Dolly Parton continues her multi-faceted, prolific rollout of new material on Friday with not one but two brand-new releases.
ABC’s Good Morning America debuted Dolly’s upcoming Super Bowl T-Mobile ad series today, where the country legend appears alongside her pop star goddaughter Miley Cyrus for a two-part ad campaign revolving around their lighthearted pledge to #DoItForThePhones.
In Dolly’s segment, she stars in a PSA-style ad spot urging customers to liberate their 5G phones from a limited 5G network by switching to T-Mobile.
“When I see a problem, I am going to fix it. America’s got a serious problem, so I’m going to get it off my chest,” the singer says. “5G phones trapped on limited 5G networks. But you can make a difference.”
In the commercial’s second half, Dolly calls on Miley for an anthemic musical call to #DoItForThePhones, with the younger star belting out an impassioned plea for phone users everywhere to make the switch.
On a more serious note, Dolly dropped the next single off her Run Rose Run album, which is a musical companion project to her upcoming new novel of the same name that she co-wrote with author James Patterson. The new song is called “Blue Bonnet Breeze,” and an animated lyric video for thee tune is out today, too.
Dolly’s next album arrives March 4, and the novel follows on March 7. In the meantime, fans can catch her T-Mobile ad during the Super Bowl, which will take place this Sunday, February 13.
Bastille is once again number one in the band’s home country.
The “Pompeii” outfit’s latest effort, Give Me the Future, has debuted at number one on the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart. They’ve previously earned the honor twice, with 2013’s Bad Blood and 2016’s Wild World.
“We’re so happy and excited!” Bastille tells OfficialCharts.com. “Ridiculously grateful to everyone who’s bought the album and listened to it, and to everyone who worked so hard to make this record with us.”
“We’re mega proud of Give Me the Future and beyond overjoyed that it’s had such an amazing response so far,” the group adds. “Can’t wait to head out on tour soon and play these songs in real life for everyone.”
Give Me the Future, Bastille’s fourth album, was released last Friday. It includes the singles “Distorted Light Beam” and “No Bad Days.”
Back in December, Styx and REO Speedwagon announced plans for a 35-date 2022 North American trek dubbed the Live & Unzoomed Tour featuring Loverboy as their special guest. Now the veteran rockers have added 10 new dates to the outing.
The new concerts run from a September 3 performance in Duluth, Minnesota, through a September 18 show in Bangor, Maine.
Tickets for the new dates will go on sale to the general public on starting Friday, February 18, at 10 a.m. local time at LiveNation.com. Styx and REO Speedwagon will be making available VIP packages and exclusive pre-sales starting Tuesday, February 15, at 10 a.m. local time at StyxWorld.com and REOSpeedwagon.com.
Citi card members also will be able to buy presale tickets beginning February 15 at 10 a.m. local time; visit CitiEntertainment.com for more details.
As previously reported, the Live & Unzoomed Tour kicks off May 31 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the initially announced run of shows had been scheduled through an August 21 performance in Wantagh, New York.
When the trek was first announced, a hilarious video promoting the trek premiered on YouTube featuring Styx’s Tommy Shaw and Lawrence Gowan, REO Speedwagon’s Kevin Cronin and Dave Amato, and Loverboy’s Mike Reno showing what they’ve been up to at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now a follow-up “bloopers” clip has debuted on YouTube featuring the various band members having fun while filming the original promo clip.
(Video contains uncensored and censored profanity.)
While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is still officially mum, The Hollywood Reporter reports that the producers of the Oscars are planning to stage a March 27 telecast that would look very different than its predecessors.
In what it described as a “multi-emcee Palooza,” the trade reveals that the 94th annual awards show will feature multiple hosts, with each host topping an hour-long portion of the telecast.
It’s thought that varying the hosts would not only broaden the demographic appeal of the lately ratings-challenged telecast, but also serve to take the pressure off a singular emcee, long seen as a high-profile, but potentially thankless job.
This year’s event will be the first with an official host since Jimmy Kimmel left the stage in 2018. The telecast went without a host in 2019, and saw a ratings bump, but last year’s also-host-free event managed an Oscars-worst audience of around 10 million people.
By comparison, 2004’s telecast, which saw Peter Jackson‘s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King triumph, attracted 46 million viewers.
The 94th Academy Awards will be broadcast live on ABC starting at 8 p.m. ET on March 27 from Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, marking the award show’s return to Oscars’ traditional venue following last year’s COVID-limited event at Los Angeles’ Union Station.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. issued a stark new warning Friday that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could begin during the Olympics.
“I do want to be clear: it could begin during the Olympics despite a lot of speculation that would only happen after the Olympics,” scheduled to end Feb. 20, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House, but he quickly added that the U.S. could not say whether Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a decision to do so.
Sullivan also said the situation had grown so dire that Americans in Ukraine should leave “immediately” — within the next 24 to 48 hours.
“We don’t know exactly what is going to happen. But the risk is now high enough, and the threat is now immediate enough that this is what prudence demands,” he said.
“If you stay you are assuming risk with no guarantee that there will be any other opportunity to leave, and there is no prospect of a U.S. military evacuation in the event of a Russian invasion,” he added, echoing what President Joe Biden said in an NBC News interview Thursday.
Sullivan said the U.S. is reducing the size of its “embassy footprint” in Kyiv.
Pressed by reporters about the evidence the U.S. had, Sullivan there is a “credible prospect Russian military action will happen even before the end of the Olympics.”
He went on to describe in vivid detail what could happen, including a “rapid assault on the city of Kyiv.” He said Biden wouldn’t put U.S. service members’ lives at risk in a war zone to rescue people who don’t leave now.
“If a Russian attack on Ukraine precedes it is likely to begin with aerial bombing and missile attacks that could obviously kill civilians without regard to their nationality. A subsequent ground invasion would involve the onslaught of a massive force with virtually no notice, communications to arrange a departure could be severed and commercial transit halted,” Sullivan said.
“The president will not be putting the lives of our men and women in uniform at risk by sending them into a war zone to rescue people who could have left now but chose not to. So, we’re asking people to make the responsible choice,” he said.
Earlier Friday, Biden held a call with transatlantic leaders to chart next moves as talks over Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine showed no sign of defusing the crisis.
Biden spoke about “coordination on both diplomacy and deterrence” with the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, the United Kingdom, NATO, the European Commission, and the European Council, according to the White House.
The president has remained largely silent on Ukraine over the past few days, instead holding public events focused on the U.S. economy.
The transatlantic call came as NATO warned Europe was facing a “dangerous moment.”
“This is a dangerous moment for European security,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday in Brussels.
European leaders have engaged in intense diplomacy with Russia and Ukraine over the past several weeks to avoid war in eastern Europe. But the talks have so far failed to yield much apparent progress.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron traveled to Moscow to meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, before meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, the next day.
Russia and Ukraine held talks Thursday in Berlin, moderated by Germany and France, but after nine hours of discussion failed to even agree on issuing a joint statement.
Western officials had hoped that the latest round of the so-called “Normandy Format Talks” would push forward the diplomacy by Macron and other officials who have been shuttling between capitals over the past couple weeks.
The sides remained at an impasse, though, over Russia’s insistence that the Ukrainian government speak directly with Russian-backed separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine.
Biden said Monday that Americans currently in Ukraine should leave, and on Thursday, he repeated that message with more urgency.
“American citizens should leave now,” Biden Thursday said in an interview with NBC News. “It’s not like we’re dealing with a terrorist organization. We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly.”
Senior U.S. officials say they do not believe Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has made a decision whether to invade Ukraine, even as he has amassed over 100,000 troops on Russia’s border with Ukraine.
The U.S. and other Western nations have warned of severe economic consequences to Russia if it does invade. Russia denies it plans to do so.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Russia and Belarus kicked off 10 days of joint exercises in Belarus, north of Ukraine.
“As we said before, we’re in a window when an invasion could begin at any time,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday in Melbourne, Australia. “To be clear, that includes during the Olympics.”
The Winter Olympics, which are ongoing in Beijing, are scheduled to end on Feb. 20.
ABC News’ Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.
The wait is over! After much fan speculation, Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott have revealed the name of their new baby boy.
On Friday, Kylie shared the name on her Instagram Story: Wolf Webster.
Like his big sister Stormi, Wolf takes his dad’s last name — Travis’ birth name is Jacques Webster.
Kylie announced Wolf’s birth on Sunday night, sharing a black-and-white photo of the newborn’s hand along with the caption, “2/2/22.” The baby boy was born just a day after Stormi turned four.
Kylie, 24, and Travis, 30, revealed they were expecting baby number two back in September.
Paul McCartney has contributed a bass part to a new song called “Home” by The Umoza Music Project, an international collective featuring various singers from the African country of Malawi collaborating with over a dozen U.K. musicians.
“Home” is the lead single and title track of The Umoza Music Project’s upcoming second album, both of which are due out May 6.
The Home album, which will be available on CD, vinyl and digital formats, features the Malawian artists singing in their native language, Chichewa, and was put together remotely with the various musical contributors.
The song marks the first time that McCartney has played bass as a guest musician on an African language track. Sir Paul recorded his part while in lockdown in the U.K. during the sessions for his latest solo album, McCartney III.
“Home” will also be released as a limited-edition single on 7-inch and 10-inch vinyl. Proceeds from the discs will benefit Malawian musicians.
“I’ve always loved African music so when I was asked to do this I jumped at the chance and ended up playing my Hofner bass on this cool song,” McCartney says in a statement. “It was great to collaborate with these excellent African musicians.”
John Tobin, founder and producer of The Umoza Music Project, adds, “[Paul has] helped us create us a great track and lead single, and it’ll bring these beautiful Malawian voices to the attention of many more music lovers around the world than we would have reached otherwise.”
Tobin, who was born in Malawi but raised in the U.K., began The Umoza Music Project in 2010 as a collaboration with a Malawian singer/songwriter named Max Jere. A documentary about the project currently is in the works. Visit PaulMcCartney.com and UmozaMusic.com for more information.
Janet Jackson‘s bold new documentary has had a ripple effect on her music, boosting her streaming numbers by over 100 percent.
Billboardreports Janet’s streams have skyrocketed by 109 percent since her eponymous four-part documentary premiered on A&E and Lifetime in late January, during which she provides honest insights on her career, controversies, upbringing and more. By February 3, fans streamed her songs 10.6 million times. The most listened-to single was “That’s the Way Love Goes,” clocking 778,000 streams in the U.S. alone. Other songs enjoying a major bump in numbers are “All for You,” “Control,” “Any Time, Any Place” and “Nasty.”
Janet also enjoyed a major boost in sales. “That’s the Way Love Goes” leads the pack, with fans snatching up 1,300 copies. Securing the second-most sales was “All For You,” with 1,100 copies sold. “Rhythm Nation,” “Escapade” and “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” also sold over 1,000 downloads each.
Janet’s album sales also jumped by 17,000 units. The leader is Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, with 4,000 copies of it flying off the shelves.
According to Nielsen, 2.8 million people tuned in to watch part one of Janet Jackson, the documentary when it premiered on January 28, and it amassed an additional 1.2 million views via digital download or on demand. Parts two through four were respectively seen by 4.3 million, 3.7 million and 3.8 million people when they aired for the first time.
No other nonfiction offering on A&E and Lifetime amassed such numbers since 2019’s Surviving R. Kelly.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.7 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 915,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 64.3% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Feb 11, 1:55 pm
Pfizer delays request for vaccine for kids under 5
Pfizer said it has postponed its application to the FDA to expand the use of its COVID-19 vaccine for kids under 5.
Pfizer instead will continue with its study on the three-dose vaccine and seek authorization when that data is available.
“We believe additional information regarding the ongoing evaluation of a third dose should be considered as part of our decision-making for potential authorization,” Pfizer said.
FDA independent advisors will no longer meet on Tuesday.
-ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss
Feb 11, 12:09 pm
US cases at lowest point since Christmas
The daily case average in the U.S. has dropped to its lowest point since Christmas, with the nation now reporting an average of 215,000 new cases each day — a 71% drop in the last three weeks, according to federal data.
However, even with the declines, nearly 99% of U.S. counties are reporting high transmission. Also, many Americans are taking at-home tests and not submitting their results, so case totals may be higher than reported.
U.S. hospitalization rates are also declining.
On average, about 12,100 Americans are being admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 each day, down by about 25% in the last week, according to federal data.
The national average continues to plateau around 2,300 new COVID-19-related deaths per day.
Feb 11, 6:56 am
New York City’s unvaccinated workers face termination
About 3,000 municipal workers in New York City — less than 1% of the city’s workforce — face termination Friday after refusing to abide by a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The requirement, established under former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, applies to municipal employees hired after Aug. 2, 2021, who were told to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment and to unvaccinated police officers, correction officers, firefighters and others who opted to forego city health benefits and are currently on leave because they are not vaccinated.
The mandate achieved a vaccination rate among municipal workers of more than 95%. A number of exceptions were approved in recent months.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday that some workers initially facing termination had submitted their proof of vaccination, so the final number wasn’t yet clear. He reiterated that the stragglers aren’t being fired but are “quitting.”
“The responsibility is clear,” Adams told reporters Thursday. “We said it. If you were hired, you get this job, you have to be vaccinated. If you are not following the rules, you are making that decision. You are making the decision that you are not going to follow the rules of getting vaccinated. And that is a decision they are making.”
“I want them to stay, I want them to be employees of the city,” he added. “But they have to follow the rules.”
-ABC News’ Mark Crudele and Aaron Katersky
Feb 10, 3:24 pm
1st vaccine shipments for kids under 5 could be as soon as Feb. 21, pending FDA authorization
The first vaccine shipments for children under 5 could arrive at pediatricians’ doors as soon as Feb. 21, according to a planning guide sent to states from federal health officials and obtained by ABC News.
Doses can ship once the FDA signs off.
The FDA’s independent advisory committee will meet on Tuesday and after that the FDA can issue an emergency use authorization.
The CDC’s independent advisory panel is expected to meet within days of the FDA’s authorization. Once the CDC signs off on its panel’s recommendations, vaccinations for kids under 5 can start.
-ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik
Feb 10, 2:18 pm
Walensky: Difficult to release guidance that works everywhere from NYC to rural Montana
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky acknowledged that it’s tough to make national guidelines to ease restrictions that will fit every different city and town.
“One of the challenging pieces has been how we make guidance that is general enough so that it can be applied to New York City and rural Montana and Indian country, which is our responsibility, and yet have it be specific enough so that people can get their questions answered,” Walensky said in a webinar in hosted by the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project.
Looking to the future, Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA’s vaccine chief, said “Obviously the hope is — and I think it’s probably the 90% scenario — is that we’re going to now move into a period where … the virus becomes endemic. And we will be living alongside it probably in a period where we will start to get yearly boosters for it.”
But Dr. Sara Oliver, an epidemic intelligence service officer for the CDC, noted that, although there’s a drop in cases, the same hasn’t happened yet in hospitals.
“It’s difficult to envision a time point where we can say COVID is over if we’re still in a time period where our hospitals and ICUs are feeling the strain,” Oliver said.
-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Feb 10, 1:51 pm
Nevada lifting indoor mask mandate, including for schools
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak on Thursday announced an immediate end to the state’s indoor mask mandate — including for schools — citing a rapid decline in cases and a drop in hospitalizations.
“Teachers & schools will no longer be required to wear masks but school districts will need to work with their local health authorities to have plans in place to deal with outbreaks,” the governor tweeted.
He added, “Employers and organizations, including school districts, may set their own policies, and I encourage them to work with their employees and communities to ensure that policies are in place.”
Masks in Nevada will only be required on public transit per federal law, or in special facilities like hospitals or long-term care facilities.
Evanescence‘s European co-headlining tour with Within Temptation is being postponed yet again.
The international outing has been delayed multiple times from its originally scheduled April 2020 launch due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The trek was finally set to kick off this March, but complications stemming from the continuing pandemic have forced the two bands to push it back one more — and, hopefully, final — time.
“As the world is slowing reopening again, we have been feeling optimistic about the tour actually taking place in March and April,” a statement from Evanescence reads. “However, a lot of countries still have restrictions in place, and we are forced to make a decision right now for logistical reason.”
“We know you understand that many things are still outside of our control,” the statement continues. “But we are very optimistic that we WILL be performing these shows, and we kindly ask that you bear with us one more time while we arrange the tour so it can actually happen.”
Evanescence plans to announce the rescheduled dates, likely to take place this November and December, “in the next few days.”
“We miss and love you, and we will definitely see [you] again,” Evanescence writes. “Stay safe.”
Evanescence launched a U.S. co-headlining tour with Halestorm late last year. The last few dates on the outing were postponed to early this year due to the Omicron surge.
