Olivia Newton-John‘s only child, daughter Chloe Lattanzi, is paying tribute to her late mother, calling the beloved actress and singer “my life giver” and “my teacher.”
Chloe, who Olivia shared with ex-husband Matt Lattanzi, posted a heartfelt message to Instagram on Tuesday alongside a clip from the music video of their duet, “Window in the Wall,” which was released last year.
“You are my lighthouse mama. My safe place. My heart space,” Chloe, 36, began. “It has been my honor and continues to be my honor to be your baby and best friend.”
“You are an angel on earth and everyone touched by you has been blessed,” she concluded in the caption. “I love you forever my life giver, my teacher, my mama.”
Last year, Olivia told ABC Audio why she’d chosen to make the song — which is about trying to find common ground — a duet with her daughter, explaining, “When I heard the song, I thought of her … it was a knowing, for me, that that’s how it needed to be.”
Olivia died Monday at the age of 73. The Grease star’s husband, John Easterling, revealed her passing in a statement posted to her social media pages.
Chloe reacted to the loss of her mother at the time by taking to Instagram and sharing a slideshow of photos of the two of them throughout the years.
Three days before her mother’s death, Chloe posted a photo of them together on Instagram and wrote, “I worship this woman. My mother. My best friend.”
(NEW YORK) — After several weeks of steady increases in coronavirus infections and hospitalizations, there are encouraging signs that the latest viral resurgence may be abating in the United States.
The rate of new infections appears to be dropping, with the U.S. now reporting 107,000 new cases each day — an average that has fallen by 12% in the last week, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The number of virus-positive Americans currently receiving care in hospitals across the country has plateaued at around 43,000 patients, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Throughout the summer, hospital admission rates had been rising in many areas of the country, particularly in the South.
Hospitalizations, however, remain significantly lower now than during every other COVID-19 surge. There were more than 160,000 patients hospitalized with the virus during the surge last winter.
On average, nearly 400 American deaths to COVID-19 are reported each day, a daily total that has not seen any significant declines since the spring.
Over the last seven days alone, the U.S. has reported just under 2,700 COVID-19 deaths.
The latest viral surge has been largely driven by highly infectious variants, which continue to infect and reinfect Americans. It has been more than eight months since the original omicron variant emerged, and although the original strain is no longer circulating in the U.S., its subvariants continue to spread.
BA.5, a subvariant of omicron, is currently estimated to account for more than 87% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S.
Omicron and its subvariants have been better at chipping away at vaccine efficacy, which has caused health experts to reignite their call for Americans to get vaccinated and boosted.
Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, warned that Americans who are not up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations may be in “trouble” this fall, with immunity waning over time.
Although the burden of hospitalization and death continues to affect primarily individuals who are still unvaccinated, as well as those at highest risk, such as the elderly or the immunocompromised, other people who “don’t fall into those categories” may also find themselves at-risk for severe disease, Fauci said during an interview with KNXAM.
More than 70 million Americans remain unvaccinated. Less than half of eligible Americans have received their first booster and only about one-third of people 50 years and older, who are eligible for a second booster, have received their supplemental shot.
Fauci stressed that in order to “get your arms around” the pandemic, more people must be vaccinated, domestically and globally, “so you don’t give this virus such ample opportunity to freely circulate, and when you do that, the virus has more of an opportunity to mutate, and when you give it an opportunity to mutate, that’s when you get new variants.”
Dylan Scott’s got the #1 song on the country charts this week thanks to “New Truck,” his song about having to part ways with a perfectly good vehicle because it reminds him of the love he lost.
To celebrate his newest hit, Dylan celebrated in the most appropriate way possible: by purchasing a new truck of his own. But it wasn’t quite as flashy a purchase as you might think.
“‘New Truck’ is the No. 1 song in the country, so my kids bought me a new one,” the singer wrote on social media, alongside a picture of him squeezed inside a very realistic-looking kids truck.
“No shocker it’s outta gas already though,” the singer added. In the photo, his two kids are behind the truck, pushing their dad along the sidewalk.
Dylan is dad to 4-year-old son Beckett, as well as daughter Finley, who will celebrate her third birthday later this month.
Bangles singer Susannah Hoffs is going from walking like an Egyptian to writing like an author: She’s publishing her first novel, This Bird Has Flown, next spring.
The book is about a washed-up pop singer who finds new inspiration when she falls in love with an Oxford literature professor she meets on a plane to London. Helen Fielding, who wrote Bridget Jones’ Diary, calls the book a “sexy, page-turning treat.”
Susannah tells Entertainment Weekly, “I decided to make my protagonist a musician and songwriter because it’s a job I know well … I also wanted to give readers a peek behind the curtain of what it’s like to face an audience with your heart thumping so loudly you fear they can hear it, too — and then, somehow, to find your voice.”
The “Eternal Flame” singer adds that she found the novel-writing process “truly exhilarating,” adding, “It was permission to escape into my fictional world with my characters, as though I’d gone through a portal into another world. … It was essentially like playing with dolls in my imagination.”
This Bird Has Flown — presumably titled after the Beatles song “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” — arrives April 4, 2023.
(WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.) — Supporters and critics of Donald Trump continued to gather outside Mar-a-Lago two days after it was searched by the FBI.
Trucks toting Trump flags were seen on the road outside of his residence and private club in Palm Beach, Florida, though the former president was in New York on Wednesday for a previously planned deposition in state Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation into allegations he inflated the value of his business and properties. (He has said he did nothing wrong and indicated he pleaded the Fifth in the deposition.)
It isn’t clear how many people have been congregating outside Mar-a-Lago on Monday and Tuesday. But a report from ABC affiliate WPBF showed that at one point it was less than a few dozen, along with press and law enforcement.
WPBF reported that the groups grew larger as it got later both Monday and Tuesday.
Residents there gave differing views on the FBI search and not all of them were pro-Trump.
“It’s wrong. It’s wrong. It’s wrong,” Stephen Moise, of Jupiter, told WPBF on Monday. “They shouldn’t be doing this to him.”
“I think it’s high time that we’ve seen the government finally take some action against this man,” said Michael Kennedy, of West Palm Beach.
According to WPBF, those gathered at Mar-a-Lago broke down multiple times into “profanity-laced arguments,” but there was no violence.
Trump said the raid was “not necessary or appropriate” and amounted to persecution by “Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.
Sources told ABC News that agents were at Mar-a-Lago as part of an investigation into the removal of classified documents from the White House when Trump left the presidency and decamped to his Florida resort.
While it’s not yet known precisely what the FBI was searching for or what was seized, Republicans in Congress have panned the unprecedented search as an egregious overreach and vowed to open investigations into it should they retake the House in November.
ABC News confirmed that, separately, law enforcement agencies across the country have been actively monitoring angry and violent rhetoric online sparked by the raid, with agencies preparing for possible acts of violence they fear could occur at or near pro-Trump protest demonstrations.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
Discovery+ has announced an “explosive” look into the salacious allegations that have derailed the career of The Lone Ranger and The Social Network star Armie Hammer.
Hammer was accused of rape and abuse, and of sending a series of direct messages that dealt with sex and cannibalism. Hammer’s attorneys have claimed all of his relationships have been consensual.
“The accusations of rape and abuse brought against Armie Hammer in the last few years are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Hammer family,” the network teases.
Hammer is the son of businessman Michael Armand Hammer and a great-grandson of the oil tycoon Armand Hammer.
“Featuring exclusive access and shocking revelations, the documentary takes viewers inside the Hammer family’s dark power plays over the course of three revealing hours,” Discovery+ continues.
Jason Sarlanis, the streamer’s head of crime and investigative content, adds, “With House of Hammer, we witness truly disturbing details and sinister secrets that money and power couldn’t hide forever.
“This documentary provides an important platform for the incredibly courageous women who came forward to share their stories, and we hope their courage inspires others to continue meaningful conversations around abuse in our society.”
The trailer for the series features voicemails purportedly from Hammer, who is reportedly in treatment for alcohol and other addictions.
Steely Dan winds down its current U.S. trek, The Earth After Hours Tour, with a three-show residency this week at the historic Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees have revealed that each of the shows, scheduled for Wednesday night, Friday and Saturday, will feature them playing a different album from their catalog in its entirety.
Wednesday night’s concert will include a full performance of Steely’s Dan’s sixth studio album, 1977’s Aja, which features such classic tunes as the title track, “Deacon Blues,” “Peg” and “Josie.”
The August 12 show will feature a performance of the group’s entire fifth album, 1976’s The Royal Scam, which includes “Kid Charlemagne” and “Haitian Divorce.”
Bringing the residency, and the tour, to a close, the August 13 concert will feature a performance of Steely Dan’s 2021 live album Northeast Corridor, which was recorded during recent tours by the band at four venues in the Northeastern U.S. The album showcases renditions of some of Steely Dan’s most popular tunes, including “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” “Hey Nineteen,” “Aja,” “Peg” and “Reelin’ in the Years.”
Opening all three shows with be jazz outfit The Dave Stryker Trio.
Visit TheCapitolTheatre.com to purchase tickets to the concerts and for more details.
Mad Man veteran Jon Hamm is joining another acclaimed series.
Apple TV+ announced the addition to the cast, noting the Emmy winner will play Paul Marks, a “corporate titan who sets his sights” on the network on which the series’ The Morning Show airs.
The show’s second season centered on drama within UBA, the fictitious network on which the series’ AM chat show airs, and also the personal struggles of both Reese Witherspoon’s anchor Bradley, and her disgraced colleague Alex, played by Jennifer Aniston.
The network says season three of the show, starring and produced byWitherspoon and Aniston, gets underway later this month.
(NEW YORK) — Three towns on Maryland’s Eastern Shore will pay $5 million to the family of a Black teenager who was killed in an encounter with police officers almost four years ago, according to the attorneys for the family.
Anton Black, a 19-year-old former star high school athlete, died on Sept. 15, 2018, after being restrained by three officers from the Centreville, Greensboro and Ridgley police departments who held him face down for about six minutes, pinning his shoulders, legs and arms, according to a lawsuit filed in federal district court in Baltimore in late 2020.
“I had to watch those police officers kill my son, while he pleaded for his life and called out to me. There are no words to describe the immense hurt that I will always feel when I think back on that tragic day, when I think of my son,” Black’s mother, Janell Black, said in a statement Monday.
Under the settlement, the three towns have also agreed to make changes in their police departments’ training of officers in order to avoid future deaths of this nature, according to the family’s lawyers.
The changes include an overhaul in “use of force” policies for the three Eastern Shore municipalities, more resources for police confronting mental health emergencies and mandated officer training in de-escalation, intervention and implicit bias, the lawyers say. The policy changes also strengthen hiring transparency and public complaint reporting.
The federal lawsuit was filed after local prosecutors declined to pursue charges over Black’s death. The police officers involved argued that they did not use excessive force and that drug use or Black’s mental illness instead contributed to the cardiac arrest that ended his life.
On the night of his killing, a woman called 911 claiming that Black was fighting with another boy, according to the lawsuit. Another witness said the boys were engaged in “ordinary roughhousing,” according to the lawsuit.
Black had been diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder just months before the incident, the lawsuit said. At the time of the 911 call and police response, Black was enduring a mental health crisis, according to the lawsuit.
Black ran when confronted by a responding police officer, the lawsuit said. The other officers and a bystander then chased him, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit said that the officers used a taser to get him on the ground, where he was pinned face-down until he went unconscious.
One of the officers wrote in a court affidavit that he and another officer had to struggle with Black in order to keep him restrained and handcuffed.
That lawsuit argued that the officers involved used excessive force and then tried to cover up the killing by using false claims that Black was under the influence of marijuana that was laced with another drug, leading to the officers accusing Black of demonstrating “superhuman” strength.
A toxicology report released months after Black’s death showed no drugs in his system, according to the lawsuit.
David Fowler, the state medical examiner at the time, released an autopsy four months after the incident that instead blamed congenital heart abnormalities for Black’s death, classifying the death as an accident. Fowler said there was no evidence that the police officer’s actions had caused the death.
Black’s family is still pursuing litigation against the medical examiner’s office and Fowler, who have been linked to the cover-up of Black’s killing, according to the family’s lawyers.
Lawyers representing Fowler and the medical examiner’s office have not yet responded to ABC News’ request for comment. A response from Fowler to the family’s lawsuit said that his and his office’s actions were “reasonable and legally justified.” The response stated that Fowler is not liable for Black’s death and neither are the officers involved.
“No one deserves to be killed like this,” Black’s sister, LaToya Holley, said in a statement Monday. “Anton Black did not deserve this. He will never be forgotten. He was such a sweet, nice, and loving person. There will always be a part of him in my heart.”
The settlement reached with the towns also covered the family’s claims against individuals involved in Black’s death, including Thomas Webster IV, a former Greensboro police officer; Michael Petyo, the former chief of the Greensboro Police Department; Gary Manos, the former chief of the Ridgely Police Department; and Dennis Lannon, a former Centreville police officer.
Lawyers representing the defendants, and the three towns, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
“Today, we are hopeful that by reforming these local police departments, we will start to move a little closer in the right direction, away from white supremacy and closer to a nation of true equality and justice,” Richard Potter, a member of the Coalition for Justice for Anton Black which joined the lawsuit against the three towns, said in a statement Monday.
Even Post Malone gets starstruck — and he admits his nerves nearly got the best of him when meeting his biggest idol, Ozzy Osbourne.
In a new clip promoting his upcoming concert documentary, Runaway, which premieres August 12 on Amazon-owned Freevee, the singer geeks out when meeting the Prince of Darkness for the first time.
The clip starts with Post approaching Ozzy — who is sitting on a wooden throne — to shake his hand. The singer exclaims, “You look great,” while affectionately putting his hand on the rock legend’s shoulder.
“You excited?” Post asks. “You ready to party?” That earns a chuckle of approval from the rock star.
Post then has to get ready for his show, but he cannot stop looking back toward Ozzy, and gushes, “This is gonna be bada**, man!”
The documentary then flips to a one-on-one with the “Circles” singer, who recalls how he felt during that fateful moment.
“I was nervous meeting him. Not as much performing, but meeting him is terrifying because what the f*** do you say to Ozzy Osbourne? ‘I like your pants?’ I don’t know,” he admitted. You have no idea what the f*** to say to him.”
Post then geeked out just thinking about their performance. “It’s mind-blowing. It’s absolutely fucking mind-blowing being able to work with one of the biggest dudes in fucking rock and roll history. It’s pretty bada**,” he raved.
