The slap in the face Chris Rock got from Will Smith at Sunday’s Oscars have given Rock’s ticket sales a shot in the arm. TickPick reports the comedian’s ticket sales rose 641% between Sunday night and Monday morning. The ticket marketplace tweeted on Monday, “We sold more tickets to see Chris Rock overnight than we did in the past month combined.” Rock has two stand-up sets each night at the Wilbur theater in Boston this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. He then begins a world comedy tour with a pair of shows on Saturday at the Borgata Event Center in Atlantic City…
Aaron Sorkin is re-teaming with his To Kill a Mockingbird partner Bartlett Sher for a theater revival of the Lerner & Leowe musical classic Camelot. Lincoln Center Theater, in a statement on Monday, described the production as “a new version of the classic tale… reimagined for the 21st century.” Camelot, based on T.H. White’s 1958 novel The Once and Future King, itself based on the legend of King Arthur, features the memorable songs “If Ever I Would Leave You,” “What Do the Simple Folk Do?” and the title song. The musical was first staged in 1960, starring Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet. A 1967 film version starred Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave. Previews are set to begin at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater November 3, with the opening night set for December 8…
Following multiple reports that Michael Che told an audience during an appearance in Minneapolis over the weekend that he was leaving Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update,” the co-anchor took to his Instagram on Sunday in a since-deleted post to clarify that his remarks were made in jest. “To comedy fans; please stop telling reporters everything you hear at a comedy show, youre [sic] spoiling the trick,” he said, along with a slide show with a screenshot of a HuffPost article titled, “Saturday Night Live Co-Head Writer Michael Che Says He’s Leaving ‘Weekend Update.’” Che, 38, joined SNL as a writer in 2013 and began co-anchoring “Weekend Update” in 2014, alongside Colin Jost…
(NEW YORK) — Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are putting up “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation.”
Russian forces moving from neighboring Belarus toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, have advanced closer to the city center in recent days despite the resistance. Heavy shelling and missile attacks, many on civilian buildings, continue in Kyiv, as well as major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol. Russia also bombed western cities for the first time last week, targeting Lviv and a military base near the Poland border.
Russia has been met by sanctions from the United States, Canada and countries throughout Europe, targeting the Russian economy as well as Putin himself.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 29, 7:02 am
Kremlin confirms Abramovich’s involvement in peace talks
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is taking part in Russian-Ukrainian negotiations at the approval of both parties, although he is not an official member of the Russian delegation, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“Abramovich has been engaged in ensuring certain contacts between the Russian and the Ukrainian side,” Peskov said during a daily call with reporters Tuesday. “He is not an official delegation member.”
“Nevertheless, he is also present on our side in Istanbul,” Peskov added, referring to the peace talks currently underway in Turkey’s capital.
Abramovich’s participation in the negotiations has been endorsed by both sides, according to Peskov.
Peskov said it will be clear “today or tomorrow whether [the talks] hold some promise or not.”
Mar 29, 6:59 am
Ukrainian soldiers patrol streets of Irpin after claims of liberation
Ukrainian soldiers were seen patrolling the streets of Irpin on Tuesday, following claims that the besieged Kyiv suburb has been “liberated” from Russian forces.
Video released by the Ukrainian military and verified by ABC News shows their troops driving through Irpin, a northwestern suburb of Kyiv where some of the heaviest fighting near the Ukrainian capital has taken place.
Irpin Mayor Oleksandr Markushyn announced in a video posted to Telegram on Monday that “Irpin has been liberated.”
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian government released video on Tuesday showing elderly people who had been evacuated from Irpin arriving in Kyiv, where they reunited with their families.
The footage purportedly shows 86-year-old Irpin resident Olga Molchanova being embraced by her daughter and son. Molchanova’s adult children had evacuated Irpin earlier via a humanitarian corridor, but their parents refused to leave at the time, according to Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security (Stratcom).
“Recaptured by Ukrainian army, Irpin remains too dangerous for civilians to stay,” Stratcom said in a post on Twitter alongside the video.
Mar 29, 6:16 am
Abramovich attends peace talks after suspected poisoning
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is taking part in Tuesday’s in-person negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Turkey’s capital, a Turkish presidential source told ABC News.
Abramovich is the owner of the English professional football club Chelsea. The U.K. government has included him among the wealthy Russians targeted in recent sanctions.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, that Abramovich and two Ukrainian negotiators suffered symptoms of suspected poisoning after peace talks in Kyiv in early March.
A Turkish presidential source told ABC News that Abramovich suspected he was poisoned after experiencing eye problems.
Turkish officials confirmed there is a discussion regarding the food protocols during Tuesday’s negotiations in Istanbul.
Mar 29, 6:12 am
Ukraine warns delegation not to eat or drink at talks
Ukraine is warning its delegation against eating or drinking while attending in-person peace talks with Russian negotiators, amid fears of potential poisoning.
“I advise to everyone who’s going to any negotiations with Russia, not to eat or drink anything, and also not to touch any surfaces,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a statement Tuesday.
The warning came a day after The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources, that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and two Ukrainian negotiators had suffered symptoms of suspected poisoning following peace talks in Kyiv in early March.
Mar 29, 3:22 am
Talks between Russia, Ukraine begin in Turkey
The latest round of in-person peace negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations kicked off in Istanbul on Tuesday morning, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in attendance.
Erdogan addressed both sides with a brief speech before the talks began.
“Establishing a cease-fire and peace as soon as possible will be to everyone’s benefit. We think that we’ve entered a period where we need to achieve concrete results from negotiations,” Erdogan said. “As members of the delegations, you’ve taken on a historic responsibility. The whole world is awaiting the good news that will come from you.”
Footage showing the start of the meeting was broadcast by Russian state-backed television channel RT.
Tuesday’s negotiations are taking place in Dolmabahce Palace in the Besiktas district of Turkey’s capital, according to Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu Agency. It’s the first face-to-face talks to take place between Russia and Ukraine in more than two weeks.
(LONDON) — Members of Britain’s royal family gathered Tuesday to celebrate the life of Prince Philip, who died at age 99 almost one year ago.
Queen Elizabeth led the royal family at the service of Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey for Philip, her husband of over 70 years.
The 95-year-old queen has battled health conditions over the past several months — including COVID-19 and a brief hospitalization for what Buckingham Palace said was “preliminary investigations” — so her attendance was all the more noteworthy.
The queen entered Westminster Abbey using a walking stick and holding on to the arm of her son, Prince Andrew, who last month agreed to settle a sexual assault lawsuit. The last time Andrew appeared in a public capacity with the royal family was last April, when the family gathered in London for Prince Philip’s funeral.
Joining the queen to celebrate Philip, in addition to Andrew, are the couple’s three other children — Princes Charles and Edward and Princess Anne — and many of their grandchildren, including Prince William and his wife, Duchess Kate.
Several of the queen and Philip’s great-grandchildren, including William and Kate’s two oldest children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, also attended the service.
Notably absent from the service was Prince Harry, who stepped down from his senior royal role in 2020 and now lives in California with his wife, Meghan, and their two children. A spokesperson for Harry, the duke of Sussex, confirmed earlier this month he would not attend.
Harry, who did attend his grandfather’s funeral last April, has expressed concern about his safety in the United Kingdom. Earlier this year, he filed a legal challenge asking that the U.K. government allow him to pay for his own police protection while in the U.K.
The service of Thanksgiving that Harry missed was a much larger affair than Prince Philip’s funeral, which was held at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor and had to be modified due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The queen was “actively involved” in planning the Thanksgiving service for her husband, “with many elements reflecting Her Majesty’s wishes,” according to Buckingham Palace.
The service of Thanksgiving, led by the dean of Westminster, was designed to “pay tribute to The Duke of Edinburgh’s contribution to public life and steadfast support for the over 700 charitable organizations with which His Royal Highness was associated throughout his life,” according to the palace.
Philip, the duke of Edinburgh, was known as one of the hardest-working members of the royal family during his tenure alongside the country’s longest-reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth.
When he retired in 2017, at the age of 96, Philip had completed 22,219 solo engagements since 1952, gave 5,496 speeches in his travels to more than 76 countries, authored 14 books, served as patron to 785 organizations and made 637 solo overseas visits, Buckingham Palace said at the time.
Tuesday’s service also put a spotlight on a program beloved by Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, which he launched in the 1950s to encourage “young people to serve their communities” and “experience adventure,” according to the royal family’s website.
The only non-member of the clergy to speak at the service was Doyin Sonibare, a recipient of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, according to the palace.
In addition to Philip’s family members, Tuesday’s service was also attended by royals from around the world, including Spain, Sweden, Bahrain Romania, Serbia, Norway and Greece, according to Buckingham Palace.
Philip was born in Greece, in 1921, as the only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice of Battenberg. His family was exiled from Greece when he was a baby, and he spent some of his childhood in France.
He was known as Prince Philip of Greece until he became a British subject in 1947 and dropped his titles, becoming Philip Mountbatten.
Upon his marriage to Elizabeth in 1947, he became the duke of Edinburgh.
One decade later, in 1957, the queen made Philip a “Prince of the United Kingdom.”
M. Anthony Nesmith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
(BRIDGEPORT, Conn.) — The UConn’s women’s basketball team is headed to its 14th straight Final Four appearance after defeating No. 1 seed NC State in a tough battle Monday night.
It took two overtimes but the No. 2 seed Huskies were able to top the Wolfpack 91-87 in the Elite Eight matchup at Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
UConn guard Paige Bueckers led the team with 27 points, followed by guard Christyn Williams, who scored 21.
The Huskies will now go up against No. 1 seed Stanford on Friday. Tip off begins at 9:30 p.m. ET at the Target Center in Minneapolis.
(NEW YORK) — Another COVID-19 vaccine booster shot may be on the horizon for Americans, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to greenlight a fourth dose for those aged 50 and older as soon as Tuesday.
It comes after Pfizer-BioNTech requested the FDA authorize a fourth dose for Americans aged 65 and older earlier this month and Moderna asked the same, but for those aged 18 and older.
Several other countries have already begun administering a second booster, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends immunocompromised Americans receive a fourth dose.
Two officials familiar with the matter told ABC News the fourth shots will likely be only offered and not formally recommended.
Experts suggest U.S. health officials want another booster authorized for the rest of the population before the next potential COVID-19 wave.
“This is an attempt to be sort of ahead of what might happen in the future,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “We will likely have another surge, whether sooner or later we don’t quite know, but there is a recognition that, over time, immunity wanes.”
He added, “And booster protection is at least helpful for those older and with underlying conditions.”
What is the data behind recommending a fourth dose?
Several countries, including Israel, Chile and Sweden, have begun offering fourth COVID-19 doses to older adults and other at-risk groups.
However, very few studies have been released exploring the benefits of a fourth dose. All are from Israel.
One study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at 274 health care workers who received a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine four months after their first shot.
The team found a fourth shot boosted antibody levels comparable to those seen after a third dose but did not boost protection against infection.
There were no hospitalizations in either the single-boosted group or double-boosted group.
Another study, which was published Thursday and has not yet been peer-reviewed, looked at more than 563,000 patients between 60 and 100 years old.
Over the study period, about 58% of the group received a second booster dose.
They found that participants who received a second booster dose were less likely to die within 40 days of vaccination, after adjusting for baseline health status and other factors.
“The second study was the one that made everyone pay attention … that sort of changed the discussion [about recommending a fourth dose], I think,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News. “But if you look at a percentage, that’s kind of still very low. So basically, getting a booster in that population results in low mortality just overall.”
Brownstein said the data is limited and should be interpreted with caution, but added that Israel has been a harbinger of what’s to come in the U.S.
“Israel has already been a reasonably good indicator of what we might see in the U.S., both the impact of COVID and the efficacy of vaccines,” he said. “I think that provides some support with those who want to get that additional shot.”
Should I get a fourth dose if I’m above age 50?
Although there have not been specific studies looking at the risk of COVID-19 infection or complications in those aged 50 and older who have been doubled boosted compared to those aged 49 and younger, other studies have shown that overall protection declines in older populations.
“It might seem arbitrary, but data suggests that after age 50, your ability to fight infection decreases,” Brownstein said. “The number of underlying chronic conditions increases with age, too.”
But experts said there is no current evidence to suggest that young, healthy Americans need a fourth vaccine dose.
Chin-Hong pointed to recent CDC data, which, as of Jan. 29, showed the rate of COVID deaths among those aged 18 to 49 was 0.8 per 100,000 for the unvaccinated, 0.13 for those fully vaccinated and 0.10 for those vaccinated and boosted.
“The benefit of just being vaccinated is really the discussion rather than how many boosters you got,” he said.
What if I’ve had omicron recently?
Chin-Hong said he doesn’t think boosted Americans who were infected with omicron during the most recent wave need to get a fourth shot.
He added that a COVID-19 infection will likely have boosted antibody levels high enough that a fourth shot won’t add much protection.
“For these people, when you get an infection, it’s almost like getting a shot itself,” he said. “You can consider it as your own booster shot and that hybrid immunity will generally be thought of as being very powerful.”
Chin-Hong added, “You can run out and get the shot any time if you’re eligible but, in terms of biological need, it’s probably less important, particularly if you’ve gotten a recent breakthrough infection.”
Dierks Bentley took part in in the Gosh Darn bike rice, and it looks like it was quite the adventure.
The superstar chronicled his journey on the 100-mile trip on Instagram, revealing that he endured three flat tires and got lost along the way, adding seven miles to the trip. The journey also began with Dierks and his fellow riders crossing a creek at 7 a.m. in 40-degree weather that left him with freezing-cold feet.
Clips show Dierks carrying his bike as he wades through a creek, and cycling a winding road as wind blows in his face. “I need the eagle to carry me home,” he says, panning to the bald eagle and American flag emblem on his shirt.
But Dierks persevered and completed the excursion, which took more than 10 hours. “It was…..fun?” Dierks writes in the caption about the “epic” day.
Gosh Darn, an annual gravel race in Middle Tennessee, benefits Oasis Bike Workshop the helps youth refurbish bicycles for transportation. Dierks also used to host the Miles & Music for Kids motorcycle event in Nashville.
When the members of The Head and the Heart were finally able to meet up and record their upcoming album Every Shade of Blue, they decided to head home.
“We chose to go back to Seattle,” vocalist Jonathan Russell tells ABC Audio. “We chose to go to the same studio that we did our first two records at.”
That return to the city where The Head and the Heart was first founded in 2009, coupled with the fact that the band members hadn’t seen each other in person in over a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, made recording Every Shade of Blue feel like a “homecoming.”
“We just had so many memories there,” Russull says. He recalls stumbling upon a bike that he had left at the studio a decade earlier.
“My bicycle was literally in the same position in the garage in the studio,” he shares. “It had some flat tires, but other than that, it was good to go.”
For a recording process so steeped in Seattle, it may seem odd that the current single off Every Shade of Blue pays tribute to a place on the complete other side of the country. The song, titled “Virginia (Wind in the Night),” refers to Russell’s pre-Seattle home, where he’s since moved back to and lives now.
Writing a song about Virginia with a band formed in Seattle, Russell says, represents the “strange dichotomy” of The Head and the Heart.
“We all met in Seattle…but the funny thing was it was purely coincidental,” Russell says. “Two people were from California that came up in completely separate times for different reasons, two of us were from Virginia at different times, and then two members were born-and-raised in Seattle.”
A new tune co-written and recorded by Mick Jagger called “Strange Game” will serve as the theme song to the new Apple TV+ series Slow Horses and will be released this Friday, April 1, coinciding with the premiere of the show’s first two episodes.
The Rolling Stones frontman co-wrote the track with Academy Award-nominated film composer Daniel Pemberton, who produced the song and also is responsible for the score and soundtrack of Slow Horses.
The six-part series, which stars Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jonathan Pryce and Olivia Cooke, focuses on a group of dysfunctional British intelligence agents who are relegated to Slough House, a department that serves as a dumping ground for spies who have made major career mistakes.
“Strange Game” is described as an “atmospheric and infectious” track that includes clever references to various aspects of the program’s storylines.
“Working with Mick Jagger has been one of the most exciting collaborations of my professional career,” says Pemberton, whose previous credits include the scores of Being the Ricardos, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Ocean’s 8 and Yesterday. “I think we have managed to create an incredibly unique and original titles theme and I cannot wait for the rest of the world to hear it.”
Adds Slow Horses director James Hawes, “We always wanted a song to set the tone for the show and there was only ever one name in my mind — Mick Jagger. Hearing the track for the first time was utterly thrilling. Mick’s lyrics and performance have totally nailed the mood of Slow Horses, with all the humour and swagger I dreamed of.”
Getting right to business, the first round of Hollywood week saw the singers choose the genre they felt best represented them and give their best audition for the judges, as they began to narrow down the competition.
The contestants weren’t all on their own though, they had help from Idol alums. Season two winner Ruben Studdard mentored R&B, while season six winner Jordin Sparks mentored Pop. Rock got a hand from season seven winner David Cook and season nine winner Lee DeWyze mentored Folk/Singer-songwriter. Season 10 runner-up Lauren Alaina mentored country and season 10’s second runner-up Haley Reinhart mentored Soul. Reigning American Idol champ Chayce Beckham also made an appearance to help out the country singers.
While everyone was singing to secure their spot in the next round, the three platinum ticket winners — HunterGirl, Kenedi Anderson, and Jay Copeland — got to relax and move straight to the duets round of Hollywood week thanks to their impressive first auditions. However, they did serenade everyone with a performance of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” when all the auditions were said and done. And, in a surprise twist, the trio had the advantage of picking their partners for duet week, while the judges will pick for the rest of the contestants.
American Idol returns Sunday, April 3 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
