black-ish‘s eighth and final season begins January 4, and for the season premiere, the Johnsons will be joined by a very special guest, Michelle Obama.
Rainbow, portrayed by Tracee Ellis Ross, and Andre, played by Anthony Anderson, attend a fundraiser, and the featured speaker at the event is Mrs. Obama. They invite her to dinner, and to their surprise, Michelle accepts their invitation.
Back in October, the cast teased her appearance by sharing a photo with their VIP guest on social media. The final season of Black-ish premieres on Tuesday, January 4, at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
In other news, Oscar winner Mahershala Ali stars in the upcoming Apple TV+ movie Swan Song, and he says he loved reuniting in the film with his Moonlight co-star Naomie Harris.
“Working with Naomie in this was unbelievable,” Ali tells Essence. “I remember working with her in Moonlight and thinking, ‘Ah, I would love to work with her in another iteration and just have more time together.’ Once we had a chance to do this, it was kind of a dream come true because I have so much respect for her as both an actor and a person.”
In the futuristic film, Ali portrays Cameron Turner, who is diagnosed with a terminal illness, and replaces himself with a clone. Harris plays his wife. Swan Song will be released in theaters and on Apple TV+ on Friday, December 17.
Finally, K. Michelle, Rich Dollaz, Lyrica Anderson and Gangsta Boo from Three 6 Mafia will be among the stars featured in the new Marriage Boot Camp: Hip Hop Edition, according to The Jasmine Brand. The show will premiere in March 2022 on WE tv.
As they did with the animated opening of the August 13 episode “Carol of the Bells,” the short features cute clay avatars for Sudeikis and his fellow Emmy winners Hannah Waddingham and Brett Goldstein, as well as for Brendan Hunt‘s Coach Beard, Juno Temple‘s Keeley, Jeremy Swift‘s Higgins, Nick Mohammed‘s Nate and Phil Dunster‘s Jamie.
In the short, Sudeikis’ Ted stuns himself — and his Plasticine pals — when his trademark mustache vanishes, ahead of a FaceTime call with his son in the States.
The gang tries to find the missing ‘stache, and failing that, tries to make a duplicate — courtesy Coach Beard’s handy disguise kit. When that fails, Brett Goldstein’s Roy literally rips his own eyebrows off to create an analogue. He then grunts and sprouts a replacement pair for himself. “You’re so hairy,” Temple’s Keeley swoons.
Ted realizes that nothing can replace his own lip warmer, but he makes peace with it, as only Ted could.
“It’s not about making Christmas perfect for the people you love, it’s the people you love that make Christmas perfect,” he says.
And with that Ted Lasso-ism, his trademark crumb catcher magically reappears, just in time for his FaceTime.
“Have a perfect Christmas,” Ted tells viewers in a fourth-wall break. “Ah, an imperfect Christmas, because it’s the imperfections that make — I mean you get it, you saw what we’re going for, right?”
Josh: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images; Billy: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Josh Groban has recorded at least one of Billy Joel‘s songs, but now, he’ll actually be playing the part of The Piano Man himself in a new original scripted series from Audible.
The series is called The Miranda Obsession, and it’s based on a true story that was documented in a 1999 Vanity Fair article of the same name. The audio-only series stars The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan as Miranda Grosvenor, the alias of a real-life Louisiana woman who charmed many famous men in the ’70s and ’80s, simply by talking to them on the telephone.
Born Whitney Walton, “Miranda” would call stars late at night, and was reportedly so alluring that the men she called would fall in love with her, just by hearing her voice. Among the people with whom Walton had phone relationships were Billy, Eric Clapton, Warren Beatty, Bob Dylan, Richard Gere, Peter Gabriel, Robert De Niro, Ted Kennedy, Johnny Carson and many more.
Billy was reportedly so entranced by Miranda that he considered writing a musical about her. Others bought her expensive gifts, and, according to Vanity Fair, two of her telephone pals — music producers Quincy Jones and Richard Perry — proposed to her. Walton died in 2016 at age 74.
In a statement, Brosnahan says, “I was completely captivated by the story of Miranda and her intimate relationships with some of Hollywood’s most powerful male players. Not only did she hold her own, but she curated a fantasy on the other end of the telephone and drew men into her design with words alone.”
In addition to Brosnahan and Josh, The Miranda Obsession series will feature Milo Ventimiglia as Richard Perry, and will premiere on Audible April 28, 2022.
The re-launched version of the original mothership procedural that spawned CSI: Miami and CSI: New York, will return for another season, CBS announced Wednesday.
The re-launch brought back original star and executive producer William Petersen, as well as returning cast members Jorja Fox, Wallace Langham, and Paul Guilfoyle, and has been a ratings winner for the network. In fact, its playback numbers on Paramount+ were the “highest playback of any new drama on any network,” CBS touts.
In the announcement, CBS’ Executive Vice President of Current Programs Amy Reisenbach said the performance proved “that after 20 years, the CSI fan base is still hungry for more and ready to embrace a new chapter in this illustrious franchise.”
CSI first debuted October 6, 2000, and ran through 2015. The new installment wrapped its first season last week. In it, a new team tackled new cases coming into the Las Vegas crime lab, while the show’s veterans, including Peterson’s Gil Grissom and Fox’s Sara Sidle, tackled a criminal conspiracy that put at risk many of their originally solved investigations.
Black feminist writer and poet bell hooks died Wednesday at her home in Berea, Kentucky, at the age of 69, according to a statement from her family.
Watkins had been fighting an illness and died with family and friends at her side, the family said in their statement, also noting, “The family is honored that Gloria received numerous awards, honors, and international fame for her works as a poet, author, feminist, professor, cultural critic, and social activist. We are proud to just call her sister, friend, confidant, and influencer.”
Born Gloria Jean Watkins on September 25, 1952 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Watkins published under the pseudonym “bell hooks” — a name inspired by her great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks, and spelled in all lowercase letters — to keep focus on her work and ideas rather than on her identity, she said in an interview with The Sandspur in 2013.
Watkins studied English at Stanford University and earned a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz after attending segregated schools before college.
Her first book, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, focuses on the impact of sexism on Black women. She wrote more than 40 books with the main emphasis on feminist theory and Black womanhood. Those books have been published in over 15 different languages.
In 2014, Watkins founded the bell hooks Institute at Berea College after being a teacher there since 2004. The institute serves as a collection of contemporary African American art and storage of her books and poems.
Watkins’ family announced that a ceremony honoring her life will be held at a later date.
FINNEAS has premiered the video for “Only a Lifetime,” a track off his new album, Optimist.
The clip stars the older O’Connell sibling as he wanders throughout an empty aquarium until the end, when he’s joined by his sister, Billie Eilish, and what appears to be their parents.
“A lot of people were pacing around their houses, praying for lockdown to be lifted, and waiting for the vaccine,” FINNEAS says. “I had a sudden realization — I might really miss this calm time I had with my family and my girlfriend.”
“Only a Lifetime,” FINNEAS shares, reflects him “trying to remind myself to stay present and stay engaged no matter what is going on.”
You can watch the “Only a Lifetime” video streaming now on YouTube.
Optimist, FINNEAS’ first full-length solo effort, was released this past October. He’s nominated for Best New Artist at the 2022 Grammys.
(MAYFIELD, Ky.) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday surveyed storm damage and met with families in neighborhoods ravaged by the deadly tornadoes .
Biden viewed damage in Mayfield before heading to Dawson Springs and also make remarks on the federal response and “extreme weather,” according to the White House.
Shortly before noon, Marine One landed in Mayfield, and Biden was greeted on the tarmac in Fort Campbell by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, stopping for a five-minute conversation.
Deputy principal press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden’s message on Wednesday “is that he and the federal government intend to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, by providing any support that is needed to aid recovery efforts and support the people of Kentucky — and of other impacted states as they rebuild.”
“It is going to be a very long, long road ahead. And so that’s the president’s focus right now is to talk, specifically to hear from the elected officials on the ground,” she told reporters earlier on Air Force One.
Before receiving a briefing from state and local officials in Kentucky, Biden vowed all the federal support he can provide to the area, both now and in the months to come.
“Immediately after a disaster is a time when people are really, really moving, and trying to help each other and trying to get things done. But after a month, after six weeks, after two months, people can get themselves to a point where they get fairly depressed about what’s going on, particularly young kids, particularly people who’ve lost somebody. And so I just want you to know, the help that we’re able to offer at the federal level, is not just now,” Biden said.
“I’ve instructed my team to make you all aware of everything that is available from a federal level,” Biden added later on. “And some of it has to do outside of FEMA, outside of Homeland Security, there’s other programs, including education, there’s a whole range of things, but I’m here to listen.”
The president seemed struck by the scale of the damage he saw on his aerial tour.
“As you fly over here, as I’ve done in the past, I’ve not seen this tornado, this much damage from a tornado. You know, you think, but for the grace of God, why was I not 100 yards outside that line? Which makes it so different,” he noted.
After a briefing in Mayfield by local leaders “on the impacts of the tornadoes and extreme weather,” according to the White House, Biden will then continue on to Dawson Springs and that tour will culminate in remarks at 4 p.m. EST.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki earlier this week said Biden will not be delivering a “major speech” there but rather will be “trying to be a source of comfort to people who have gone through a devastating couple of days in their communities.”
“I would expect while he’s there, he will receive an update from local authorities on what their needs are, see local elected officials and discuss in person with them and make sure they’re getting what they need from the federal government,” Psaki said.
“He also wants to hear directly from people, and he wants to offer his support directly to them,” Psaki added. “People who have gone through over the last couple of days, really incredible challenges losing their homes, losing loved ones, losing parts of their community that they’ve grown up with and I think he wants to offer his support directly to them as well.”
Biden was joined for the visit by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, who were on the ground there on Sunday.
A Whitney Houston NFT was auctioned this week for $999,999, setting a record for the highest-selling NFT on the Tezos blockchain.
From The Whitney Houston Collection, the NFT is an early, never-before heard, full length song demo that the six-time Grammy winner recorded at just 17 years old, along with a digital video created by 17-year-old artist Diana Sinclair.
“This initial NFT drop is one of many Whitney Houston collections as we continue to tell her story, going behind the scenes and using never-before-seen content from the estate’s archives to celebrate her career, music, and talent in new and creative ways,” Rob Dippold, partner & president of Digital Strategy for Primary Wave Music, said in a statement.
Whitney E. Houston Estate President and CEO Pat Houston loved having Sinclair involved in the project.
“Being able to work with someone as young as Diana, she’s 17 years old. Whitney was 17 years old when she recorded the song. Both come from Newark, both have the same middle name. Whitney had the desire to always help others help themselves, especially young people,” Pat Houston said
“She established the Whitney E. Houston Foundation in 1989 and she had events each year centered around young people, so it was a no brainer when we were introduced to Diana,” Pat continued. “We want to continue Whitney’s legacy, and this is a new art form for her music to be displayed. What better way than to do it with Diana and through the NFT.”
A portion of the proceeds of the auction will go directly to the Whitney E. Houston Foundation, a non-profit that continues the work of the late star of The Bodyguard to empower, support, and inspire young people.
It can be a fan’s worst nightmare to come across their idol in public and fail to recognize him or her — but in the COVID-19 era where people are masking up, it is a likely reality. Case in point, one couple didn’t recognize the one and only Cher when she offered to take their photo.
The “Believe” singer posted the photo she took of them on Twitter on Tuesday and joked about the situation. Cher explained that she was “coming out of [a] movie” when she saw a “beautiful couple” posing for photos with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers.
“I said…can I take your Pic…Had my mask on so they didn’t Know Who I was,” the legend noted, and laughed about coming across as “just a crazy woman.”
Of course, it turns out the couple realized their mistake after the tweet went viral and reached out to Cher.
The woman, identified as Syndie, tweeted back, “Omg! That’s me, and it was my birthday! Wow! I can’t believe it!” She also responded to some incredulous fans who had a hard time believing Cher was that unrecognizable.
When asked why she was unable to recognize Cher’s voice, Syndie explained, “She had a mask on, and when she asked to take our photo, she was far away from us.” The birthday girl also said the room was dark, but admitted that the way Cher carried herself clued her and her boyfriend in that they weren’t interacting with “an average person.”
Either way, the lovebirds are thrilled that they were able to share a special moment with Cher. The boyfriend, who goes by the name Tehran Stokes on Twitter, marveled, “This night will certainly be remembered forever.”
Syndie joked back, “If only we could ‘turn back time.'”
When we were coming out of movie I saw beautiful
Couple.He Was taking
Her pic….She had flowers
I said … can I take your
Pic….Had my mask on so they didn’t Know Who I was. MAYBE Just a crazy woman..
THAT ME pic.twitter.com/M02p8I3tCk
(WASHINGTON) — Federal Reserve officials announced Wednesday that they intend to more rapidly end pandemic-era monetary policies meant to support the economy as surging inflation casts a new shadow over the recovery.
The U.S. central bank announced it would accelerate the tapering of its bond-buying program that flushed financial markets with liquidity during the coronavirus-induced downturn. Fed officials voted to keep interest rates near-zero currently, but indicated that they anticipated as many as three interest rate hikes starting in 2022.
“The path of the economy continues to depend on the course of the virus,” the Fed officials said in a policy statement Wednesday. “Progress on vaccinations and an easing of supply constraints are expected to support continued gains in economic activity and employment as well as a reduction in inflation. Risks to the economic outlook remain, including from new variants of the virus.”
The policy shift comes on the heels of the Federal Reserve’s final meeting of the year, which ended Wednesday afternoon.
The committee decided during the meeting to “double the pace of reductions in its asset purchases,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a post-meeting news conference, signaling the pandemic-era program could be halted completely by March.
“Beginning in mid-January, we will reduce the monthly pace of our net asset purchases by $20 billion for Treasury securities and $10 billion for agency mortgage-backed securities,” Powell said. “If the economy evolves broadly as expected, similar reductions in the pace of that asset purchases will likely be appropriate each month, implying that increases in our securities holdings would cease by mid-March, a few months sooner than we anticipated in early November.”
He added that they are phasing out purchases more rapidly because, “with elevated inflation pressures and a rapidly strengthening labor market, the economy no longer needs increasing amounts of policy support.”
Powell also said supply constraints and bottlenecks have limited how quickly production can respond to recent rises in demand, resulting in elevated levels of inflation.
“These problems have been larger and longer lasting than anticipated, exacerbated by waves of the virus,” Powell said. “While the drivers of higher inflation have been predominantly connected to the dislocations caused by the pandemic, price increases have now spread to a broader range of goods and services.”
While Powell didn’t use the words “temporary” or “transitory” to describe inflation levels — as he and the Fed have previously — he did say inflation is expected to continue falling, to levels closer to the longer-run goal of 2%, by “the end of next year.”
“I think the Fed is showing that they’re taking this threat of higher inflation seriously, more seriously than they seemed to be before, but they still think that inflation should abate next year,” said Megan Greene, global chief economist at the advisory firm Kroll Institute and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Greene said open-ended questions about changing labor force participation patterns and evolving consumer habits in the wake of the pandemic ultimately will have a big impact on how policymakers can react to inflation.
“There are fewer people in the labor force now than there were before the pandemic, and there’s a big question about whether that’s just the big structural change, or whether people might still jump in off the sidelines and get jobs,” Greene told ABC News. “And we’ve never been through this before, so we just don’t know, but if the labor force participation rate is just lower now, then the labor market is pretty tight and that makes sustained inflation a bigger threat.”
Americans also are changing their spending habits, she said.
“It’s not just that as the economy reopened and there’s a surge in demand, there’s also been a change in what we have a demand for,” she said. “In the 1960s, two-thirds of what we bought were goods. Right before the pandemic, two-thirds of what we bought were services.”
The pandemic reversed that decades-long shift, but it’s unclear whether it’s structural or related to lingering worries over the virus, according to Greene.
“All the inflation pretty much is in goods, so there’s a question, Is this just a change in our consumption habits now? Or is it that people are worried that going to the gym will land them in the hospital, so they’re not paying for those kinds of services anymore?” Greene told ABC News.
She said while the “jury’s out” on how this trend will play out as the pandemic ebbs, it’s something the Fed will have to figure out to better address inflation.
While the Fed’s projections indicate the possibility of up to three rate hikes in 2022, Greene suggests Americans take this with a “grain of salt” for now, saying that the data released Wednesday only indicates what each member of the Federal Open Market Committee thinks will happen “based on their own assumptions about inflation and growth and unemployment.”
The Fed’s policy shifts comes, meanwhile, as data indicates inflation hit a 39-year high last month. The government’s consumer price index, which measures the prices consumers pay for a basket of everyday goods and services, soared 6.8% in the last 12 months — the largest such increase since 1982.
The latest indicators inflation is tightening its grip on the U.S. economy have thrown a wrench in the Fed’s original plans to boost the economy throughout the pandemic.
Economists have attributed the rapidly climbing consumer prices largely to supply-demand imbalances lingering from the pandemic shock to the economy. Global supply chain issues, and an apparent shortage of workers accepting low-wage jobs in the service industry, have been linked to supply not being able to keep up with the surging consumer demand for goods and services as the pandemic wanes in the U.S. As a result, prices have been rising at a rapid clip.
The risk of inflation snowballing out of control, such as what was seen in the U.S. in the 1970s, makes it more difficult for the Fed to continue its easy monetary policy that was initiated during the pandemic — such as keeping interest rates low and injecting liquidity into financial markets. While these policies can help stimulate consumer demand, economists have linked the rising prices to issues clobbering the supply-side of the equation, not the demand side.
“We understand that high inflation imposes significant hardship, especially on those least able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing and transportation,” Powell said. “We are committed to our price stability goal. We will use our tools both to support the economy and a strong labor market and to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched.”
