Volbeat has hit a milestone with the band’s latest number-one hit.
“Shotgun Blues,” the current single off the Danish outfit’s new album Servant of the Mind, is the group’s 10th leader on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. That total ties Volbeat for seventh most number-ones on the tally, which began in 1981.
Disturbed, Metallica and Tom Petty — solo and with The Heartbreakers — also have 10 Mainstream Rock number-ones. Shinedown has the most, with 16.
“Shotgun Blues” is also the second number-one of Servant of the Mind, along with the lead single “Wait a Minute My Girl.” The album, Volbeat’s eighth studio effort, dropped earlier in December.
Fittingly, the number-two single on this week’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart is “Hunter’s Moon,” by Ghost, with whom Volbeat will launch a U.S. co-headlining tour in January.
(WASHINGTON) — Not far from the San Pedro Bay Port Complex in Orange County, which sees 40% of the nation’s imports, Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., has been witnessing supply chain issues in her district due in part due to bottlenecks in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Now she and Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., are sending a bipartisan letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., calling for a bipartisan select committee to address the issue. The proposed committee would have an equal number of members from both sides of the aisle to address supply chain issues and the impacts on the economy, families and small businesses.
“Congress must come together in a bipartisan way to address this economic and national security crisis that threatens to undermine U.S. competitiveness abroad,” Kim said. “That is why I am proud to work with Rep. Sherrill and a bipartisan group of colleagues to call on House leadership to ensure Congress takes immediate steps to bring relief to our nation’s economy.”
The committee would investigate the root causes of the supply chain issues and how the crisis has affected various industries. The panel would aim to draft and submit a report to Congress with its recommendations.
“Addressing the current shortfalls throughout our supply chain is imperative to continuing our economic recovery from the pandemic and addressing the very real impacts of inflation facing families across the country,” Sherrill said.
Kim also wrote a letter to California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in January urging officials to include dockworkers and others as essential workers.
She commended President Joe Biden for opening ports in southern California for 24-hour operation in October but said the administration needs to do more.
“While I was encouraged by the announcement that the San Pedro Bay Port Complex will be open 24/7, the administration’s actions so far are not the be-all and end-all that will solve the long-term issues of our supply chain and help ease persistent — not ‘transitory’ — inflation in our economy. A piecemeal approach won’t help solve the supply chain crisis, and that is why I led a bipartisan letter to the administration calling for a whole-of-government response,” Kim said.
He’s a singer, American Idol judge, and now, he’s great-uncle Luke: Country superstar Luke Bryan is celebrating the exciting news that his niece, Jordan, is pregnant with a baby boy.
Jordan and her husband Clint shared their big news on Instagram, including video footage of a gender reveal where the couple found out they’re expecting a son. Another snap in the series shows a cake with blue buttercream inside, and a gold topper reading “Oh baby.”
In the comments, Luke’s wife Caroline shared her excited with a blue heart emoji, writing “I’m still emotional.” Meanwhile, his mom LeClair said, “His Great Grandma is going shopping tomorrow.”
Jordan is the oldest child of Luke’s late sister, Kelly. Both Kelly and her husband, Ben, died when their three kids were young: Jordan was 20, her sister Kris was 16, and the youngest of the family, Til, was just 13.
Luke and Caroline stepped in to provide a parental role for the three kids after they lost their parents, and they’ve remained close to the children well into their adult lives. Back in September, Luke walked Jordan down the aisle at her wedding.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Education on Thursday urged districts to combat pandemic-fueled teacher shortages by offering them more money from the pot of federal COVID-relief aid, in a letter sent to schools nationwide.
Schools are facing dire staffing losses as droves of teachers leave their posts, exhausted by the stresses of the pandemic. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said federal money could be used to hire more substitute teachers and give permanent teachers much-needed time-off, or to offer teachers better salaries through hiring or retention bonuses.
“Let us be clear: [The American Rescue Plan] provides vital resources to hire additional educators and school staff and to improve compensation to recruit and retain educators and school staff,” Cardona wrote in the letter to educators, obtained exclusively by ABC News.
“School districts should act with urgency to keep schools open for in-person learning and ensure they do not waste this opportunity to make critical investments,” he said.
The American Rescue Plan, signed into law last March by President Joe Biden, provided over $122 billion to schools.
Cardona listed various ways schools could use this pot of money to improve the situation for teachers, custodians, bus drivers, school nurses and other educators, and cited schools that have already done so.
“The most common reason educators have cited for leaving school employment in the last year is stress, followed by insufficient pay,” Cardona wrote.
“Many school leaders are increasing wages by offering hiring and retention bonuses, working towards permanent salary increases, or providing premium pay that help educators receive the compensation they deserve and keep them in the profession, and we encourage others to continue to work towards increasing compensation,” he wrote.
Cardona cited reports of schools offering signing bonuses of up to $6,000 in California, and other financial incentives offered to new teachers in Oklahoma, North Carolina and New Jersey.
“Now, more than ever, supporting educator well-being is critical for retaining our current educators and staff,” Cardona wrote.
Still, some schools have noted that short-term pay increases aren’t enough to solve their staff shortages.
Some principals have found that there are simply not enough trained professionals in the pipeline for them to recruit, and it takes time for teachers or counselors to get certified. Others have found that the temporary pay increases from federal relief are unsustainable.
And other schools have reported that nearby districts have been able to poach teachers with higher salaries funded by federal aid, leaving schools in lower-income areas with less teachers.
On the other hand, the National Education Association, a powerful teachers’ union, has thrown its weight behind the policy of using federal aid to retain teachers, saying it’s been effective with educational support professionals, or ESPs, when paired with other solutions.
“ESP leaders have found that increasing pay and benefits is the top strategy,” the NEA said in a post on its website.
“But what also helps is providing flexibility for retirees to return to work while still receiving pension payments, revisiting licensure challenges, providing incentives, creating cross-state collaborations to make it easier to work in other states and localities, and looking at the well-being of current staff and ways to improve it to keep them on board,” the union wrote.
The NEA noted that the average salary of ESPs in 22 states is $30,000 or below, “which is not a livable wage or an attractive career proposition.”
Without addressing the educator shortages, schools are facing interruptions in all facets of the school day, from longer bus routes due to less bus drivers, larger class sizes or substitute teachers who aren’t qualified for the subjects they’re assigned to, and even school closures.
Schools in 11 states — Idaho, California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia — have had to close temporarily because of staffing shortages, according to an October report in Ed Week.
For his part, Cardona acknowledged that the short-term solutions were just the beginning, but called on schools to take advantage of what was available.
“[The Department of Education] strongly encourages you to use funding under ARP to respond to the urgent needs resulting from the pandemic while beginning to plan for the investments needed to ensure that every student has access to the qualified educators and staff they need,” Cardona wrote.
(LONDON) — Queen Elizabeth has canceled her annual pre-Christmas celebration for family for the second year in a row due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The 95-year-old monarch traditionally holds a lunch at Buckingham Palace before Christmas for extended members of the royal family, but has decided to cancel it again this year, a royal source told ABC News.
“The decision is a precautionary one as it is felt to put too many people’s Christmas arrangements at risk if it went ahead,” the royal source said. “While there is regret that it is cancelled, there is a belief it is the right thing to do for all concerned.”
Buckingham Palace has not yet confirmed where or with whom Queen Elizabeth will celebrate Christmas, her first without her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip, who died in April at the age of 99.
Last year, also amid the coronavirus pandemic, the royal family broke a decades-long tradition of spending Christmas at Sandringham, Queen Elizabeth’s estate in Norfolk.
The queen and Philip instead spent the Christmas holiday at Windsor Castle, their home outside London, where they had spent much of their time since March 2020, when the U.K. began its first stay-at-home orders.
In past years, Philip and Elizabeth oversaw the family’s multi-day Christmas celebration at Sandringham with their four children — Princes Charles, Andrew and Edward and Princess Anne — and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The family traditionally holds their gift exchange on Christmas Eve, following the German tradition, where they often swap funny or homemade gifts.
On Christmas Day, they walk to St. Mary Magdalene Church for the Christmas service.
After the service, the royals enjoy a Christmas lunch at Sandringham and then gather to watch Queen Elizabeth II deliver her annual Christmas message.
In the evening, the royal family will get together again for a Christmas buffet dinner with 15 to 20 different delicacies prepared by the queen’s chef.
On the day after Christmas, known as Boxing Day in the U.K., the royals traditionally partake in a pheasant shoot on the grounds of Sandringham.
Some members of the royal family gathered Dec. 8 at Westminster Abbey for a Christmas carols service hosted by Duchess Kate.
Kate and Prince William were joined by William’s cousins Zara Tindall and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
William’s aunt, Sophie Wessex, also attended, as did members of Kate’s family, the Middletons.
(WASHINGTON) — When Sarah Hutchinson, mom of a 5-year-old son, saw her $300 child tax credit payment deposited into her bank account Wednesday, she said she felt a sense of both relief and fear.
Hutchinson said she was thankful for the payment, which, as a single mom, she uses to pay for her son’s child care, but she also knew it could be the last one she receives under the child tax credit expansion, which went into effect in July after Congress passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March.
The program is set to expire on Dec. 31, meaning the payments that Hutchinson and millions of other parents across the country received on Wednesday will be their last unless Congress votes to renew the program.
“I’m not looking forward to January,” said Hutchinson, 45, a librarian in Fredericksburg, Virginia, who is also facing more than $120,000 in student loans and thousands of dollars in medical bills accrued by her husband, who died in August. “I’m not sure how I’m going to work it out financially, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”
Since July, around 35 million families each month have received the enhanced tax credit of up to $300 for each child under age 6 and up to $250 for each child ages 6 to 17, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
The families have primarily spent the money on kids’ school and child care expenses and essentials like food, rent, mortgage and utilities, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Losing that extra financial aid would put nearly 10 million children at risk of falling back into poverty, according to a recent analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research and policy institute focused on reducing poverty.
That is the worry that keeps Torie Miesko, a single mom of two sons, up at night.
“I’m afraid,” said Miesko, 28, of Swissvale, Pennsylvania. “I’m trying to keep my sons out of poverty.”
Miesko works full time as an office administrator for a medical clinic while raising her two sons, ages 3 and 18 months. She said the $600 per month she has received since July helps her pay some of her rent and leftover bills and helps to cover her car insurance, which is necessary so that she can get to work.
“It has changed my life,” she said of the monthly child tax credit payments. “I have a little bit of a better job but still everything costs so much money and [the $600 monthly payment] is almost a whole other paycheck.”
Miesko shared her story with several U.S. senators this week in a Zoom call organized by MomsRising, an advocacy organization founded by moms.
The fate of extending the child tax credit expansion in 2022 lies with the Senate, which has yet to vote on the Build Back Better Act, legislation that passed the House of Representatives in November and includes a one-year extension of the monthly payments.
Miesko said she told senators she hopes the Senate stops “messing around” with the financial well-being of parents and passes the legislation.
“I really hope that they take it seriously and know that this really does impact everyday Americans greatly,” she said. “It’s sad how much regular Americans have to struggle and now they want to give [the monthly payments] for a couple of months and then take it back.”
Democratic leaders in Congress had hoped to pass the Build Back Better Act by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s self-imposed Christmas deadline, a timeline the White House said it supported. But that goal is slipping away, in large part due to the objections of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
The House-passed $1.75 trillion bill extends the monthly child tax credit for one year, through 2022, but Manchin has always said he objects to programs in the 10-year legislation that last for a shorter period of time, under the concern that those programs, like the enhanced child tax credit, could be made permanent and thereby more costly.
“Manchin has been clear that he wants the bill to stay at $1.75 trillion,” a source familiar with the matter told ABC News. “[Manchin] isn’t explicitly telling Biden to remove any specific policy, but he has made clear that expensive provisions are not going to fit to keep the bill at $1.75 trillion.”
A White House spokesperson said Wednesday they want the bill passed “as soon as possible.”
“It’s our longstanding rule not to discuss the specifics of private discussions with lawmakers, but the president and Sen. Manchin have had productive and friendly conversations,” deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told ABC News. “The president wants to pass Build Back Better as soon as possible so that it can cut the biggest costs families face, get more Americans into the workforce, reduce the deficit and fight inflation for the long haul.”
If lawmakers do not extend the program ahead of the Dec. 31 deadline, the advance child tax credit payment that parents have been receiving for the past six months would stop. At tax filing time, parents would still receive the remaining half of the credit they are eligible for that wasn’t paid out in advance, according to Erica York, an economist with Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy.
“If lawmakers don’t ever extend the expansion, the child tax credit for 2022 would revert to its current law levels, a maximum credit of $2,000 per child under age 17 that phases in with earned income for lower-income households and that is largely received at tax-filing time, rather than through advance payments from the IRS,” said York. “This could mean many parents would go from receiving a very large child tax credit, to a slimmed down version, or even zero.”
Family policy experts say the potential lost income would devastate many families at a time when inflation concerns are mounting and the coronavirus pandemic is still ongoing.
Losing the monthly child tax credit payments would also impact the families that need it most, including families of color and households led by mothers, according to Amber Wallin, deputy director of New Mexico Voices for Children, a research and advocacy organization focused on improving the lives of children in New Mexico, which has one of the country’s highest child poverty rates.
“Data shows these types of programs disproportionately benefit families that are headed by mothers, and that’s really important right now because the data also shows that mothers have really disproportionately been harmed by the economic impacts of the pandemic,” said Wallin. “Mothers more than fathers have lost wages, have decreased work hours and have exited the labor force since the pandemic began, especially mothers of young children.”
Calling programs like the child tax credit “crucial,” Wallin added, “It’s about more than just providing relief to families. It’s about providing targeted relief that gets exactly to the families that need it, and that’s what the child tax credit does.”
ABC News’ Trish Turner and Justin Gomez contributed to this report.
Thursday’s Los Angeles premiere of Cyrano has been postponed due to COVID-19 concerns. “Out of an abundance of caution given the changing COVID landscape, United Artists Releasing has decided to postpone the Los Angeles premiere of CYRANO,” the studio said in a statement obtained by Variety on Wednesday. “While we will no longer be hosting a red carpet or after-party, you are welcome to still attend the screening of CYRANO on December 16th,” the statement continued, adding “All COVID protocols will be followed,” including proof of full vaccination and a negative PCR test within 48 hours of the event. A red carpet prior to the screening was to have included appearances by stars Haley Bennett, Peter Dinklage and Kelvin Harrison Jr. No new date for a red carpet premiere has been announced…
Hulu on Tuesday revealed a first look photo and premiere date for the upcoming limited series The Dropout, starring Amanda Seyfried. The Dropout follows the story of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, played by Seyfried, “an unbelievable tale of ambition and fame gone terribly wrong,” per the streaming service. In 2018, a federal grand jury indicted Holmes and the now-defunct health technology company’s COO, Ramesh Balwani, on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for distributing blood tests with falsified results to consumers, charges on which Holmes is currently standing trial. The Dropout premieres with three episodes on March 3rd, with new episodes stream weekly thereafter…
Good Trouble‘s Odelya Halevi has joined the cast of NBC’s Law & Order revival, according to Deadline. She’ll play Assistant District Attorney Samantha Maroun in what’s being billed as Law & Order‘s 21st season. Halevi joins fellow Law & Order newcomers Jeffrey Donovan, who plays an NYPD detective, Hugh Dancy, who also plays an assistant district attorney, and Camryn Manheim, who portrays Lt. Kate Dixon. Law & Order alum Anthony Anderson also reprises his role as Detective Kevin Bernard, and Sam Waterston has been in negotiations to return as DA Jack McCoy. The Law & Order revival premieres February 24…
As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 802,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 61% 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:
Dec 16, 8:04 am
Omicron will be dominant variant in US ‘very soon,’ Fauci says
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, warned Thursday that omicron will become the dominant variant of the novel coronavirus in the United States “very soon.”
“It has an extraordinary ability to transmit efficiently and spread,” Fauci, the chief medical advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in an interview on Good Morning America.
“It has what we call a doubling time of about three days and if you do the math on that, if you have just a couple of percentage of the isolates being omicron, very soon it’s going to be the dominant variant,” he explained. “We’ve seen that in South Africa, we’re seeing it in the U.K. and I’m absolutely certain that’s what we’re going to be seeing here relatively soon.”
Fauci, who is also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged Americans to “absolutely” get vaccinated against COVID-19, if they haven’t already, and to also receive a booster shot when they become eligible.
“At this point, we don’t believe you need an omicron-specific boost,” he added. “We just need to get the boost with what you got originally for the primary vaccination.”
Dec 16, 6:14 am
France to ban non-essential travel with UK over omicron surge
France announced Thursday that it will ban non-essential travel to and from the United Kingdom due to the country’s surge in cases of the omicron variant.
Starting Saturday, France will require people to have “a compelling reason” to travel between the two countries. Travel for tourism or work will not be allowed. French citizens, however, can return to France, according to a statement from the French prime minister’s office.
All travelers from the U.K. will be required to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken less than 24 hours before departure. Upon arrival in France, they must self-isolate for a week, but that period can be ended after 48 hours if they test negative for COVID-19 again.
The new rules apply to people regardless of their vaccination status.
“Faced with the extremely rapid spread of the Omicron variant in the United Kingdom, the Government has chosen to reinstate the need for an essential reason for travel from and to the United Kingdom, and to strengthen the requirement for tests on departure and arrival,” the French prime minister’s office said in the statement Thursday. “The Government is also calling on travelers who had planned to visit the United Kingdom to postpone their trip.”
Dec 16, 4:24 am
Indonesia confirms 1st case of omicron variant
Indonesia announced Thursday its first confirmed case of the omicron variant.
The case was detected in a janitor who works at the COVID-19 Emergency Hospital of Kemayoran Athletes Village in Jakarta, according to a statement from Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin.
The hospital’s cleaning staff are routinely tested and the results for three people were positive for COVID-19 on Dec. 10. Those samples were then sent to a genome sequencing lab, which identified the omicron variant in one of the samples on Wednesday, according to the statement.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Health has also identified probable cases of omicron among five travelers who were in quarantine — two Indonesian citizens who had just returned from the United Kingdom and the United States, and three foreigners from China. Their test samples are being sequenced and the results will be known in a few days, according to the statement.
The health minister urged Indonesians “not to panic and to remain calm,” and to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if they haven’t already.
“The arrival of new variants from abroad, which we identified in quarantine, shows that our defense system against the arrival of new variants is quite good, we need to strengthen it,” Sadikin said. “So it’s normal to stay 10 days in quarantine. The goal is not to make it difficult for people who came, but to protect the people of Indonesia.”
Dec 15, 4:46 pm
Forecast: US could see up to 845,000 deaths by early January
Forecast models used by the CDC suggest weekly death totals and hospital admissions will rise over the next four weeks.
The U.S. could reach a total of 845,000 deaths by Jan. 8, according to the forecasts from the COVID-19 Forecast Hub at UMass Amherst.
The COVID-19 Forecast Hub team monitors and combines forecasting models from the nation’s top researchers. They then create an ensemble, usually with a wide cone of uncertainty. Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician who runs the forecasting model, told ABC News Wednesday that he doesn’t think the forecasts included omicron in their predictions because the majority of data isn’t publicly available yet in a format that can be easily incorporated into a model.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Dec 15, 4:20 pm
US cases up 45% in the last month
The U.S. is now reporting nearly 118,000 new cases each day — up by 45% in the last month, according to federal data.
Daily COVID-19-related hospital admissions have leapt by 46% in the last month.
Maine and New Hampshire are now averaging more new cases than at any other point in the pandemic, according to federal data.
New Hampshire currently holds the nation’s highest case rate, followed by Rhode Island, Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
For more than 20 years, the non-profit Musicians On Call has worked to bring live and recorded music to the bedsides of patients in healthcare facilities nationwide. This year, the charity has rounded up some of music’s biggest names, including Cyndi Lauper, to participate in their second annual virtual concert, Hope for the Holidays.
The virtual concert, presented by Citi, was made exclusively for hospital patients, their families and frontline caregivers. Besides Lauper, other stars participating with either performances or special messages include Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Norah Jones, Reba McEntire, Michael Bublé, Billy Porter and many more.
The concert will be available on-demand for patients and their caregivers to enjoy throughout December. Among the highlights of the presentation is Lauper singing “Home for the Holidays.”
ABC’s long-running sitcom The Goldbergs lost cast member George Segal last year when the veteran actor passed away, and now it has lost its patriarch.
Jeff Garlin has reportedly exited the show, following “multiple misconduct allegations and HR investigations,” according to Deadline.
The trade noted Garlin’s exit was “effective immediately,” and was a “mutual” decision between Sony Pictures Television, which produces the show, and all other parties.
Garlin had about one more shooting day scheduled for the show’s ninth season, the trade reported, noting his schedule earlier in the season had been deliberately “reduced” during the investigation.
Garlin recently denied to Vanity Fair that he’d been fired from the show, and threw cold water on the notion of an investigation into his unspecified conduct. “We have a difference of opinion, Sony and myself,” said the actor, who plays high-strung Murray Goldberg on the sitcom and who also stars on Curb Your Enthusiasm as Larry David‘s manager.
“My opinion is, I have my process about how I’m funny, in terms of the scene and what I have to do. They feel that it makes for a quote ‘unsafe’ workspace. Now, mind you, my silliness making an unsafe workspace — I don’t understand how that is…” Garlin insisted. “I am always a kind and thoughtful person. I make mistakes, sure. But my comedy is about easing people’s pain. Why would I ever want to cause pain in anybody for a laugh? That’s bullying. That’s just uncalled for.”
Deadine reports it’s not known how Garlin’s exit will be addressed on the show. A tenth season has been in the cards, as The Goldbergs remains a strong performer for ABC. It’s also unknown whether this will affect Garlin’s tenure on Curb Your Enthusiasm.
