The music world is mourning the death of Bat Out of Hell singer Meat Loaf, whopassed away Thursday at the age of 74. A cause of death is unknown at this time. The singer and actor, born Marvin Lee Aday, sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, appeared in more than 65 movies, and won a Grammy in 1994 for “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That).”
Among the many stars saluting Meat Loaf on social media was Adam Lambert, who played Eddie — the character Meat Loaf portrayed in The Rocky Horror Picture Show — in the 2016 revival of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Other tributes came from Meat’s former duet partner Cher, Rob Thomas and Bonnie Tyler who, like Meat Loaf, also recorded hit songs by Jim Steinman.
Here’s what the music world is saying about the operatic superstar singer:
Adam Lambert: “A gentle hearted powerhouse rockstar forever and ever. You were so kind. Your music will always be iconic. I’m sure you’re singing concerts in the great beyond. Rest In Peace sir. #MeatLoafRIP #Meatloaf”
Cher: “Had So Much Fun With Meatloaf When We Did “Dead Ringer”. Am Very Sorry For His Family,Friends,& Fans. Am I imagining It, or Are Amazing Ppl In The Arts Dying every other Day.”
Bonnie Tyler: “I am shocked & saddened by the sudden death of Meat Loaf. He was, as you might imagine, a larger than life character with a voice & stage presence to match & is one of those rare people who truly was a one off talent and personality. Rest In Peace.”
Boy George: “R.I.P Meatloaf. Love and prayers to all his family and close friends. He once turned me upside down in a Chinese Restaurant in St Johns Wood (London).”
Rick Astley: “Meat Loaf. What a legend. Rest in peace – Rick x.”
Rob Thomas: “I was sitting in a hotel lobby one evening with friends when a nice woman came over and said “Loaf would like you to come up to his room” I was taken aback but you gotta go where the loaf tells you to go. I went up to his room and he was sitting on his bed listening to a cassette of my local band, pre Matchbox, Tabitha’s Secret. It turned out he had been listening to that since the late 90s and was a big fan and just wanted to connect. It was a surreal and wonderful moment with a legend and I’m thankful for it. #rip Marvin and Long Live Loaf.”
After announcing that they’d be performing on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! Thursday night, Ghostpulled out just hours before showtime, and will now perform at a yet-to-be-announced later date.
In an Instagram post, the band wrote, “Children of the World!…more specifically those of you who had just started to prep your couches up for tonights’ @jimmykimmellive show. Well, it turned out that we had a bit too much going on in Reno” — the site of the band’s tour kickoff next week — “getting all our s*** together for the tour.”
The announcement continued, “Our good friends at Kimmel offered us to come back & play the show at a later date during our now imminent US tour. So cool your jets for today but get ready to rock with us over the coming weeks. Are you ready?”
As previously reported, Ghost’s co-headlining arena tour with Volbeat and Twin Temple will start January 25 in Reno, Nevada. The Swedish rockers’ fifth album, Impera, will be out March 11.
The first batch of performers for this year’s BRIT Awards, the British equivalent of the Grammys, has been announced.
Ed Sheeran, Doja Cat, ex-Oasis rocker Liam Gallagher, rising star Little Simz and British rapper Dave are all on the bill for the February 8 ceremony, which will be streamed on The BRIT’s YouTube channel live from London’s O2 arena for non-U.K. residents.
Artists, nominees and guests will need to present a negative COVID test before entering the venue, in addition to showing a vaccine passport. Front line emergency workers will be able to win tickets by entering a special contest. There will be an audience, but fans will be asked to wear masks while not eating, drinking or in their seats. Tickets are on sale now.
Other nominees include Glass Animals, Coldplay, Elton John and Dua Lipa, ABBA, Måneskin, Billie Eilish, Doja Cat, The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber, Lil Nas X, The Weeknd and Olivia Rodrigo.
Luke Combs is a first time dad-to-be. The singer and his wife, Nicole, shared on social media this week that they’re expecting their first child, a baby boy.
“Here we go y’all!” wrote Luke, alongside a series of pictures showing off Nicole’s baby bump and a sonogram image. “Lil dude Combs is coming this spring! Couldn’t be more excited to start a family with this babe. It’s gonna be a hell of a ride.”
Nicole also shared the same snapshots on her socials, writing that “this may be the best year yet.”
The couple have been married since August 2020, and they got engaged in 2018. Some of Luke’s greatest hits were written as love dedications to his wife, and the music video for his “Forever After All” even features footage of their wedding.
Luke’s fellow country stars were quick to jump into the comments section with their congratulations. Maren Morris, Gabby Barrett and Carly Pearce were just a few of the singers offering their excitement, and Kane Brown — another country superstar dad — also expressed his congrats, along with a warning.
“Congrats my guy!” Kane wrote. “Gonna be a lot harder to jump on Call of Duty now though.”
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin might meet in an effort to resolve the standoff over Ukraine and the threat of a Russian invasion.
“If it proves useful and productive for the two presidents to meet, to talk, to engage, to try to carry things forward, I think we’re fully prepared to do that,” Blinken said in Geneva, Switzerland, after holding talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
There were no breakthroughs in their meeting, he said, but the two sides have agreed to return to their capitals and hold consultations before meeting again — keeping the door to diplomacy open after weeks of heightened tensions over Russia’s massive troop buildup near Ukraine’s border.
Later, speaking with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America — asked whether it would take a summit to resolve the situation — Blinken confirmed the U.S. was open to that idea.
“That’s certainly something we’re prepared to do. Right now, the plan is to take stock of where we are next week after we share some ideas with Russia,” Blinken told ABC News.
Those ideas will be a written response to Russia’s two draft treaties, released publicly in December, where Moscow demanded that the U.S. and NATO bar Ukraine from joining the Western military alliance and pull troops back from Eastern European member states.
Those two demands are “nonstarters,” U.S. officials have said, but after repeated Russian requests for a written response, Blinken confirmed Friday that the U.S. will provide one before he and Lavrov meet again.
“There are certain issues and fundamental principles that the United States and our partners and allies are committed to defend. That includes those that would impede the sovereign right of the Ukrainian people to write their own future. There is no trade space there – none,” Blinken told reporters.
That disagreement has left three previous rounds of talks last week to end inconclusively — between the U.S. and Russia, NATO and Russia, and at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. But Russia has dismissed more talks with European countries, instead seeking direct engagement with the U.S. — and to create a rift between the U.S. and its NATO allies.
Blinken said after Friday’s high-stakes meeting that he would return to Washington to consult Biden, members of Congress, and allies and partners.
“Based on our discussion, I believe we can carry forward this work of developing understanding agreements together that ensure our mutual security, but that’s contingent on Russia stopping its aggression toward Ukraine,” he said.
But that’s unlikely to happen any time soon. Russia now has some 100,000 troops massed on three sides of Ukraine, including in Crimea, the peninsula it annexed in 2014, and Belarus, Ukraine’s neighbor to the north where strongman Alexander Lukashenko has increasingly relied on Russian support to prop him up.
Lavrov did not commit to pull those troops back, but said again that Russia is not going to attack Ukraine. He urged Blinken to focus on Russia’s security proposals rather than the heightened tensions over Ukraine, he said at his own press conference afterwards.
“I haven’t heard any point today that would justify the American position on what is happening on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Only concerns, concerns, concerns,” Lavrov told reporters, calling the State Department’s stated concerns about Russian actions “blatant lies.”
Despite that brusque tone, Blinken said the two sides left the meetings with a “better understanding” of each other’s positions – calling it “not a negotiation, but a candid exchange of concerns and ideas.”
Whether that means Russia is engaging in good faith, or whether Putin still continue to destabilize Ukraine and even launch an attack, remains unresolved.
“It’s ultimately going to be President Putin who decides what Russia will do,” Blinken told Good Morning America.
File photo – Ato Kwamena Dadzie/AFP via Getty Images
(LONDON) — More than a dozen people were killed and many more were injured by a massive explosion that rocked southwestern Ghana on Thursday, authorities said.
A vehicle transporting mining explosives between the gold mines of Tarkwa and Chirano in Ghana’s Western Region collided with a motorcycle in the small town of Apiate on Thursday afternoon. The truck caught fire from the collision and exploded about 15 minutes later, as residents were gathered around the scene of the crash, according to a spokesperson for the Ghana Police Service.
Police officers, firefighters, soldiers and medics rushed to the scene to rescue victims. At least 179 people were affected by the “huge” explosion, including at least 13 who died and 45 who were referred to specialist hospitals, the police spokesperson said while cautioning that the numbers could change.
Initial reports estimated the death toll to be higher because some of the wounded were in such bad condition that they were thought to be dead, according to Assistant Commissioner of Police Samuel Kwesi Ofori, who is the director-general of the Ghana Police Service’s Public Affairs Directorate.
As of Friday afternoon, 36 victims remain hospitalized and 96 have been discharged, Ofori said.
The powerful blast leveled surrounding buildings, set homes ablaze, knocked out power and left a vast crater in the ground. It took firefighters hours to extinguish the flames, according to a spokesperson for the Ghana National Fire and Rescue Service.
About 384 people have been displaced in the area due to the incident, which remains under investigation, according to Ofori.
Ghanaian Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia traveled on Friday to the site in Apiate, near the mining city of Bogoso, some 180 miles west of Ghana’s capital.
“This is a sad day,” Bawumia said.
After visiting some of the hospitalized victims, the vice president thanked nurses and doctors for doing “a fantastic job in saving lives.”
“The early intervention yesterday has helped a lot,” he told reporters outside a hospital. “We want to assure all of those patients and their families, the government is willing to be responsible fully for all their medical bills.”
(NEW YORK) — At the beginning of 2020, as the nation celebrated the start of a new year, many Americans were still unaware of the “mysterious pneumonia” that had sickened dozens of workers at a live animal market in Wuhan, China.
The illness, later identified as the “novel coronavirus”, began spreading rapidly across the globe. Several studies have suggested that the virus had already been spreading in the United States, potentially as early as December 2019.
However, it was not until mid-January of 2020, when the virus would officially be recognized as present on U.S. soil.
Two years ago, on Jan. 21, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first domestic case of coronavirus. The positive patient was a 35-year-old man from Washington state, who had recently returned from Wuhan, China.
Now, two years later, the U.S. has confirmed more than 69 million COVID-19 cases, and 859,000 deaths, the highest in the total for any country, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. And the nation, despite the wide availability of highly effective vaccines and novel treatments, is experiencing its most significant surge on record due to the highly transmissible omicron variant and tens of millions of eligible Americans remaining unvaccinated.
“These last two years have brought transformational advancements spanning vaccines, treatments and testing. Though these tools are having a clear impact on reducing poor outcomes, we are still seeing one of the worst surges to date,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D., an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
‘Low’ risk morphs into pandemic
Just days before the first case was confirmed two years ago, the CDC had implemented public health entry screening at several major airports including San Francisco International Airport, New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport.
At the time, the CDC reported that while the virus was originally thought to be spreading from animal-to-person, there were “growing indications” that “limited person-to-person spread” was taking place.
“This is certainly not a moment for panic or high anxiety. It is a moment for vigilance,” Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee said during a news conference that same day. “The risk is low to residents in Washington.”
Less than a week after the first domestic case was confirmed, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, which is a division of the CDC, stressed that the “virus is not spreading in the community… For that reason, we continue to believe that the immediate health risk from the new virus to the general public is low at this time.”
In late February, Messonnier said she ultimately expected to see community spread in the U.S. At the time, health officials noted that the virus may not be able to be contained at the border and that Americans should prepare for a “significant disruption” in their lives.
In the months to come, Life Care Center of Kirkland, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility in Seattle suburbs, would become the first epicenter of the virus’ deadly journey across the country. The epicenter quickly then became New York City, which experienced hundreds of deaths a day at the peak of April 2020.
It would be another seven weeks until the World Health Organization would declare the global coronavirus a pandemic, subsequently forcing borders to close, and Americans to retreat to their homes for what some thought would be just a few weeks of “social distancing” and “stay-at-home” orders.
In the first months of pandemic, through April 2020, more than 1 million Americans were sickened and 65,000 died, when the virus was still largely mysterious, treatments and supplies were scarce and hospitals were overwhelmed in large urban areas like New York. Subsequent waves of the virus each had their own characteristics from the deadly winter surge of 2020 to 2021 and the delta variant surge, which upended the optimism that the pandemic would finally come to an end after mass vaccination.
In fact, in the last year alone, more than 450,000 Americans have been lost to the virus.
17 million cases in a month
Two years into the pandemic, federal data shows that hundreds of thousands of Americans are still testing positive for the virus every day, and more than 1,600 others are dying from COVID-19.
In the last month alone, there have been more than 17.1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, and 44,700 reported virus-related deaths. In addition, more than a year into the U.S. domestic vaccine rollout, 62 million eligible Americans who are over the age of 5, about 20% of that group, remain completely unvaccinated.
“After 24 months and unprecedented medical innovation, the last month has brought millions of cases and tens of thousands of deaths. While many might declare victory on the pandemic, we are clearly very far from where want we want to be right now, especially with billions of people yet to be vaccinated,” Brownstein said, referring to the continued global crisis.
The U.S. is still averaging more than 750,000 new cases a day, about three times the surge from last winter in 2021. However, there is growing evidence to suggest that the latest omicron case surge may be beginning to recede in the parts of the country that were first struck by the variant.
Although preliminary global studies indicate that the omicron variant may cause less severe illness than prior variants, health officials say that the sheer numbers of infections caused by the new variant could still overwhelm the health care system.
Glimmers of hope
In New York, daily cases have dropped by 33% in the last week, and in New Jersey, new cases are down by 43.7%. In Massachusetts, wastewater samples indicate the state’s omicron surge is falling rapidly.
In the Southeast, daily cases in Florida are falling too — down by 30% in the last week, though the state is still averaging more than 45,000 new cases a day.
However, health officials caution that overall, the latest COVID-19 surge across much of the country has yet to peak, and hospitals could still be faced with difficult weeks ahead.
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the omicron surge has not yet peaked nationally.
“This is a very difficult time during this surge. We are seeing high case numbers and hospitalization rates… we’re also seeing strain in many of our hospitals around the country,” Murthy said. “The next few weeks will be tough.”
More than 160,000 virus-positive Americans are currently hospitalized across the country, a pandemic high. It was just over two weeks ago that we hit 100,000 COVID-19 positive Americans hospitalized.
Half the country – 25 states and Puerto Rico – has seen their COVID-19 related hospital admission rates jump by at least 10% in the last week, and nationwide, an average of more than 21,000 virus-positive Americans are seeking care every day.
And nationally, 99% of U.S. counties are still reporting high transmission. Out of the 3,220 U.S. counties, just 16 counties are not reporting high transmission.
Earlier this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, said at the Davos Agenda, a virtual event held by the World Economic Forum, that it is an “open question” as to whether the omicron variant will lead the globe into a new phase of the pandemic.
“It’s not going to be that you’re going to eliminate this disease completely. We’re not going to do that. But hopefully it will be at such a low level that it doesn’t disrupt our normal, social, economic and other interactions with each other,” Fauci said. “To me, that’s what the new normal is. I hope the new normal also includes a real strong corporate memory of what pandemics can do.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 860,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 63.2% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Jan 21, 9:09 am
Non-citizens entering US via land border, ferry terminals must be fully vaccinated
Beginning Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security is requiring non-U.S. citizens entering the U.S. via land or ferry to be fully vaccinated.
This rule, outlined in October, applies to people arriving from Mexico’s and Canada’s borders.
This requirement does not apply to U.S. citizens traveling over the border.
-ABC News’ Luke Barr
Jan 20, 10:44 pm
Breakthrough cases grew fourfold during omicron emergence: CDC
Despite waning immunity over time, vaccines still dramatically reduced the risk of severe illness caused by COVID-19 through at least the end of the delta wave, according to data updated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday evening.
In November, unvaccinated adults had a four times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19, and a 15 times greater risk of dying from COVID-19, compared to vaccinated individuals, according to federal data pulled from 28 states and jurisdictions.
Additionally, unvaccinated adults had a 13 times greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19 and a 68 times greater risk of dying from it as compared to fully vaccinated individuals with a booster.
The emergence of omicron does appear to have increased the occurrence of breakthrough cases. Between late November and late-December, the rate of infections among the fully vaccinated increased more than fourfold. Even so, unvaccinated Americans remained twice as likely to test positive for the virus.
Similarly, the rate of infections among the fully vaccinated and boosted Americans testing positive increased by nearly tenfold. However, unvaccinated Americans remained 3.8 times as likely to test positive for the virus.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 20, 4:54 pm
Wastewater data finds omicron may have been in US as early as Nov. 21
A new CDC study finds that the omicron variant was likely in the U.S. more than a week before the first case was detected.
The first official case was detected on Dec. 1 in California. But a review of the national wastewater surveillance system indicates that the variant could have been present as early as Nov. 21, according to samples collected in New York City.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos, Sony Salzman
Jan 20, 4:37 pm
Hospitalizations at record high, cases dropping in some areas
More than 160,000 COVID-19-positive Americans are currently in hospitals — a pandemic high and double the number from about three weeks ago, according to federal data.
It’s still not clear how many were admitted with COVID-19 and how many tested positive for the virus after they were admitted for other reasons.
The U.S. is reporting an average of 760,000 new cases per day, according to federal data.
Although case levels remain high, there’s growing evidence to suggest the omicron surge is receding in the parts of the country first struck by the variant.
In New York, daily cases have dropped by 33% in the last week, while in New Jersey new cases are down by 43.7%.
Wisconsin now leads the nation in new cases per capita, followed by Rhode Island, Utah and South Carolina.
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Jan 20, 3:12 pm
San Francisco appears to pass peak of omicron surge: Officials
In San Francisco, COVID-19 cases are “dropping rapidly” following record highs that appeared to peak on Jan. 9, officials announced.
While “cases are still extremely high,” they “have plateaued and are starting to go down,” said Dr. Grant Colfax, director of the Department of Public Health.
“We’re looking at data from other places … the consistent data seem to show that cases go up very fast, they started to come down very fast. So we’re on that downward trend now,” Colfax said.
Shore, Anderson, with producer Michael Rotenberg in 1992 — Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc
It appears comedian Louie Anderson‘s cancer battle may have taken a turn for the worse. Comedian and actor Pauly Shoretook to Twitter to call for prayers for his friend, after visiting the 68-year-old comic and Emmy-winning Baskets actor.
“I say this with a heavy heart,” Shore wrote. “[J]ust left the hospital in Las Vegas where Louie Anderson his sisters and close friend were kind enough to let me say my goodbyes.”
Shore added, “he’s still with us but keep him in your prayers.”
A rep for Anderson told ABC Audio earlier this week that the Coming to America star is battling diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and had been “resting comfortably” in the hospital.
Shore addressed his comments to “comedians and @TheComedyStore alumni” — Shore’s mother Mitsi owned the iconic Los Angeles venue where Anderson and many famous stand-ups got their start.
Comedienne Kathy Griffin, who recently battled lung cancer herself, replied to Shore’s post, noting, “Pauly. So sorry. Thinkin about nights with Louis and Judy Toll. Cant laugh harder than that.”
Fans also responded, including one who urged Shore, “Please let him know that we love him,” to which the Encino Man star replied, “I did.”
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — A small handful of Instagram content creators can now directly charge followers a monthly subscription fee for exclusive content and benefits in the latest shakeup to impact the ever-evolving digital creator economy.
Instagram’s parent company Meta announced the news in a company blog post, saying it is part of an effort to help enable creators to make a living through its platforms. Meta-owned Facebook launched a similar subscriptions service in 2020 and is now rolling the service out as a test on Instagram after positive feedback from Facebook content creators.
Meta previously said it would not collect any fees from creators on Facebook Subscription purchases until 2023 at the earliest, and said this will also apply to Instagram Subscriptions.
“With Instagram Subscriptions, creators can develop deeper connections with their most engaged followers and grow their recurring monthly income by giving subscribers access to exclusive content and benefits, all within the same platform where they interact with them already,” Meta stated.
The test of subscriptions on Instagram rolled out Wednesday with a small handful of creators, who can set a monthly price of their choice, unlock a “subscribe” button on their profile and offer new benefits to these subscribers including exclusive Instagram Lives and Stories. Content creators will also see a subscriber badge next to comments and messages from their subscribers to more easily identify them.
“Creators do what they do to make a living, and it’s important that that is predictable,” Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said in a video posted to Twitter. “And subscriptions are one of the best ways to have a predictable income, a way that is not attached to how much reach you get on any given post, which is inevitably going to go up and down over time.”
The announcement comes as fellow social media giant Twitter recently announced a similar subscription business model for users, and as Meta and more social media platforms have invested heavily in content creators for their platforms.
Meta alone said last July that it plans to invest more than $1 billion in programs “that give creators new ways to earn money for the content they create on Facebook and Instagram.”
The major investments also come, however, as lawmakers and regulators have renewed scrutiny on the power and reach of U.S. tech giants in recent months — and particularly their impact on the mental health of young people. Just last month, Mosseri was called to testify before lawmakers for the first time specifically about the platform’s impact on young users.
Despite the high-profile attention out of Washington, D.C., policymakers have struggled to agree on any concrete law or regulatory changes to crack down on Big Tech.
