Michael Bublé is ramping things up for the release of his new album, Higher, due out March 25.
The Canadian superstar has booked a series of TV appearances for later this month, including The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on March 16, and both Good Morning America and The View on March 18. On March 29, he’ll appear on The Kelly Clarkson Show.
Michael then heads to Europe for a series of promotional appearances, and will then return to the U.S. for his previously announced Las Vegas residency at Resorts World, which runs April 27 to May 7.
Meanwhile, he’s just released the Latin-flavored title track of Higher, one of the original tracks on the new album.
As previously reported, Higher also features a duet with country legend Willie Nelson on Nelson’s song “Crazy,” a cover of Paul McCartney‘s song “My Valentine” that was produced by the Beatles legend himself, and Michael’s renditions of standards and pop classics like Bob Dylan‘s “Make You Feel My Love” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”
A teenager and an older man dying from dementia form a special bond in the new Apple TV+ series The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, premiering today.
Dominique Fishback, who stars alongside Samuel L. Jackson, tells ABC Audio there were a lot parallels between herself and her character, Robyn, including an incident that happened just last week.
“[It was the] ten-year anniversary of my grandma passing from cancer. She had to live in an apartment with my mom and I in east New York, Brooklyn,” the Judas and the Black Messiah actress recalls. “It was very small. We don’t really have the tools, the money to like, make sure she is the most comfortable. But you do what you can and you give love how you can. And when I saw this and saw that this character was going to be the caretaker of this man when everybody else kind of left him alone, left him to rot, I thought that that was really empowering.”
Fishback, 30, says she also learned a lot from her 73-year-old co-star, including one important lesson.
“Sam, he shows up to set and he just is who he is. He is himself. And that’s the greatest gift that you can give anybody and you can give yourself is to be yourself. And even if you feel like you made a mistake, you say, like, ‘I was just being myself.’ You just got to be yourself at the end of day,” she shares.
The six-episode limited series The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey kicks off with the first two episodes, followed with a new one streaming every Friday thereafter.
Emilio Delgado, the actor best known for playing Luis on the popular PBS kids series Sesame Street, died at his home Thursday of multiple myeloma, which Delgado had been battling since December 2020, his agent, Renee Glicker, tells The New York Times. He was 81. The beloved Mexican-American actor played Luis, the Fix-It Shop owner, for a total of 44 years. He took a brief hiatus from the show in the late 80s, but returned within a year. In between Sesame Street appearances, Delgado appeared in a number of popular primetime TV series, including Quincy, Hawaii Five-O, Falcon Crest, House of Cards, and three iterations of the Law & Order franchise. He was a recurring cast member of Lou Grant, appearing in 19 episodes as National Editor Rubin Castillo…
Austin Butler, who had a breakout role in Baz Lurhann‘s Elvis biopic, is in talks to join the cast of Dune: Part 2, the sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Butler would play Feyd-Rautha, the cunning nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the villain played by Stellan Skarsgård. Black Widow’s Florence Pugh is also in talks to play play Princess Irulan Corrino, daughter of the galactic emperor, who forms a relationship with Paul Atreides, portrayed by Timothée Chalamet. Dune: Part 2, which also stars original cast members Chalamet, Skarsgård, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Dave Bautista and Zendaya, is slated for an October 2023 release…
Peaky Blinders‘ sixth and final season is heading to Netflix on June 10, according to Variety. Cillian Murphy returns as Tommy Shelby, leader of the Birmingham-based criminal gang. Paul Anderson, Finn Cole, Anya Taylor-Joy and Sophie Rundle are also back, along with Stephen Graham. Helen McCrory‘s character, Aunt Polly, will not return, following the actress’ tragic death from cancer this past April…
HGTV’s popular home renovation series Flip or Flop will end after its current 10th season. Hosts Tarek El Moussaand Christina Haack revealed the news in separate Instagram posts, and HGTV confirmed the news in a statement obtained by Deadline, writing, “Tarek El Moussa and Christina Haack are long-time, fan favorite stars on HGTV and it’s true that Flip or Flop is coming to an end after an epic 10-season run as a top-rated unscripted series…We look forward to seeing more of Tarek and Christina’s real life, real estate and renovation adventures in upcoming episodes of their solo series Flipping 101 with Tarek El Moussa and Christina on the Coast.” Flip or Flop‘s series finale is set for Thursday, March 17…
Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Baseball fans rejoice: Your favorite teams will be taking the field in just under four weeks.
Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association announced Thursday that they have reached a new collective bargaining agreement. The deal was approved by the MLBPA and later ratified by team owners unanimously Thursday night, bringing an end to the three-month lockout.
The news comes after the league had announced a day earlier that it was scrapping a second week of games, pushing Opening Day until April 14, because both sides had failed to reach an agreement.
With the new CBA in place, the 2022 regular season will begin on April 7, with Spring Training games beginning next week.
“I am genuinely thrilled to be able to say that Major League Baseball is back and we’re going to play 162 games,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said at a press conference Thursday.
“I do want to start by apologizing to our fans,” he continued. “I know that the last few months have been difficult. There’s a lot of uncertainty, at a point in time when there’s a lot of uncertainty in the world. [It’s] sort of the way the process of collective bargaining works sometimes, but I do apologize for it.”
“One of the good things about collective bargaining is that it gives our players an opportunity to have input on what their workplace and the game is going to look like going forward. And they took full opportunity to provide that input during these negotiations,” Manfred added. “Our players are great, great athletes. I respect them. And I respect the input that we received from them during this process. And we really did learn a lot.”
Under the new five-year CBA, the postseason will expand to 12 teams, minimum salaries will be increased, competitive balance tax thresholds will be raised and a universal designated hitter will be introduced, among other changes.
After almost a week of teasing, Dua Lipa and Megan Thee Stallion treated fans to their new song “Sweetest Pie.”
The first-time collaborators released the track at midnight Friday, with a seductively, sweet music video to match, directed by Dave Meyers. Dua’s smooth vocals are a nice compliment to Megan’s flow as the two make use of the double entendre that is the song title.
“Uh, this the ride of your life / hold on ’cause, baby, I might / I might just give you a bite of the sweetest pie / Uh, baby, we can go fast / I’ll drive and you just lay back / I got the flavour that lasts / yeah, the sweetest pie,” the English singer-songwriter sings in the chorus.
Megan’s verses are just as suggestive and full of double meanings with lyrics like “I got cake and I know he want a slice.”
Both Dua and Megan first teased “Sweetest Pie” on their Instagrams last weekend. Dua’s post featured a tiny snippet of the song, while the “Savage” rapper showed photos of herself and Dua on a series of cakes.
In addition to the two now having a song together, fans attending Dua’s Future Nostalgia tour will possibly get the chance to see them perform together since Megan will be featured as the opening act starting March 15.
In the meantime, “Sweetest Pie” is available to stream now.
(NEW YORK) — Inside hundreds of pharmacies across the country, high-risk Americans who test positive for COVID-19 have been told they will soon be able to find and fill a prescription for oral medication directly at the store.
The new White House “test to treat” program, touted as a one-stop shop for antiviral pills from Pfizer and Merck, aims to create a free and streamlined approach to get sick people the lifesaving care they need, when they need it.
Although Pfizer and Merck’s COVID-19 pills were authorized in December, scarce supply has made them difficult to access.
Major pharmacies have already begun ordering their new “test to treat” supply directly from the federal government, and anticipate being able to start as early as this week. CVS will offer end-to-end access to the pills at their nearly 1,200 MinuteClinic locations as soon as this week, spokesperson Matthew Blanchette told ABC News, while a Walgreens spokesperson said patients will be able to get the antiviral pills at “select stores” where provider partners are available to assess and prescribe medication.
The idea is for everyday Americans to be able to visit their local pharmacy for a rapid test, and if positive, “you can be treated right there on the spot,” said Dr. Simone Wildes, an infectious disease expert from South Shore Health.
As clinic doors open to this new initiative, however, numerous puzzle pieces must align to ensure the smooth rollout the president has hoped for.
“We’re leaving no one behind or ignoring anyone’s needs as we move forward,” President Joe Biden said of the plan during his State of the Union address last week, emphasizing his administration has “ordered more pills than anyone in the world has.”
The program’s promised scope hinges on sufficient participating locations and drug supplies.
And in a development that could jeopardize the program’s future, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced this week that COVID-19 funding would be stripped from an upcoming government funding and Ukraine emergency aid package — an element hotly contested by some members.
Without this additional pandemic funding, the White House has warned there could be “dire” consequences: the U.S. could run out of pill supplies by the end of the summer.
The government has so far purchased 20 million doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill, Paxlovid, although it’s not expected to be widely available until later this spring.
And there are other hurdles. Test to treat’s reach is bounded by the requirement that there must be a prescribing health care provider on site, a feature at a fraction of the tens of thousands of pharmacies in the country.
Some pharmacy groups have chafed against the required authority, like a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistant, who must prescribe the pills on-site.
“We were anticipating something that would really have an impact on the pandemic and on patients being able to access medications and instead we’re underwhelmed with the missed opportunity of what this could have been,” said Michael Ganio, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ senior director of pharmacy practice and quality.
While the plan is a step in the right direction, “further action is needed” to enhance equity and access, National Association of Chain Drug Stores’ President and CEO Steven Anderson said, adding that the current test-to-treat plan “does not leverage fully the health and wellness professionals and access points in America’s pharmacies.”
Conversely, the American Medical Association called the plan “well-intentioned” but that it “oversimplifies challenging prescribing decisions by omitting knowledge of a patient’s medical history, the complexity of drug interactions, and managing possible negative reactions.”
The drugs are not appropriate for everyone. Merck’s Molnupiravir, for example, is not recommended during pregnancy or for minors, while Pfizer’s Paxlovid runs the risk of negatively interacting with other commonly prescribed drugs, including medicines that manage heart conditions and cholesterol, and those with severe kidney or liver problems.
Another issue, doctors say, is that patients will need to start taking the pills within days of developing symptoms, which means participating stores need to be convenient enough to access quickly, and with enough rapid tests to diagnose in time.
To connect patients with convenient pickup sites, the government is developing a website to help people find a site near them, set to launch later this month.
“The biggest issue is making sure that you get seen and diagnosed rapidly because you’ve got a five-day window of opportunity for Paxlovid to be optimally effective,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an infectious disease physician.
“If you’re a high-risk individual, you want to make the diagnosis as quickly as possible,” said Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of infectious diseases at South Shore Hospital. “And then make contact with a health care provider.”
(WASHINGTON) — The last time Democrats gathered in-person for a caucus retreat, in 2019, the House majority crafted an agenda centered on plans for a bipartisan infrastructure bill and lowering prescription drug prices.
Three years later, with full control of Congress and the White House, but facing historic headwinds in the midterm elections, an ongoing pandemic and record-high inflation, Democrats argued that they had a substantive record to sell to voters, even if their agenda remained unfinished.
“If our agenda is incomplete it doesn’t mean we are broken, it means we have to keep working,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., the chair of House Democrats’ campaign committee, told reporters Thursday. “We know what the stakes are.”
Last year, President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan into law with bipartisan support, clearing the way for repairs to America’s aging roads, bridges and airports and new investments in broadband.
But the larger social policy plan has been stuck on Capitol Hill, with progressives in the House and several moderate Democrats in the Senate at odds over its scope and scale.
In his State of the Union speech, Biden, who will travel to Philadelphia on Friday to address the caucus, reframed his policy agenda as a plan to fight inflation, and urged lawmakers to revisit lowering prescription drug and child care costs.
“We just have to figure it out and see what’s possible,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., a leading progressive, said Thursday. “The hard reality of 50 votes in the Senate and 218 votes in the House is the reality we’ll have to focus in on.”
Huddling after a bruising spending bill fight over coronavirus funds that delayed the start of their retreat, Democrats held several sessions with guest speakers and experts on reaching seniors and young voters, national security and immigration.
Maloney, who gave members a presentation on the midterm outlook for the party, acknowledged to reporters that although the president’s party traditionally loses seats in the midterm elections, Democrats are campaigning on more favorable terrain thanks to unexpected redistricting results that created more districts that were won by Biden in the previous election.
“We came out of redistricting with a better map than the one through which we currently hold the majority,” Maloney said, while also acknowledging that Republicans are supported by outside political groups that have outraised their Democratic counterparts.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, D-N.M., argued that Democrats also have a positive story to tell voters about the state of the pandemic, and can sell the benefits of the American Rescue Plan, the massive Democratic stimulus effort pumped into the economy after the election.
“In November of 2020 it was dark, we could not be with our families, and COVID was raging,” she told ABC News. “Now, a year and three months later, we are able to be with family and gather.”
Leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus laid out new plans to unveil proposed executive actions that the Biden administration could take to address unfinished agenda items on policing and voting rights, which have also stalled in Congress given GOP opposition and the 50-50 split Senate.
Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., held out hope that some voting measures Democrats have pushed for could also be included in any potential reforms to the Electoral Count Act put forward by a bipartisan group of senators.
For their part, Republicans have continued to hammer Biden and Democrats over rising gas prices and inflation, unveiling new ads targeting swing-district Democrats and predicting that prices will only increase given the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
Democrats repeatedly acknowledged the problem of inflation and rising prices but have attempted in recent days to reframe soaring gas prices as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and a sacrifice that Americans should be prepared to make as the West sanctions Russia and supports Ukraine’s democratic government under attack.
“What is the price that we as individuals will want to contribute in solidarity with the Ukrainian people?” Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said Thursday. “If it means paying a few extra cents at the gas tank, then we’re willing to pay that.”
Maloney also told Democrats they need to think more carefully about how they communicate with voters.
“We need to talk like real people, and pass what I call the Maloney brothers test: If you go home for Thanksgiving and your brothers think you sound like a jerk — you know, what your grade point average was — it doesn’t matter to them. You have to show up and be a human being,” he said.
The president’s role in the midterms, Maloney said, is to be the “strong, decent man” who “crushed” his State of the Union address and is “leading the world to stand up to Russian aggression.”
(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, coming within about 9 miles as of Friday.
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 11, 6:48 am
UN bolstering assistance for growing number of displaced people
The U.N. said it is increasingly concerned about the nearly two million internally displaced people and nearly 13 million impacted by the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
Of particular concern are supplies of food, water, medicines and other necessities that are urgently needed in the hard-hit cities of Kharkiv and Mariupol, according to UNHCR spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh. Access to these areas remains restricted because of military operations and hazards like land mines.
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is working to provide heating stations at border crossings for those who are particularly vulnerable and is also working to roll out cash assistance.
Mar 11, 5:05 am
Number of refugees from Ukraine rises to 2.5 million
The number of refugees in the Ukraine crisis has increased to 2.5 million, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Commissioner Filippo Grandi called the conflict “senseless” in a tweet and said that the number of displaced people inside Ukraine had reached about two million.
Mar 11, 4:49 am
Putin orders Russian military to help volunteer fighters from Middle East travel to Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his defense minister to assist “volunteer” fighters to travel to Ukraine to join Russian forces there.
The order appears to relate to Russian efforts to recruit Syrian fighters that U.S. officials have said are underway.
Russia’s defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, claimed to Putin that 16,000 volunteers from “the Middle East” had expressed a desire to come.
Shoigu claimed that the fighters, who he said had experience fighting ISIS, wanted to come not for money but a “sincere” desire to help.
U.S. officials have said they believe Russia is recruiting Syrians experienced in urban combat from its areas held by its ally, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. They are reported to be being offered just a few hundred dollars.
Mar 10, 11:08 pm
Senate approves $1.5 trillion funding bill with supplemental aid to Ukraine
The Senate passed a $1.5 trillion government funding bill late Thursday that includes $13.6 billion in supplemental aid to Ukraine by a vote of 68-31.
The legislation will now head to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
In a statement, White House press secretary Jen Psaki thanked leaders for “getting this bill done” and said Biden “looks forward to signing it into law.”
“With these resources, we will be able to deliver historic support for the Ukrainian people as they defend their country and democracy,” she said in part.
The supplemental Ukrainian aid is split between defense and nondefense funding. The $1.5 trillion also includes funding for many of the administration’s priorities as well as sizable amounts for defense spending.
Mar 10, 10:43 pm
Biden to call for end to normal trade relations with Russia: Source
President Joe Biden will call for an end to normal trade relations with Russia on Friday, following their invasion of Ukraine, according to a source familiar with the matter. The decision would give the White House clearance to increase tariffs on the Kremlin.
“Tomorrow President Biden will announce that the U.S., along with the G-7, European Union, will be calling to revoke Most Favored Nation status for Russia, or called permanent normal trade relations, ‘PNTR,’ in the U.S.,” according to the source. “Each country will implement based on its own national processes. President Biden and the administration appreciate the bipartisan leadership of Congress and its calls for the revocation of the PNTR. Following the announcement tomorrow, the Admin looks forward to working with Congress on legislation to revoke PNTR.”
A bipartisan group of lawmakers has already publicly voiced support for this move.
(NEW YORK) — March marks two years since the coronavirus pandemic upended life across the globe.
Although the nationwide quarantine was initially meant to last only 14 days, in the hope of slowing down the spread of the virus, two weeks eventually turned into a two-year ordeal, lasting far longer than health experts had initially predicted.
“Two years ago, I, like many other people, thought that restrictions would be over in two months. If someone told me we would still be wearing masks after two years — and effective vaccines — I probably would have done things a little differently,” David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News.
“Part of what has made this so exhausting is that we’ve thought, time and again, that the end of the pandemic was just a month or two away. But we’ve finally come to realize that a ‘pandemic end date’ just isn’t coming anytime soon,” Dowdy added.
Although studies now demonstrate that the virus had already commenced its rapid spread across the country in late 2019, many Americans were still completely unaware of what the “novel coronavirus” was, and of the looming health crisis — one that would underscore the lack of national and global preparedness to deal with such a pandemic.
It was only when positive cases reached U.S. soil that most Americans began to take notice of the growing crisis.
Former President Donald Trump was quick to try to quell concerns, repeatedly telling the public that the situation was under control.
“It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” Trump predicted in late February 2020. “The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
However, the spread of the virus would soon soar to unprecedented levels, in a rapid escalation that led states and cities to shut down, and families to retreat to their homes.
Now, despite the creation of vaccinations and treatments, there have been nearly 965,000 American lives confirmed lost to the virus.
Early predictions from the Trump Administration in late March of 2020 estimated between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans could lose their lives, though the president told reporters at a White House briefing that he believed the death toll would be “substantially below” 100,000.
Many experts believe that the current COVID-19 death totals are undercounted due to inconsistent reporting by states and localities, and also by the exclusion of records of excess deaths — a measure of how many lives have been lost beyond what would be expected if the pandemic had not occurred.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since Feb. 1, 2020, there have been more than one million excess deaths.
March 1, 2020: New York confirms its first COVID-19 case
New York was hit hard in the early weeks of the pandemic. On March 1, 2020, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the state’s first confirmed case of COVID-19. New York City would, in a matter of weeks, become the nation’s viral epicenter, with COVID-19-positive patients soon overwhelming hospitals, and city morgues, leaving the Big Apple at a standstill, shuttering businesses and creating a mass exodus from the city’s boroughs to surrounding suburbs.
“This is a different beast that we’re dealing with. It is going to be weeks, and weeks, and weeks, weeks and weeks. This is going to be a long day, and it’s going to be a hard day, and it’s going to be an ugly day, and it’s going to be a sad day,” Cuomo warned the public during one of his press conferences that March.
March 6, 2020: Trump proclaims ‘anybody’ can get a COVID-19 test
In the days that followed, there would be a growing demand for COVID-19 tests, across the country, as more Americans began to exhibit symptoms.
However, despite a March 6, 2020, proclamation by Trump that “anybody that wants a test can get a test,” the demand for COVID-19 testing would soon outpace the supply.
It would take seven months before the U.S. would ramp up testing enough to test one million Americans a day.
“Though two years of a pandemic has yielded significant scientific achievements in vaccines, therapeutics and testing, it has also unearthed huge deficits in public health infrastructure and our health care systems’ ability to deliver high quality equitable care. We were never properly prepared and even after 24 months we consistently underestimate this virus,” John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said Wednesday.
At the time, there were still no antiviral treatments or vaccines available to support health care workers as they faced an onslaught of patients in need.
March 9, 2020: Stock market circuit breaker sends shock waves across the country
By March 9, there were more warning signs that the virus would soon wreak havoc on the country, when an automatic circuit breaker safety mechanism was activated to stop stock prices from free falling.
Markets fell rapidly within minutes of the stock market opening, forcing a temporary halt to trading. The 15-minute pause was triggered after the S&P 500 plunged by more than 7%.
“The only way to avoid a recession would be a quick and very aggressive fiscal policy response by the Trump administration,” Moody’s Investor Services chief economist Mark Zandi told ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis at the time. “But this seems unlikely as the administration continues to significantly downplay the severity of the crisis.”
March 11, 2020: WHO declares COVID-19 a ‘pandemic’
The World Health Organization’s announcement on March 11, 202 that it had shifted its characterization of the virus to “pandemic,” marked a turning point in the pandemic.
That same day, Trump announced the U.S. was restricting travel by foreign nationals who had traveled to 26 specific European countries.
And on that night, the NBA announced it would suspend its season due to a COVID-19 outbreak, following a mid-game suspension of play between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder, while actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, on a shoot in Australia, announced, from isolation, that they had been diagnosed with coronavirus.
March 12, 2020 and the months that followed: A national and global shutdown
Starting March 12, 2020, Broadway theaters went dark for more than a year, after New York Gov. Cuomo announced that no gatherings of more than 500 people would be allowed, excepting schools, hospitals, mass transit, and nursing homes.
The National Hockey League suspended its season, and President Trump declared a national emergency in response to the COVID-19 crisis.
In the weeks and months that followed, millions of Americans would contract the virus, and hundreds of thousands would die.
“While many would like to declare this pandemic over at the two-year mark, we are still far from an acceptable state with over a thousand dying a day from this virus. Sheer exhaustion with public health mandates is not a reason to declare victory,” Brownstein said Wednesday.
Health experts stress that the virus will not go away overnight, and it will likely take years for the globe to fully recover from the pandemic.
“It’s going to take us a long time to recover mentally and emotionally from this pandemic,” Dowdy said. “As time goes on, those ‘near normal’ times will become the norm, and waves of disease and death the exception. We just may have a few more waves to ride before we get there.”
(NEW YORK) — Alabama became the latest state to remove permit requirements to carry a concealed gun in public, as multiple states debate similar measures this session.
Known as “permitless carry” or “constitutional carry” legislation, the bills have been roundly criticized by police and gun control advocates, who argue that removing permits poses a safety risk to citizens and officers. Proponents, meanwhile, claim that the permitting process is too onerous and that the laws ensure Second Amendment rights.
At hearings across the country in recent weeks, law enforcement officials have testified against these bills, which have proliferated in Republican states during the primary season.
“Police weighing in against permitless carry matters,” Shannon Watts, founder of Everytown subsidiary Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, told ABC News. “But I guess the question is at end of the day, those Republicans who are worried about being primaried, are they going to put public safety over their hopes for the primary election?”
Last year, six states — Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, Tennessee, Texas and Utah — enacted permitless carry measures, according to the Pew Research Center.
When Alabama’s law goes into effect next year, it will be one of 22 states where it is legal to carry a concealed gun without a permit, based on data compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun violence prevention organization.
Two other states — Indiana and Ohio — have recently passed similar bills, which await their respective governor’s signature or veto, while at least four others — Georgia, Nebraska, South Carolina and Wisconsin — are considering it.
In Ohio, Hamilton County Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey was one of more than 80 opponents to testify in December before a state Senate public safety committee against SB 215, which allows people 21 and older who are legally allowed to own a gun to conceal it without a permit. It also removes a requirement to tell officers about the firearm unless they ask.
“To allow people to carry concealed with no background check, no documentation of who they are and no training is dangerous,” McGuffey told ABC News. “I am not against the Second Amendment — the right to bear arms. What I’m asking people to do is consider that there must be some failsafe placed into the system.”
To get a concealed carry permit in Ohio requires a fee of at least $67, a background check and eight hours of training that covers safety features and public safety. The training is especially key, McGuffey said.
“I have 900 officers,” she said. “Our deputies are well-vetted for their backgrounds, their personalities, their integrity, their ability to follow rules and follow the law, and I would not hand one of them a gun with no training.”
Background checks are another important piece, McGuffey said. In 2021, Ohio issued 202,920 new or renewal concealed carry permits, denied 2,668 applicants who failed to meet state requirements and revoked another 420 licenses “for causes including felony convictions and mental incompetence,” according to a state attorney general’s report. McGuffey said she signed 93 revocations last year for people who were convicted of menacing, domestic violence, assault and other violent actions.
Despite widespread opposition from law enforcement and citizens, the bill passed the state legislature last week.
“Responsible gun owners should not be punished for lawfully practicing their constitutional rights,” state Sen. Terry Johnson, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement.
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has until March 15 to sign or veto SB 215 before it becomes law. He has not publicly indicated what he plans to do, though in a statement to Columbus, Ohio, ABC affiliate WSYX-TV, his spokesperson said the governor “has long supported the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.”
In Indiana, a constitutional carry bill is before Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s desk, after passing the state legislature Tuesday. Under HB 1296, anyone at least 18 years old who can legally carry a handgun would no longer need a permit to do so in the state.
Among those speaking out against the bill included the head of the Indiana State Police, local sheriffs and county prosecutors.
“What we have done now is we’ve taken away the one tool that police officers had out on the street to be able to act quickly and efficiently for not only their personal safety but for the safety of our communities,” Patrick Flannelly, vice president of the Indiana Association of Chiefs of Police, told Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV.
The opposition from state police and prosecutor associations swayed Republican state Sen. Kyle Walker, a lifetime National Rifle Association member who has a concealed carry permit, to vote no to the bill, he said.
The governor must sign or veto the bill within seven days, otherwise it becomes law. He has not publicly indicated what he plans to do.
“The governor will review every piece of legislation that comes across his desk and make the best determination for all Hoosiers,” Holcomb’s press secretary, Erin Murphy, told ABC News in a statement.
Alabama became the first state to sign a permitless carry bill into law this year on Thursday. HB 272 removes the requirement to obtain a permit to carry a concealed pistol.
“Unlike states who are doing everything in their power to make it harder for law abiding citizens, Alabama is reaffirming our commitment to defending our Second Amendment rights,” Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement. “I have always stood up for the rights of law abiding gunowners, and I am proud to do that again today.”
Among those who had spoken out against the bill were the Alabama Sheriffs Association, the Alabama Association of School Resource Officers and multiple local law enforcement agencies.
Opponents of permitless carry laws point to research from the National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that states that have passed permitless carry legislation have seen increases in gun violence. The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has also found that states with stronger gun laws have lower gun-death rates.
As Ohio’s bill sits on the governor’s desk, McGuffey continues to push for its veto.
“My sense is the citizens of Hamilton County are depending on our elected officials to use common sense when they are legislating bills that can potentially create violence, that can potentially put a gun in the hands of someone who absolutely should never have a weapon,” she said.
