bad place. I also knew of the six people making that show, only one of them was sick."

He recalled in his memoir that Aniston confronted him about being inebriated while filming.

"I know you're drinking," he remembered her telling him once. "We can smell it," she said, in what Perry called a "kind of weird but loving way, and the plural 'we' hit me like a sledgehammer."

An HBO Max reunion special in 2021 fed into huge interest in seeing the "Friends" cast together again, although the program consisted of the actors discussing the show and was not a continuation of their characters' storylines.

Perry received one Emmy nomination for his "Friends" role and two more for appearances as an associate White House counsel on "The West Wing."

He also had several notable film roles, starring opposite Salma Hayek in the rom-com "Fools Rush In" and Bruce Willis in the the crime comedy "The Whole Nine Yards."

In 2015, he played Oscar for a CBS reboot of "The Odd Couple" that aired for two seasons. He told the AP that playing Oscar Madison, the character originally made famous by Walter Matthau in the 1968 movie, was a "dream role." He also said he was surprised how much he enjoyed being filmed again in front of a live audience.

"I didn't realize I missed it really until it actually happened, til we actually shot the pilot and there was a studio audience there and I realized, 'Wow, I really like this. This is nice,'" he said. "You kind of ham up for the people in the audience. My performance never got better than when there was an audience there."

Perry was born Aug. 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His father is actor John Bennett Perry and his mother, Suzanne, served as press secretary of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and is married to "Dateline" correspondent Keith Morrison.

Photos: The cast of 'Friends' through the years

Maine mass killing suspect found dead after 2-day manhunt left region on edge

Read more:

Photos: Mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine

Former Vice President Mike Pence ends campaign for the White House after struggling to gain traction

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Vice President Mike Pence is dropping his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, ending his campaign for the White House after struggling to raise money and gain traction in the polls.

“After much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to suspend my campaign for president effective today," Pence said at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas. “We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets," he said.

Pence becomes the first major candidate to leave a race that has been dominated by his former boss-turned-rival, Donald Trump.

The decision, more than two months before the Iowa caucuses that he had staked his campaign on, saves Pence from the embarrassment of failing to qualify for the third Republican primary debate, Nov. 8 in Miami.

But the withdrawal is a huge blow for a politician who spent years biding his time as Trump’s most loyal lieutenant, only to be scapegoated during their final days in office when Trump became convinced that Pence somehow had the power to overturn the results of the 2020 election and keep both men in office — not something a vice president could do.

While Pence averted a constitutional crisis by rejecting the scheme, he drew Trump’s fury, as well as the wrath of many of Trump’s supporters who believed his lies and still see Pence as a traitor.

For updates:

Photos: Mike Pence through the years

Recycling center in Maine where body of mass killing suspect body found had been searched before

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Police teams had already searched a recycling center in Maine twice before eventually finding the body of the man suspected of killing 18 people in Lewiston was found, authorities said Saturday.

Department of Public Safety Commissioner Michael Sauschuck said the teams that scoured the Maine Recycling Corp. property that features as many as 60 trailers, including a tactical team, on Thursday night. He said another state police team returned the site Friday and found Robert Card’s body in a trailer rthat hadn’t been searched.

The 40-year-old Card of Bowdoin — a firearms instructor who grew up in the area — was suspected of also injuring 13 people during a shooting rampage at a bowling alley and bar on Wednesday night in Lewiston. Card died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Jim Ferguson, the ATF special agent in charge in Boston, told The Associated Press that the weapons used in the shooting had been purchased legally. Many firearms were recovered from Card although he declined to say their make, model or how many exactly.

“There were a lot more than three,” Ferguson said.

In the Saturday press conference, Sauschuck said Card had a history of mental illness, but there was no evidence that he had ever been involuntarily committed. “Just because there appears to be a mental health nexus to this scenario, the vast majority of people with mental health diagnosis will never hurt anybody,” he said.

As for why Card chose his targets, Sauschuck said it was likely due to paranoia, that he thought people were talking about him.

He also said the note found in Card’s home was meant for a loved one with the pass code to his phone and bank account numbers. Sauschuck said he wouldn’t describe it as an explicit suicide note but that the tone indicated that was the intent.

Street life returned to Lewiston Saturday morning after a days-long lockdown in the city of 37,000. Joggers took advantage of the warm weather. People walked dogs through downtown and picked up coffees and visited other shops that had been closed since the shooting.

“Right now, we want Maine to be remembered as the community that came together after this tragic event,” said Lisbon Police Chief Ryan McGee, recalling how he drove into town Saturday and saw ”people walking the streets, people sitting on porches, waving. Giving the thumbs up."

Whitney Pelletier hung a hand-drawn “Lewiston Strong” sign in the glass door of her downtown cafe, Forage, on Saturday morning.

Like other local businesses, Forage has been closed for days as police searched for Card.

“Last night when they found his body, I think the fear that I had been holding onto just living in downtown Lewiston was replaced with sadness,” she said.

The deadliest shootings in Maine history stunned a state of 1.3 million people that has relatively little violent crime and had only 29 killings in all of 2022. In Lewiston, the 37,000 residents and those in surrounding communities were told to stay in their homes as hundreds of police officers, sheriff’s deputies, FBI agents and other law enforcement officials swarmed the area.

The stay at home order was lifted Friday and hours later authorities announced they had found Card's body.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced Card had been found dead at a Friday night news conference. Then, she called for the healing process to begin.

“Like many people I’m breathing a sigh of relief tonight knowing that Robert Card is no longer a threat to anyone,” Mills said.

Card was a U.S. Army reservist. Leo Madden, who said he ran Maine Recycling Corp. for decades, told the AP that Card worked there for a couple of years and nothing about him stood out. Madden said he didn’t remember when Card was employed or whether he was fired or quit. The facility is located in Lisbon, not far from Lewiston.

Last summer, Card underwent a mental health evaluation after he began acting erratically during training, a U.S. official told the AP. A bulletin sent to police across the country shortly after the attack said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks after “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” a military base.

The military said Card was training with the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment in West Point, New York, when commanders became concerned about him. State police took Card to the Keller Army Community Hospital at West Point for evaluation.

On Wednesday, Card attacked the bowling alley first, then went to the bar. Police were quickly sent to both locations but Card was able to escape. For the next two days authorities scoured the woods and hundreds of acres of Card's family-owned property, and sent dive teams with sonar to the bottom of the Androscoggin River.

Law enforcement officials had said they hadn't seen Card since his vehicle was left at a boat ramp Wednesday shortly after the shootings.

Hours before Card's body was found, the names and pictures of the 15 men, two women and 14-year-old boy who died in the shootings were released at a news conference.

The Maine Department of Public Safety said it would open a Family Assistance Center in Lewiston starting Saturday morning to offer help and support to victims at the Lewiston Armory.

The Maine Educational Center for the Deaf said the shootings killed at least four members of their community.

Tammy Asselin was in the bowling alley with her 10-year-old daughter, Toni, and was injured when she fell in the scramble as the shooting began. She had said she hoped the shooter would be found alive because she and her daughter had many questions that they hoped he could answer.

On Saturday morning, she told the AP in a text message that her daughter was relieved by the news, and she was able to sleep peacefully.

“I am relieved as well, but also saddened at a lost opportunity to learn as much as we can,” she said. “Now we are on the journey to heal, and I am looking forward to working on this. It will be difficult but I’m optimistic we will be stronger in the long run."

The Cards have lived in Bowdoin for generations, neighbors said, and various members of the family own hundreds of acres in the area. The family owned the local sawmill and years ago donated the land for a local church.

Family members of Card told federal investigators that he had recently discussed hearing voices and became more focused on the bowling alley and bar, according to the law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. When he was hospitalized in July in New York, Card had told military officials he had been hearing voices and said he wanted to harm other soldiers, the officials said.

Sauschuck also praised Card’s family called investigators to provide his name to law enforcement soon after police released surveillance pictures of the shooter.

“This family has been incredibly cooperative with us,” Sauschuck said. “Truth be told the first three people that called us ... were family members.”

The Lewiston shootings were the 36th mass killing in the United States this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

___

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire and Whittle from Portland, Maine. Associated Press journalists who also contributed: Robert Bukaty and Robert Bumsted in Lewiston; Michael Balsamo in New York; and Michael Casey in Boston.

Photos: Mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine

Federal judge reimposes limited gag order in Donald Trump's 2020 election interference case

WASHINGTON — The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump's 2020 election interference case in Washington on Sunday reimposed a narrow gag order barring him from making public comments targeting prosecutors, court staff and potential witnesses.

The reinstatement of the gag order was revealed in a brief notation on the online case docket Sunday night, but the order itself was not immediately available, making it impossible to see the judge's rationale or the precise contours of the restrictions.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the federal case charging Trump with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, had temporarily lifted the gag order as she considered the former president's request to keep it on hold while he challenges the restrictions on his speech in higher courts.

She agreed to reinstate the order after prosecutors cited Trump's recent social media comments about his former chief of staff they said represented an attempt to influence and intimidate a likely witness in the case.

The order is a fresh reminder that Trump's penchant for incendiary and bitter rants about the four criminal cases that he's facing, though politically beneficial in rallying his supporters as he seeks to reclaim the White House, carry practical consequences in court. Two separate judges have now imposed orders mandating that he rein in his speech. In a separate case, Trump was fined $10,000 last week after the judge in his civil fraud trial in New York said the former president violated one of the gag orders.

A request for comment was sent Sunday to Trump attorney Todd Blanche.

Trump in a social media post late Sunday acknowledged the gag order was back in place, calling it "NOT CONSITUTIONAL!"

His lawyers have said they will seek an emergency stay of the order from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The defense has said Trump is entitled to criticize prosecutors and "speak truth to oppression."

Trump denied any wrongdoing in the case. He has made a central part of his 2024 campaign for president vilifying special counsel Jack Smith and others involved the criminal cases against him, casting himself as the victim of a politicized justice system.

Prosecutors have said Trump's verbal attacks threaten to undermine the integrity of the case and risk inspiring his supporters to violence.

Smith's team said Trump took advantage of the recent lifting of the gag order to "send an unmistakable and threatening message" to his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who was reported by ABC News to have received immunity to testify before a grand jury.

The former president mused on social media about the possibility that Meadows would give testimony to Smith in exchange for immunity. One part of the post said: "Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don't think that Mark Meadows is one of them but who really knows?"

A look at the 19 people charged in the Georgia indictment connected to Trump's election scheme

Key people in the Georgia election fraud case

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Donald Trump

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Rudy Giuliani

Updated Oct 24, 2023

John Eastman

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Mark Meadows

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Sidney Powell

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Kenneth Chesebro

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Prosecutors have said Chesebro, an attorney, worked with Republicans in numerous swing states Trump lost, including Georgia, in the weeks after the November 2020 election at the direction of Trump’s campaign. Chesebro worked on the coordination and execution of a plan to have 16 Georgia Republicans sign a certificate declaring falsely that Trump won and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.

Jeffrey Clark

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Jenna Ellis

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Ray Smith

Updated Oct 24, 2023

A Georgia-based lawyer, Smith was involved in multiple lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. He also gathered witnesses to provide testimony before Georgia legislative subcommittee hearings held in December 2020 on alleged issues with the state’s election.

Robert Cheeley

Updated Oct 24, 2023

A Georgia lawyer, Cheeley presented video clips to legislators of election workers at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta and alleged the workers were counting votes twice or sometimes three times. He spoke to the lawmakers after Giuliani.

Michael Roman

Updated Oct 24, 2023

A former White House aide who served as the director of Trump’s election day operations, Roman was involved in efforts to put forth a set of fake electors after the 2020 election.

David Shafer

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Shawn Still

Updated Oct 24, 2023

He was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. Still was the finance chairman for the state GOP in 2020 and served as a Georgia delegate to the Republican National Convention that year. He was elected to the Georgia state Senate in November 2022 and represents a district in Atlanta’s suburbs.

Stephen Cliffgard Lee

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Prosecutors say Cliffgard Lee, a pastor, worked with others to try to pressure Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman and her daughter after Trump and his allies falsely accused them of pulling fraudulent ballots from a suitcase during the vote count. Lee allegedly knocked on Freeman’s door, frightening her and causing her to call 911 three times, prosecutors said in a court filing last year.

Harrison William Prescott Floyd

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Also known as Willie Lewis Floyd III, he served as director of Black Voices for Trump, and is accused of recruiting Lee to arrange a meeting with Freeman and Chicago-based publicist Trevian Kutti.

Trevian C. Kutti

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Prosecutors allege Kutti, a publicist, claimed to have high-level law enforcement connections. They say Freeman met with Kutti at a police precinct, where she brought Floyd into the conversation on a speakerphone. Prosecutors say Kutti presented herself as someone who could help Freeman but then pressured her to falsely confess to election fraud.

Cathy Latham

Updated Oct 24, 2023

Scott Graham Hall

Updated Oct 24, 2023

An Atlanta-area bail bondsman, Hall was allegedly involved in commandeering voting information that was the property of Dominion Voting Systems from Coffee County, a small south Georgia jurisdiction. Also charged in the scheme were Powell, Latham and former county elections supervisor Misty Hampton.

Misty Hampton

Updated Oct 24, 2023

She was the elections director in Coffee County. Hampton was present in the county elections office on Jan. 7, 2021, when a computer forensics team copied software and data from the county’s election equipment. She also allowed two other men who had been active in efforts to question the 2020 election results to access the elections office later that month and to spend hours inside with the equipment.

Read the Trump indictment in Georgia

Updated Aug 16, 2023

House rejects effort to expel Rep. George Santos of New York amid criminal trial, ethics probe

WASHINGTON — Rep. George Santos easily survived a vote Wednesday to expel him from the House as most Republicans opted to withhold punishment as both his criminal trial and a House Ethics Committee investigation proceed.

The effort to kick Santos out of the House was led by his fellow New York Republicans, who are anxious to distance themselves from a colleague infamous for fabricating his life story and accused of stealing from donors, lying to Congress and receiving unemployment benefits he did not deserve.

But the resolution failed to gain the required two-thirds vote. Supporters could not even gain a simple majority, with the vast majority of Republicans and more than 30 Democrats voting against expelling Santos. The final vote was 179 for expulsion and 213 against.

Congress has rarely resorted to the most extreme punishment at its disposal. The House has expelled only five members in its history — three during the Civil War and two after their convictions on public corruption charges. It would be groundbreaking for the House to kick out Santos before his case in federal court is resolved.

Santos appealed to lawmakers to hold off on expulsion, saying that passing judgment without due process would engender mistrust.

“I'm fighting tooth and nail to clear my name in front of the entire world," Santos said. “It hasn't been easy but I'm fighting by God's grace.” 

Read more:

Photos: Rep. George Santos, R-NY

Listen to the last new Beatles’ song with John, Paul, George, Ringo and AI tech: ‘Now and Then’

LOS ANGELES — The final Beatles recording is here.

Titled "Now and Then," the almost impossible-to-believe track is four minutes and eight seconds of the first and only original Beatles recording of the 21st century. There's a countdown, then acoustic guitar strumming and piano bleed into the unmistakable vocal tone of John Lennon in the song's introduction: "I know it's true / It's all because of you / And if I make it through / It's all because of you."

More than four decades since Lennon's murder and two since George Harrison's death, the very last Beatles song has been released as a double A-side single with "Love Me Do," the band's 1962 debut single.

"Now and Then" comes from the same batch of unreleased demos written by Lennon in the 1970s, which were given to his former bandmates by Yoko Ono. They used the tape to construct the songs "Free As a Bird" and "Real Love," released in the mid-1990s. But there were technical limitations to finishing "Now and Then."

On Wednesday, a short film titled "The Beatles — Now And Then — The Last Beatles Song" was released, detailing the creation of the track. On the original tape, Lennon's voice was hidden; the piano was "hard to hear," as Paul McCartney describes it. "And in those days, of course, we didn't have the technology to do the separation."

That changed in 2022, when the band — now a duo — was able to utilize the same technical restoration methods that separated the Beatles' voices from background sounds during the making of director Peter Jackson's 2021 documentary series, "The Beatles: Get Back." And so, they were able to isolate Lennon's voice from the original cassette and complete "Now and Then" using machine learning.

When the song was first announced in June, McCartney described artificial intelligence technology as "kind of scary but exciting," adding: "We will just have to see where that leads."

"To still be working on Beatles' music in 2023 — wow," he said in "The Beatles — Now And Then — The Last Beatles Song." "We're actually messing around with state-of-the-art technology, which is something the Beatles would've been very interested in."

"The rumors were that we just made it up," Ringo Starr told The Associated Press of Lennon's contributions to the forthcoming track in September. "Like we would do that anyway."

"This is the last track, ever, that you'll get the four Beatles on the track. John, Paul, George, and Ringo," he continued.

McCartney and Starr built the track from Lennon's demo, adding guitar parts George Harrison wrote in the 1995 sessions and a slide guitar solo in his signature style. McCartney and Starr tracked their bass and drum contributions.

A string arrangement was written with the help of Giles Martin, son of the late Beatles producer George Martin — a clever recall to the classic ambitiousness of "Strawberry Fields," or "Yesterday," or "I Am the Walrus." Those musicians couldn't be told they were contributing to the last ever Beatles track, so McCartney played it off like a solo endeavor.

On Friday, an official music video for "Now and Then," directed by Jackson, will premiere on the Beatles' YouTube channel. It was created using footage McCartney and Starr took of themselves performing, 14 hours of "long forgotten film shot during the 1995 recording sessions, including several hours of Paul, George and Ringo working on 'Now and Then,'" Jackson said in a statement.

It also uses previously unseen home movie footage provided by Lennon's son Sean and Olivia Harrison, George's wife, and "a few precious seconds of The Beatles performing in their leather suits, the earliest known film of The Beatles and never seen before," provided by Pete Best, the band's original drummer.

"The result is pretty nutty and provided the video with much needed balance between the sad and the funny," said Jackson.

The 50 most covered songs of all time

Most covered songs of all time

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#50. ‘Help!’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#49. ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town’ by Harry Reser & His Orchestra feat. Tom Stacks

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#48. ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#47. ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ by The Harry Simeone Chorale

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#46. ‘The Long and Winding Road’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#45. ‘How Deep Is the Ocean?’ by Paul Whiteman

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#44. ‘House of the Rising Sun’ by The Animals

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#43. ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#42. ‘All My Loving’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#41. ‘Amazing Grace’ by John Newton

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#40. ‘Billie Jean’ by Michael Jackson

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#39. ‘Can't Buy Me Love’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#38. ‘Green, Green Grass of Home’ by Porter Wagoner

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#37. ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ by Elvis Presley

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#36. ‘Winter Wonderland’ by Richard Himber & His Orchestra feat. Joey Nash

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#35. ‘I Remember You' by Jimmy Dorsey

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#34. ‘Sunny’ by Bobby Hebb

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#33. ‘My Way’ by Frank Sinatra

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#32. ‘Over the Rainbow’ by Judy Garland

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#31. ‘Love Me Tender’ by Elvis Presley

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#30. ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham!

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#29. ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ by Judy Garland

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#28. ‘Ain't No Sunshine’ by Bill Withers

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#27. ‘The Look of Love’ by Dusty Springfield

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#26. ‘Come Together’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#25. ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#24. ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by Simon & Garfunkel

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#23. ‘The Fool on the Hill’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#22. ‘A Hard Day's Night’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#21. ‘The Christmas Song’ by Nat King Cole

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#20. ‘In My Life” by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#19. ‘O Holy Night’ by John Sullivan Dwight

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#18. ‘Something’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#17. ‘Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing’ by Traditional Folk

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#16. ‘Jingle Bells (One Horse Open Sleigh)’ by James Pierpont

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#15. ‘What Is This Thing Called Love?’ by Elsie Carlisle

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#14. ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#13. ‘Hey Jude’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#12. ‘Let It Be’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#11. ‘White Christmas’ by Bing Crosby feat. John Scott Trotter and His Orchestra and The Ken Darby Choir

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#10. ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#9. ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#8. ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#7. ‘Blackbird’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#6. ‘Summertime’ by Helen Jepson

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#5. ‘Michelle’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#4. ‘Silent Night’ by John Freeman Young

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#3. ‘And I Love Her’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#2. ‘Eleanor Rigby’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

#1. ‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles

Updated Nov 2, 2023

Jerry Davich: Matthew Perry, my brother and hundreds of empty bottles

A woman wearing a costume of a Dos Equis beer bottle last Saturday approached me at a Halloween party.

“Matthew Perry died,” she said somberly.

How appropriate that I heard the news from a bottle of booze, I thought. Perry struggled for most of his life with drinking and addiction problems. The talented but troubled actor was found unresponsive in a hot tub at his house.

Police said no foul play was involved. The Los Angeles County coroner has deferred the investigation to determine a cause of death, which may take weeks. Toxicology tests will determine what, if anything, was in Perry’s body.

It doesn’t matter to me how he died. It’s a miracle he lived to 54. He abused his body for much of his life. He said this publicly many times.

“Alcoholism and addiction took over decades of my life,” Perry said in one interview.

I admired him more for his candid feelings about his off-screen demons than I did for his on-screen performance as Chandler Bing in the mega-popular TV show “Friends.” Along with millions of other fans, I loved that show and I laughed at his character’s sarcastic one liners, which echoed the edgy sense of humor of my big brother, Joe.

Perry always reminded me of Joe, who also struggled with drinking and addiction problems. Alcoholism and addiction took over decades of his life, just like with Perry. Joe started drinking alcohol as a teenager, just like Perry. Joe wasted ridiculous amounts of money to feed his addictions, just like Perry. And Joe died prematurely, just like Perry.

“Taking all those drugs, and it was a lot of drugs, was just a futile attempt to feel better,” Perry wrote in his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”

My brother also took a lot of drugs in a futile attempt to feel better. He looked for relief in the bottom of hundreds of beer, wine and liquor bottles. He tried just about every illegal substance you can think of. He pawned stuff to feed his addiction. He sold his soul to get the next fix.

Joe’s preferred pain killer was painkillers, just like with Perry, who at one point was downing 55 Vicodins a day during his “Friends” days. Joe also downed dozens of pills a day, if he had them. For one of his birthdays later in life, I gave him a plastic baggie filled with assorted pills from my medicine cabinet.

“Happy Birthday!” I wrote on a note.

I had no idea what the pills were originally prescribed for. He could identify them like a pharmacist. It may have been the best gift I ever gave him. That baggie was empty by nightfall.

I deliberated about giving him such a “gift.” Was I an enabler or a brother? Both at times. Neither at times. We had a love-hate relationship. I loved him. I hated his addiction. It was very difficult for my family to differentiate our feelings to both entities. My poor mother did everything possible to unconditionally love and protect Joe despite his addiction. And despite how he abused her.

This is what angered me most about my brother’s addiction, and his actions to satisfy it.

At heart, Joe was a kind and generous soul. He would buy gifts for his nieces and nephew. He would bring me doughnuts and a newspaper every morning, dropping them off in my mailbox before I woke up.

He often woke very early to get his first fix of the day. Later in his life it was methadone, an oral medication used to treat opioid use disorder. He had a little metal box filled with his daily doses he received from a methadone clinic. I joined him once to learn more about the process.

“I’m always in pain,” he told a counselor. “Always.”

I tried keeping this in mind when he mistreated his body and my mother. If she were still alive, I wouldn’t have written this column with so many candid details. But, just like with Perry, I believe that more people need to share their experiences about addiction. It can possibly rescue others who are drowning in it. Or at least we can make a connection.

Perry said he attended more than 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and entered rehab 15 times, spending upwards of $9 million trying to get sober. My brother didn’t have the luxury of such wealth. He spent relationships to try to get sober. Ours is still a complicated one even though he’s been dead for years.

“When I die, I don’t want ‘Friends’ to be the first thing that’s mentioned,” Perry said one year ago this month. “I want that [helping other addicts] to be the first thing that’s mentioned.”

It didn’t happen that way. “Friends” comes first, addiction second, if you’re scoring at home.

I hope my brother’s troubled life and premature death can help other addicts and their tortured families. Addiction is as common as a lie. Or a rationalization. This is especially true for addicts who don’t know where to turn or who to confess their deepest secret.

“Find someone who’s smarter than you about this and talk to them, and be honest about it,” Perry said in that interview last year.

My brother was always the smartest person in the room. Any room. His addiction wasn’t impressed. Or intimidated. He died Jan. 21, 2009. I’m not sure what was in his 50-year-old body. It doesn’t matter to me how he died.

When that bottle of beer approached me at the party and said, “Matthew Perry died,” I wanted to reply, “So did my brother.” But no one there cared about his death. Or his life. So I made a bad joke about addicts drowning in regrets.

The beer bottle winced, but I bet that Perry and my brother would have laughed.

House approves $14.5 billion in assistance for Israel as Biden vows to veto the GOP’s approach

WASHINGTON — The House approved $14.5 billion in military aid Thursday for Israel, a muscular U.S. response to the war with Hamas but also a partisan approach by new Speaker Mike Johnson that poses a direct challenge to Democrats and President Joe Biden.

In a departure from norms, Johnson's package required that the emergency aid be offset with cuts in government spending elsewhere. That tack established the new House GOP's conservative leadership, but it also turned what would typically be a bipartisan vote into one dividing Democrats and Republicans. Biden has said he would veto the bill, which was approved on a largely party-line vote.

Johnson, R-La., said the Republican package would provide Israel with the assistance needed to defend itself, free hostages held by Hamas and eradicate the militant Palestinian group, accomplishing "all of this while we also work to ensure responsible spending and reduce the size of the federal government.”

Democrats said that approach would only delay help for Israel. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has warned that the “stunningly unserious” bill has no chances in the Senate.

The first substantial legislative effort in Congress to support Israel in the war falls far short of Biden's request for nearly $106 billion that would also back Ukraine as it fights Russia, along with U.S. efforts to counter China and address security at the border with Mexico.

It is also Johnson's first big test as House speaker as the Republican majority tries to get back to work after the month of turmoil since ousting Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as speaker. Johnson has said he will turn next to aid for Ukraine along with U.S. border security, preferring to address Biden's requests separately as GOP lawmakers increasingly oppose aiding Kyiv.

The White House's veto warning said Johnson's approach “fails to meet the urgency of the moment” and would set a dangerous precedent by requiring emergency funds to come from cuts elsewhere.

While the amount for Israel in the House bill is similar to what Biden sought, the White House said the Republican plan's failure to include humanitarian assistance for Gaza is a “grave mistake” as the crisis deepens.

Biden on Wednesday called for a pause in the war to allow for relief efforts.

"This bill would break with the normal, bipartisan approach to providing emergency national security assistance," the White House wrote in its statement of administration policy on the legislation. It said the GOP stance "would have devastating implications for our safety and alliances in the years ahead."

It was unclear before voting Thursday how many Democrats would join with Republicans. The White House had been directly appealing to lawmakers, particularly calling Jewish Democrats, urging them to reject the bill.

White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti and other senior White House staff have been engaging House Democrats, said a person familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to discuss it.

But the vote was difficult for some lawmakers who want to support Israel and may have trouble explaining the trade-off to constituents, especially as the large AIPAC lobby and other groups encouraged passage.

To pay for the bill, House Republicans have attached provisions that would cut billions from the IRS that Democrats approved last year and Biden signed into law as a way to go after tax cheats. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says doing that would end up costing the federal government a net $12 billion because of lost revenue from tax collections.

Republicans scoffed at that assessment, but the independent budget office is historically seen as a trusted referee.

As the floor debate got underway, Democrats pleaded for Republicans to restore the humanitarian aid Biden requested and decried the politicization of typically widely bipartisan Israel support.

“Republicans are leveraging the excruciating pain of an international crisis to help rich people who cheat on their taxes and big corporations who regularly dodge their taxes,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee.

Rep. Dan Goldman of New York described hiding in a stairwell with his wife and children while visiting Israel as rockets fired in what he called the most horrific attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

Nevertheless, Goldman said he opposed the Republican-led bill as “shameful effort” to turn the situation in Israel and the Jewish people into a political weapon.

“Support for Israel may be a political game for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle," the Democrat said. "But this is personal for us Jews and it is existential for the one Jewish nation in the world that is a safe haven from the rising tide of antisemitism around the globe.”

The Republicans have been attacking Democrats who raise questions about Israel's war tactics as antisemitic. The House tried to censure the only Palestinian-American lawmaker in Congress, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., over remarks she made. The censure measure failed.

Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., said he was "so thankful there is no humanitarian aid," which he argued could fall into the hands of Hamas.

In the Democratic-controlled Senate, Schumer made clear that the House bill would be rejected.

“The Senate will not take up the House GOP's deeply flawed proposal, and instead we'll work on our own bipartisan emergency aid package" that includes money for Israel and Ukraine, as well as humanitarian assistance for Gaza and efforts to confront China.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is balancing the need to support his GOP allies in the House, while also fighting to keep the aid package more in line with Biden's broader request, believing all the issues are linked and demand U.S. attention.

McConnell said the aid for Ukraine was “not charity” but was necessary to bolster a Western ally against Russia.

In other action Thursday, the House was scheduled to vote on a Republican-led resolution that focused on college campus activism over the Israel-Hamas war. The nonbinding resolution would condemn support of Hamas, Hezbollah and terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education.

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Anheuser-Busch is still struggling to sell Bud Light in North America after trans promotion backlash

Anheuser-Busch Inbev said Tuesday that revenue growth in most of its global regions was offset by a drop in North American sales, in a sign of continuing fallout from a promotion with a transgender influencer that cost it sales.

The world's largest brewer and parent company of Bud Light said adjusted earnings for the latest quarter rose 4.1% to $5.4 billion on revenues that climbed 5% to $15.6 billion.

Revenue in the United States for the July-September period, however, tumbled 13.5%. AB InBev, based in Leuven, Belgium, noted that sales to retailers were down "primarily due to the volume decline of Bud Light."

Bud Light sales plunged amid a conservative backlash after the brand sent a commemorative can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in early April.

The controversy toppled Bud Light from its position as America's best-selling beer for more than two decades. In June, it dropped to second place in U.S. retail sales behind Modelo Especial. Modelo – which is owned by InBev but imported and sold by Constellation Brands in the U.S. – remains the market leader, with nearly 9% share in year-to-date retail sales through Oct. 21. Bud Light has an 8% share.

U.S. dollar sales of Bud Light were down 29% in the four weeks ending Oct. 21 compared to same period a year ago, according to Nielsen data compiled by Bump Williams Consulting. They are down nearly 19% for the year to date.

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Bob Knight, Indiana’s combustible coaching giant, dies at age 83

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Bob Knight, the brilliant and combustible coach who won three NCAA titles at Indiana and for years was the scowling face of college basketball, has died. He was 83.

Knight's family made the announcement on social media on Wednesday night. He was hospitalized with an illness in April and had been in poor health for several years.

“It is with heavy hearts that we share that Coach Bob Knight passed away at his home in Bloomington surrounded by his family,” the statement said. “We are grateful for all the thoughts and prayers, and appreciate the continued respect for our privacy as Coach requested a private family gathering, which is being honored. We will continue to celebrate his life and remember him, today and forever as a beloved Husband, Father, Coach, and Friend.”

Knight was among the winningest and most controversial coaches in the sport, finishing his career with 902 victories in 42 seasons at Army, Indiana and Texas Tech while mentoring some of America's best coaches.. He also coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1984.

The Hall of Famer cared little what others thought of him, choosing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to celebrate his 880th win in 2007, then the record for a Division I men’s coach.

He was nicknamed “The General” and his temper was such that in 2000 it cost him his job at Indiana. He once hit a police officer in Puerto Rico, threw a chair across the court and was accused of wrapping his hands around a player’s neck.

His critics fumed relentlessly about his conduct, but his defenders were legion. There was this side of Knight as well: He took pride in his players’ high graduation rates, and during a rule-breaking era he never was accused of a major NCAA violation.

At Indiana, he insisted his base salary not exceed that of other professors. At Texas Tech, he sometimes gave back his salary because he didn’t think he earned it.

Knight expected players to exceed expectations on the court and in the classroom. He abided by NCAA rules even when he disagreed with them, never backed down from a dust-up and promised to take his old-school principles to the grave.

His disposition and theatrics, however, often overshadowed his formidable record, tactical genius and dedication to his players and the game, leaving behind a singular resume.

“He changed basketball in this state, the way you compete, the way you win,” Steve Alford, the leader of Knight’s last national championship team in 1987, once said. “It started in Indiana, but he really changed college basketball. You look at the motion offense and people everywhere used it.”

Long esteemed for his strategy and often questioned for his methods, Knight reveled in constructing his best teams with overachievers. As a hard-to-please motivator, he clung to iron principles, and at 6-foot-5 was an intimidating presence for anyone who dared cross him.

When Knight retired in 2008, he left with four national championships (one as a player at Ohio State) and as the Division I men’s record-holder in wins. He coached everyone from Mike Krzyzewski to Isiah Thomas to Michael Jordan. His coaching tree included Krzyzewski, who broke Knight’s wins record; Alford; Lawrence Frank, Keith Smart, Randy Wittman and Mike Woodson, Indiana’s current coach, among others.

“I have molded everything we do from practices to academics to community service and even how you should represent the school from that time,” Alford said. “Coach Knight had a lot to do with that.”

Robert Montgomery Knight was born Oct. 25, 1940, in Massillon, Ohio. His mother, whom Knight credited as his strongest childhood influence, was a schoolteacher and his father worked for the railroad.

Hazel Knight seemed to understand her son’s temperament. Once, when Indiana was set to play Kentucky on television, two of Knight’s high school classmates ran into her at a grocery store and asked if she was excited about the game, according to his biography, “Knight: My Story.”

“I just hope he behaves,” his mother remarked.

He played basketball at Ohio State, where he was a reserve on three Final Four teams (1960-62). He was on the 1960 title team that featured Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek, two future Basketball Hall of Famers.

After a year as a high school assistant, Knight joined the staff of Tates Locke at West Point. In 1965, he took over as head coach at age 24. In six seasons, coaching the likes of Krzyzewski and Mike Silliman, his teams won 102 games and it was off to Indiana in 1971.

Knight quickly restored the Hoosiers’ basketball tradition with a revolutionary offense and an almost exclusively man-to-man defense. Most opponents struggled against his early Indiana teams, with the Hoosiers going 125-20 and winning four Big Ten Conference crowns in his first five seasons.

The run concluded with Indiana’s first national championship in 23 years. That 1975-76 team went 32-0, ending a two-year span when the Hoosiers were 63-1 and captured back-to-back Big Ten championships with 18-0 records. It remains the last time a major college men’s team finished with a perfect record. That team was voted the greatest in college basketball history by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association in 2013.

Knight won his second title in 1981, beating Dean Smith’s North Carolina team after NCAA officials decided to play the game hours after President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded earlier in the day. His third title at Indiana came in 1987 when Smart hit a baseline jumper in the closing seconds to beat Syracuse, one of the most famous shots in tournament history.

Knight spent five decades competing against and usually beating some of the game’s most revered names — Adolph Rupp, Smith and John Wooden in the early years; Krzyzewski, Rick Pitino and Roy Williams in later years.

The Olympic team he coached in Los Angeles in 1984 was the last amateur U.S. team to win gold in men’s basketball. And, to no surprise, it came with controversy. Knight kept Alford on his team while cutting the likes of future Hall of Famers Charles Barkley and John Stockton.

But winning and winning big was only part of Knight’s legacy. He would do things his way.

Other big-time coaches might follow the gentlemanly, buttoned-up approach, but not Knight. He dressed in plaid sport coats and red sweaters, routinely berated referees and openly challenged decisions by NCAA and Big Ten leaders. His list of transgressions ran long:

• Knight was convicted in absentia of assaulting a Puerto Rican police officer during the 1979 Pan American Games.

• He forfeited an exhibition game to the Soviet Union in 1987 when he pulled his team off the court after being called for a third technical foul.

• He told NBC’s Connie Chung in a 1988 interview, “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” Knight was answering a question about how he handled stress and later tried to explain he was talking about something beyond one’s control, not the act of rape.

• He was accused of head-butting one player and kicking his own son, Pat, during a timeout.

• At a 1980 news conference he fired a blank from a starter’s pistol at a reporter. During the 1992 NCAA Tournament, Knight playfully used a bull whip on star player Calbert Cheaney, who is Black.

His most famous outburst came Feb. 23, 1985, when Purdue’s Steve Reid was about to attempt a free throw. A furious Knight picked up a red plastic chair and heaved it across the court, where it landed behind the basket. Fans started throwing pennies on the court, one hitting the wife of Purdue coach Gene Keady. Reid missed three of his next six ensuing free throws.

“There are times I walk into a meeting or a friend calls to say, ‘I saw you on TV last night,’” Reid said on the 20th anniversary of the incident. “I know what they’re talking about.”

Knight apologized the next day, received a one-game suspension and was put on probation for two years by the Big Ten. Intent on preventing such a thing again, Indiana officials chained together the chairs for both benches.

The iconic black-and-white photo of the incident remains a classic for Hoosiers fans and even became fodder for a television commercial with one of his old coaching rivals, former Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps. Knight for years joked he was merely attempting to toss the chair to a woman looking for a seat.

Fifteen years after the chair toss, Knight’s temper led to his downfall in Bloomington. Video surfaced of Knight allegedly putting his hands around the neck of player Neil Reed during a 1997 practice, a charge that prompted Indiana President Myles Brand to put Knight on a zero-tolerance policy following a university investigation.

Then, on Sept. 10, 2000, after winning a school-record 662 games and 11 Big Ten titles in 29 seasons, his time at Indiana came to a shocking end. While passing Knight in an Assembly Hall corridor, Indiana student Kent Harvey said, “Hey, what’s up, Knight?” Knight considered it disrespectful, grabbed Harvey’s arm and lectured him about manners. A few days later, Brand fired Knight.

Students protested by tearing down a goal post at the football stadium, ripping a dolphin statue off a fountain and hanging Brand in effigy outside his home. Knight publicly condemned Brand’s leadership. Brand became NCAA president in 2002 and died in 2009 at 67 while still on the job. Neil Reed died in 2012 after collapsing in his California home. He was 36.

In 2003, he lashed out profanely after an ESPN reporter asked about his relationship with Alford, then the Iowa coach. The following year Knight received a reprimand after a verbal dust-up with David Smith, then the Texas Tech chancellor, as the two men stood at a grocery store salad bar.

He still won, too. In his first six years in West Texas, Knight led the Red Raiders to five 20-plus win seasons, a feat never previously achieved at the school. On Jan. 1, 2007, Knight won his 880th career game, breaking Dean Smith’s record with a win over New Mexico. Krzyzewski topped Knight’s mark in 2011, with his mentor broadcasting the game for ESPN.

For nearly two decades, Indiana officials attempted to make peace. Knight refused, even skipping his induction into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame in 2009.

“I hope someday he will be honored at Indiana. That needs to happen. Somebody needs to make that happen,” Scott May, a starter on Knight’s 1976 championship team and an outspoken critic of Knight’s firing, pleaded as Knight stayed away. “I think they should name Assembly Hall after him.”

The ice finally broke in February 2020, a few months after Knight bought a new house in Bloomington. His first public appearance at Assembly Hall since the firing came at halftime of the Hoosiers’ game against rival Purdue.

Billed as a reunion between the coach and many of his former players, the halftime celebration became a sustained roar for The General. May and Quinn Buckner, who also played on Knight’s first title team, helped the aging coach — no longer steady on his feet — walk onto the court.

“When he moved back here, I knew he was in a good place,” said Wittman, who played on the 1981 national champs. “I knew he was happy here, living, and I told him you belong here.”

Knight didn’t speak to the crowd that day. It spoke to him.

“We love you, Bobby,” one fan shouted during a brief pause from the crowd, a scene that brought the steely Knight to tears.

Away from the court, Knight was an avid golfer who loved to read, especially history, and donated generously to school libraries at Indiana and Texas Tech. He would vacation in far-flung places to hunt and fish with family or friends such as baseball great Ted Williams or manager Tony La Russa.

Knight also made a cameo appearance in the 2003 movie “Anger Management” with Adam Sandler. In 2006, he starred in “Knight School,” an ESPN reality show in which 16 Texas Tech students vied for the chance to walk on to his team the following season.

A month after leaving Tech, Knight, who often lashed out at reporters, joined ESPN as a guest studio analyst during the 2008 NCAA Tournament. The next season, he expanded his role as a color commentator. The network parted with Knight in 2015.

He returned to public view in 2016, campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 and kept a mostly low profile until returning to the campus where he became a household name.

“I was standing there, and he was coach Knight,” Wittman said, referring to Knight’s pregame speech in February 2020. “It was like he hadn’t left that locker room. The words he gave to those players before they went out on the floor, it was fabulous.”

Survivors include wife Karen and sons Tim and Pat. 

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