Downton is back! The new film Downton Abbey: A New Era is in theaters now, and actress Michelle Dockery – who has been with the series since season one – warns that fans may shed a tear or two.
“It’s very emotional,” she tells ABC Audio. “I feel like you could cry laughing as well, there’s lots of emotions in this film.”
Those emotions made Dockery work hard to stay in character as Lady Mary, who is known for her snide observations and cold demeanor. “The challenge is sometimes holding it back as Michelle and trying to stay like Lady Mary … a bit more stoic, and not blubber.”
A New Era is the sequel to 2019’s smash hit Downton Abbey, which saw the beloved Crawley family all follow one singular plot of welcoming the king and queen of England into their estate. In this film, the cast gets split into two – with half journeying to a home in the south of France, and the others holding down the fort while a film crew shoots at Downton.
“Downton has always been visually very cinematic, even in the TV show. So that transition from the small screen to the big screen really worked the first time around. And the second time it feels like it’s on an even bigger scale,” Dockery says.
Lady Mary is part of the group who stays at Downton, and Dockery acknowledges the plot’s meta, self-referential nature: “There’s something about the movie within the movie, and France. It adds an even more extravagant layer.”
The actress hopes its extravagance will entice fans, maybe even those who haven’t yet returned to movie theaters, to go out and see the film. “It’s an event, isn’t it? Downton always feels like a bit of an event,” she says.
Heartstopper fans got double the good news on Friday.
The hit Netflix teen show has officially been renewed for seasons two and three. The series, based on the graphic novels by Alice Oseman, debuted in April and has since launched its young cast to social media stardom.
The LGBTQ-themed series follows the love story between two British teens: the shy, nerdy Charlie Spring, played by newcomer Joe Locke, and the popular rugby player Nick Nelson, played by Kit Connor.
Heartstopper has been embraced by critics, as well as fans, scoring the elusive 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It has also topped Variety’s Trending TV chart over the past four weeks. In its first week of release, Heartstopper racked up 1.05 million engagements on Twitter.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: The Cure‘s next album will be released later this year.
Frontman Robert Smith has been teasing the follow-up to 2008’s 4:13 Dream dating back to at least 2019, when he told NME that he was “intent” on releasing a new Cure record by the end of that year.
Well, it’s now 2022, and Smith is once again telling the U.K. publication that The Cure will release a new album before the year is over.
“We will be releasing a new album,” Smith says. “I get fed up of saying this now! We will be playing from October and the new album will be out before then.”
Smith describes the record, which is currently titled Songs of a Lost World, as “pretty relentless,” correctly asserting that vibe “will appeal to the hardcore of our audience.”
“I don’t think we’ll be getting any #1 singles off it or anything like that!” he laughs. “It’s been quite harrowing, like it has for everyone else.”
Meanwhile, Smith and longtime Cure bassist Simon Gallup were honored with the Music Icon Award at the 2022 Ivor Novello Awards, which were held earlier this week. The prestigious U.K. prize recognized the pair as “true cultural icons who have changed the face of popular music across the last four decades as songwriters for The Cure.”
(NEW YORK) — Federal regulators are expected to decide on a new COVID-19 vaccine design in early July, which would allow vaccine companies to begin production for rollout this fall and winter, a top official told ABC News.
Food and Drug Administration vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks said the decision would likely come from the FDA shortly after its advisory committee meets on June 28 to review data from the vaccine companies about the versions of next-generation vaccines they’re testing.
The FDA will then make a decision on which type of vaccine the companies should go ahead with, an estimation they’ll base on what could offer the best protection even in the face of new variants this fall and winter, similar to how the flu vaccine is concocted ahead of flu season.
“We’ll have to make some decision by early July to make sure that the manufacturers know what we’re looking to do, so that they know what they have to start producing in large quantities,” Marks, who serves as director of the department that oversees vaccines within the FDA, told ABC News in an interview.
Under consideration is how to give people “the longest duration of a high level of protection” with their vaccines, not just because it’s unrealistic to keep boosting every few months, but also because experts predict another surge in the colder months.
Second boosters for wider age-range?
Already at play, however, is the current surge. Cases are rising and nearly a third of the country is currently at medium- or high-risk community COVID levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s why, in the meantime, the FDA is also internally discussing whether to open up second boosters to a wider age-range to mitigate rising cases, Marks said. They’re currently only available for people over 50, or people over 12 who are immunocompromised.
The FDA would have to come to a decision in the next few weeks to intervene effectively, as cases are already on the rise, Marks said.
“I can tell you that that discussion is already happening internally — it’s just that I can’t tell you what the outcome will be at this point,” he said.
“We would not be doing our job as public health professionals if we weren’t thinking about it, and thinking about the benefits and risks,” he added.
For example, hospitalization rates for people under 50 who have received their first booster are still relatively low, Marks said, indicating boosters might not be necessary for younger people. But the FDA is also looking into the risks from even mild infections, like long COVID, and whether booster shots would mitigate that.
Opening up second boosters to more people would just be a stop gap measure, though. The vaccines for the fall are intended to offer a more lengthy, durable protection.
“We’d be looking at things like at least 10% higher in terms of immune response, if not more, against the currently circulating virus,” Marks said, laying out the criteria the FDA is looking for in the future vaccines.
The vaccines would have to be superior, at least against the current variants like omicron and its subvariants, to make it worthwhile to switch over from the vaccines in use now.
Who would get a new vaccine?
Though it could change when the advisory committees meet, Marks said he expects the next-generation boosters to be available for all age groups.
As far as timing, all ages should become eligible around the same time, Marks said, unlike the lengthy waiting periods of months between older and younger age groups with the current vaccines.
And the FDA also hopes to get both vaccine companies, Pfizer and Moderna, to produce vaccines that target the same strains.
“People are very confused about everything, to have different compositions for different vaccines will get things even more confusing,” Marks said.
Booster fatigue a factor
Just 43% of those 65 and older have gotten a vaccine dose in the last six months, be it a first or second booster, according to the CDC, even though nearly 90% of people in that age group got their initial vaccination series.
“From a public health standpoint, what we’ve seen is if it only lasts three or four months, it may be that there’s a recommendation that you get another one, but the vast majority of people are not going to keep coming in and getting more boosters,” said Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
“With each one, we lose some more people,” Wachter said.
Come fall, that fatigue could be exacerbated by calls for yet another booster.
If the vaccine is more effective, though, that could help to convince people it’s worth another round.
Experts are wary that the vaccine this fall will last a full year, but expect it will at least be more effective in its protection because it will be updated with more of the recent variants, whereas the current vaccine is based on the first strain of COVID from 2019.
Dr. Paul Goepfert, director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic, is overseeing research on the new vaccines as part of the National Institute of Health study. They’re looking into vaccines that target just one new variant, like omicron, and vaccines that target a handful of the variants from the past two years, like omicron and delta, both in one shot.
“By the end of all that, for the fall, we’re going to know which of these vaccine combinations gives us the highest antibody response towards the most new and improved variants,” Goepfert said.
He expects the new vaccine will better protect against severe disease, but cautions that stopping all infections is a lofty goal.
“I am hopeful that maybe we could have a yearly vaccine rather than this every few months go back to get the vaccine boost,” Goepfert said, but that’s probably “one or two more tries” away.
Resources in question
Of course, the overarching issue of resources still remains. Who will pay for these new vaccines, or the ones after them?
Congress has yet to strike a deal with the White House for more COVID funding, even as other countries move ahead with negotiations with the vaccine companies.
White House COVID response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha warned on Wednesday that if Congress doesn’t agree to billions in new COVID funding, not every American who wants a vaccine this fall will be able to get one.
Should the FDA decide that not everyone needs a vaccine — that only people over 50, or over 65, need another booster shot — that wouldn’t be an issue. But Marks said he’s hopeful that if “the right thing to do medically” is to recommend them to everyone, of all ages, the country will be able to purchase those doses.
“I’m not worried about who’s paying for what. I’m worried about making sure that our recommendations that come out of FDA are the right thing by the people of this country in terms of their health,” Marks said.
“So we will make a recommendation that, based on all of the available evidence, comports with what we see would do the best by public health in the coming year,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — Walmart this week announced an upcoming one-weekend-only exclusive online sale for Walmart+ members.
Walmart+ Weekend is set to run June 2 – 5 and will offer deep discounts on thousands of items sitewide.
Walmart+ members can expect deals on items such as a Shark vacuum, a Minnie Mouse playhouse, PlayStation 5 consoles and more. On top of the deals, customers who sign up in a Walmart store during Walmart+ Weekend and become a paid Walmart+ member will get a $20 promo code off their next online purchase.
“Our Walmart+ members loved early access to our Black Friday events, so we were inspired to create an entire weekend dedicated to the best deals,” said Chris Cracchiolo, Walmart senior vice president and general manager.
Below is a sneak peak at some of the deals to expect during the weekend:
Electronics
• Gateway R7 Laptop was $449, will be $399 – $50 off
• Hisense 43-inch 4K TV was $258, will be $198 – 23% off
• Samsung A50 Soundbar was $179, will be $129 – 28% off
Home
• Keurig K Compact Black was $89, will be $49 – 45% off
• Gourmia 8QT Air Fryer was $99, will be $59 – 40% off
• Anchorage Queen Upholstered Bed was $279, will be $199 – 28% off
• Larissa Sofa was $449, will be $349 – 22% off
Appliances
• Pit Boss Pellet Grill was $427, will be $327 – 23% off
• GE 10,000 BTU Portable WiFi A/C was $447, will be $326 – 27% off
• Shark Auto Empty Robot Vacuum was $499, will be $299 – $200 off
Backyard & Summer Fun
• Coleman 20′ Oval 48″ Deep Metal Frame Above Ground Pool was $698, will be $598
• Licensed Disc Swings (Paw Patrol, Minnie, Mickey, Spider-Man) was $79, will be $34.44
As any caregiver can tell you, it’s not an easy job to tend to an ailing loved one. That’s what Emma Heming Willis, the wife of Die Hard star Bruce Willis, has found in the wake of his aphasia diagnosis.
“[The] amount of care for everyone else within my household had taken a toll on my mental health and overall health,” the model says in an interview with the motherhood-focused website The Bump. “And it served no one in my family.”
She adds, “I put my family’s needs above my own, which I found does not make me any kind of hero.”
Emma is mom to Willis’ youngest daughters Mabel, 10, and Evelyn, 8, and stepmom to Willis’ daughters with ex-wife Demi Moore: Rumer, 33, Scout, 30, and 28-year-old Tallulah.
She explained her “struggle” with maintaining her self-care routine in the interview, considering her younger daughters and her caring for her husband.
“Someone told me not long ago that when you over-care for someone, you end up under-caring for yourself. That stopped me in my tracks and really resonated with me,” she said.
Instead, the 43-year-old now focuses on her “baseline” needs, calling exercise “a must” for her.
“It’s a time I can disconnect and can do something that I know makes me feel good overall. I think it’s important to find that one thing that makes you feel good and build from there.”
Emma co-signed an Instagram post with Moore and Willis’ daughters in March that revealed 67-year-old Bruce was stepping away from acting as he deals with the degenerative neurological condition.
Doja Cat found out the hard way that infected tonsils and vaping don’t mix.
On Thursday, she tweeted, “dr. just had to cut into my left tonsil. i had an abscess in it. my whole throat is f***ed so i might have some bad news for yall coming soon.”
The “Say So” singer explained, “So my tonsils got infected before [the] bbmas and i was taking…antibiotics but forgot that i was taking them and then i drank wine and was vaping all day long and then i started getting a nasty a** growth on my tonsil so they had to do surgery on it today.”
Doja then decided to get graphic, writing, “he poked up in dere with a needle twice and then sucked all the juice out and then he took a sharp thing and cut it in two places and squoze all the goop out in dere. i cried and it hurt a lot but im ok.”
She revealed she’s planning to get her tonsils removed “very soon,” but meanwhile, she noted, “im quitting the vape for a while and hopefully i dont crave it anymore after that…im too scared to hit it cuz my throat hurts so bad. i cried for hours. its not worth it.”
“its like imagine all that weird poisonous s*** in the vape seeping into the completely open wound in my throat,” she continued. “like f*** that. im hella young.”
When fans suggested Doja throw her vape away, she responded, “I’ma try to go cold turkey for now but hopefully my brain doesn’t need it at all by then… Right now I NEED THEM.”
She also admonished those fans for being “condescending to anybody who’s actually struggling with nicotine addiction,” but thanked others for their support and reassurance.
Depp and Green in 2012 — Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
As the Johnny Depp‘s defamation case against his ex-wife Amber Heard rolls on, another star has weighed in. Eva Green, who starred opposite Depp in the 2012 dark comedy Dark Shadows, took to Instagram to defend him.
“I have no doubt Johnny will emerge with his good name and wonderful heart revealed to the world, and life will be better than it ever was for him and his family,” wrote the actress, next to a photo of the pair together.
Green, who shot to stardom after playing Daniel Craig‘s love interest, Vesper Lynd, in Casino Royale, joins Ireland Baldwin, Chris Rock and Joe Rogan in defending the actor amid his bruising court battle.
Depp is suing Heard for defamation over her 2018 Washington Post op-ed that he claims derailed his career when Heard obliquely accused him of being a domestic abuser. Both stars have leveled accusations of violence against each other throughout the trial, which resumes Monday.
Four shows into its third season, HBO has renewed Barry, the dark comedy starring Saturday Night Live alum Bill Hader, for a fourth season, the premium cable channel announced on Thursday. Hader won an Emmy for playing the titular character, a depressed hitman from the Midwest who’s sent to Los Angeles to kill an aspiring actor, but decides instead to ditch his life of crime to become an actor himself. Fellow Emmy-winner Henry Winkler co-stars, along with Stephen Root, Sarah Goldberg and Anthony Carrigan…
Aquaman star Jason Momoa is attached to star in the Universal Studios action-comedy Shots! Shots! Shots! according to The Hollywood Reporter. Details are being kept under wraps, but the film, which Momoa will also co-produce, is described as “a family-centric adventure that has tones of James Cameron’s True Lies, Liam Neeson’s Taken franchise and recent Paramount hit The Lost City,” per THR…
Scott Eastwood is returning to the Fast and Furious franchise with Fast X. According toThe Hollywood Reporter, the Suicide Squad co-star will be reprising his role as Little Nobody, the government agent assistant he played opposite Kurt Russell‘s mysterious Mr. Nobody in the series’ eighth installment…
Veteran stage and screen actor John Aylward, best known playing Dr. Donald Anspaugh on ER and former DNC chairman Barry Goodwin on The West Wing, died Monday at his home in Seattle, according to Deadline. He was 75. Aylward’s death was confirmed by his wife, Mary Fields, to his longtime agent, Mitchell K. Stubbs. Aylward had been in declining health, according to Fields. In addition to his TV work, Aylward most recently appeared in such films as Instinct, A Million Ways to Die in the West, The Way Back and Water for Elephants…
(NEW YORK) — Democrats began the year hopeful that congressional redistricting in New York would favor the party – and insulate their slim House majority from a tumultuous midterm election cycle.
But a new map expected to be approved Friday has left the state’s Democrats scrambling, reshaping the political landscape in the diverse districts in the New York City area, prompting accusations of racism and disenfranchisement and straining relationships in the influential delegation.
“Chaos,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said Thursday when asked about the state of affairs.
Two powerful committee leaders are set to face off in a new Manhattan seat. The chairman of the party’s campaign committee tasked with defending the majority said he would run in a neighboring district, angering members across the ideological spectrum and prompting accusations of racism.
And a potential successor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was drawn out of his Brooklyn district in the new map, which also splintered several historically Black neighborhoods.
“It would make Jim Crow blush,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters Thursday.
In April, the New York Court of Appeals voided proposed state Senate and congressional maps, charging that Democrats in Albany improperly gerrymandered their proposals after an independent commission failed to strike a deal on new maps.
That led to the appointment of a special master by a court in upstate New York, who unveiled the revised maps earlier this week that threw the delegation into disarray.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who lives on Manhattan’s liberal Upper West Side, will compete in a new district against House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who has represented the borough’s East Side.
For decades, the two lawmakers have worked together on major issues facing the city – including health benefits for Sep. 11 first responders.
“What he did was atrocious,” Nadler said of the new map proposed by Jonathan Cervas, the court-appointed official. “We’ll see what happens.”
“A majority of the communities in the newly redrawn NY-12 are ones I have represented for years and to which I have deep ties,” Maloney said in a statement.
Jeffries, the No. 4 member of House Democratic leadership, was thrown into a new district with Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., another veteran member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
On Wednesday he released a digital ad bashing the proposal that invoked Rep. Shirley Chisholm, who represented the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Congress for nearly a dozen years.
The new map would force four of the state’s seven Black House members into two districts, House Democrats’ campaign committee pointed out in a letter submitted to the court and a group of impacted New York voters.
“Black members of New York’s congressional delegation have built diverse coalitions of support; they represent communities of Black, Brown, and White voters. The Proposed Map threatens to undo this significant progress,” they wrote.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., who leads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and represents the state’s 18th congressional district, told reporters in Philadelphia in March that the party “came out of redistricting with a better map than the one through which we currently hold the majority.”
After the latest map was released, he announced plans to run in the 17th district, which includes his home in Putnam County but is mostly comprised of communities represented by freshman Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y.
“I’m the only sitting member who lives in the district, which is now numbered NY-17, which remains a competitive district that we will have to win in the fall,” Maloney said, defending his decision. “From my point of view, I’m just running where I landed.”
New York state law only requires members of Congress to live in the state, not their home districts.
Jones, who has not announced his reelection plans, told Politico Maloney had not consulted him on his decision, and his chief of staff tweeted a similar message after Maloney’s announcement.
Maloney’s supporters have argued that incumbent-on-incumbent primaries are inevitable every 10 years when redistricting takes place — and that Jones, who is Black, would be better suited to represent New York’s 16th district, which includes southern Westchester County and is currently represented by progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., another Black freshman lawmaker, criticized that message as “thinly veiled racism.”
Maloney has also argued that he would better align ideologically with the more competitive 17th district as a moderate who has won races in a GOP-leaning district in the past won by former President Donald Trump.
Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday told reporters that Maloney’s decision not to run in the 18th district was “particularly shameful” and “hypocritical,” and could leave an opening for Republicans to flip a seat.
Maloney “cannot seem to take his redistricting on the chin, and be able to run in a district that is still 70% his,” she said Thursday, adding that he should step down from leading the DCCC if he runs against Jones.
“If he is going to enter the primary and challenge another Democratic member, then he should step aside from his responsibilities,” she said.
For her part, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has defended Maloney, a member of her leadership team.
“We’re very proud of Sean Patrick Maloney,” she said Thursday.
“He is our chair of the caucus. He has delivered financially. Why would I not support him on a hiccup?” Congressional Black Caucus Chair Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, said. “Could he have handled it differently in an announcement? He would say absolutely to that.”
Jeffries on Thursday tried downplaying the tensions that have roiled the delegation this week.
“We’ve managed to avoid member on member primaries for decades. And it’s my hope that we’ll be able to find a way to avoid another member-on-member primary in 2022,” he said.
A state judge is expected to approve the new map drawn by Cervas on Friday after New Yorkers were invited to submit comments. But Democrats have not ruled out potential future legal challenges ahead of the primaries scheduled for August.
New York was set to lose one of its 27 House seats after the 2020 Census, Democrats, who currently hold 19 of the state’s districts, hoped to push through a map that could net the party as many as 3 or 4 new seats.
While the most recent version still favors the party, Democrats could potentially lose several seats if Republican voters turn out in overwhelming numbers in November.
