Billy Joel has always been a huge supporter of the arts, as well as a huge supporter of his home base of Long Island, New York. Now, he’s shown once again why these two things are near and dear to his heart.
Long Island’s Newsday reports that Billy and his charitable foundation have pledged $1.5 million to the Long Island High School for the Arts, which provides programs in music and theater, as well as game design, audio and video production and digital film making.
“We are incredibly proud of LIHSA’s momentum and positive impact on the next generation of artists from Long Island,” Billy and his wife, Alexis, said in a statement.
When the school, founded in 1973, was on the verge of closing six years ago, Billy’s foundation kicked in a million dollars to save it. In 2017, the building that houses the music and theater programs was renamed in honor of Billy’s mother, Rosalind Joel.
Graduates of the school, which is located in the town of Syosset, have gone on to careers on Broadway, nationally recognized arts organizations and more.
Micky Dolenz, the last surviving member of The Monkees, will pay homage to late band mates Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork during a series of special concerts visiting seven U.S. cities this April.
The shows, dubbed “Micky Dolenz Celebrates The Monkees,” will feature Dolenz honoring the musical contributions Jones, Nesmith and Tork made to the group, while sharing recollections about his fellow band members, accompanied by a multimedia presentation including film footage and rare photos from Micky’s personal archives.
The concert series will run from an April 5 performance at Nashville’s famed Ryman Auditorium through an April 16 show in Madison, Wisconsin.
“I felt it was important to gather the fans and properly celebrate the lives of Davy, Mike and Peter,” says Dolenz. “People have been contacting me, requesting that I honor them in a way where the extraordinary impact of The Monkees can be properly acknowledged. We spent such a great deal of time together; they were like my brothers, and I want to share some of the great joy we had together.”
The show’s set list will feature many classic Monkees hits, including “I’m a Believer,” “Daydream Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” along with tribute segments featuring songs written by Nesmith and Tork, and tunes that showcased Jones’ vocals. Dolenz will be backed by a seven-piece band at the concerts.
Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday, February 11. Check out Micky’s full tour schedule at MickyDolenz.com.
Last year, Dolenz teamed up with Nesmith for a Monkees farewell tour that wrapped up in November. Sadly, Nesmith passed away on December 10 at age 78. Jones died in 2012 at age 66, while Tork passed away in 2019 at age 77.
For those who have been missing seeing Kim, Kourtney, Khloé, and the other Kardashians on TV, relief is coming. Hulu has dropped a teaser for their new reality show, The Kardashians, which debuts on April 14.
The snippet shows each family member looking glamorous –& and in new mom Kylie Jenner‘s case, extremely pregnant — wearing light-colored gowns as they pose in glass display boxes. The only exceptions are Kris Jenner, who chose a light grey power suit, and Kourtney, who just wore white lingerie.
The classic torch song “Feeling Good” plays, as a title card teases, “All the walls will be shattered.”
And before you roll your eyes about exactly who wants to keep keeping up with the Kardashians, the trailer had already been viewed over 380,000 times on YouTube as of Monday afternoon.
David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Langan’s
Rod Stewart spent the weekend celebrating two things: the engagement of his daughter, Kimberly Stewart, and the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II‘s ascension to the throne.
Kimberly, Rod’s daughter with his first wife, Alana Stewart, got engaged over the weekend to producer Jesse Shapira, Peopleconfirms. Kimberly has a 10-year-old daughter, Delilah, with her ex, Benicio del Toro.
On Sunday, Alana posted photos of herself and Rod having a celebratory dinner in LA with Kimberly and Jesse, as well as Kimberly’s brother, Sean, and Renee Stewart, Rod’s daughter with his second wife, Rachel Hunter. Rod has eight children by five different women, and maintains good relationships with all his kids, and most of their mothers.
Meanwhile, Sunday marked the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II‘s ascension to the throne, and the official start of her Platinum Jubilee year. Rod posted a few photos of himself greeting and chatting with Her Majesty over the years, and wrote, “She’s been a wonderful example of how to conduct yourself with integrity and grace for 70 years now (just like me!) and we should all look forward to acknowledging her magnificent service.”
“I remember quite vividly when I was invited to sing a few songs for Her Majesty at St James’s Palace for a charity event. It was without doubt the most nervous I’ve ever been,” Rod confessed. “Her Majesty looked somewhat terrified as well, I think she thought I was going to play a loud version of ‘Hot Legs’ or something(!) but I didn’t, choosing instead ‘What a Wonderful World’ from my American Song Book collection.”
Rod concluded, “Her Majesty smiled and looked extremely relieved. What a Lady…so cool!”
Although it hasn’t yet been announced that the Sex and the City follow-up …And Just Like That will get a second season, all involved in bringing the show to life are reportedly on board, according to a new interview with Variety.
But although Kim Cattrall‘s Samantha Jones texted to meet up with Sarah Jessica Parker‘s Carrie Bradshaw in Europe in the first season finale, don’t expect to see Samantha in the flesh on screen if a second season comes to pass.
“I don’t think I would, because I think there’s just too much public history of feelings on her part that she’s shared,” Parker tells the trade.
Indeed, Cattrall slammed the door pretty hard on the SATC universe many times, after a deal for a third film fell apart. “The answer was always no and a respectful, firm, no,” the fan fave told the Daily Mail, for example.
However, the decision to keep Samantha around in the SATC universe was a way to “respect” the character, says executive producer Michael Patrick King, hence …And Just Like That‘s climactic — but unseen — drinks date between Carrie and Samantha.
“We didn’t go to Kim for this, you know,” Parker told the trade. “After we didn’t do the movie and the studio couldn’t meet what she wanted to do, we have to hear her and listen to her and what was important to her. It didn’t fit into what was important or needed for us.”
“Magically thinking, it’s great to have Samantha,” King agreed, referring to her text-only cameos. “I have no realistic expectation of Kim Cattrall ever appearing again.”
(NEW YORK) — Several states across the country are considering lifting mask mandates in schools in an attempt to return to some semblance of normalcy.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Delaware Gov. John Carney announced Monday that mask mandates in schools will come to an end in March. Illinois school districts will be deciding whether or not to make masks optional after a judge ruled against the state’s mandate.
Additionally, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order last month allowing parents to choose whether their child will wear a mask in schools, although it was temporarily halted by a judge Friday.
Experts say it is too soon to end mask mandates in schools because vaccination rates are not high enough yet among the school-age population and new cases are still being reported.
“It is not safe at this time for schools to rescind mask mandates [because] even though we do have decent levels of vaccination in the older age groups, as populations get younger, the proportion who are vaccinated gets lower,” Dr. Mercedes Carnethon, vice chair of the department of preventive medicine and a professor of epidemiology and pulmonary and critical care at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told ABC News.
Currently, 22.6% of Americans ages 5 to 11 and 56.4% of those ages 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The proportion of parents who have chosen vaccination for their children is very low and we know that masking works to stop the spread of the coronavirus,” Carnethon said. “Rescinding those mandates where children 5 and up spend their days, I believe we will see rapid spread.”
Proponents of mask mandates say COVID-19 is not an endemic disease yet and lifting mandates will trigger a major rise in cases.
In Wyoming, Laramie County School District 1 — located in the capital of Cheyenne — reported a spike in cases just two weeks after the Board of Trustees voted to end the mask mandate.
First reported by the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, nearly 400 students and 100 staff have tested positive between Jan. 24 and Feb. 4, an ABC analysis of school district data shows.
Similarly, Hopkinton High School in Massachusetts was the first public school in the state to drop masks altogether but reinstituted the mandate after a rise in cases.
Murphy said a drop in COVID-19 infections linked to the omicron variant led him to lift the mask mandate.
“Balancing public health with getting back to some semblance of normalcy is not easy,” Murphy tweeted. “But we can responsibly take this step due to declining COVID numbers and growth in vaccinations.”
Dr. Stanley Weiss, a professor of biostatistics & epidemiology at Rutgers School of Public Health, called it a politically motivated decision.
“Gov. Murphy’s decision is a politically-based one because there is tremendous pressure coming upon everyone to get rid of the pandemic and stop talking about it and stop dealing with it because we’re all tired of this pandemic,” he told ABC News. “It is not scientifically based and I don’t think it is a rational approach based upon what we’re still seeing.”
According to Patch New Jersey, in-school transmission in the state has increased over the past month.
Between Jan. 4 and Jan. 10, there were 11 cases among students and 17 cases among staff. However, between Jan. 25 and Jan. 31, there were 398 cases among students and 57 among staff.
“I have problems with the change in policy,” Weiss said. “Yes, it’s a limited number of cases, but if you look over time, the new outbreaks have been continuing to increase in schools. The number of student cases and staff cases has not declined. It hasn’t gone away.”
In Illinois, some districts have already made mandates optional after a judge ruled school districts statewide cannot require students to wear masks in classrooms.
“If data were driving these decisions, we wouldn’t at all remove mask mandates right now,” said Carnethon. “The school districts in the regions of Illinois that are making this optional appear to be closely aligned with the geopolitical sentiment.”
Carnethon said districts where schools mask mandates are being removed are typically ones with limited testing ability and “limited enthusiasm” for policies such as requiring vaccinations in public spaces.
“These communities continue to be high-district transmission communities. These are the very decisions that are going to prolong the pandemic and lead to far more suffering than we need to have happen,” she said.
Those in favor of ending the mandates in schools say the public health focus needs to shift to learning to live with COVID-19 and more attention should be given to individual choice.
An increase in cases isn’t necessarily a bad thing due to children’s low risk of severe illness, according to some experts. Others, like Dr. Julia Raifman, disagree.
“I think cases are a problem,” Raifman, an assistant professor of health law, policy and management at Boston University School of Public Health who researches state-level policy responses to the pandemic, told ABC News.
She continued, “Cases are a problem because more cases do mean more hospitalizations and deaths. There’s no way around that. More cases mean more missed work and more missed school. More cases mean more people with lingering symptoms. More cases mean more of the unknown health impacts 10 years later.”
Raifman added that school mask mandates should not disappear completely and that one way to keep them in place is to have more outdoor class time for kids because masks are not recommended for outdoors and students and teachers could take a break from wearing face coverings.
She gave the example of Nevada, which has a policy that enacts mask mandates when cases in a county are high.
“If people are really eager for them to end, I recommend that they not end them, that they put in place a data-driven approach that turns on the mask policies when we need them when there are big surges,” Raifman said.
(SEATTLE) — One person was killed and at least one was injured during a shooting at a Washington state grocery store Monday, authorities said.
The suspect, who is believed to have a handgun, is still at large following the shooting at a Fred Meyer store in Richland, Washington, police told reporters.
ATF agents are heading to the scene, the agency said.
Richland is located about 200 miles southeast of Seattle.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
After starring as the father of tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams in King Richard, Will Smith has a new and much more demanding challenge for his latest project. The Bad Boys franchise star will travel 26,000 miles, from the South Pole to the North Pole, for his new National Geographic series, Pole to Pole, according to Deadline.
Following his previous series for the network, Welcome to Earth and One Strange Rock, this time Will’s goal is to unlock the mystery of Earth’s diversity and alchemy in 100 days of filming. He will experience polar ice, desert, jungle, mountain, and swamp, and live with local communities in some of the most extreme landscapes on the planet
In other news, NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson is the subject of a new four-part docuseries which will stream April 22 on Apple TV+. They Call Me Magicwill tell the story of the charismatic star who led the Los Angeles Lakers to five NBA titles in the 1980s. In 1991, Johnson became one of the first athletes to announce he had contracted HIV. He abruptly retired from the league, though he returned four years later in 1996 to play 32 games for the Lakers.
Magic was a member of the “Dream Team” which won a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics. He was also inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Finally, Apple TV+ has also dropped the trailer for the six-episode drama series The Last Day of Ptolemy Grey, starring Samuel L. Jackson in the title role. Grey suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and is assigned care of his orphaned teenager. The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey debuts Friday, March 11 on Apple TV+.
Jamie Lynn Spears is celebrating the fifth anniversary of daughter Maddie Briann‘s recovery from a near-fatal ATV accident.
Taking to Instagram to share a photo of a then-eight-year-old Maddie in a hospital bed and hooked up to various machines, the Zoey 101 star spoke of her daughter’s “miracle anniversary.”
“Maybe, it’s just a little reminder to remain faithful through the good times and the bad times. I mean, I had nothing when I thought I lost my baby girl, so my faith was literally all I had left to cling to,” Jamie Lynn wrote. “I thank God everyday for the extraordinary medical professionals, all the prayer warriors, and the countless angels in heaven, and on earth who made our miracle possible.”
Maddie was riding on an ATV in 2017 when she drove it into a pond on the family property and became trapped, according to Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards. Maddie was in critical condition when she was airlifted to a nearby hospital.
Maddie’s recovery anniversary coincided with Jamie Lynn’s show, Sweet Magnolias, becoming the number-one show on Netflix. “I can’t even begin to explain all the ways, that this show and the many wonderful people who create this show have been a saving grace to me,” Jamie Lynn said.
Jamie Lynn closed her post by declaring, “I’m filled with so much gratitude today for a lot reasons, and I don’t ever want to take any of my many blessings for granted. I LOVE YALL.”
The post is a break from Jamie Lynn’s back and forth with sister Britney Spears, following the release of Jamie Lynn’s Things I Should Have Said memoir.
On Monday, the hit-making country singer announced that he’s dropping his new single, “Last Night Lonely,” next week. It serves as the lead single off his forthcoming new album.
“Been in the studio working on some stuff. New single coming next week from my upcoming album!” Jon teased on social media.
In response to the announcement, Jon’s wife, Summer, cheers in the comment section,”YA BABY!!!” while a fan celebrates, “Best news I’ve gotten this year,” and another fan writes, “SO STOKED!!!!”
The California native currently has two hits on the radio: he and Lauren Alaina teamed up for the smoldering duet “Getting Over Him,” while Jon’s solo single “Tequila Little Time,” off his 2019 album Heartache Medication, is currently in the top five on the Billboard Country Airplay chart.
“Last Night Lonely” is available to pre-save now. The “Dirt on My Boots” hitmaker is set to perform at the famed Houston Rodeo on March 5.
