A few months ago, Carlos Santana told ABC Audio that his band will be releasing a new album later this year titled Blessings and Miracles, and in a new interview with the network, the guitar legend shares some updated details about the project.
Carlos reveals that the album was “just completed” and is due out in the fall. An eclectic list of artists contributed to the record, which Santana says will feature various musical genres, including “country, gospel and reggae.”
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer also reports that country star Chris Stapleton “wrote an incredible song for us, ‘Joy,'” and that hit-making pop songwriter Diane Warren “wrote some great songs” for the project as well.
In the previous interview, Carlos told ABC Audio that Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett will be featured on the album, and that Steve Winwood and Living Colour frontman Corey Glover also might appear on the record. Santana now confirms that Winwood and Glover will be on the album, and says Hammett will be featured on a track alongside Mark Osegueda, lead singer of the Bay Area thrash-metal band Death Angel.
In addition, Ally Brooke of the girl group Fifth Harmony also sings on Blessings and Miracles.
“This new album is going to blow a lot of people [away],” Carlos gushes.
Meanwhile, Santana says he’s feeling great about still creating vibrant music at this time in his life.
“I just feel like it’s wonderful to be 73 years old, young, and be relevant, and stay relevant,” he declares. “You know, it’s quite a gift from God, man.”
Carlos adds, “I’m still dreaming of doing music with new musicians and discovering new avenues to the unknown and unpredictability.”
The new documentary The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52 is in theaters now and hits on demand streaming Friday.
Leonardo DiCaprio produced the doc that centers on a quest to find the creature scientists believe has spent its life in solitude because it sings at 52 Hertz, a frequency that, in theory, other whales can’t understand.
“It was first heard on a bunch of hydrophones in the ocean used by the Navy to suss out submarines,” director Joshua Zeman tells ABC Audio. “They heard this mysterious sound. At first, they didn’t know what it was. And then the scientist, Dr. William Watkins, believed it was a whale, a whale that called at a frequency that was unknown by any other.”
Why are people so captivated by a lonely whale? That’s what Zeman, who notes people would “people would freak out [and] start to cry” when he told them the story, explores in the documentary.
“You know, they would get goosebumps,” he explains. “And I was like, what is it about this story? Like, I’m a storyteller. I pitch a lot of stories. And I had never gotten such a visceral reaction from people. And I was like, OK, just from a storytelling standpoint, I want to know what it is.”
“It’s the man’s existential human crisis staring back at them in the mirror. You know, we all don’t want to die alone, but it was also the fact that this fear and crisis and human condition was in the form of a whale,” adds Zeman. “You know, whales are so big, they humble us. And then maybe it’s because the ocean is just so vast. So, it’s like our human crisis, like supersized to the point of like blowing our minds.”
Britney Spears addressed California Superior Court Judge Brenda J. Penny on Wednesday, stating her desire to have her father removed from her conservatorship. “I am here to get rid of my dad,” she said.
She also said during Wednesday’s hearing that she wanted to charge her father, Jamie Spears, with conservator abuse.
Britney also has a new attorney. Penny approved high-powered attorney Mathew S. Rosengart to be the pop star’s new legal counsel. The judge also approved Samuel D. Ingham III‘s request to resign as the singer’s court-appointed attorney.
While Rosengart appeared in person in court, Britney and Jamie Spears called in via telephone. Also appearing remotely were Britney’s mother, Lynne Spears, as well as co-conservator Jodi Montgomery, who has served as the conservator of the singer’s personal affairs since 2019 when Jamie vacated the role.
Penny also approved the request from Bessemer Trust to step down as co-conservator in the handling of Britney’s estate, leaving Jamie in sole control of her finances. Jamie’s involvement in the conservatorship has been a point of contention for some time; during Wednesday’s hearing, Britney spoke about her “serious abandonment issues” and said that as a child, she was “extremely scared” of her father.
“My dad needs to be removed [from the conservatorship] today,” she said, adding that she approved of Montgomery’s job as conservator of her person.
These developments came three weeks to the day after her bombshell testimony about her conservatorship on June 23. This testimony did more than just make headlines — it served as the catalyst for several changes regarding her 13-year conservatorship.
Britney, 39, has been in a conservatorship since 2008, when she was hospitalized for mental health reasons.
The Grammy winner’s next day in court is scheduled for September 29.
(SAN DIEGO) — San Diego high school student Nick Herrmann was told by some doctors he might never play basketball again.
On June 14, the 16-year-old cancer survivor stepped onto the court for the Torrey Pines High School basketball team and hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to win the sectional championship game.
Herrmann was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his left leg in 2018 and spent nine months in the hospital, where he underwent four surgeries in just under two months.
“I was told I may never play basketball again and, even worse, I could have possibly lost my leg. I spent many nights, long nights, in the hospital doing chemotherapy and many hours doing physical therapy in order to rehab and get back to playing basketball,” Herrmann told “World News Tonight.”
Nick Herrmann and his teammates celebrate after winning the basketball division championship.
Herrmann was back on the court this year to help his team to an undefeated season and the win in the San Diego open division championship game.
Looking ahead, he said he’s planning to play basketball in college this fall and shared a message of motivation to inspire others who may be going through tough times.
“To all those people going through similar things, I want you to know that you can do anything,” he said. “Never stop pushing and never stop working towards your dreams.”
(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — Nearly two dozen 911 calls released by the Miami-Dade Police Department Wednesday convey the confusion, panic and disbelief among residents and neighbors after the partial collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South condominium in the beachside town of Surfside, Florida, in the early hours of June 24.
“I’m in the Champlain Towers, something is going on here. You gotta get us out of here.”
“It seemed like there was an earthquake.”
“Oh my God, the whole building collapsed.”
Frantic 911 calls came in from residents who were trapped inside after approximately 55 of the oceanfront complex’s 136 units were destroyed in the collapse at around 1:15 a.m.
“Half the building’s gone!” a panicked woman told the operator from her apartment.
A woman calling from the second floor told the operator that she couldn’t find an exit.
“We didn’t know which stairs we can get out,” she said.
A man on the same call told the operator he heard people yelling from the collapsed portion of the building.
“There’s people yelling, saying that they’re stuck,” he said.
“Is it safe for us to stay here?” he later asked.
The operator stayed with him on the phone as he and his family went down to the basement looking for a way out.
“The entire garage is flooded,” he said, updating the operator that they were going to try to go back to the second floor and that other people had joined his family.
“There are people in the rubble yelling, by the way,” he later said, softly.
One person called 911 from the flooded garage.
“A bunch of us are in the garage but we cannot get out,” the caller said. “We’re going back up the stairwell, the garage is inundated with water. We don’t know where the water is coming from.”
A distressed woman called from outside the parking garage asking to be rescued.
“Can somebody help me get out?” she asked. “I was able to escape but I’m in the parking lot. If the building comes down it will come down on my head.”
Other calls came in from family members of those who lived in the condo begging for help.
“My sister lives there,” one person said. “I don’t know, something happened to it. I don’t know, half of the building isn’t there anymore. She is alive and she is there, she’s in apartment [muted]. If someone can get her out through the balcony.”
Witnesses who heard the collapse and saw the aftermath also called 911.
“What are you seeing sir because we are getting a lot of calls over there?” an overwhelmed operator asked in one call.
“A very large building collapse, like the building next to us is gone,” the caller replied.
Another caller a block and a half away reported hearing an explosion.
Others reported seeing smoke and flames following the collapse.
“A building collapsed a block away from me and there is major smoke everywhere. We don’t know if anybody is hurt,” a caller said. “I heard the explosion all the way and the building is collapsing.”
Several callers described hearing what sounded like an earthquake, as well as an explosion from the garage.
“I woke up because I was hearing some noise,” one caller said. “I looked outside and the patio area started sinking down.”
“The building just went into the sinkhole,” the caller said a few seconds later. “There will be many, many people dead.”
The full toll of the disaster still remains to be seen; after nearly three weeks of search efforts, at least 95 people have been confirmed dead, while 14 people remain unaccounted for, officials said Tuesday. The cause of the partial collapse is under investigation.
Documents released by the city of Surfside show there was structural damage to the concrete slabs on the condo building’s pool deck and failed waterproofing in parts of the tower, and that the pool deck and the ceiling of the underground parking garage beneath it had needed repairs as early as 1996.
ABC News’ Benjamin Stein contributed to this report.
(JACKSON, Miss.) — As the delta variant spreads rapidly across the U.S., Mississippi officials are warning about hospitalizations of children with severe cases of COVID-19.
Of the seven children currently in the intensive care unit due to COVID-19, two are on ventilators, according to State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs.
“Delta Surge – be careful,” Dobbs said in a terse tweet Tuesday, while sharing the updates on the latest hospitalizations.
Dobbs initially said 12 children statewide were in the ICU due to COVID-19, though later revised that to a smaller number after a hospital corrected its report.
“Please be safe and if you are 12 or older – please protect yourself,” he said.
The ages ranged from under 1 to 17, Dobbs said in a statement to ABC News Wednesday.
Children are less likely than adults to have serious COVID-19 infections. Most have mild symptoms, if any, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though in rare instances, they have developed severe cases that led to hospitalization or death.
It is not clear if any of the seven chilidren have underlying health conditions that would put them at greater risk for severe illness from COVID-19.
Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, told ABC News Wednesday that his facility was seeing a “significant increase” in pediatric patients over the last several weeks.
The medical center is currently treating five children with confirmed COVID-19 cases, two of whom are in the ICU. Two other children at the hospital are being investigated for potential COVID-19 infections, he said.
The children, who are in stable condition, range from infants to teenagers, Jones said. He could not share any further details about the cases but said that many patients within his hospital who are currently in the ICU do have some chronic, underlying comorbidity diseases that would put them at a higher risk of having a more severe illness associated with COVID-19.
The state has been seeing a “pretty alarming” increase in the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Dobbs said during a press briefing last Friday, as the highly contagious delta variant, which was initially identified in India, has quickly become the dominant variant in the state.
“We have seen pretty much an entire takeover of the delta variant for our transmission,” Dobbs said during the briefing, noting that the current cases in the state are “pretty much all delta.”
Between June 15 and July 9, the delta variant accounted for 80% of all specimens sequenced in the state, according to Dobbs.
Hospital systems are not currently overwhelmed, but Dobbs said there are “concerns about it going forward, as has been seen in other states” due to delta, which has become the dominant variant nationwide.
Mississippi’s daily COVID-19 case average has more than doubled in the last three weeks. Less than three weeks ago, there were under 100 patients receiving care for COVID-19 in Mississippi. As of July 11, there were nearly 200. Hospital admissions have also increased by 26.7% in the last week.
The state has seen an increase in COVID-19 outbreaks as well, particularly among youth, in summer activities and nursing homes, Dobbs said.
Jones said his hospital’s pediatric patients seem to be more symptomatic than the children who became ill earlier in the pandemic, which he attributed to the delta variant.
“These seem to be more classic COVID symptoms — fever, cough, respiratory illness,” he said. “I suspect that’s probably because this delta variant is importing a little more severe illness in the pediatric population than those earlier strains that were circulating.”
The delta variant is surging as Mississippi has the second-lowest vaccination rate in the country, with approximately one-third of the state’s total population fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. The “vast majority” of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the state now are in unvaccinated people, Dobbs said.
Due to the low vaccination rate, the state health department advised Friday that those who are ages 65 and older or have chronic medical conditions avoid mass indoor gatherings for several weeks.
“Our collective under-vaccination in the state has put us all at risk, especially the most vulnerable,” Dobbs said.
Editor’s Note: A state health officer has issued a correction revising the number of children hospitalized with severe COVID-19 cases from 12 to seven.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden lunched with Democrats on Capitol Hill Wednesday as the party proceeds with the delicate task of crafting two separate pieces of legislation worth a combined $4.1 trillion in new spending.
Biden’s attendance at the lunch comes following a late-night announcement from Democratic Senate leaders that they had agreed on a $3.5 trillion budget resolution, the first step in unlocking a process that could allow Democrats to pass some of Biden’s American Families plan priorities without any Republican support.
In an hour-long lunch meeting behind closed doors, Senate Democrats peppered Biden with questions about the new budget blueprint and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, according to numerous attendees.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, along with the chairman of the Budget Committee, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and panel member Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who has fought to reign in the broader legislation, walked the president and caucus through the outlines of the $4.1 trillion in proposed new spending.
According to a senior Democratic aide, the budget proposal includes an extension of the child tax credit expansion first carved out in March’s COVID-19 relief bill. Families with children under 6 years old receive $3,600 per year per child under that expansion and families of older children receive $3,000 per child.
The resolution also includes funding for a variety of climate initiatives, support for universal Pre-K, affordable child care, community college and paid family leave, and investments in affordable housing and small businesses, among other provisions.
Sanders said there is also “at least $120 billion” for immigration reform expected in the final product.
To pay for the massive package, Democrats are proposing raising taxes on the wealthy and big corporations, but won’t tax families making under $400,000, the aide said.
Sanders praised the resolution Wednesday as “the most consequential program in modern history of this country,” but the plan does fall significantly short of the $6 trillion he initially insisted on.
One senator who attended lunch with the president said Sanders gave an effusive speech regarding his former rival, saying he never imagined Biden would be “so progressive.”
“It was a freaking lovefest,” the senator told ABC News Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott of the speech.
During the lunch Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who seriously contemplated jumping into the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, thanked Biden for using the word “union” repeatedly, though the context was not clear, according to the Democratic senator.
“You are the first president in the 30 years I’ve been in Washington that I still like. He said, ‘You haven’t sold us out yet’,” the senator paraphrased Brown as saying.
Biden addressed both the bipartisan and reconciliation infrastructure deals, but most senators were struck by the broader, sweeping message — that the president doesn’t want his neighbors in Scranton, Pennsylvania, being hurt by anything they would do. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Biden “made an incredibly compelling case that this is the moment to go big.”
But not all Democrats are on board with the plan yet, and details of the budget proposal are still coming together.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., told reporters he has a number of concerns with the proposal.
“I’m concerned about inflation. And so I want to see more of the details of what’s going on. I’m concerned also about maintaining the energy independence of the United States of America,” the moderate Democrat said.
And Murphy, a progressive, said he’s concerned that the $3.5 trillion is not big enough, particularly to take care of modernizing the northeastern corridor rail service.
Any single Democratic defection could be a serious obstacle for Democratic leadership. Reconciliation requires a simple majority, which means every Democratic vote plus the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris will be required to move this bill over the finish line.
Republicans have been clear from the onset they won’t support spending beyond the bipartisan infrastructure package being negotiated separately.
“To me that $3.5 trillion that was announced last night really is the extreme Democrats’ freight train to socialism,” said Sen. John Barrasso, the number three Senate Republican. “This is something that they are going to need every Democrat to pass because there is not a single Republican in the House or in the Senate who is going to support this level of taxing and spending.”
Despite the Republican blowback to the budget resolution, members of the bipartisan group working on negotiating the separate, $1.2 trillion bipartisan plan, said they are not concerned about the budget proposal throwing their package off course.
“There are two very different bills that are totally separate tracks — one is bipartisan, responsible, no tax increases, the other is, you know, a huge spending spree at a time when we’re already at record levels of deficit and debt,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who has been leading bipartisan negotiations on behalf of Republicans. “So I’m concerned about it, but they don’t relate to one another.”
“I think it’s a real mistake what they’re doing but it doesn’t affect us at all,” Portman said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., another member of the bipartisan group, said their efforts are “totally separate.”
“They’re not linked, it is going to increase our debt or else increase taxes, but in terms of our effort it shouldn’t have an impact,” he said.
Bill text is not yet available for either the budget deal or the bipartisan infrastructure plan and senators face fast-approaching deadlines, set by Biden, for swift action before the August recess.
Schumer has said he intends to hold a vote on both the bipartisan deal and the budget package before the Senate takes its summer break.
ABC News’ Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott contributed to this report.
Queen‘s Greatest Hits may have been released 1981, but the 40-year-old compilation was still among the best-selling albums in the U.S. for the first half of 2021.
According to music-sales info provider MRC Data, Queen’s Greatest Hits landed at #7 on the Top Physical Albums tally, charting total combined vinyl and CD sales.
The compilation also landed at #9 on the Top Vinyl Albums list. Other albums by veteran artists appearing on the top-10 of the vinyl-sales tally included Prince‘s Purple Rain at #5, Michael Jackson‘s Thriller at #6 and Fleetwood Mac‘s Rumours at #10.
Queen’s Greatest Hits also was #2 on the Top Rock Albums list, which is compiled using combined traditional album sales, individual track downloads and on-demand streams. Further down on the tally were Rumours at #3, Elton John‘s Diamonds compilation at #4 and Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits at #5.
Looking at individual tunes, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” was #3 on Top Rock Songs chart, which is ranked by combining digital song sales and on-demand streams.
As for the Top Radio Songs list, which is ranked by “audience impressions across all monitored formats of radio,” Journey‘s classic anthem “Don’t Stop Believin'” was #5.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration will begin evacuation flights in late July for Afghans who have aided the U.S. military and diplomatic missions, according to a senior administration official.
President Joe Biden earlier this month said all U.S. combat forces will be out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31 and defended his decision to leave the country in the face of Taliban gains in the area.
The top U.S. general in Afghanistan, Scott Miller, returned from Afghanistan to Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday after he handed over his command at a ceremony in Kabul on Monday.
The evacuation effort, dubbed Operation Allies Refuge, will relocate Afghans who have applied for a U.S. Special Immigrant Visa and their families to a safe third country, but it is still unclear how many of these translators, guides and other contractors will be moved and to exactly where.
“Our objective is to get individuals who are eligible relocated, out of the country, in advance of the removal — of the withdrawal of troops at the end of August,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday.
The administration also has not specified when flights will depart, citing security concerns, but the senior administration official told ABC News that they will meet Biden’s commitment to begin flights by late July.
“Our message to those women and men is clear: There is a home for you in the United States if you so choose, and we will stand with you just as you stood with us,” Biden said in an address on Afghanistan on Thursday.
Earlier this month, a U.S. official told ABC News that Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan — Afghanistan’s neighbors to the north — have all been under consideration as third-country options, while a second official said the list includes the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, both of which are home to U.S. military facilities where Afghans could be brought.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby confirmed that the administration is also now considering using U.S. military installations in the continental U.S. “for short-term use,” as well as U.S. military installations in other countries that have “appropriate temporary residences and associated support infrastructure,” he said.
At this point in time, however, no final decision has been made yet, Kirby added.
This week, the president’s homeland security adviser Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall and Zalmay Khalilzad, the special representative for Afghanistan, are leading a delegation to Uzbekistan to discuss security and economic development opportunities for Afghanistan and other countries in the region, the White House announced Wednesday.
There are approximately 18,000 Afghans who have applied for Special Immigrant Visas, with many of them now fearing for their lives as the Taliban gain more districts in a summer offensive against the Afghan government. Within that group, 9,000 still have to complete their applications while the other half are having their cases adjudicated now, according to a State Department spokesperson.
At least 300 Afghan interpreters have been killed since 2014 because they worked for the U.S., according to the advocacy group No One Left Behind, although the Taliban have said in recent weeks that they will not harm them as they pursue power.
In April, Biden announced the withdrawal of all remaining U.S. forces from Afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that brought them there — although last Thursday he bumped that deadline up to Aug. 31.
But as U.S. and NATO forces exit, the Taliban have seized dozens of districts in a summer offensive that has killed hundreds of Afghan service members or seen them surrender. The Pentagon said this week it seems apparent the militant group is intent on taking power by force, even as the State Department calls for them to return to negotiations with the Afghan government, hosted by Qatar in its capital Doha.
The Biden administration has tried to reinvigorate those talks, which have been all but dead since the two sides agreed on an agenda late last year.
The senior administration official said Wednesday that the U.S. “remains confident that Afghanistan’s Armed Forces have the tools and capability to defend their country and that the conflict will ultimately have to be resolved at the negotiating table.”
But advocates say that time is running out for these Afghan interpreters and other contractors, while analysts warn that the country could be headed for civil war. The United Nations refugee agency warned Tuesday that the country is facing “imminent humanitarian crisis,” calling for an urgent end to violence.
The White House’s announcement Wednesday is “a vital step forward in honoring the promise we made to Afghan allies who faithfully served our mission,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, one of the country’s largest refugee resettlement agencies.
But “there are still far too many questions left unanswered, including who exactly and how many people are eligible for evacuation,” she added. “With partners estimating that 49% of those at risk reside outside of Kabul, how will those outside the capital access safety?”
It seems like everything ’90s is back — so why not All-4-One? The chart-topping vocal group is back with a remake of their number-one 1994 hit “I Swear,” which is now promoting Xbox.
Retitled “It’s All There,” the song now promotes Xbox All Access, which features a new Xbox console and 24 months’ worth of Game Pass Ultimate, “all for one” monthly price. In the two-minute long viral ad, the group passionately sings the song while an oblivious female gamer is completely absorbed in the entertainment she’s getting from her new Xbox All Access.
“It’s all there/next-gen console, games, friends, for one price,” the foursome croons. “Series X or an S/Game Pass Ultimate/All in one place/I can’t believe it/it’s all there!”
The original “I Swear,” a remake of a number-one country hit by John Michael Montgomery, topped the pop charts for 11 weeks. All-4-One’s other hits include “I Can Love You Like That,” “So Much In Love” and “Someday,” from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
This summer, All-4-One will be part of the I Love the ’90s Tour, which kicks off August 12 in South Bend, IN. Other acts on the bill include Vanilla Ice,Sir Mix-A-Lot, C+C Music Factory featuring Freedom Williams, Naughty by Nature, Coolio, Young MC, Tone Loc and more. Tickets are on sale now at ilovethe90stour.com.
