In the past couple of years, Billy Joel‘s charity foundation has pivoted from funding music education programs to helping with pandemic-related causes, such as providing PPE for healthcare workers and helping with food insecurity. Now, the Billy Joel Foundation is providing aid to the people of Ukraine.
Billy’s foundation is donating $250,000 to BStrong, a charity started by Bethenny Frankel that has been providing “direct and immediate aid to refugees at the Ukrainian/Polish border.” The money will go to, among other things, survival supply kits, transportation, short and long-term shelter and food relief as the Russian military continues their invasion of the Eastern European nation.
In a statement, the Foundation notes it continues to monitor the situation to determine what will be needed in the coming weeks, and asks those who want to help to donate at Bethenny.com/BStrong.
AMC has announced a fifth (!) spin-off of The Walking Dead, this one featuring this final season’s combustible combination of Jeffrey Dean Morgan‘s Negan and Lauren Cohan‘s Maggie. Both will executive-produce.
According to AMC, Isle of the Dead will be set in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan. The network teases, “The crumbling city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world full of anarchy, danger, beauty, and terror.”
In a statement, Cohan said in part, “Maggie is very close to my heart and I’m excited to continue her journey against the iconic backdrop of New York City…”
Morgan added, “Walkers in an urban setting has always been such a cool image, but 5th Avenue, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty? The greatest city in the world?? …Buckle up folks, Isle of the Dead is going to reinvent the TWD Universe.”
The Walking Dead mothership will wrap up late this year with its current 11th season. The series has also spawned Fear The Walking Dead, which has been renewed for a seventh season, in addition to the limited series The Walking Dead: World Beyond, the upcoming Tales of the Walking Dead, and an as-yet-untitled spin-off centering on fan favorites Daryl and Maggie, played respectively by Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride.
Also in play is a feature film centering on the series’ original hero Rick Grimes, for which Andrew Lincoln will reprise his role.
Sonia Recchia/Getty Images / Mark Davis/Getty Images for Dick Clark Productio
Alessia Cara sang Alanis Morissette‘s praises in a new Rolling Stoneop-ed, and explained how the breakthrough Jagged Little Pill album was “really influential to me as a writer.”
“I tend to be a very shy person, and especially when I was coming into being a songwriter, I held back a lot, just because I was afraid of being too honest or too negative. I always felt like I had to throw a positive spin on my records, especially the first one,” Alessia admitted. “Going through a lot of pain and heartbreak in my late teen years and in my early twenties made me realize how important it is to be unfiltered and just get to the bottom of what you’re saying.”
Alessia added that she’s fascinated by how Alanis writes about other people in her songs. “I think she projected her own faults in a way that felt very real,” she assessed. “I took a lot from that, and I think I still do now.”
Alessia also praised Alanis for how she dealt with the high standards set upon female singers.
“As a pop singer and as a pop girl myself, I think we get sucked into the idea of note perfection and quality perfection, but I always admired the fact that she wasn’t always on pitch,” said Alessia. “She favored emotion over perfection.”
Cara was particularly impressed that Alanis “wasn’t afraid to go off or to let her voice crack,” and noted how those little imperfections would make her songs “10 times more impactful than something that sounded sonically perfect.”
“She’s a great case study for how you can be yourself and not have to follow the pop-star thing,” Alessia raved. “Honesty has the most longevity over anything. Her music still holds up nowadays, and it’s because of that honesty.”
(TALLAHASSEE, Fla.) — Demonstrators gathered in front of and inside the Florida State Capitol on Monday to stop the legislation that has been dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
“We say gay,” they chanted, the sound echoing throughout the halls as they anticipated a vote on the bill expected Monday.
Speeches and chants were held throughout the day as the Florida Senate debated the legislation. However, the crowd fell silent when a youth organizer read off a list of names of LGBTQ people who have died by suicide after experiencing anti-LGBTQ hate.
“When you come to our schools to instill hate, bigotry, and fear, we will stand up, speak up, and fight back,” Maxx Fenning, founder of the LGBTQ youth advocacy organization PRISM, said at the protest. “Our passion knows no distance and we will never be silenced!”
The bill would limit curricula on sexual orientation and gender identity in some classrooms and would allow parents to take legal action against school systems if they violate this policy.
In protest, walkouts statewide have taken students out of school and onto the street.
“We will get up, stand up, wake up every single day to fight for you because your lives matter,” Democratic Florida Rep. Carlos G Smith said at the protest on the steps of the Capitol.
Florida House Republicans have already advanced the bill and the governor has expressed his support.
Proponents of the bill, including the bill sponsor Republican Rep. Joe Harding, said he wants families to be able to play a role in how and when they introduce these topics to their children.
“Families are families. Let the families be families, and the school district doesn’t need to insert themselves at that point when children are still learning how to read and do basic math,” Harding told “Start Here,” an ABC News podcast.
While the bill would ban lessons concerning gender or sexual orientation in classrooms from kindergarten to third grade, it would also not allow them when it is age-inappropriate or not in line with state standards.
However, standards on gender and sexual identity have yet to be carved out, according to Harding.
ABC News’ Tony Morrison contributed to this report.
You won’t be seeing Kanye West’s Donda 2 on the Billboard charts — and it’s not for lack of sales.
According to Billboard, Donda 2 is ineligible for the charts due to its release on Ye’s own branded “Stem Player,” which costs $200.
Since the Stem Player device can be used for other things — not just playing the album — it falls under Billboard’s latest merch bundle rules, where albums being sold with merchandise are not considered chart eligible.
On February 18, Ye reported that he had sold 39,500 Stem Players to date, bringing in a total of $8.6 million. Ye released four Donda 2 tracks on Stem Player on February 23, and dropped 12 more the next day.
Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Red-hot prices at the pump are not only showing no signs of cooling down — but are instead set to soar even higher.
The national average price for a gallon of gas hit $4.06 on Monday, up a staggering 45 cents from a week ago, to reach its highest level since July 2008, according to AAA.
Analysts say consumers can expect new record high gas prices as soon as this week, as strong demand and supply disruptions, fueled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, send crude oil prices soaring.
“A big price factor for the market is risk, and at the moment this entire escalation for the conflict appears very risky,” AAA spokesperson Devin Gladden told ABC News. “The market puts that risk premium back onto consumers.”
GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan tweeted the national average for a gallon of gas has now increased at its fastest weekly pace since Hurricane Katrina, adding prices have already eclipsed their all-time highs, according to GasBuddy data.
Crude oil surging as geopolitical risk rises
Crude oil prices, which account for more than half of the cost of retail gasoline, have spiked roughly 30% in the nearly two weeks since the war began.
“The big question will be how high crude goes,” Gladden said.
Oil had already been edging higher at the start of the year, as consumer demand outpaced global supply. Major oil producers slashed supply during the pandemic – and it takes time to ramp up production again as more drivers hit the roads and travelers take flights, requiring more fuel.
“We were already in a relatively tight market,” John Kilduff, an energy expert and partner at Again Capital, told ABC News.
Traders fear the market will become even tighter if Russia’s oil supply to the rest of the world is cut off. Russia is the third-largest producer of crude oil in the world, accounting for about 12 percent of global crude exports, according to the Information Energy Agency.”The problem is it’s a global market,” Kilduff said.
Supply constraints
There are already signs of supply constraints from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Analysts at J.P. Morgan estimated last week about 66% of Russian oil is currently struggling to find buyers. A growing number of companies are pulling business from Russia, facing hurdles from new sanctions on the banking and payments system, and fearing global backlash from customers.
“The commercial entities involved in this market are shunning the supply,” Kilduff added. “We are already in the process of losing a chunk of Russian crude oil supplies.”
Import bans on Russian oil would further exacerbate supply shortages. While the U.S. only imports a fraction of its crude oil from Russia, analysts say a coordinated move between the U.S. and European allies would drastically alter supply to the critical European market.
The International Energy Agency reported European countries imported 34% of their oil from Russia in November 2021, the latest month official oil statistics are available.
Oil traders expect it will take time for other countries to ramp up production and fill the void if that supply is cut off. So as long as oil prices remain near multi-year highs in anticipation of further disruptions in the global market, consumers and businesses will feel the pinch.
“When the price of oil goes up, the cost of everything goes up because oil is used as a component in manufacturing and a range of products,” AAA’s Gladden said.
(WASHINGTON) — Calls mounted Monday for the U.S. to ban the import of Russian oil, but while President Joe Biden’s administration signaled a new openness to doing so, the president faced the tough decision of taking a step that would raise the price Americans pay at the gas pump.
Top Republicans and Democrats in Congress announced they had come to a deal on bipartisan legislation that would punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, by banning the import of Russian oil and other energy products — as well as suspending normal trade relations with Russia.
The White House said Biden had not yet decided whether to impose a ban. But an official with the White House’s National Security Council told ABC News that the Biden administration was considering doing so even if Europe did not also impose a ban — which would mark a departure from Biden’s strategy of imposing sanctions in lockstep with European nations.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that he had spoken with Biden and other Cabinet members the day before about a potential U.S. ban.
“We are now talking to our European partners and allies to look in a coordinated way at the prospect of banning the import of Russian oil, while making sure that there is a still an appropriate supply of oil on world markets,” he said during an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“That’s a very active discussion as we speak,” Blinken added.
In Congress, Democrats and Republicans in both houses have in recent days increasingly called for a ban. A bipartisan group of senators last week proposed legislation that would impose a ban, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, too, said she supported the move.
As the pressure to act mounts from both sides of the aisle, Biden faces a political quandary.
After nearly two weeks of placing crushing sanctions on Russia in concert with Western allies, not moving to ban Russian oil imports, too, could appear as it he is not doing all he can to inflict pain on Russia’s economy and its president, Vladimir Putin.
But around 7% to 10% of U.S. oil imports come from Russia, and a ban would raise energy prices, including the cost of gas, analysts say.
The White House has cited that cost to Americans as a reason Biden has not taken that step. It has been looking for alternative
White House officials also say the impact on Russia, which sent just 1% of its oil exports to the U.S. in 2020, would not be great — especially when its oil and gas sector is already under “de facto sanctioned” because of harsh restrictions on Russian banks.
But in an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll last week, 69% of Americans said they supported economic sanctions on Russia even if they resulted in higher energy prices in the U.S.
Biden has also said a priority of his is to keep the West united in imposing penalties on Russia for its invasion.
There is less appetite in Europe for a ban on Russian oil and gas imports, since European nations rely heavily on Russia for their energy needs — nearly half of Russian oil exports go to Europe, according to U.S. government figures – and a ban would raise Europe’s energy prices significantly, according to analysts.
The Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House tax-writing committees and the most senior Republicans on those committees said Tuesday that they had come to an agreement on legislation that would not just ban the import of Russian energy products but that would also suspend normal trade relations with Russia and Belarus, which has aided Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.
The legislation would also provide Biden with the authority to increase tariffs on products from Russia and Belarus and aim to suspend Russia’s participation with the World Trade Organization.
The House could vote on the legislation as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday.
Just days after teasing fans that she’s still got some surprises up her sleeve, Pamela Anderson will be making her Broadway debut.
The former Baywatch icon will play Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago for an eight-week run starting April 12 at New York City’s Ambassador Theatre.
In a statement, Anderson said, “I have always been a huge fan of [choreographer and writer] Bob Fosse‘s & Gwen Verdon‘s work. Ann Reinking, too.” Fosse choreographed the original Broadway performance, in which Verdon starred a Roxie Hart. Frequent Fosse collaborator Reinking later starred as Hart in the 1996 Broadway revival.
“Playing Roxie Hart is a dream fulfilled,’ Anderson went on. “Performing Fosse, you don’t have time to get in your head. You can’t dance, sing and think at the same time. There is a freedom, a unique joy in knowing it’s all about the work. Playing Roxie Hart is a sweet escape for me.”
Chicago debuted on Broadway in in 1975 and closed in 1997. The current revival production last year celebrated its 25th anniversary on the Great White Way.
In other news, Anderson recently announced she’s given Netflix unprecedented access to her and her archives for a documentary about her life, as the Hulu series Pam & Tommy, based on her relationship with former husband Tommy Lee and their infamous sex tape airs its final episode Wednesday.
The latter project was undertaken without input from Pamela.
Thomas Rhett is the reigning ACM Male Artist of the Year, and he’s nominated again this year, but he’s not expecting to hang onto the title.
“It would be shocking,” the singer admits. “I’m always very thrilled to be nominated, but man, when you’re in these categories with these other people, you’re just like, ‘Man, these people are amazing.'”
To win again this year, Thomas would have to beat out Luke Combs, Jimmie Allen, Chris Stapleton and Morgan Wallen — some tough competition. TR’s been working hard to win his spot in the nominees list, though, he explains. Specifically, he’s always working on honing his vocal skills.
“I’ve worked on it a bunch,” he reveals. “I think I was naturally an OK singer, but I would say over the last few years I’ve worked really hard, just with a coach…learning how to get my range a little bit more up and down, and learning how to use different parts of my voice. And I think it’s translated a little bit.”
Fans can see his hard work in action tonight when he performs at the ACM Awards. The show starts at 8 p.m. ET, and will stream live from Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium on Amazon Prime Video. Dolly Parton, Jimmie Allen and Gabby Barrett will co-host the show.
