(WASHINGTON) — Chinese artisans have crafted 100 paper lanterns lit by 10,000 LED lights to celebrate the Lunar New Year, according to The REACH at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where the free outdoor exhibition is being displayed nightly through Sunday.
The lanterns, some of which stand parallel to the Potomac River, include “playful pandas, butterflies and flowers, frogs and flamingos, sea creatures, and more,” according to REACH.
Tuesday is Lunar New Year, a traditional holiday observed in many Asian cultures. Each year is represented by an animal from the Chinese Zodiac. This is the year of the Tiger.
Over 4,500 people visited the lanterns last weekend alone, according to Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter.
“Whether you’re driving by over the Teddy Roosevelt bridge, or you come as a destination to walk through the center, it’s just really, really beautiful,” Rutter said.
Next to the lanterns shaped like squirrels in the mushroom forest, Ming Gault, who recently moved to the area, reflected on her Chinese American heritage.
“Every year I learn something new about what it means to be like Asian and Chinese American,” said Gault, who was adopted. “This year, it really just means friends. A lot of times New Year’s is for time with my family, but for me, my family is like a found family and my friends.”
Visiting the lanterns — which have been displayed annually since 2016 — has become a tradition for many Asian Americans like Grace Jeong and her boyfriend, Gary Winthorg, both from Virginia. Jeong said this year has been challenging with attacks on Asian Americans and the pandemic but she hopes the new year will bring brighter times.
“I feel like, during the two years that we’ve been cooped up, a lot of people have gotten really used to being inside and being alone as well,” said Jeong. “Hopefully, as things get better people do get together and enjoy events like this where it helps people come outside and enjoy different things.”
For the next week, the REACH will host various Chinese and Korean artists, musicians and performances.
(NEW YORK) — The remains of two American women who went missing after their plane crashed off the coast of Panama a month ago have been recovered, officials said.
Debra Ann Velleman, 70, of Waukesha, Wisconsin, and Sue Borries, 57, of Teutopolis, Illinois, both retired public school teachers, were part of a community of snowbirds and expats living in the area of Chame, Panama.
The two friends were traveling home after spending New Year’s Eve weekend at a bed and breakfast on the Panamanian island Isla Contadora on Jan. 3 when their small plane, piloted by the B&B owner, suffered an engine failure and crashed off the coast of Chame, according to friends and family.
Debra Ann Velleman’s husband, Anthony Velleman, another passenger and the pilot were rescued by Panamanian search and rescue teams. Their families believed the women were still in the unrecovered plane wreckage, and as the search stretched on for days and then weeks, they pleaded with the U.S. government for help they said never came.
Tuesday morning, Velleman and Borries were recovered from inside the plane, according to Albert Lewitinn, a representative for the Velleman family.
A Panamanian search and rescue team helped recover the bodies after more than 690 hours of searching, authorities said.
The Panamanian government had requested that the U.S. deploy assets including Navy salvage divers and sonar to aid in the search effort and locate the wreckage in the days after the crash, but the request was denied due to a lack of assets and jurisdiction, according to a statement from the Velleman and Borries families.
The families continued to plead with the U.S. government to send equipment and personnel to aid in the search and recovery effort. As the effort wore on, they enlisted the help of the Wisconsin-based volunteer search and recovery organization Bruce’s Legacy and set up a GoFundMe to help defray the costs of bringing the nonprofit to Panama.
The plane was located with the help of Bruce’s Legacy, as well as a local family whose boats were used in the mission, Lewitinn said.
The families are now working on having the womens’ remains brought back to the U.S., he said.
“It is our intention — almost exactly one month following this tragic accident — to give proper thanks to all those who supported our families during this difficult time, as well as to have many outstanding questions answered by way of a swift and thorough investigation,” the families said in a joint statement. “For now, however, this finally marks the beginning of our grieving process and provides us with a path to closure.”
The Velleman family had been in touch with several Wisconsin and Illinois representatives as they sought assistance from the U.S. government in the search and recovery effort.
According to Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office, the U.S. Coast Guard provided Panamanian authorities with technical modeling to support the search for the aircraft.
ABC News had previously reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Panama for comment but did not receive a response.
Slash and his solo band Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators have announced a streaming concert to celebrate the release of their upcoming new album, 4.
The virtual event, which will feature a live performance of 4 in its entirety, will premiere Friday, February 11, at 2 p.m. ET, via Slash’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. YouTube Premium subscribers can also tune in for a live Q&A session after the show.
4, the aptly titled fourth studio effort from the Conspirators, will also be released February 11. The record includes the lead single “The River Is Rising.”
Meanwhile, Slash is set to appear on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! this Wednesday, February 2, for an interview and performance with the Conspirators. The band will hit the road on a U.S. headlining tour February 8 in Portland.
The event, which is being presented by the Rock Hall in partnership with the Motown Museum, will feature founding Temptations member Otis Williams and the rest of the current lineup, as well as the group’s manager, Shelly Berger, discussing their band’s storied history and their new studio album, Temptations 60.
The album, which was released last Friday, celebrates the 1989 Rock Hall inductees’ 60th anniversary, and is made up almost entirely new original songs. One of those tunes, “Is It Gonna Be Yes or No,” was written and produced by fellow Motown great Smokey Robinson, who also provides guest vocals on the track.
“When we started out as a part of that Motown movement that took the world by storm in the ’60s, I never could have imagined we’d still be performing today,” says Williams, who turned 80 this past October. “To mark our 60th anniversary with two of the most distinguished institutions in American music culture, recognized for preserving, inspiring and teaching music history between generations, is such a great honor for me and The Temptations.”
After the livestream ends, the Q&A will be archived for viewing on demand on YouTube.
(WASHINGTON) — As the federal investigation into possible sex trafficking allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz continues, his campaign’s fundraising has been dwindling.
In its latest campaign finance disclosure filed on Monday, the Gaetz campaign reported raising $534,000 in the final three months of last year — a major drop from the $1.8 million he raised in the first three months of the year, fresh off the 2020 election.
Overall, Gaetz’s fundraising has been gradually slowing down, dropping to $1.4 million in the second quarter and then to $527,000 in the third quarter.
A dip in fundraising between election years isn’t uncommon, and some of Gaetz’s GOP colleagues, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, saw a similar slowdown in fundraising from their earlier hauls. A joint fundraising operation between Gaetz and Greene also reported bringing in only $19,000 in the final quarter of 2021, compared to the nearly $360,000 it raised in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, as the sex trafficking investigation unfolded over the past year, disclosure records show that the Gaetz campaign’s legal bills rose significantly.
In total, from July 2020 through the end of December 2021, the Gaetz campaign reported spending nearly $200,000 on legal bills, minus $25,000 that was returned by a firm named Zuckerman Spaeder LLP two months after the Gaetz campaign paid that amount to the firm.
In the first few months of 2021, as news of the investigation into Gaetz and his associates emerged, the campaign also spent more than $800,000 on strategic consulting by PR firm Logan Circle Group — but the campaign’s payments to the firm dropped to under $3,000 in the final three months of 2021.
The latest financial disclosure filing also shows the Gaetz campaign has continued to pay the office of New York criminal defense attorney Marc Fernich, who lists on his website “notable clients” that include convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Among Fernich’s other clients are Mexican drug lord El Chapo, former mobster John “Junior” Gotti, and “alleged propagandist in Nazi Hungary” Ferenc Koreh, according to his firm’s website.
The Gaetz campaign made a $50,000 payment to Fernich’s firm in October, according to the latest filing — its second payment to the firm after a payment of $25,000 in June of last year.
As his fundraising slowed down last year, Gaetz’s campaign spending also dropped significantly, with disclosures showing most of his money going to direct mail messaging and fundraising.
“I’m the only Republican in Congress who doesn’t take lobbyist or PAC money. I rely exclusively on donations that average around $38,” Gaetz said in a statement to ABC News. “HBO made a movie about it called The Swamp.”
The financial disclosures come as the federal probe into possible sex trafficking allegations against Gaetz continues.
Earlier this month Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend, a one-time Capitol Hill staffer, testified in front of a federal grand jury that’s hearing evidence in the investigation, according to multiple sources. The ex-girlfriend, who ABC News is not naming, was one of the women allegedly on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas with Gaetz and others that prosecutors are investigating.
Sources familiar with the grand jury proceedings said the woman provided information regarding a phone call that prosecutors say occurred between her, Gaetz, and another woman who is also a witness in the sex-crimes probe and who met the congressman through his one-time friend, former Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg.
A week after Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend testified in front of the grand jury, Joe Ellicott, a close friend of Greenberg — who himself pled guilty last year to multiple charges including sex trafficking a minor — also agreed to plead guilty to fraud and drug charges. Ellicott, like Greenberg, allegedly attended multiple gatherings that involved drugs and young women who were paid for sex, sources told ABC News.
Ellicott also allegedly knows the one-time minor at the center of the sex trafficking investigation into Gaetz, as well as another woman who is involved, sources said. ABC News previously reported that in a private text exchange over the encrypted messaging app Signal, Ellicott allegedly told Greenberg in August 2020 that a mutual friend was worried she could be implicated in the investigation into the sex ring involving a minor.
The attorney for Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend, Tim Jansen, declined to comment when reached by ABC News.
The latest developments come after Greenberg, as part of a plea deal, had been steadily providing prosecutors with information that allegedly included years of Venmo and Cash App transactions and thousands of photos and videos, as well as access to personal social media accounts, ABC News previously reported.
Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crimes. In a statement to ABC News responding to Ellicott’s guilty plea agreement, Gaetz’s chief of staff Jillian Lane Wyant, said, “After nearly a year of false rumors, not a shred of evidence has implicated Congressman Gaetz in wrongdoing. We remain focused on our work representing Floridians.”
Ellicott’s guilty plea hearing is set for Feb. 9, while Greenberg’s sentencing is slated for the end of March after being pushed back multiple times amid the ongoing investigation.
Jon “Johnny Z” Zazula, co-founder of the influential label Megaforce Records, has died at age 69.
According to Variety, Zazula passed Tuesday while surrounded by family and friends in Florida. A statement posted to the Megaforce Instagram reads, “The world of rock and metal would not be what it is today without Jon Zazula. Jon’s love of music and musicians was unwavering. A giant was lost today. Rest In Peace Jon.”
Zazula launched Megaforce alongside his wife, Marsha Zazula, in 1982, and soon signed a then-unknown Metallica to their first-ever record deal. Megaforce would eventually become the home of artists including Anthrax and Testament.
Marsha Zazula passed away in January 2021.
The story of Megaforce Records — and of the Zazulas’ relationship — is detailed in Jon’s 2019 book Heavy Tales: The Metal. The Music. The Madness.
Following Sunday’s announcement that Bre Tiesi is expecting his eighth child, Nick Cannonopened up about becoming a father again Monday on his self-titled talk show.
“As everybody knows, I got a lot of children, and I love them all sincerely” said Cannon, who hosted a gender reveal party with Tiesi over the weekend in Malibu, California. “I try to always operate on the high frequency, but as much as I try to ignore some of the negative or the lower frequency things…I’m not impervious to, you know, hearing and reading what people say about me.”
The 41-year-old entertainer says he’s heard the snide comments about having several kids with multiple women, and he admits they “definitely affect me.”
“I’ve known about Bre’s pregnancy for a while now, even before my youngest son Zen passed in December,” Cannon revealed.
“I always talk about the guilt that I felt in losing Zen, and from how to deal with this for my other children,” he continued. “I wanted to respect the grieving process with [Zen’s mother Alyssa Scott], and Bre was respectful enough,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do…to say it when I was dealing with Zen or to hold off. Even right now, that it came out yesterday, that wasn’t planned to talk about it.”
The Masked Singer host currently shares 10-year-old twins Monroe and Moroccan with his ex-wife, Mariah Carey; son Golden, four, and one-year-old daughter Powerful Queen with Brittany Bell; and twins Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir, who were born in June, with Abby De La Rosa. Zen, his son with Scott, died at the age of five months in December.
Andrew Lipovsky/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Janet Jackson‘s Lifetime/A&E documentary took “Control” of a lot of people’s TV screens this past weekend.
The two-part doc scored the best ratings for a non-fiction premiere on cable since ESPN’s The Last Dance in 2020, and the best ratings for a Lifetime non-fiction show since 2019’s Surviving R. Kelly. It was also the most social program for Lifetime since Surviving R. Kelly, sparking 1.1 million social media interactions.
And the documentary sent viewers rushing to download her music, too. Three of her albums — Control, Design of a Decade and Rhythm Nation — hit the top 10 on the iTunes U.S. chart, and she had a total of eight albums in the chart’s top 20 overall. Janet’s music videos took all top 10 spots on the U.S. Pop Videos iTunes download charts as well.
Lifetime will re-air the documentary this Friday, February 4 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. You can also watch it on VOD, aetv.com and mylifetime.com.
(WASHINGTON) — Pfizer asked the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday for emergency use authorization for its vaccine for children under the age of 5.
The move puts the process in motion for the FDA to review the data, bring it before its independent advisers and potentially authorize the vaccine in the coming weeks. The FDA independent advisers are already slated to have a public hearing on Feb. 15.
The data would then be brought before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent advisers for another review, and finally, a potential recommendation by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky — all potentially within the month.
As of now, Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine is available to anyone over 5 years old. A booster shot after five months is available to anyone over 12 years old. Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are available to adults.
Pfizer announced it had safety and efficacy for its vaccine for kids under 5 in December, but determined that the two-dose regimen wasn’t as effective for children 2, 3 and 4 years-old as it was for adults. The dose for kids under 5 is one-tenth the dose for adults.
On Tuesday, Pfizer again submitted data on two doses of the vaccine, but with the expectation that data will soon be available to make it a three-dose vaccine, which will likely be more effective at preventing illness.
Pfizer is expected to have more information on the efficacy of a three-dose regimen in March or April, but authorizing the first two doses in February would start the immunization process earlier.
The third dose would be given at least eight weeks after the second dose.
“As hospitalizations of children under 5 due to COVID-19 have soared, our mutual goal with the FDA is to prepare for future variant surges and provide parents with an option to help protect their children from this virus,” Albert Bourla, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer, said in a press release Tuesday.
“Ultimately, we believe that three doses of the vaccine will be needed for children 6 months through 4 years of age to achieve high levels of protection against current and potential future variants. If two doses are authorized, parents will have the opportunity to begin a COVID-19 vaccination series for their children while awaiting potential authorization of a third dose.”
Some parents of young kids have been desperate for a shot to be authorized so they can protect their children against severe disease. Kids under the age of 5 have now spent nearly half of their lives in the pandemic, and for many parents their unvaccinated status has been a huge stressor.
Last week, about 808,000 children tested positive for COVID-19, down from the peak level of 1,150,000 reported the week ending Jan. 20, according to a new weekly report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA).
However, the organizations warn that pediatric infections remain “extremely high,” still triple the peak level of the summer delta surge in 2021.
A total of 11.4 million children have tested positive for the virus since the onset of the pandemic. Child COVID-19 cases have “spiked dramatically” during the omicron variant surge, with more than 3.5 million child cases reported in January.
Still, because kids are less likely to get seriously sick from COVID-19, many parents have opted not to vaccinate them even when they become eligible.
Nearly 70% of eligible kids ages 5 to 11 have yet to get a shot, according to a January survey from KFF, a nonpartisan health nonprofit. It’s unclear how many parents will opt to vaccinate their children under 5, when the vaccine becomes available.
But experts point to many reasons to get children vaccinated, including their own health and the health of the community around them.
According to the CDC, unvaccinated 12 to 17-year-olds had an 11 times higher risk of hospitalization than fully vaccinated adolescents.
And while young kids are less likely to end up in the hospital, it’s still possible. They can also be vectors for spread, infecting other, higher-risk adults in their community.
Both the delta and omicron surges saw full pediatric wards in hospitals, often with doctors pleading for communities to increase their vaccination rates.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Today is the 40th anniversary of the first episode of Late Night with David Letterman, which debuted on this day in 1982 on NBC.
Letterman’s show inspired a generation of comedy writers, from his successors Conan O’Brien and Seth Meyers to Peacemaker star Steve Agee, who used to write for O’Brien and later, for another Dave fan, Jimmy Kimmel.
“’82, oh my God,” Agee reminisced to ABC Audio. “Letterman changed everything for me, it was like, finally, there was a late-night host that like I really appreciated their…abstract sense of humor.”
He adds with a laugh, “It was, you know, way more different, you know, than Carson.”
Agee recalled, laughing, “There was an episode of Late Night with David Letterman, I think they called it ‘The 360 Show,’ where over the course of an hour, the camera rotated 360 degrees, so at 30 minutes you’re looking at a show completely upside down — and they never address it. This is just like, ‘OK, why not? Why not put on a Velcro suit and jump onto a Velcro wall?'”
Agee explained that even long after Dave left NBC for his CBS show, Late Night‘s shadow still loomed over the format. “In the early 2000s, I was working at Jimmy Kimmel Live! and our head writer…was Steve O’Donnell, who was Dave Letterman’s head writer. Steve O’Donnell created the Top Ten list — like that was Steve…He was legendary…”
Letterman hosted Late Night for 11 seasons before moving to CBS in 1993, after Jay Leno took over as host of The Tonight Show — a job many expected would go to Letterman, including outgoing host Johnny Carson. Meyers came aboard Late Night in 2014 after Jimmy Fallon moved to The Tonight Show.
Tonight, Seth Meyers will welcome Letterman back to Late Night, to celebrate the milestone anniversary.
