(WASHINGTON) — On the eve of the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, President Joe Biden held a formal news conference at the White House Wednesday, answering reporter questions on his handling of the pandemic, the economy and legislative agenda.
“It’s been a year of challenges, but it’s also many years of enormous progress,” Biden said to begin, ticking through his administration’s successes before fielding questions from reporters.
With Biden facing the limits of what he can accomplish with an evenly-divided Senate, unable to get either his signature social spending package or major voting rights reform through Congress in recent weeks, and with the pandemic still raging well into its second, his approval rating in polls has hit an all-time low. A Jan. 12 Quinnipiac poll found his approval rating to be 33%, a 3-point drop from November.
Still, Biden touted wins over the year to kick off the news conference, including administering more than 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and hitting record-low unemployment rates in many states.
“Should we have done more testing earlier? Yes,” Biden said in his opening remarks. “But we’re doing more now. We’ve gone from zero at-home tests a year ago to 375 million tests on the market just this month.”
He said the bottom line on COVID-19 is the country is “in a better place than we’ve been and have been thus far” and reiterated his position not to go back to lockdowns and school closures.
“Some people may call what’s happening now a new normal. I call it a job not yet finished,” Biden said with confidence. “We’re moving toward a time that COVID-19 won’t disrupt our daily lives or COVID-19 won’t be a crisis, but something to protect against and a threat. Look, we’re not there yet. We will get there.”
The first question to Biden was on whether he believes he overpromised to the American public what his administration could achieve in office one year in.
“Look, I didn’t overpromise,” a defensive Biden replied. “I have probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen. The fact of the matter is that we’re in a situation where we have made enormous progress.”
Then, he acknowledged a weakness.
“One thing I haven’t been able to do so far, is get my Republican friends to get in the game of making things better in this country,” Biden said. “I did not anticipate that there’d be such a stalwart effort to make sure that the most important thing was that President Biden didn’t get anything done.”
In an answer to ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce, Biden said there’s no need to scale back his agenda despite the appearance that Democrats aren’t getting their priorities through.
“I’m not trying to — I’m not asking for castles in the sky,” Biden replied. “I’m asking for practical things the American people have been asking for for a long time, a long time. And I think we can get it done.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki, one day earlier, set up a preemptive defense for the president, telling reporters, “You don’t get everything done in the first year.”
“But what we feel good about … is that coming into an incredibly difficult circumstance, fighting a pandemic, an economic a massive economic downturn, as a result, an administration that was prior to us that did not effectively deal with a lot of these crises, that there’s been a lot of progress made,” she added.
“We need to build on that. The work is not done, the job is not done, and we are certainly not conveying it is, so our objective and I think what you’ll hear the president talk about tomorrow is how to build on the foundation we laid in the first year, Psaki said.
White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield cited the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief law, the American Rescue Plan, and a major, bipartisan infrastructure package as two achievements Biden will highlight in an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday. But she also acknowledged the president can do more on other issues.
“He has been laser-focused on taming COVID and growing the economy. He would be the first to say we’re not where we need to be on those,” Bedingfield said.
Wednesday’s session marks just the second time Biden has held a solo formal press conference at the White House. The first such news conference was held March 25, 2021.
Since then, he held five news conferences on foreign trips, and three in partnership with other foreign leaders at the White House, for a total of nine news conferences. While Biden often answers questions shouted by the press at other events, his tally of formal news conferences is the lowest for any president since Ronald Reagan, according to data from University of California Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 853,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 63% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jan 19, 4:10 pm
Fauci predicts most states will be past omicron peak by mid-February
Dr. Anthony Fauci predicts that most states will be past the omicron peak by mid-February.
“I would imagine as we get into February, into the middle of February, first few weeks of February, it is very likely that most of the states in the country will have turned around with their peak and are starting to come down with regard to cases, and then obviously hospitalizations,” Fauci said at a Blue Star Families event.
“Right now, there’s no doubt that in New York City and other parts of New York state and in New Jersey, it has already peaked and is rather dramatically on its way down,” Fauci said. “We’re seeing that also in bigger cities such as Chicago, where as in cities in the South, it has not yet peaked and likely will have more of a slower incline and a slower decline, such as in places like New Orleans and in other cities in Louisiana.”
Fauci said he expects data on vaccines for kids under 5 will be delivered to the FDA in the next month.
“They’re determining now that for children within that age group, it is likely that it will be a three-dose vaccine. And that being the case, it’s going to take a little longer to get those data to the FDA and approved,” he explained. “My hope is that it’s going to be within the next month or so and not much later than that. But I can’t guarantee that because I can’t out guess the FDA, I’m gonna have to leave that to them.”
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Jan 19, 3:33 pm
Pennsylvania nurse opens up about ‘overflowing’ hospital
On average, about 21,000 virus-positive Americans are being admitted to hospitals each day — a figure that has more than doubled over the last month.
WellSpan Chambersburg Hospital in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, has more patients now than any point in the pandemic, according to nurse Erin Hammond.
“Our emergency rooms are full to overflowing. Our critical care unit has now doubled up rooms. We’re taking more patients — sicker patients — than we ever have before,” Hammond told ABC News.
She noted that she’s seen people in their 20s, 30s and 40s “ending up very sick and dying.”
“It’s incredibly difficult seeing patients die day after day after day,” she said. And after a patient dies, the hospital must “refill their beds as quickly as they emptied.”
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 19, 2:50 pm
New Mexico asks state workers, National Guard to be substitute teachers
New Mexico leaders are asking state employees and National Guard members to volunteer as substitute teachers and child care workers due to “extreme staffing shortages” amid the COVID-19 case surge.
“Many schools are being forced to shift to online learning and child care facilities are being forced to temporarily close when staff members test positive,” state officials said in a statement Wednesday.
Since the holidays, about 60 school districts and charter schools switched to remote learning and 75 child care centers partially or completely closed due to staffing shortages, according to the state.
“The additional staffing will allow schools to avoid the disruptive process of switching between remote and in-person learning and prevent child care programs from having to shut down,” state officials said.
The volunteers would have to complete the requirements necessary to be licensed as a substitute, including a background check and an online workshop.
Jan 19, 11:45 am
27 million visits so far to USPS order form from COVIDTests.gov
While it’s not clear how many people have placed an order for free COVID-19 tests since the White House’s site launched Tuesday, the order form on the U.S. Postal Service website — special.usps.com/testkits — has been visited over 27 million times so far.
This initiative from the Biden administration’ allows Americans to order up to four free at-home rapid tests per household.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Jan 19, 10:37 am
US deaths expected to increase after weeks of surging cases
Following weeks of increasing cases, forecast models used by the CDC suggest that U.S. death totals will likely continue to increase over the next four weeks.
The models predict about 32,000 more Americans could die from COVID-19 over just the next two weeks.
By Feb. 12, about 931,000 total lives could be lost in the U.S. to the virus.
The CDC obtains the forecasts from the COVID-19 Forecast Hub at UMass Amherst, where a team monitors and combines forecasting models from the nation’s top researchers. The team then creates an ensemble — displayed like a hurricane forecast spaghetti plot — usually with a wide cone of uncertainty.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 19, 9:28 am
England to end many COVID-19 restrictions, including mask wearing
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Wednesday the end of all COVID-19 measures in England that were imposed to combat the highly contagious omicron variant.
Effective immediately, secondary school students will no longer be required to wear face masks in classrooms. Starting next week, masks will not be compulsory anywhere, including on public transport and in shops. However, Johnson said his government will continue to advise people to wear masks in indoor or crowded settings.
The work-from-home guidance will also be lifted next week, along with mandatory COVID-19 passes at large venues, though business are allowed to use them if they wish.
People will still be required to self-isolate after testing positive for COVID-19, but the prime minister said there will “soon be a time” when that won’t be mandated. The measure is due to expire in March, but Johnson said that date could be brought forward.
So-called Plan B restrictions were introduced in England last December amid a surge of COVID-19 cases as omicron quickly spread across the United Kingdom. The country’s daily number of new cases remains high but appears to be dropping over the past week along with hospital admissions, while deaths are increasing.
Jan 19, 2:22 am
Global new cases increased 20% last week, WHO says
Newly reported COVID-19 cases increased 20% last week, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
More than 18 million new cases were reported in the week ending Jan. 16, up from about 15 million in the previous week, according to the United Nation’s health agency’s weekly epidemiological update.
Last week’s increase marked a decline from the 55% increase reported the previous week, the agency said.
“Nonetheless, a combination of the increased and rapid spread of the Omicron variant, increased population movements and social mixing during and after the end of year holiday period and challenges with ongoing adherence to public health and social measures (PHSM) are expected to lead to increased number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the coming weeks,” Tuesday’s report said.
About 45,000 new deaths were reported worldwide last week, up from about 43,000 the previous week, the agency said.
Jan 18, 7:11 pm
White House to make 400 million N95 masks available for free
The Biden administration will make 400 million non-surgical N95 masks available for free at tens of thousands of pharmacies and community health centers, a White House official said Tuesday.
The administration will start shipping out the masks, which are coming from the Strategic National Stockpile, at the end of this week. Masks will start to be available at pharmacies and community health centers by late next week, with the program “fully up and running” by early February, the official said.
President Joe Biden had announced last week that the administration would be launching a program to provide high-quality masks to Americans for free, but did not provide details.
The announcement comes on the heels of updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that stated that loosely woven cloth masks provide the least amount of protection against COVID-19, and that Americans in some cases might want to opt for higher quality masks like KN95 and N95 respirators.
-ABC News’ Molly Nagle
Jan 18, 5:47 pm
75% of Americans have received at least 1 vaccine dose: CDC
Three-quarters of all Americans — nearly 250 million people — have now received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, according to updated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On average, around 296,000 Americans daily are receiving their first shot, down by about 35% since mid-December, federal data shows.
Some 62.7 million eligible Americans — those ages 5 and up — are unvaccinated.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 18, 5:35 pm
Nearly 1 million US children tested positive for COVID-19 last week
Around 981,000 children in the United States tested positive for COVID-19 last week, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.
This “dramatic” uptick is a nearly 70% increase over the 580,000 added cases reported the week ending Jan. 6, and a tripling of case counts from the two weeks prior, the organizations said.
With nearly 9.5 million children having tested positive for the virus since the onset of the pandemic, that means 10% of those cases were in the past week alone.
In recent weeks, there has been a significant increase in demand for coronavirus tests as more Americans are exposed to the virus. Many students have also been tested as they return to school, which can lead to an increase in these numbers.
The organizations said there is an “urgent” need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects, and noted in their report that a small proportion of cases have resulted in hospitalization and death.
The rising number of pediatric cases has renewed the push for vaccination. Nearly 19% of children ages 5 to 11 and about 55% of those ages 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated, according to federal data.
Metallica‘s upcoming concert in Las Vegas just got a bit spookier.
Ice Nine Kills are set to open the show, which takes place February 25 at Sin City’s Allegiant Stadium. In a tweet, the horror-themed metallers share that they’re “beyond honored” to be supporting the “Enter Sandman’ legends.
As previously reported, Greta Van Fleet will also be on the bill.
In addition to opening for Metallica, INK will be hitting the road in March on the Trinity of Terror tour, which also features Black Veil Brides and Motionless in White.
Dierks Bentley is one of four stars, all hailing from diverse corners of country music, to be inducted into the Music City Walk of Fame in 2022.
Also in the 2022 incoming class are outlaw singer-songwriter Bobby Bare, Grand Ole Opry mainstay Connie Smith and Grammy-winning blues act Keb’ Mo’. An induction ceremony will take place on April 5 at 2 p.m. CT in Nashville, at Music City Walk of Fame Park.
All four honorees will be on hand for the event. They’re claiming the 90th, 91st, 92nd and 93rd stars on the walk.
Meanwhile, Dierks has been hard at work on his next musical endeavor. After releasing his latest number-one hit, “Gone,” last year, he followed it up with “Beers on Me” — a duet with Hardy and Breland, and, most recently, a fan club exclusive track called “Tell ‘Em Right Now.” Look out for new music from the singer in the months ahead, as he’s been teasing a new album.
Britney Spears called her sistera “selfish little brat” in a scathing new message following Jamie Lynn Spears‘ tell-all on the Call Her Daddy podcast.
Britney first shared her thoughts on Tuesday, but quickly deleted them. Now, the gloves are off and, on Wednesday, she added three more pages.
The “Toxic” singer refuted Jamie Lynn’s recollection of her youth, where she said she was an “afterthought” and felt she “didn’t matter,” and said their mother, Lynne Spears, “worshipped” and doted on Jamie Lynn.
“I flew home to Jamie Lynn on the couch watching her tv shows right after Justin [Timberlake] and I broke up… I was a ghost there !!!!!” she remarked and claimed Jamie Lynn teased her about the breakup. “When I came home you and your little friends all thought I wasn’t cool… You and your friends all dyed your hair like Christina Aguilera and [said] you no longer would play with me anymore !!!”
Britney claimed their mom’s preferential treatment of Jamie Lynn enabled her to act like a “selfish little brat.” She then referenced a story from Jamie Lynn’s Things I Should Have Said memoir about their mother hitting her with a purse and recalled what prompted the alleged abuse.
“My mouth was on the floor the way you talked back to Mamma when I came home … Shocked out of my mind,” she wrote. “You were f****** hateful to her.”
Britney ended by refuting Jamie Lynn’s story that she was the one who drove a wedge in their relationship. “I NEVER shut you out ever… You can paint it however you like but dear child … YOU shut me out when i needed you the most !!!! Writing in your book saying I wasn’t like your mom anymore … No, you hurt me.”
Avril Lavigne said not long ago that she was planning to turn the plot of her signature song “Sk8er Boi” into a movie, and now she says it’s turning out to be an all-consuming project.
Appearing on After School Radio on Apple Music Hits, Avril told Blink-182′s Mark Hoppus — who also appears on her new album — “I’m in the process of putting together a film right now for it. That’s a lot of work, I’ll tell you. Meeting with production companies…I have my story line and my idea and then assembling a team, talking and meeting with different writers. And then I get different pitches and then I talk to them.”
“So I found someone right now that I’m digging. And so I think we’re moving forward,” Avril adds. “And then once the script’s written, I’m just producing and overseeing the whole project.”
Then she asks Mark, “But will you make a cameo?”
As for why the time is right for a “Sk8er Boi” movie, Avril notes that this year marks the 20th anniversary of her debut album Let Go. As she explains, “I don’t know if it’s just because of how long it’s been or with a resurgence, or whatever you want to call it, in the pop punk scene right now, but people are really bringing up ‘Sk8er Boi’ a lot…it’s taken on a whole new life of its own,” she adds.
Avril’s new album Love Sux is due out next month, and she tells Hoppus, “My last album was very introspective and deep and this one is just rocking all the way through…I feel this is my most alternative record sonically…I just wanted to not hold back at all and just…guitars, drums, just go for it.”
ABC/Eric McCandless; Stephen J. Cohen/Getty Images
The 33rd annual GLAAD Awards have unveiled this year’s list of nominees and, among them, are Elton John and Melissa Etheridge.
They are competing against each other in the outstanding music artist category, which also includes Brandi Carlile, Lil Nas X, Demi Lovato, Halsey, St. Vincent and others. Elton and Melissa earned their nods, respectively, for their albums The Lockdown Sessions and One Way Out. It’s worth noting that Carlile and Lil Nas X both collaborated on songs with Elton that appear on The Lockdown Sessions.
The 33rd annual GLAAD Awards will take place on two dates — April 2 in Los Angeles and May 6 in New York City.
Actor Rory Ross has been a Star Wars fan since he was six years old, when he spent a month in Iowa Children’s Hospital, battling a rare fungal condition. He tells ABC Audio he calls it “crazy” his life has “come full circle,” with parts in both The Book of Boba Fett, and the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series.
“That first day [in the hospital] my mom [brought me] Star Wars: A New Hope,” he explains. “It was my first introduction into Star Wars. And then as I stayed in the hospital…seeing Luke’s journey, it gave me the hope and inspiration…that I was going to be OK.”
He adds, “And…even at such a young age, I was sort of like, ‘I don’t know what to do with my life, but whatever it is, I want to bring hope and inspiration to people just like Luke did for me.'”
In The Book of Boba Fett, Ross played one of the desert planet Tatooine’s Tusken Raiders, who save Temuera Morrison‘s Fett, and allow him to join their tribe. It showed a different side of the Sand People — after all, in the movies, they mug Luke Skywalker in A New Hope, and murder Anakin’s mother in Attack of the Clones.
“When we saw The Tuskens in A New Hope, we just unfortunately saw them as kind of beasts, we thought like, you know, that’s all they are,” Ross says.
“But with The Book of Boba Fett, it really does humanize Tuskens. It really…shows their society, their culture and how, just like with humans, each tribe or each person, even from that tribe, can be very different.”
Unfortunately, the tribe that rescued Boba meets a grisly end in the third episode, setting the former bounty hunter on a mission of revenge. However, before he does, he mourns his new family.
“That was sad,” Ross says of seeing the aftermath of his tribe’s slaughter at the hands of a speeder bike gang. “I wish they would have let that draw out a little bit more in terms of the emotional connection there. But man, yeah, seeing Boba crying, it’s a heartfelt moment.”
He adds, “It was really cool to be able to live that.”
A new episode of The Book of Boba Fett dropped today on Disney+.
Maren Morris is wishing a happy birthday to Dolly Parton with a special memory the two country artists shared together.
The singer posted a video to her social media on Wednesday, showing a behind-the-scenes moment that happened backstage at the 2019 Newport Folk Festival. That day, Dolly took the stage with Maren and the rest of her band, The Highwomen, which also includes Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby.
The video shows the group of women backstage, singing Dolly’s 1991 single, “Eagle When She Flies.” In one particularly sweet moment, Dolly pulls Maren into the circle, inviting her to sing with the rest of the performers.
“Happy birthday [Dolly Parton],” Maren writes. “Thank you for forever pulling me into your unbroken circle.”
Other stars also lined up to post good wishes to Dolly on her birthday, including Tim McGraw and Alan Jackson.
Last year, Ridley Scott, the director of Lady Gaga’s latest film House of Gucci, told the ReelBlend podcast that he wanted to release a director’s cut of the movie. Now Gaga is hinting that the director’s cut may include scenes that show her character, Patrizia, and Salma Hayek‘s character, Pina, being, well…more than friends.
PopCrave has posted a clip from a panel on the film hosted by MGM Studios, in which Gaga says, “There’s a whole side of this film that you did not see where Pina and I developed a sexual relationship.”
As the audience laughs, Gaga teases, “Director’s cut, who knows? But this is a testament to [Ridley Scott] as a director because he let us go there.”
In the film Gaga plays Patrizia Reggiani, who hires a hit man to kill her ex-husband, Maurizio Gucci, with the help of her friend and spiritual advisor, PinaAuriemma.
“I remember being on set with Salma and going, ’So, after Maurizio dies, maybe it gets…hot?’” Gaga continues.
“You think she’s kidding!” Salma cracks.
If Scott does end up releasing a director’s cut, though, it’s not guaranteed that this so-called scene will be included. Meanwhile, Gaga and the film continue to rack up award nominations; next month, she’ll find out if she’s been nominated for a second Best Actress Oscar.
