Luke Combs was scheduled this week to record a performance to air during next month’s CMT Music Awards, but those plans have been scrapped due to a positive COVID-19 test.
The Tennesseanreports the news, explaining that Luke originally planned to record a performance for the show with Kane Brown at an undisclosed location on Thursday. Old Dominion has stepped up to fill Luke’s performance slot.
“Unfortunately, Luke Combs won’t be with us tomorrow,” a spokesperson for CMT said on Wednesday. “He is quarantined with COVID. He’s bummed to miss seeing everyone!”
As of Thursday morning, Luke himself hasn’t issued a statement about his absence from the show or updated fans on how he’s feeling. It’s also unclear whether or not his wife, Nicole, is quarantining with him. She had COVID-19 back in December 2020, and on her Instagram stories, described her recovery process as “brutal,” saying, “I’ve had all the symptoms, except for a fever. It beat me up.”
Nicole is currently pregnant with the couple’s first child, a boy. She’s due this spring.
The 2022 CMT Music Awards will air on CBS on April 11. Luke is nominated in the categories of Male Video of the Year and Video of the Year, both for his music video for “Forever After All.”
The 94th Academy Awards are upon us! Let’s take a look at what could make history at this year’s Oscars ceremony.
Troy Kotsur is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the heartwarming drama CODA. He’s already picked up crucial wins at the Gotham and SAG Awards. If he wins the Oscar, he will become the first deaf man and the second deaf actor to ever be awarded by the Academy.
Two real-life couples were honored with nominations that spanned all four acting categories this year. Oscar winners Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem were nominated for their work in Parallel Mothers and Being the Ricardos, respectively, while first-time nominees Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons were nominated for their work in The Power of the Dog.
The Power of the Dog earned 12 nominations in all, including Jane Campion for Best Director. She’s the only woman to have ever been nominated in this category twice — the first time was in 1994, for The Piano. If Campion comes out on top, she will become only the third woman to ever win the award, after Kathryn Bigelow and Chloé Zhao.
It’s easier to list the awards Lin-Manuel Miranda hasn’t won at this point — the man has two Emmys, three Tonys and three Grammys, but still no Oscar statue. If he wins Best Original Song for “Dos Oruguitas,” from Encanto, he will finally achieve the coveted EGOT status, a feat only 16 others have accomplished.
Find out what history will be made during the live Academy Awards ceremony Sunday, March 27 at 8pm, only on ABC.
The long road to bring The Godfather to life is the stuff of Hollywood Legend: The adaptation of Mario Puzo‘s bestselling novel was fraught with protests against the film, budget woes, and casting clashes between the studio and a director who was getting a no-confidence vote by Paramount execs. Yes, Francis Ford Coppola was skating on very thin ice during the production.
“There was a director in the wings, who was gonna take over in case Coppola didn’t work out,” says Robert Duvall, who played Corleone family consigliere Tom Hagen in the film, which marks its 50th anniversary today.
Duvall tells ABC Audio that the then-32-year-old filmmaker had to endure “great pressure” to bring his vision to life, “and because of that I gained a tremendous amount of respect for Francis Coppola for working under those conditions.”
He adds, “He stuck to his guns and made the film he wanted to make, and as an actor I was certainly alongside of him.”
In the end, Coppola and his cast turned in a film that would become one of the most revered, beloved and quoted pieces of modern cinema, and made stars out of actors like Al Pacino, James Caan, Talia Shire and John Cazale. It didn’t hurt Duvall’s career either, plus he got a chance to work with Marlon Brando, who starred in the now-legendary role of Don Vito Corleone.
“[It] wasn’t that intimidating, it was nice, because once you got in a scene with him, it became equal,” Duvall says of working with the iconic actor. “He was very giving. So it was a give-and-take process that worked out fine.”
The Godfather Trilogy, newly restored in 4K Ultra HD, is now available on Blu-Ray from Paramount Home Entertainment.
Denise Truscello/Getty Images for The Mayfair Supper Club at Bellagio Las Vegas
Leona Lewis is going to be a mom!
On Wednesday, the “Bleeding Love” singer announced that she’s expecting, sharing a stunning photo of herself in a form-fitting black dress that showed off her growing baby bump.
“Can’t wait to meet you in the Summer,” she captioned the Instagram post.
Lewis’ husband Dennis Jauch also announced the news, sharing the same photo and captioning it, “Biggest gift I could’ve asked for coming this Summer.”
“You’re one hot a** Mama,” he added,
This is the first child for Lewis, 36, and Jauch, 33. The couple wed in 2019.
(WASHINGTON) — Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, has completed two full days of questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee: 13 hours on Tuesday and 10.5 hours on Wednesday.
Thursday will mark the final day of the four-day confirmation hearing as the committee hears from outside legal experts, civil rights leaders and the American Bar Association.
Here is how the news is developing Thursday. Check back for updates:
Mar 24, 8:43 am
What to expect on the final day of hearings
Judge Jackson, the nation’s first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court, has cleared 19 hours of grueling questioning at the Senate Judiciary Committee and appears headed toward confirmation as a justice with support from all Democrats and a small number of Republicans.
“In my capacity as a justice, I would do what I’ve done for the past decade,” Jackson told the committee on her third day of testimony, “which is to rule from a position of neutrality, to look carefully at the facts and … to render rulings that I believe and that I hope that people would have confidence in.”
The historic hearings resume at 9 a.m. and will wrap for the week after the committee hears from representatives from the American Bar Association — which has given its highest rating to Jackson — and outside witnesses called by Democrats and Republicans on the committee. Senators have five-minute rounds for questions Thursday.
Judiciary Committee Democrats have invited Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus; Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Jackson’s former classmate; Risa Goluboff, the first woman to serve as dean of University of Virginia Law School; Richard Rosenthal, an appellate attorney and longtime friend to Jackson; and Capt. Frederick Thomas, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.
As several Republicans on the committee have painted Jackson as “soft on crime,” the GOP has called for their panel Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall; Jennifer Mascott, an assistant law professor at George Mason University; Eleanor McCullen, an anti-abortion rights activist; Keisha Russell of First Liberty; and Alessandro Serano, an activist against human trafficking.
Gabrielle Union has joined the cast of Apple TV+’s drama Truth Be Told as a new co-lead opposite Octavia Spencer for the show’s third season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The anthology series, based on Kathleen Barber‘s novel of the same name, follows Spencer’s journalist-turned-true crime podcaster Poppy Scoville as she risks everything — including her life — to pursue truth and justice. The Cheaper by the Dozen star will play Eva, an outspoken high school principal who becomes embroiled in a problematic incident. Union follows Aaron Paul, Lizzy Caplan and Kate Hudson, who shared top billing with Spencer in the show’s first and second seasons, respectively…
Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden is in final talks to replace Geena Davis in CBS’ as yet untitled ‘Mother & Son Legal Drama Pilot,’ according to Deadline. She would star opposite Skyler Astin‘s “talented but directionless PI” and “black sheep of the family” who agrees to work as the in-house investigator for his recently divorced, overbearing mother, whom Harden would play…
NYPD Blue alum Jimmy Smits has been tapped to star as the male lead opposite The Leftovers‘ Amanda Warren in the CBS pilot East New York, according to Variety. The pilot follows Regina Haywood — played by Warren — the newly promoted deputy inspector in an impoverished Brooklyn neighborhood whose creative methods of serving and protecting don’t sit well with some of the diverse group of officers and detectives. Smits will star as 3-Star Chief John Suarez, whose “experience, commanding presence and strong moral center helps oversee the melding of communities and the precincts that serve them”…
King Richard‘s Tony Goldwyn is the latest actor to join the star-packed cast of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The star-studded roster already includes Jason Clarke, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, and Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy, the latter of whom plays the title role as J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the creators of the atomic bomb. The project has been filming for several weeks in New Mexico…
Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
Joe Jonas was one of Jimmy Fallon‘s Tonight Show guests on Wednesday and discussed a number of things, including the Jonas Brother‘s ritual of warming up before a show with a theatrical version of “All Star” by Smash Mouth.
“I find it really warms my vocals up and gets me in the right mindset,” Jonas explained, after which Jimmy pulled out a microphone and coaxed Joe into giving the audience a demonstration..
Joe also talked about the Jonas Brothers’ Las Vegas five-night mini residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM on June 3, 4, 9, 10 and 11, his collaboration with Tanqueray, Bridgerton, and the Elvis impersonator who officiated his marriage to Sophie Turner — the latter of which turned out to be a big mistake.
“Everybody signed [non disclosure agreements] except Elvis,” he explained. “He didn’t do anything crazy, but we woke up and turned on the local news and there he is…doing interviews.”
“We also had Ring Pops as our wedding rings, and he was trying to sell the Ring Pop wrappers on eBay,” he added.
Earlier, Joe joined Jimmy in a game of TikTok Duets, where they took turns completing TikTok users’ songs with their own improvised lyrics.
(WASHINGTON) — Since 2020, legislation on race education has popped up across the country. A total of 35 states so far have signed into law or proposed legislation banning or restricting the teaching of critical race theory, the academic discipline at the center of the debate.
Critical race theory, mostly taught in universities and colleges, seeks to understand how racism has shaped U.S. laws.
Many legislators have been invoking critical race theory broadly in their attempts to restrict discussions of race in the classroom and in government agency diversity training.
These Republican-led efforts have continued to move forward in many states across the country. However, in some states, the bills have fallen short.
A total of 16 states so far have signed into law bills restricting education on race in classrooms or state agencies.
There are currently 19 states that are considering bills or policies that restrict race education in schools or state agencies.
Six states failed to pass this type of legislation.
Eight states have yet to introduce any legislation on this topic.
Officials who back these bills argue that educators are indoctrinating students with certain lessons on race that make people feel “discomfort” or “shame.”
“We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or to hate each other,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has introduced restrictions on diversity education for schools as well as private corporations.
He continued, “Finally, we must protect Florida workers against the hostile work environment that is created when large corporations force their employees to endure CRT-inspired ‘training’ and indoctrination.”
Educators and some parents argue these bills would censor teachers and students, as well as place restrictions on discussions on racial oppression.
Proponents of critical race theory say that some opponents are portraying “critical race theory” as something harmful to reverse progress made in diversity and racial equity.
“There’s long-term resentment against people of color speaking up for civil rights,” Justin Hansford, a law professor at Howard University, told ABC News. “If you don’t see race, that doesn’t really help anybody. It’s ignoring the truth.”
Lawsuits against anti-CRT laws have already popped up in two of the states that passed them, Oklahoma and New Hampshire.
(NEW YORK) — As governments scramble to seize high-profile assets owned by Russian oligarchs, a quiet effort is gaining momentum in the West to target their alleged “enablers” — the lawyers, lobbyists and money-handlers who critics say help them hide, invest and protect their vast wealth in U.S. and European institutions.
“The yachts and jets and villas get the most attention, but a lot of the oligarchs’ money is in private equity and hedge funds – places we can’t see,” said Maira Martini, a researcher with the corruption watchdog Transparency International. “That’s the money that really matters to them.”
For decades, wealthy business tycoons with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin have enlisted the services of reputable bankers and lawyers in the West to navigate loopholes that obscure their identity. While it’s not necessarily illegal to use obscure entities and agents to protect finances, critics say the laws need to be strengthened to create more transparency.
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a global investigative reporting platform that focuses on corruption, organized crimes and illicit financing, claims to have uncovered over 150 assets worth $17.5 billion held by 11 Russian elites and their alleged enablers, while a Forbes report identified more than 82 properties across the world — a collective of $4.3 billion — held by 16 sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
Assets that have surfaced are likely only a fraction of these oligarchs’ actual wealth. The true extent is difficult to track because they often use a convoluted network of shell companies, obscure entities and stand-ins to keep their finances hidden, experts said.
But now, with war raging in Ukraine, lawmakers and corruption watchdogs are calling on governments to close those loopholes and crack down on the middlemen who know how to exploit them.
“Putin’s oligarchs cannot operate without their Western enablers, who give them access to our financial and political systems,” said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. “These unscrupulous lawyers, accountants, trust and company service providers and others need to do basic due diligence on their clients to ensure that they are not accepting blood money. This isn’t rocket science – it is common sense policy to protect democracy.”
In Washington, Cohen and others have introduced the ENABLERS Act, which would require real estate brokers, hedge fund managers and other entities to “ask basic due diligence questions whenever somebody comes to them with a suitcase full of cash,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., a co-sponsor of the bill.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a global network of journalists and newsrooms that have tracked the wealthy’s tax havens and financial secrecy, has identified at least a dozen networks of facilitators, offshore agents and banks across the world that have allegedly helped Russia’s elites move and hide their money based on its analyses of public records and leaked financial documents the group has obtained over the past decade.
This includes a range of actors, from global offshore law firms that create shell companies and other obscure entities to help wealthy Russians keep their finances clouded, to one-man shops in offshore tax havens that help set up “nominee” shareholders and paid stand-ins to conceal the real owners of entities.
ICIJ also points to the roles of major law firms in helping shape the modern tax avoidance system as well as the roles of big financial institutions and banks in helping wealthy Russians move their money.
Last year, The Washington Post, as part of its collaboration with ICIJ’s Pandora Papers project, reported on how South Dakota, with its limited oversight, vague regulations and trust secrecy, has become a tax haven for secretive foreign money.
Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., co-sponsor of the ENABLERS Act, stressed that the United States “has become one of the easiest places in the world for corrupt kleptocrats around the world to hide money.”
“What we’ve basically allowed is a system where people can steal their money in countries without the rule of law and then protect their money in countries like ours where they can count on property rights and courts and privacy rules to safeguard his loot for life,” Malinowski said. “We should not be complicit in the theft that supports dictatorships like Putin.”
Experts warned that sanctions and asset seizures, while effective in the short term, may be toothless over time if secrecy loopholes remain in place. On Wednesday, Transparency International published an open letter calling on Western leaders to take steps to stem rules that foster opacity.
“To disguise their wealth and keep them out of the reach of law enforcement authorities, kleptocrats will turn to lawyers, real estate agents, banks, crypto-service providers and banks in your countries,” the letter reads. “You must redouble your supervision efforts over the gatekeepers of the financial sector.”
(NEW YORK) — Even as most eligible Americans have yet to receive their first COVID-19 vaccine boosters, Pfizer and Moderna have now asked the Food and Drug Administration to authorize yet another booster dose — especially for elderly Americans, a group that tends to have weaker immune protection.
Pfizer asked the FDA to authorize fourth doses for people older than 65, while Moderna asked for authorization for everyone 18 and older (though company executives said the greatest need would be among older adults).
With the FDA advisory committee not slated to meet until April 6, and no vote scheduled, it could take the FDA weeks to decide whether or not to authorize Pfizer and Moderna’s fourth dose applications.
Meanwhile, many vaccine experts are not convinced fourth doses are needed so soon. Some are even skeptical fourth doses will be needed at all. And that is on top of the difficulty in getting millions to get their first and second shots, let alone their third and fourth.
“There are very few, if any, people who, in my opinion require a fourth dose,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, professor of international health and director of the center for immunization research at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“In general, it’s too early to recommend a fourth dose, except for those who are immune compromised,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an expert in vaccine design.
Roughly 3% of the U.S. population is immune compromised, and already eligible for fourth doses. But this group only includes people with very specific medical conditions, like cancer or organ transplant recipients — not the estimated 54 million adults over 65.
Not enough evidence yet for fourth shots: Experts
So far, many experts say there isn’t enough evidence to justify fourth doses, even for older adults, though more evidence could emerge in the future. Studies from Israel, a nation that has already implemented fourth doses, indicate that boosting again modestly enhances protection from infection.
In the study, 18% and 20% of healthcare workers who got a fourth shot of Pfizer or Moderna, respectively, developed an omicron infection. Among those with three shots — about 25% developed an omicron infection.
Although the existing COVID-19 vaccines are overwhelmingly safe, they do come with temporary side effects and the rare risk of temporary heart inflammation called myocarditis among young men.
“Unless there’s clear evidence something is of value, don’t give it,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
With Moderna and Pfizer now submitting fourth-dose booster data to the FDA on an ongoing basis, the FDA has convened meetings of its outside vaccine advisors to discuss the future of COVID-19 booster shots, how often they might be needed and whether variant-specific versions could be more beneficial.
With the FDA advisory committee not slated to meet until April 6, and no vote scheduled, it could take the FDA weeks to decide whether or not to authorize Pfizer and Moderna’s fourth dose applications.
Emphasis on boosters misplaced
For Offit, a vocal member of the FDA’s advisory committee, the national emphasis on booster shots has been somewhat misplaced. The primary goal of vaccines should be to protect against serious illness, he says, which overall, primary vaccines are still doing.
When the vaccines were first launched in December 2020, emphasis was placed on their ability to protect against COVID-19 infection. But now, with the passage of time and emergence of new variants, many vaccine experts argue this was always an impossibly high standard to maintain, and moving forward, the emphasis should be on their ability to protect against severe disease.
Now, more than a year later, data shows that boosters may shore up the body’s defenses against mild infections — but only temporarily.
“These vaccines continue to demonstrate high protection against hospitalization and severe disease,” Durbin agreed. “Prevention of infection, in my opinion, is not the metric that we should use.”
“We’re going to have to learn to live with mild disease at some point,” said Offit. Frequent boosting “is not a reasonable thing to do, and it’s not something most people will do anyway.”
Tailored vaccine may be better
A better approach, said Durbin, would be to roll out a tweaked vaccine that is a better match against the new omicron variant. Vaccine makers agree, with Pfizer and Moderna both studying new versions of their vaccines they hope will work better and offer more durable protection against current and future variants.
“We can’t have vaccines every five, six months,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, speaking on CNBC.
But until they have new-and-improved boosters ready to go, Pfizer and Moderna executives argue fourth doses will be needed by at least some older Americans soon.
In the United States, vaccination rates have stalled. Roughly a quarter of eligible adults have yet to receive their first vaccine doses, while about half of vaccinated adults have yet to receive their first boosters.
Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABC affiliate KGTV that older Americans might need a fourth dose “sooner or later,” but not yet.
The effectiveness of three shots is “holding pretty strong at around 78% efficacy against hospitalization,” Fauci said, “but if it goes any significantly lower than that, you certainly would consider the possibility of a fourth dose boost particularly among elderly and those with underlying diseases.”
At a White House briefing Wednesday, Fauci said fourth shots for older adults might be considered soon, but for the general population won’t be considered until “the beginning of fall, end of summer.”
While many vaccine experts have predicted that COVID-19 vaccination will become an annual shot, like the flu vaccine, others are still hopeful that three shots could be the magic number for many Americans.
“I do think three doses will be enough for some individuals,” said Goepfert, “but it depends on the new variants that will come next.”
