Sam Smith helmed the James Bond theme “Writing’s On The Wall” for the 2015 film Spectre. To celebrate the franchise’s 60th anniversary, the British superstar revealed exactly how the haunting theme came to be.
Sam took to their Instagram Story to reveal they began working on the song while recording their 2013 hit “Lay Me Down” with producer Jimmy Napes.
“Jimmy just played some chords and it just flowed,” Sam expressed.
Napes picked up the story from there, explaining, “After we finished writing, we literally went next door to RAK Studio 1 and recorded it and that was the take.”
Throwback footage shows Sam singing “Writing’s” for the first time. “The vocal [for the song] is the demo vocal. The first vocal I ever did for the song,” they described. Because Sam used the first take, the piano Napes played in the background can actually be heard if one isolates the track’s vocals.
“Such a special memory,” the British superstar expressed when sharing the footage.
Sam isn’t the only artist saluting James Bond’s legacy. Adele, who sang the 2012 Bond theme “Skyfall,” took to Instagram to celebrate the 10th anniversary of her chilling theme. “Hold your breath and count to ten,” her account wrote, a nod to the song’s opening lyrics.
Billie Eilish, who is the newest Bond singer, also saluted the franchise on its anniversary when looking back at her offering “No Time to Die.” She told Prime Video she had chills when she heard her song play during the most “emotional parts of the film” at the movie premiere.
It should be noted all three of these artists took home the Oscar for Best Original Song, and to date, are the only singers to have won an Academy Award for their Bond themes.
Ashley McBryde is set to become the next member of the Grand Ole Opry. She got a surprise invitation to join the hallowed institution from Garth Brooks in the middle of an in-studio appearance on CBS Mornings.
Ashley was in the studio to promote her new album, Ashley McBryde Presents: Lindeville, when Garth showed up on the screen at the end of her interview, dialing in live from the Opry stage.
“I’m here for a proposal,” Garth said.
“You’re already married!” show co-host Gayle King joked from off-camera.
But it wasn’t that kind of proposal that Garth — an Opry member since 1990 — had in mind. “I am, but this is part of a family that keeps growing,” he continued before officially popping the question.
Garth was a little emotional as he spoke, and Ashley fought back tears as she gave her response. “It would be the great joy and the great honor of my life,” she replied.
“I’ve always said I will earn it, and this is a pretty surreal moment,” she reflected. But there was one more surprise for Ashley: When she turned around to look at her team, who all knew the surprise was coming, she saw her mom standing there.
“Now I’m gonna ugly cry on TV. That is my mother!” the singer said. “She’s gonna cry too, just so you know.” And she did: As her mom came out and gave her a hug, the pair were both weeping with joy.
Ashley will be formally inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in a ceremony on a yet-to-be-announced date.
(NEW YORK) — An alliance of oil-producing countries on Wednesday announced a dramatic cut in oil output with major implications for U.S. gas prices, industry analysts told ABC News.
The group of nations known as OPEC+, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, agreed on Wednesday to cut oil production by two million barrels per day starting in November.
The decision to slash oil supply arrives as crude oil prices stand at $93, well below a high in June of $123. Many forecasters are anticipating a global economic slowdown.
The move will cause a spike in U.S. gasoline prices that will last for months, analysts told ABC News. President Joe Biden can reduce some of the immediate price hike but lacks an effective option to mitigate the overall cost increase for U.S. drivers, they said.
Here’s what the OPEC+ oil cut means for U.S. gas prices and how Biden has responded:
The OPEC+ oil cut will significantly raise U.S. gas prices
The OPEC+ oil cut will hike U.S. gas prices because the price depends on a balance between supply and demand.
A reduction of two million barrels of oil a day amounts to a roughly 2% loss from the oil market, since the world consumed nearly 100 million barrels of oil each day in August, the most recent month on record, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The U.S. is set to produce an average of 11.8 million barrels oil per day in 2022, which stands 500,000 barrels short of a record set in 2019, according to the EIA. But oil prices are set on a global market, where the OPEC+ cuts cannot be offset by a comparable short-term increase in U.S. oil output.
“You’ll be looking at substantial upward pressure on gas prices,” Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston, told ABC News.
The average price for a U.S. gallon of gas is $3.86, according to AAA data. That price marks a 2% rise from a month ago and a 20% rise from a year ago. In California, the state with the highest average gas price, a gallon costs $6.42.
After the OPEC+ oil cut, the price will rise even further. The price will increase as much as 40 cents, reaching as high as $4.26, analysts said. The price hike will begin within weeks and last for months, they said.
The move will impose a uniform impact on gas prices across all regions of the U.S., according to Krishnamoorti and Peter McNally, a global sector leader for industrial materials and energy at Third Bridge.
Patrick de Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, disagreed. Prices have already begun to increase in the South and Northeast, where prices had been stable in recent weeks, he said.
Areas on the West Coast and some of the Great Lakes states, however, which have experienced massive price spikes over the last few weeks due to refinery issues, will likely continue to see prices drop, though by not as much as originally anticipated, he added.
The Biden administration response
The Biden administration sharply criticized the OPEC+ oil cut on Wednesday. In a statement, the White House said Biden “is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.”
The Biden administration ordered the Department of Energy to release another 10 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in November.
The move continues an effort launched by the administration in March. The U.S. and its allies announced the collective release of 60 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves over the following months, seeking to alleviate some of the supply shortage and blunt price increases.
The additional release next month from the strategic reserve could blunt some of the price increase in November but cannot mitigate the overall impact, analysts said. The administration lacks an effective tool to dial back the extended price hike, they added.
“There is no operation warp speed for the energy industry,” said McNally.
Jada Pinkett Smith is ready to speak for herself, and she’ll do that in her new, not-yet-titled book that will release in the fall of 2023.
In partnership with Dey Street Books, the Red Table Talk host plans to publish an “honest and gripping” memoir that will chronicle lessons learned throughout her “difficult but riveting” journey. As detailed in a press release, the book will explore personal life experiences “from the depths of suicidal depression to the heights of personal rediscovery and the celebration of authentic feminine power.”
The release adds, “With no holds barred, Jada reveals her unconventional upbringing in Baltimore — from the child of two addicts to a promising theatre student and a violent interlude as a petty drug-dealer — followed by a parallel rise to stardom alongside her close friend 2Pac, then falling in love with and marrying WillSmith, and a joyous embrace of motherhood.”
At the center of the book are the “unexpected love stories” of Jada’s “complicated marriage” to Will and her relationship with herself.
“The world has imposed many labels and narratives on Jada Pinkett Smith,” CarrieThornton, Dey Street Books VP and Editorial Director said. “This is down to the realities of our media landscape, but also the roles thrust upon women by culture.”
Thorton added, “This memoir is Jada giving the world her truth, taking readers on a journey from lost girl to woman warrior. It is my great honor to take that journey with her.”
The Kid LAROI says his “Stay” collaborator, Justin Bieber,has inspired him to become a better version of himself.
Speaking to ET Canada, the Australian singer revealed how Justin influenced him. “He’s a really good dude,” LAROI expressed. “He’s someone that whenever I’m having a hard time or something, I can go and speak to and he’s a really great listener and he gives really great advice.”
He continued, “I feel it’s very important to be a great listener. I’m still learning how to do that.” Part of that practice, he says, includes knowing when to apologize to his girlfriend when he’s not being “a good enough listener.”
LAROI added one only stands to gain when they are truly able to listen to another person, adding, “That’s really important in any relationship, friendship, whatever it is.”
The singer is also working on becoming a better person because he wants to represent his country in the same way Drake represents Canada on a global scale.
“The biggest thing is just inspiring people,” he expressed. “For me growing up, I think being in Australia it was a really big dream to come to America and be globally doing music on a big level or whatever. So I think for me, that seemed kind of almost impossible. I just want to hopefully inspire other young people and have them think that it’s not as impossible as you think.”
LAROI is currently hard at work on his debut album.
(PHOENIX) — Kicking off a season of senatorial debates in key battleground states, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and his Republican challenger Blake Masters will face off Thursday in Phoenix for their only debate — one week before early ballots go out in the state. Libertarian candidate Marc Victor will also participate.
The one-hour debate, hosted by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, will air live on Arizona PBS at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. local time.
Gina Roberts, the voter education director at the Citizens Clean Elections Commission, the leading debate organizer for the last 20 years in Arizona, told ABC News that her team has been working on the midterm debates for more than year, “So it takes a lot to bring this to life, to bring this to voters — it’s quite a bit in terms of production.”
Her group outsources debate questions from Arizona voters, which they then share with the debate moderators, Ted Simons of Arizona PBS and an alternating reporter from the Arizona Republic, who go over the voter-submitted questions together and come up with the discussion topics.
“Bringing these debates to voters from a nonpartisan entity that only has the goal to educate, not influence, is a really great resource for voters,” Roberts added, “Because it gets all the candidates together on the same stage where Arizonans can hear directly from them on the issues that matter most.”
Masters, a 36-year-old venture capitalist from Tucson in his first run for public office, has gone after the junior senator on southern border security and high inflation, while Kelly is expected to raise Democrats’ concerns that Masters would support a federal abortion ban and spread baseless doubts about American elections since he has alleged, without evidence, that the 2020 presidential race was corrupt.
With former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, Masters beat out five other Republican candidates in the August primary, but after swinging far-right to stand out in the bunch, he’s faced criticism for an apparent post-primary pivot to being the “commonsense” candidate.
His campaign website was scrubbed in August to soften his views on abortion and the 2020 election and removed language about how Democrats “want to import a new electorate,” which appeared to echo the right-wing “replacement theory” that white people are being strategically diminished. (Masters has denied any pivot in his message and likened the website scrub to a run-of-the-mill update.)
Kelly, a former astronaut and Navy combat pilot who often flies himself in a two-seater plane to events across the state, is running on bipartisan wins in the Senate, such as a bipartisan infrastructure package, the CHIPS and Science Act investing in domestic manufacturing and measures in the Inflation Reduction Act to fund drought and Colorado River relief measures and lower prescription drug costs for Arizona’s seniors.
While Kelly won his 2020 race by earning more votes in the battleground than now-President Joe Biden, it’s unclear if Arizona will maintain its purple hue given that southern border encounters are at an all-time high and inflation is the steepest in the country in the Phoenix-metro area, home to most of the state’s voters.
Abortion access has also taken on new significance in the swing state after a judge lifted an injunction on a territorial-era, near-total ban on the procedure, with prison time for doctors, which the Republican attorney general revived in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
Kelly has said he supports codifying the right to an abortion with “some limits” late in pregnancy, while Masters supports the procedure only to save a mother’s life. Masters told ABC News last month that he would support Sen. Lindsey Graham’s proposal for a federal ban on most abortions after 15 weeks but also said a federal “personhood law” banning all third-trimester abortions could garner more support.
On the campaign trail, Masters has tried to keep the conversation on Democrats’ spending in Washington and on Kelly voting with Biden 94% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight, with Masters contrasting that record with Arizona’s other Democratic senator, Kyrsten Sinema.
Still, Kelly has consistently polled ahead of Masters since the summer, according to FiveThirtyEight.
The Arizona Senate race has already surpassed $120 million in funding and is expected to reach more than $240 million, according to AdImpact, as the midterm elections are poised to be the second most expensive cycle in history after the 2020 election.
Two years ago, Kelly flipped his Senate seat for Democrats in a special election triggered by the death of the late Sen. John McCain. Kelly defeated Sen. Martha McSally, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, by more than 78,000 votes to serve out the remainder of McCain’s term through January 2023.
Kelly became a strong advocate for gun restrictions in the aftermath of a failed assassination attempt on his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, and he won his last election by pitching himself as an independent-minded candidate who would work across the aisle — a strategy he’s deployed in 2022 as well.
Masters, betting that Arizona is still a red state, joined former President Trump for a rally in Prescott in July after gaining his endorsement and will do so again on Sunday in Mesa.
Thursday marks Kelly’s second debate but his first as a senator. While Masters participated in a GOP primary forum in June, Thursday is his first senatorial debate as a nominee.
“Senator Kelly looks forward to the upcoming debate where Arizonans will have a chance to see the stark choice in front of them this November,” Kelly’s campaign spokesperson Sarah Guggenheimer told ABC News. “While Masters will have to answer for his dangerous support of a national abortion ban and privatizing Social Security, Senator Kelly will speak directly to Arizonans about his work with Republicans and Democrats to lower costs, create jobs, and get our economy back on track.”
Masters’ campaign declined to comment to ABC News for this story.
(NEW YORK) — As Hurricane Ian pounded the West Coast of Florida, Tiffani Henning watched the Category 4 storm from the third floor of Golisano Children’s Hospital in Fort Myers.
Henning huddled with about two dozen other moms last week as they watched their cars float away from the hospital’s parking garage, boats float down what were once roads in front of the hospital and trees sway sideways and completely uproot from the ground.
Behind them through it all laid their newborn children, some of them critically ill, in the hospital’s neo-natal intensive care unit, or NICU.
“We were right in the eye, right in the path of destruction,” Henning told ABC News of the hospital, which is located less than nine miles from Sanibel Island, which suffered much of the storm’s most devastating damage. “You’re already in a situation of being a NICU mom and now you’re in the position of being a NICU mom in the middle of a hurricane.”
Less than 48 hours before, Henning said she barely made it to the hospital to be able to ride out the storm with her twin sons, Paxton and Kamden, who were born in August, around three months premature.
Henning was preparing her Bonita Springs home for the hurricane on Monday, when she made a last-minute decision to drive the 35 minutes back to Golisano Children’s Hospital that same day. She made it just in time before a state of emergency was declared in Lee County and the hospital was locked down to visitors.
During the storm, Henning said she and fellow moms of NICU patients became worried as the hospital’s first floor took on water and a call came over the loudspeaker for people on that floor to find higher ground.
“I’m like, if this water keeps rising, how are we getting the babies, because there were so many babies that were in the NICU,” recalled Henning. “If the water keeps going up, there’s only so many floors we can go up to before there are no more floors.”
Inside the same NICU, Jennifer Morales Uparela spent much of the hurricane in a chair next to the isolette where her 1-month-old daughter, Allison, slept.
Morales Uparela said she tried to sleep too in order to help pass the time quickly. A native of Colombia, she was experiencing her first hurricane and doing so alone in a foreign country.
“I’ve never experienced something like this, and this is my first baby,” Morales Uparela told ABC News through a translator. “What kept me going is I know that my baby needs me.”
Morales Uparela, who had a high-risk pregnancy, was staying with family members in Cape Coral, Florida, when she was induced at 37 weeks on Sept. 4. Allison weighed 3 pounds, 13 ounces, at birth and was taken immediately to the NICU, where doctors have monitored her ever since.
On Sept. 28, the day of the hurricane, Morales Uparela said she went downstairs to get something to eat, and saw the flooding on the hospital’s first floor.
“People did a good job of staying calm and the staff did a great job of keeping everyone under control,” she said. “But I went back to the unit, and that’s when everything started going downhill.”
A ‘Herculean effort’ to evacuate dozens of babies
Hurricane Ian, which devastated parts of Fort Myers and the surrounding area, killing over 100 people, caused Golisano Children’s Hospital to lose both power and water.
The hospital had a generator that kicked in at the time of the power outage, but lacking water, it began the process of evacuating its NICU patients.
Directly across the state, in the cities of Miami and Hollywood, two children’s hospitals went into overdrive, activating their plans to begin treating the evacuated babies.
The hospitals — Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami and Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood — had been planning for the past week as Ian’s path was formed, working with hospital leaders across the state to figure out who could accept patients.
“We started to hear that they were going to evacuate due to infrastructure issues and that is the point where we started thinking, okay, this is real. They’re really going to need those patients out,” said Caitlin Beck Stella, CEO of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. “As soon as the hospital said, ‘It’s time to evacuate. It’s unsafe,’ everyone just jumped into motion.”
In addition to figuring out where the babies would go, hospital officials had to figure out how the babies would get there.
One obstacle was that some roads and helicopter landing areas were unusable due to the storm. A second obstacle was that patients as small and critical as NICU babies are considered “complex transports,” explained Dr. Marcos Mestre, vice president and chief medical officer of Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.
“They are essentially mini-ICUs that travel with the patients,” Mestre said of the hospital’s two helicopters and six ambulances that were used to transfer NICU babies.
In addition to the medical equipment, each patient travels with a transport team that consists of nursing staff and a medical coordinator.
“Every single case is unique,” said Beck Stella. “Some of them are singletons. Some of them are multiples, so you have to think of how do you keep families together. You can’t send one twin to Tampa and one twin to Joe DiMaggio.”
Early Thursday, hospital officials said they got the green light that the roads and helicopter landing pads were safe.
That began a 48-hour effort of helicopters and ambulances flying and driving back and forth across the state of Florida to transport patients, according to Mestre and Beck Stella.
While the roads were safe, the ambulances were often dodging debris on the ground from the storm, both officials said.
“I think our ambulance drove back and forth across the state 10 times, just back and forth,” said Beck Stella, whose hospital is located about 150 miles away from Golisano Children’s Hospital. “We even had people from other parts of the state and from outside the state that started jumping in and being able to transport these babies safely.”
She continued, “It was a Herculean effort.”
In total, 61 NICU patients were transferred from Golisano Children’s Hospital to hospitals in other parts of the state, a hospital spokesperson told ABC News.
Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami admitted six of the hospital’s NICU patients, and participated in five transfers to other hospitals, according Mestre.
Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital took in nearly two dozen NICU patients from Golisano Children’s Hospital, according to Beck Stella.
‘It could have been so much worse’
The evacuations to different hospitals meant more stress for parents like Morales Uparela, who had just survived her first hurricane as a first-time mom.
Morales Uparela learned on Thursday that her daughter would be evacuated to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, but had no way to get there herself as she was told the ambulance would not have space.
It was only when the ambulance arrived at midnight to transport Allison, that the transport team told her to jump in, saying they would make room, according to Morales Uparela.
With Morales Uparela sitting in the front and nurses taking care of Allison in the back of the ambulance, the team made the drive to Miami, which Morales Uparela described as treacherous.
“There was a lot of debris in the highway,” she said. “They had to go carefully with lots of debris and trees down.”
Henning, the mom of twins, navigated the drive across Florida herself on Friday, after her sons were airlifted to Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital earlier that morning.
Facing a city-wide curfew, Henning said she had gone home from Golisano Children’s Hospital Thursday afternoon.
She said she was woken up by a phone call early Friday morning from the hospital, letting her know the twins would be evacuated but they weren’t yet sure to where or whether they would stay together.
Kamden was eventually evacuated first, followed by Paxton, on separate helicopters.
Henning said she and her husband made the nearly two-hour drive to Hollywood on Friday, and were able to reunite with their sons.
“There were lots of tears,” she said. “I got to hold both of them and cuddle them and knowing that they were at another place and safe was just the best peace of mind.”
Henning’s sons continue to be treated at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, but she said she is hopeful they can soon return to Golisano Children’s Hospital, which has since reopened.
The family lost a car in the storm and lost power and water at their home, but feel thankful to be alive and together.
“It could have been so much worse,” said Henning, who said she is most grateful for the medical staff that cared for her sons while their own homes and families were affected by the hurricane.
(NEW YORK) — The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are shaping up to be the most expensive for travelers in recent years, and experts say the clock is ticking to find last minute deals on flights.
Domestic airfare for Thanksgiving is averaging $281 roundtrip — up 25% from last year, according to Hopper. Christmas will be even more expensive, with prices averaging $435 roundtrip, 55% more than what tickets cost during the 2021 holiday.
The jump in prices is fallout from the pandemic, as airlines continue to scale up their schedules.
“Airlines have not built back their networks to the size they were in 2019. So, over the holidays right now we’re going to see about 5,000 less flights scheduled per day headed into Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Haley Berg, economist at Hopper, said in an interview with ABC News. “Both of these factors are going to mean there are fewer flights available to book and higher prices for each of those flights.”
The best times to book flights for the holidays is typically four months before travel — but consumers can still lock in a good prices over the coming weeks, according to Scott Keyes, founder of Scott’s Cheap Flights.
“If you’re hoping to travel this upcoming winter holidays, you’re going to want to try to get those flights here booked here in the next couple weeks,” Keyes told ABC News. “In the second half of October and November, flights are likely to get significantly more expensive than they are today.”
Using tools such as Google Flights to track prices can be helpful, Keyes said. Also taking advantage of the lack of change fees among airlines can help save money if you’ve already bought your tickets.
“If the price goes down, that lets you again cancel your original ticket, get your full travel credit for whatever you’d paid, and then turn around and rebook the same flight using that travel credit and have some left over that for future for a future trip,” Keyes said.
The holidays can also be a good time to use points and miles accrued over the year, but Keyes says it’s important to make sure you’re using them wisely.
“If it’s at least $0.02 per point, you’ve got the green light for me. If it’s less than that, then it’s really kind of up to you,” Keyes said. “The best value is going to be getting at least $0.02 per point.”
Many have wondered where Willie Nelson gets his energy and longevity. At 89 years old, he recently released his 72nd solo album. He also maintains a rigorous touring schedule, frequently collaborates with other artists and even wrote a memoir, called Me and Paul, that came out last month.
In a recent interview with ET Online, Willie said that he thinks keeping busy might be the secret to his long life and he’s not sure he’ll ever retire from touring.
“Oh, I don’t know. I say after every tour, I’m quitting, but after a while I need to go back,” the country legend said. “I enjoy playing, and I think it’s good for me to sing. And it’s the best exercise that I could give myself.”
Willie’s 2022 Farm Aid Festival recently returned in late September featuring his headlining performance along with his fellow Farm Aid board members John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews.
Next up, fans can revisit a particularly memorable performance from the country great: Legacy Recordings has announced plans for the release of Willie Nelson Live at Budokan, a live album recorded at Willie’s 1984 Tokyo, Japan show. The live album will be out on November 18.
In news that we can’t believe hasn’t happened already, Korn frontman Jonathan Davis has announced his own pet brand called Freak on a Leash.
The brand, which, of course, takes its name from Korn’s late ’90s nu metal classic, will offer “premium products…created for all, paying homage to the horror and rock music we love.”
“This first collection, designed exclusively by me, contains all custom products made with high-quality gunmetal hardware, leather, nylon, and plushies that will set your pet apart from the pack,” Davis says.
Freak on a Leash is set to officially launch on October, but attendees of California’s Aftershock festival can get a sneak peek this Saturday, October 8.
