(NEW YORK) — Venus Williams and Serena Williams, a pair who first walked onto the national stage of professional tennis in the 1990s, have most likely walked off the court together for the last time.
The legendary sister act likely came to a close on Thursday night after the pair lost 7-6(5), 6-4, to the Czech team of Linda Noskova and Lucie Hradecka.
The first-round game marked, most likely, the final time Serena Williams and her older sister Venus Williams would play in a Grand Slam doubles tournament together. Serena Williams had announced that she was “evolving away” from tennis in a personal essay in Vogue in August.
Venus Williams had told reporters earlier in the week that the idea to play together was her sister’s.
“She’s the boss so I do whatever she tells me to do,” she had said while smiling.
The two sisters have dominated the tennis world for nearly three decades, ending their go as a pair on the same court they had won their first U.S. Open Doubles title in 1999. The duo would go on to win 22 titles, 14 Grand Slams and three Olympic gold medals while playing together.
Reba McEntire and Rex Linn play back country outfitters with a dark secret in the newest trailer for season 3 of ABC drama Big Sky, which premieres next month.
Reba and Rex play Sunny and Buck Barnes, co-owners of glamping company Sunny Day Excursions, which runs hunting trips in a small Montana town. But this luxury outdoors company is more than meets the eye and just might find Reba in her most sinister role to date.
A new trailer for the show features Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight” and follows two detectives as they head out to the woods to check out the Sunny Day experience.
Big Sky is based on the C.J. Box book series The Highway and chronicles a detective team’s attempts to solve a series of kidnappings.
The new season kicks off September 21 at 9:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
It’s no secret that Tyler Hubbard loves being his own boss. For years, he enjoyed a successful career as part of Florida Georgia Line before striking out on his own to become a solo singer-songwriter.
But did you know that Tyler’s favorite gig before that was when he ran his own car detailing business, which he started when he was still a teenager?
“So I would wash cars, working for myself, and had a lot of fun doing that and working for myself,” the singer explains, adding with a laugh: “I think anything outside of that was not the best job.”
He’s had plenty of not-so-fun gigs, too, including a “tough” summer he spent pouring concrete. “I don’t know if that was my worst, because I enjoyed being outside and I do enjoy manual labor and all that stuff,” he concedes.
Tyler’s least favorite job, he continues, was his stint working at Italian-American chain Maggiano’s. “I would probably say that was my worst, only because I was in the back polishing silverware and bussing tables,” the singer explains.
“I never could work my way up to being a server. And that’s what I thought I eventually was going to get to do,” he adds. “So I polished silverware and cleaned dishes for, I don’t know, six or eight months at Maggiano’s.”
Fortunately, country music eventually worked out. Tyler now has his dream job as a solo singer-songwriter, and he recently dropped his latest EP, Dancin’ in the Country. He heads out on tour with Keith Urban this fall.
In June, Ringo Starr and his All Starr Bandpostponed the last 12 concerts of the first leg of their 2022 North American tour after two members — Edgar Winter and Toto‘s Steve Lukather — tested positive for COVID-19. Now, the group is ready to return to the road.
The ex-Beatles drummer and his star-studded group kick off their trek’s second leg on Monday, September 5 in Lenox, Massachusetts. The outing begins with the rescheduled dates and then runs into the All Starr Band’s 20 originally announced fall shows.
The tour leg begins with a series of shows in the Eastern U.S. then makes a bunch of stops at venues in Canada and the Northern U.S. as it works its way west across the continent. The trek winds down with concerts in Washington, Oregon and California, with the final stateside performance scheduled for October 16 at the famed Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. Ringo and the All Starrs also will play an October 19-20 engagement in Mexico City.
In addition to Winter and Lukather, the current All Starr Band features Men at Work frontman Colin Hay, Average White Band bassist Hamish Stuart, Toto multi-instrumentalist Warren Ham and acclaimed session drummer Gregg Bissonette.
During the tour, Ringo will release the latest in a series of EPs that he’s been putting together since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a four-track collection titled EP3. The new recording, which can be pre-ordered now, will be released digitally and on CD September 16. A limited-edition blue cassette and 10-inch vinyl-disc version will follow on November 18.
EP3 includes contributions from Lukather, Toto lead singer Joseph Williams, hit-making producer and songwriter Linda Perry, sax player Dave Koz and more.
The tennis legend has been narrating Devi’s ups and downs on the popular Netflix comedy series Never Have I Ever for three seasons now, but in the new Showtime documentary McEnroe, he’s finally telling his own story. He tells ABC Audio all about what it was like to get introspective about his life and career.
“I was a little bit like, why the hell did they wanna do something about me? I’m sixty plus years old,” McEnroe says. “And so, you’re flattered I guess. I suppose I was in a way that people still care enough to do something and commit to doing it.”
The documentary was not afraid to dive deep into McEnroe’s infamous on-court outbursts, with the athlete noting that he’s not exactly sure where his anger comes from but that he does have an idea.
“Growing up in New York City is a high-octane type of energy. Bustling through the subways and the trains, there’s an energy that you’re just used to,” McEnroe says. “I had a loud dinner table.”
Even to this day, McEnroe says he still gets mad when he thinks about some of the calls that set him off during matches.
“Half these people that were on the court calling the lines, they’d be falling asleep or they’d be old people. I’m like, how the hell that people think that they can see it better than I can see it? I’ve got 20-15 vision, and these people are insisting that I’ve gotten it wrong every time,” McEnroe says. “You know, I’ve got to be right once in a while.”
(PHILADELPHIA) — President Joe Biden, in a rare prime-time speech, condemned Donald Trump and his “MAGA Republicans” as he urged the nation to unite against threats to American democracy.
Biden took the stage shortly after 8 p.m. on Thursday at Independence Historical Park in Philadelphia, where several hundred people were sitting in white lawn chairs and Independence Hall’s facade was lit up in red and blue.
“This is where the United States Constitution was written and debated,” Biden said. “This is where we set in motion the most extraordinary experiment of self-government the world has ever known.”
“But as I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault,” he continued. “We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise. So, tonight, I’ve come to this place where it all began, to speak as plainly as I can to the nation about the threats we face, about the power we have in our hands to meet these threats and about the incredible future that lies in front of us if only we choose it.”
The president mentioned his Oval Office predecessor by name as he assailed Republicans who refuse to accept the 2020 election results, defend those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 or want to strip away abortion rights and other privacy concerns.
“Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” he said. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
Pres. Biden: “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” https://t.co/ARxiYL3o54pic.twitter.com/ttpqDid2HJ
Biden made a distinction between the so-called MAGA Republicans and other conservatives, stating “not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology.”
“I know, because I’ve been able to work with these mainstream Republicans,” he said. “But there’s no question that the Republican party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans and that is a threat to this country.”
Biden’s urgent rhetoric mirrors his 2020 messaging, in which he presented himself as a clear contrast to Trump and the race itself as an inflection point for the nation.
He made that comparison again Thursday, telling the crowd: “Now America must choose to move forward or to move backward, to build a future obsessed about the past, to be a nation of hope, unity, and optimism or a nation of fear, division and of darkness.”
Administration officials had teased Biden’s speech as an extension of his “soul of the nation” message, which first emerged in 2017 after white nationalists clashed with counter protesters in Charlottesville, West Virginia — the incident Biden said inspired him to run for president.
Biden on Thursday said all Americans are called by “duty and conscience to confront extremists” and to reject political violence.
“We are still at our core a democracy, and yet, history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy,” he said.
Pres. Biden: “Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: Either they win, or they were cheated. And that’s where the MAGA Republicans are today.” https://t.co/ARxiYL3o54pic.twitter.com/b417lzzwBp
Biden’s appearance in Philadelphia is his second of three stops in the battleground state of Pennsylvania this week alone.
At Wilkes University, where made the case Tuesday for his administration’s plan for policing and crime prevention, Biden went after MAGA Republicans for their response to the Jan. 6 attack and the FBI search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
“For God’s sake, whose side are you on? Whose side are you on?” a fired-up Biden asked.
The GOP issued a preemptive rebuttal of Biden’s remarks, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy speaking in Scranton (Biden’s hometown) just hours before the president took the stage in Philadelphia.
McCarthy criticized Democrats on inflation, crime and the border before demanding Biden “apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as fascists” after the president previously described the ideology being adopted by MAGA Republicans as “semi-facism.”
“What Joe Biden doesn’t understand is that the soul of America is the tens of millions of hard working people, loving families, and law-abiding citizens whom he vilified for simply wanting a stronger, safer, and more prosperous country,” McCarthy said.
“The soul of America is not the ruling class in Washington, it is the law-abiding, tax-paying American citizen,” McCarthy said. “The soul of America is our determination to get up and go to work everyday, provide for our families, to love our children, be involved in their education and ensure that this nation and its people always come first.”
– ABC News’ Justin Gomez, Mary Bruce, Sarah Kolinovsky and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — More than 14,000 strollers are being recalled due to an issue that can cause amputation or laceration if a child’s fingertips get caught.
The recall, posted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on Thursday, said the recall impacts UPPAbaby All-Terrain RIDGE Jogging Stroller’s – which were sold at BuyBuyBaby, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Pottery Barn Kids as well as online on Amazon.
According to the notice, the stroller’s rear disc brakes have openings that can harm a non-occupant child’s fingers if they get caught in the opening while the stroller is in use.
CPSC said it was aware of at least one incident resulting in a fingertip amputation to a child who was not in the stroller while it was being used.
Consumers are advised to “immediately” stop using the recalled strollers and contact UPPAbaby to receive free replacement brake discs for both wheels.
UPPAbaby did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection sent a letter to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Thursday seeking information and records related to what it said were his conversations and communications with former President Donald Trump’s team before and after the attack on the Capitol.
In its letter, the committee said it had obtained emails from Gingrich, an influential Republican, to Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Miller offering talking points and direction for television ads about election fraud in December of 2020.
The panel specifically said those communications were sent after Trump’s voter fraud allegations “were shown to be false.”
“The goal is to arouse the country’s anger through new verifiable information the American people have never seen before[.] . . . If we inform the American people in a way they find convincing and it arouses their anger[,] they will then bring pressure on legislators and governors,” Gingrich wrote in an email, according to the panel.
In its letter, the committee said Gingrich repeatedly emailed then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows before and after the attack with questions about coordination of a push to send fake electors to the Electoral College and letters from state legislators regarding the electors — including after the mob was cleared from the Capitol.
“On the evening of January 6th, you continued to push efforts to overturn the election results. You emailed Mr. Meadows at 10:42 p.m., after the Capitol had been cleared of rioters and members of Congress had returned to finish certifying the election results, and asked, ‘[a]re there letters from state legislators about decertifying electors[?]'” the committee wrote.
“Accordingly, you appear to have been involved with President Trump’s efforts to stop the certification of the election results, even after the attack on the Capitol.”
The committee requested a voluntary interview with Gingrich the week of Sept. 19.
“A full and accurate accounting of what happened on January 6th is critical to the Select Committee’s legislative recommendations. And the American people deserve to understand the relevant details of what led to the attack,” the panel wrote.
The committee has previously sought information from aides to Gingrich who did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
In December 2020, the committee said, Gingrich emailed senior Trump aides urging the campaign to run national television ads promoting the conspiracy theory that Georgia election workers smuggled suitcases full of ballots into State Farm Arena.
Senior Justice Department officials at the time, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, told the committee and said publicly that they investigated this and other claims of election fraud, and found no merit to them.
“We looked at the tape, we interviewed the witnesses,” former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue told the committee about his conversation with former President Trump about the claims. “I said, ‘No sir, there is no suitcase. You can watch the video over and over. There is no suitcase.'”
The letter to Gingrich, a prominent Trump ally, is a reminder of the House committee’s work while much of the national attention is on the unprecedented FBI raid on Trump’s Florida residence as part of an investigation into his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.
The panel is expected to resume public hearings at some point this month after already publicly interviewing several former Trump administration officials and rioters.
(JACKSON, Miss.) — Residents of Jackson, Mississippi, are facing a clean water shortage, days after Gov. Tate Reeves announced a major pump at the city’s main water treatment facility was damaged. The city’s mayor says the current water crisis is a result of years-long issues.
The damage to the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment plant happened after the city experienced a high level of flooding due to heavy rainfall over the last week, leaving the city without enough safe water for people to use.
The damaged facility resulted in a total loss or near-total loss of water pressure throughout Jackson and other areas in Hinds County that receive water from the plant.
A new pump arrived and was installed at the facility on Wednesday, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said. But Reeves said on the same day that there is a tremendous amount of work to be done on the plant and the boil water notice in the city will continue until further notice.
Record flooding over the weekend caused water to fill up the Barnett Reservoir in central Mississippi. Flooding crested on Monday when water levels were measured at a peak of 35.37 feet, just below the major flood stage of 36 feet. Water levels above 28 feet are considered flood stage. The water has since been receding.
On Monday, Reeves said the city is using backup pumps, but until the problem is fixed, residents will not have reliable running water and the city will not be able to produce enough water for serious needs, including fighting fires and flushing toilets. A second water treatment facility, J.H. Fewell, is also experiencing an insufficient number of certified operators, according to the Mississippi Department of Health’s emergency order.
According to Lumumba, the city has been experiencing “a constant state of emergency” for the last two years when it comes to its water supply. Even when there isn’t low water pressure or the city has not issued a boil water notice, the crisis continues, he said during a press briefing Tuesday.
“I have said on multiple occasions, that it’s not a matter of if our system would fail. But a matter of when our system will fail,” Lumumba said.
The Pearl River area in Jackson experienced severe flooding in 2020 when water levels crested at 36.67 feet.
Staffing shortages, system issues and numerous equipment failures have all contributed to the overall failure of the water plant, according to Lumumba.
“This is a set of accumulated problems based on deferred maintenance that has not taken place over decades,” Lumumba said.
In an interview on ABC News Live Tuesday, Lumumba said the current crisis stems from up to 30 years of deferred maintenance and a lack of capital improvements to the system.
“We’ve had hotter summers, colder winters and more precipitation each year and it’s taking a toll on our infrastructure. And so we need the support to not only create sustainability and equity in our system, but to also weatherize our system,” Lumumba said.
The current crisis happened because the facility was receiving flood water, that changed the overall composition of the water making it difficult to treat and potentially dangerous, he said. The plant therefore needed more time to treat the water, which is why residents were experiencing little water pressure and less water supply.
Officials are flushing bad water out of the system and attempting to do critical maintenance and emergency repairs, but Reeves warned Wednesday that there will be future interruptions, saying they are unavoidable at this point.
A chemical imbalance at the plant on Wednesday also forced officials to shut down part of the plant. While there were some improvements made, the plant is still facing an electrical and mechanical problem, Jim Craig, the director of health protection at the state’s Department of Health, said Wednesday.
Sludge at the bottom of the water basins at the plant is also a huge issue, Craig said.
To solve the ongoing crisis, Lumumba said that it could cost billions of dollars, “far beyond the city’s reach” to fix or replace the water plant. The city has put in millions of dollars already towards the system, but it will likely fall short, said the mayor.
“The residents of Jackson are worthy. They are worthy of a dependable system, and we look forward to a coalition of the willing that will join us in the fight to improve this system that has been failing for decades,” said Lumumba on Tuesday.
The governor has declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard. The state has set up water distribution sites to hand out drinkable and non-drinkable water to residents in the meantime, opening up seven new sites on Thursday.
Reeves also requested an emergency federal declaration for the water crisis, which was approved by President Joe Biden.
ABC News’ Ahmed Hemingway, Rahma Ahmed, William Gretsky, Victoria Arancio and Melissa Griffin contributed to this report
Christina House/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Fewer Black and Hispanic Americans have gotten a first or second COVID-19 vaccine booster compared to people of other races and ethnicities, new federal data finds.
The CDC report also found that booster coverage was highest among white and Asian Americans.
Fewer Black and Hispanic Americans have gotten a first or second COVID-19 vaccine booster compared to people of other races and ethnicities, new federal data finds.
The report, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday, looked at the share of eligible Americans aged 5 and older who’ve received a primary booster and those aged 50 and older who’ve received a second booster.
As of Aug. 5, 2022, about half of the eligible U.S. population has received a first booster and one-third has gotten a second booster.
Among eligible Black Americans, 42.9% have received a first booster dose and 28.1% have received a second booster. Hispanic Americans had even lower percentages at 37.3% of those eligible with a first booster and 24.4% with a second booster.
By comparison, white and Asian Americans had much higher percentages. Data showed 54.7% of eligible white people had a first booster and 36.6% of those eligible had a second booster.
Meanwhile, 58.5% of eligible Asian Americans had a first booster and 36.1% were given a second booster.
Also found in the CDC report to have lower booster coverage were younger Americans, regardless of race or ethnicity.
However, when looking at the racial and ethnic breakdown of boosters among children between ages 5 and 11, 9.8% of eligible Black children and 10.4% of Hispanic children had received a booster.
About twice as many eligible white and Asian children were boosted, at 17.7% and 20.6%, respectively.
“This is once again an indication that this pandemic has exposed incredible disparities, first in access to testing, treatment and vaccines,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “Now, certain populations are not getting access to important, life-saving boosters.”
Brownstein said one reason for the low percentages, especially with the second booster, may be because of the innovative methods used to vaccinate people earlier in the pandemic that have since disappeared.
“There was a huge drive to get people that primary series and meeting people where they were with pop-up sites and drive-through vaccination, and much of that infrastructure has gone away,” he said. “We’re now relying on more traditional measures, like pharmacies and primary care.”
Research has shown people of color are more likely to live in pharmacy deserts with less geographic access to primary care physicians.
“They may mean some populations get left behind and unfortunately, that often means minorities,” Brownstein added.
The authors wrote understanding what is contributing to lower booster coverage and addressing interventions “is crucial to ensuring equitable access to COVID-19 vaccination.”
Brownstein said increasing uptake is even more vital as autumn approaches with colder weather and more people heading indoors increasing the risk of COVID-19 infection.
“There is urgency to try to figure this out ahead of a surge,” he said. “We expect emergence of a new variant and as we see limited masking and full mobility, that increases the risk.”
“Some minority populations will feel the impact the greatest. We have a new opportunity with a new booster to avoid getting to a point with unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths among Black and Hispanic Americans,” Brownstein continued.
