The trailer for Disney and Pixar’s Lightyear is here!
With the help of voice star Chris Evans, Good Morning America exclusively debuted the sneak peek of the action-adventure film, which Pixar describes as “the definitive story of the original Buzz Lightyear.”
In the Angus MacLane-directed project, which arrives in theaters on June 17, 2022, Evans voices the action hero that became the toy voiced by Tim Allen in the Toy Story films.
Pixar’s Pete Docter previously shared, “[B]ack when we created the very first Toy Story, we designed Buzz Lightyear with the idea that he was a toy based on some really cool character from an epic, blockbuster film. Well, all these years later, we decided it’s time to make that film.”
MacLane, a longtime Pixar employee who co-directed Finding Dory, tells GMA the film will be both serious and funny, “but not goofy.”
“Say The Incredibles, where it is humorous, but you’re never feeling like the characters are mocking their concern for their own safety — it is a world of stakes and peril and death,” MacLane explained. “And so this is a film where we find out about Buzz Lightyear and the origins of the Space Rangers…It’s a film that celebrates that feeling you would get watching the sci-fi movies of the late ’70s and early ’80s.”
MacLane said Captain America himself, Evans, was a “tremendous creative partner” and the perfect choice to voice the “real life” hero.
“[Buzz] says really, really goofy things really, really seriously and takes the job very seriously, and so for me, there were very few actors that could pull off an earnestness and…the comedy of that.”
Adam Levine is addressing the now-viral incident where a fan grabbed him on stage during a concert at the Hollywood Bowl over the weekend.
In a clip of the moment, posted to TikTok, a woman is seen rushing the stage and touching Adam before security takes her away. Adam reacts by shaking off the encounter and is seen mouthing an expletive before continuing with his performance.
While some criticized his reaction, the Maroon 5 frontman took to his Instagram Story to clarify that he “loves, respects and worships” his fans but he was “startled” by the encounter.
“To think that anyone would believe that I thought that our fans were beneath us or less than us makes my stomach turn,” he says. “That’s just not who I am. That’s not who I’ve ever been.”
“I just need you guys to know I was really startled,” he continues. “And sometimes when you’re startled… you have to shake it off and move on cause I’m doing my job up there. It’s what I pride myself on.”
Adam concludes his message, “I need to let you guys know what my heart is, and my heart is that connection that exists between the band performing onstage and the fans.”
(NEW YORK) — Amid a nationwide campaign to promote COVID-19 booster shots, vaccine scientists and public health experts say vaccines are still holding up remarkably well for most people — depending on how effectiveness is measured.
In fact, many scientists now worry that the recent booster shot authorization could give the false impression that existing vaccines are no longer offering protection.
“They all work well,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, an infectious disease physician and director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic. “They aren’t perfect by any means. But if your bar is prevention of hospitalizations in the United States, they still work incredibly well.”
A vaccine’s effectiveness can be measured in several different ways. One is their ability to protect people from mild infections. When first authorized, Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines proved 95% and 94% effective using this threshold, and Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine proved 75% effective.
“No vaccine entirely prevents disease,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Even protecting from mild infections is “a high bar for a vaccine,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an FDA advisory panel member and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
And even if a vaccine achieves that high bar, t quickly starts waning. Antibodies, which protect against infection, surge after vaccination — but then rapidly fade. Other parts of the immune system, like T cells and B cells, remain more stable over time, protecting against severe disease and death.
Scientists and public health experts say what really matters is a vaccine’s ability to prevent severe illness and hospitalization. And on that metric, all three vaccines performed well from the start — each more than 90% effective — and have remained relatively stable, even through the emergence of a new delta variant
“It’s the unusual vaccine that protects you against mild illness,” Offit said. “It’s OK to get infected. It really is. You just don’t want to get seriously infected.”
A comprehensive study from New York state offers a glimpse of this phenomenon, finding that all three vaccines remained roughly 86% effective when it came to reducing the risk of being hospitalized with COVID-19 from May to August.
But over the same time frame, all three lost some ability to protect against breakthrough infection. Though vaccine efficacy started from a high point, from May to August, efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine declined by 25% to 14% depending on age, the Moderna vaccine declined 18% to 9% and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine declined 19% to 11%.
When it comes to booster shots, experts agree there are some people who clearly need them — chiefly, people with weakened immune systems and the elderly, who also mount a less robust immune response.
Today, more than 13 million people in the United States have already received a booster shot. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are authorized six months after the first shot for those 65 and older, and those at high risk of developing COVID-19. Johnson & Johnson boosters, meanwhile, are authorized for anyone at least two months after the first shot. After the Pfizer booster shots were authorized, CDC director Rochelle Walensky said it was a “walk, don’t run” situation, during a conversation with The Atlantic.
“There is no doubt that if you were to get a booster every two months or so, you may prevent all symptoms,” Durbin said. “But there’s a cost to that.”
It’s expensive, for one. And there are concerns that frequent boosting could dull the immune system’s ability to fight future variants, because the boosters could focus the immune response on the COVID-19 strain used to make the current vaccines.
Widely publicized concerns about breakthrough infections may have “focused the conversation prematurely on the need for boosters,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
“Concerns about waning immunity and breakthrough cases have likely been overblown,” Brownstein said.
And boosters for the vaccinated — while offering a temporary shield against mild infection — are unlikely to dramatically turn the tide of the pandemic.
“Boosting is not going to be what’s going to be the issue for us as a country,” said Goepfert. “It’s finding the people who are still unvaccinated.”
More of the lineup for the 2021 CMA Awards was unveiled this week, and it’s packed with stars. Jason Aldean will hit the stage with Carrie Underwood to perform their duet “If I Didn’t Love You,” which just reached the top of the country charts.
Kane Brown and Chris Young will contribute another megawatt duet: They’re going to perform their latest #1 hit, “Famous Friends,” which is the title track on Chris’ latest album.
Also just added to the bill are Miranda Lambert and Luke Combs. Old Dominion will take the stage, too, performing their new single “I Was on a Boat That Day.” Meanwhile, Chris Stapleton will perform “Cold,” which comes off his latest album, Starting Over.
The newest round of performers joins an already stacked bill: Previously-announced acts who’ll hit the stage include Eric Church, Dan + Shay, Blake Shelton and Carly Pearce with Ashley McBryde.
The 2021 CMA Awards airs on Wednesday, November 10 on ABC at 8 p.m. ET. The ceremony will take place in Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.
Italian band Måneskin have been announced as performers on the 2021 MTV Europe Music Awards on November 14.
The “Beggin'” rockers, whose name means “Moonlight” in Danish, will be making their debut on the awards show, where they’re nominated for Best Rock and Best Group. Latin superstar Maluma and German singer Kim Petras will also perform on the show, which will air live from Hungary at 3 p.m. ET across MTV’s various channels. Justin Bieber is the leading nominee, with eight nods.
In other Måneskin news, the Eurovision winners made their U.S. late-night TV debut Tuesday night on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, performing both “Beggin‘” and their new single, “Mammamia.” You can watch those performances now online.
(NEW YORK) — The travel industry is gearing up for what could be its busiest season since the coronavirus pandemic began, and at least one U.S. airline is aiming to make things quicker and easier — one face at a time.
Delta Air Lines is just days away from launching a first-of-its-kind pilot program that will implement facial recognition technology at two of America’s largest airports — in Atlanta and Detroit.
The Atlanta-based company partnered with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to create a completely touchless experience, from bag drop to security to boarding.
“So is this the future of flying?” asked ABC News transportation correspondent Gio Benitez.
“This is the future in so many ways,” replied Ranjan Goswami, Delta’s senior vice president of customer experience. “Basically, we want to make the airport experience as effortless as possible. What does that mean? Getting out of lines, not having to stop discombobulated.”
To participate in the voluntary pilot program, passengers must have TSA pre-check and be a member of Delta’s loyalty program.
When participating passengers arrive at the airport’s bag drop, TSA checkpoint or boarding gate, they will just need to lower their face mask to utilize the new technology. Their face will be recognized within seconds, and there will be no need to pull out a boarding pass or record locator.
Delta has previously used similar facial recognition technology for passengers to board some international flights.
And it’s not just Delta.
American Airlines started testing its own biometric screening for boarding in March, and that system is still being tested in Dallas.
“A lot of people may be wondering: ‘Wait a minute, what’s going to happen to my photo?'” Benitez asked. “‘Is Delta going to keep my information?'”
“It’s a very valid concern,” Goswami said. “First, we are not storing any photographic imagery at all. All we do is take your photo. And because you’ve uploaded your passport number as part of your Delta profile… we take that passport number and that picture. We just check it against the customs database from your passport photo.”
With Delta expecting more than 5.5 million travelers over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, the pilot program will come at the perfect time.
“It’s actually a good congruence of circumstances that we have this technology ready,” said Byron Merritt, Delta’s vice president of experience design. “We’re going to be able to bring it to life before the holidays and hopefully make a better experience for our customers as they come back.”
While no criminal charges have been filed in the October 21 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the Alec Baldwin film Rust, authorities say charges can’t yet be “ruled out.”
That’s the word to The New York Post from Juan Rios, the public information officer for the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office. “[H]onestly if people have information, they need to bring it to us…so we can check into that,” Rios said.
Given the number of witnesses, Rios added that the investigation into the incident last Thursday, during which Baldwin fired a live round toward the camera, fatally striking Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza, will be “going on for a while.”
“We need to be diligent…should there be charges ultimately filed that they are able to uphold those in court,” said Rios.
Baldwin and assistant director Dave Halls reportedly told investigators they didn’t know the revolver Baldwin fired contained a live round.
Meanwhile, the film’s gaffer, or set electrician, Serge Sventoy, took to Instagram to post what he said was among the last photos of Hutchins alive — inside the church where the crew was setting up the scene prior to the fatal shot. Sventoy said he was standing “shoulder-to-shoulder” with Hutchins when the shot rang out.
“I was holding in her my arms when she was dying,” he said, adding that the accident was “the fault of negligence and unprofessionalism.”
“The negligence from the person who was supposed to check the weapon…did not do this,” said Svetnoy. “The person who had to announce the loaded weapon was on the site did not do this.”
Hannah Gutierrez Reed was the armorer on the Rust set. Dave Halls is said to have announced that the gun apparently containing a live round was “cold,” meaning safe, before handing it to Baldwin.
“And the DEATH OF THE HUMAN IS THE RESULT!” Svetnoy said.
Meanwhile, ABC News has learned that Rust producers have hired their own legal team to conduct a separate investigation into the events and circumstances leading up to the fatal shooting. The film’s cast and crew were notified of the news Tuesday night in a note that declares, in part, “We know that reliving this tragedy will be hard, but your participation is important for all of us to be able to fully understand what happened, and we encourage you to share your perspective.”
(NEW YORK) — As colder temperatures begin to settle in for many parts of the nation, schools are set to lose critical tools to keep students and staff safe from coronavirus spread, such as extended outdoor time and open windows.
Despite this disadvantage, medical experts and physicians say elementary and middle school administrators can still limit the spread of the virus during the next couple of months as the vaccine rollout begins for younger age groups.
“Hopefully this year will not lead to the surge we saw last winter,” Dr. Anne Liu, clinical associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Stanford Health, told ABC News.
Liu and other experts said the best thing schools can do is to maintain masking indoors, consistent testing, proper hand-washing practices and social distancing where applicable.
While not all schools will have up-to-date ventilation systems, masking indoors will ensure that the virus doesn’t spread among students, she said. Testing will also help keep any potential cases and outbreaks from spreading, according to medical experts.
Dr. Allison Bartlett, associate professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Chicago Medicine, told ABC News that schools have already gotten into the habit of implementing these measures and, most importantly, kids have become accustomed to wearing masks.
“We now have months of experience in the real world in school settings in terms of COVID transmission and how effectively masking in schools works,” she said.
Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, noted that mass rapid testing has also helped schools stop the spread and will be essential to keeping schools open during the winter.
“This allows kids that may have had an exposure to test and stay in school as long as they have daily negative test results,” Brownstein said.
Bartlett and other medical experts who have been studying pediatric coronavirus cases said the best tool against coronavirus spread in schools during the winter will be the approval of COVID-19 vaccines for younger students.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration voted Tuesday to allow the Pfizer mRNA vaccine to be used for 5-to 11-year-olds. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are slated to vote on approving the vaccine for that age group as early as next week.
The Pfizer vaccine has been available to anyone over 12 since the spring after it was given an emergency use authorization. The FDA fully approved the Pfizer vaccine for anyone 16 and older in August.
Liu, who reviewed the data Pfizer sent to the FDA last week on 5- to 11-year-olds, said the clinical trials have shown the vaccine to be very effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths among that age group, so as more kids receive their doses, the safer classrooms will be in the winter.
Although it will take about five weeks for a student to be fully vaccinated from both doses, including the two-week period to build immunity after their second dose, Liu said that young students will be in a better place the minute they start their vaccination process.
“One shot alone provided strong protection based on that data,” she said.
Bartlett, who has three sons, two of whom are under 12, said that if the vaccines are approved in November, it would ensure that students have that protection preceding the holidays when they are likely to be celebrating indoors with large groups of people.
Coming back from winter break, schools will be able to mitigate any loss of outdoor space and or decreased ventilation if more of their students are vaccinated, Bartlett said. And the vaccinations could help ease class interruptions in another way, she said.
“We’ll hopefully be able to manage vaccinated children in a way that they could probably stay in school if exposed to someone with COVID and not have that disruption in their learning,” she said.
Bartlett warned that it will take a while before schools can start rolling back masking requirements because that will depend on vaccination rates among students.
“As eager as I am to get kids out of masks, I’m really in the mind to go slow,” Bartlett said. “Kids are doing an amazing job dealing with wearing masks and getting our kids able to get vaccinated will be a big motivator to get the pandemic under control.”
Bartlett added that parents must also be aware of the overall COVID-19 transmission rates within their community during the winter, because it will impact the number of cases in schools.
“I think it all could be enough, but the major contributor among kids in schools is what goes on outside the schools in the community,” she said. “If we don’t do a good job in controlling transmissions for adults it will bleed into the schools.”
Christopher Polk/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Gwyneth Paltrow shared a little-known story about giving birth to her daughter Apple and revealed she “almost died” during the difficult delivery.
Speaking on Dax Shepard‘s Armchair Expert podcast, the Oscar winner opened up about the traumatic labor, which she said lasted 70 hours.
“I had two caesareans. My daughter was an emergency,” said Paltrow, 49. “It was crazy, we almost died. It was like not good.”
The Iron Man star declined to go into details over the complications she suffered and instead reflected on how the pregnancy physically changed her.
“Anyway, there’s a big scar across your body, and you’re like, ‘Oh, wow, that didn’t use to be there,'” Paltrow remarked. “And it’s not that it’s bad, or you want to judge it, but you’re just like, ‘Oh, my God.'”
The actress said she is thankful she became pregnant before the rise of social media and reflected on how the internet pressures new moms to snap back into shape.
Said the mom of two, “Thank God there wasn’t Instagram when I had babies because now it’s like — if I see someone, ‘Oh, I just gave birth two weeks ago and I have a completely washboard stomach,’ and I’m like, ‘Wow that’s not what I [had!]'”
Paltrow, who attested she was not shaming other women or their bodies, expressed concern that this mentality is pitting moms against each other by making birth an unnecessary competition.
“It’s past perfectionism,” she remarked. “It’s like, ‘I can do this gargantuan task that’s superhuman’… And why? For what?”
Paltrow shares Apple, who is 17, and 15-year-old Moses with ex-husband Chris Martin.
Ed Sheeran’s album isn’t here quite yet, but that didn’t stop him from giving fans a taste of what to expect.
During an impressive NPR Tiny Desk Concert, which premiered on Tuesday, the British singer-songwriter previewed an unreleased song titled “Overpass Graffiti.” The song, which is set to appear on his upcoming album, = (Equals), is set to an upbeat, bouncy beat while the lyrics tell a story of someone who will always have fond memories of his previous lover, despite their break up.
“I will always love you for what it’s worth/ We’ll never fade like graffiti on the overpass/ I know time may change the way you think of us/ But I’ll remember the way we were,” Sheeran sings in the chorus.
Sheeran also performed “Visiting Hours,” “Shivers” and “Bad Habits,” his hit singles that preceded the album, in addition to a surprise cover of Foy Vance‘s “Make it Rain.”
