The lineup for Coachella has officially been announced.
Billie Eilish is among the headliners, marking her return to the festival after making her Coachella debut in 2019. The bill also includes Måneskin, Phoebe Bridgers, FINNEAS, Bishop Briggs, The Hu, The Regrettes, girl in red, Wallows, Turnstile, Run the Jewels and beabadoobee.
The other headliners are Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — and Harry Styles.
Rage Against the Machine — who had been scheduled to headline Coachella 2020 and then Coachella 2021 before both festivals were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic — is no longer on the bill.
Coachella 2022 takes place over two weekends: April 15-17 and April 22-24. For the full lineup and ticket info, visit Coachella.com.
(ALMATY, Kazakhstan) — Russian-led troops sent to help Kazakhstan’s government quell violent protests have begun leaving the country, according to Russia’s defense minister.
Roughly 2,300 troops were dispatched to Kazakhstan last week by a Moscow-dominated alliance of former Soviet countries, after Kazakhstan’s president appealed for assistance amid the protests that saw his government lose control in the country’s biggest city, Almaty.
Kazakhstan’s government has since re-established its grip after its security forces forcibly ended the unrest, using live fire to clear the streets in Almaty, where over a hundred were killed. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev this week announced the foreign troops from the alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), had completed their mission and could leave now that the situation in the country was stable.
Russia’s defense ministry on Thursday said the first Russian paratrooper units had taken off from Almaty. Four Il-76 transports would fly the troops and their equipment to their base in the Russian city Ivanovo, the ministry said.
Sergey Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, said the withdrawal was ongoing and would be completed by Jan. 19. In a televised meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Shoigu said the several hundred troops from other CSTO countries — Tajikistan, Belarus and Armenia — would all leave on Russian aircraft on Friday. A contingent sent from neighboring Kyrgyzstan would leave by land, Shoigu said.
Putin in the meeting said the troops had completed their mission and thanked Russia’s military command.
“On the whole we need to return home — we’ve completed our task,” Putin said.
Video published by Kazakh news media on Thursday showed CSTO troops taking part in a farewell ceremony in Kazakhstan, marching on a parade ground at a military institute in Almaty. Photos also showed Russian paratrooper boarding transport planes at the city’s airport.
Russia sent the largest contingent from the CSTO alliance, which was established as Moscow’s answer to NATO following the fall of the Soviet Union. The deployment was the first time Russia has acted through the alliance to assist a friendly regime against street protests in one of its former Soviet neighbors.
Peaceful protests began in Kazakhstan over fuel prices but they escalated into a violent uprising against Tokayev’s regime in the middle of last week. Armed mobs stormed government buildings and there was widespread looting in Almaty. Tokayev and Putin have claimed foreign-backed forces inside the country sought to exploit the unrest to stage an “attempted coup” against Tokayev.
Russia deployed soldiers as well as armored vehicles from the 45th Guards Special Purpose brigade, the 98th Guards Airborne Division and the 31st Separate Guards Order.
The Russian-led troops were not used in combat operations or against protesters, according to Kazakhstan’s authorities. Instead the foreign soldiers were used to guard key facilities, freeing up Kazakh security forces to restore order elsewhere, the government said. Russia’s defense ministry released video of Russian troops patrolling a power station.
Western countries, worried about Russian intervention in Kazakhstan, expressed concerns about whether Moscow might seek a more permanent presence in the country and whether its independence could be eroded. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken last week told reporters: “One lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave.”
The situation in Kazakhstan has calmed and Tokayev’s government appears to be back in control. In Almaty, normal life is returning, although there remains a heavy security presence in the city, according to an ABC reporter there.
Kazakhstan’s authorities said they arrested nearly 10,000 people during the protests. The interior ministry on Thursday said 524 people were currently in pre-trial detention and that 412 of them had been charged with offenses relating to the unrest. At least 164 people died, including 18 police officers, and over two thousand were injured, according to the government.
After the tragic news broke Sunday that Full House star and comedian Bob Saget had died, his friend John Mayer paid tribute to him Monday with an emotional post, and followed it up with another one on Tuesday. But on Wednesday, John did something that only a true friend would do: He went to the airport to retrieve Saget’s car.
In an Instagram Live video, John and comedian Jeff Ross, another friend of Saget’s, narrate their journey to LAX, where, Ross says, “We went to four floors, looking for it, trying to figure out where he parked and of course, he parked right by the entrance. He’s Bob Saget, he’s got rockstar parking.”
“This is the only time in my life I’ve been honored to help out a friend at LAX,” John laughed, revealing that they had to pay a $250 parking ticket to get the car. “The parking company was, let’s just say, unreceptive to the idea that we were helping out a friend who’s no longer with us,” he noted.
“They were like, ‘If it was [John] Stamos‘ car, we would let you go,'” Ross joked.
The two also became emotional as they remembered their friend, with John saying, “Bob’s effusive and repeated expression of love is the greatest gift that he left people, because…we don’t have to worry about the accounting. The affairs are in order, in terms of wondering, or not having to wonder, how Bob felt about us.”
“We are just a couple of stars in the galaxy of Bob Saget’s loved ones,” John added, saying that even though he’d known Saget for 15 years, he was still “the new guy.”
Both men urged fans to donate to the Scleroderma Research Foundation at srfcure.org in Saget’s memory. Saget lost his sister to the disease.
(NEW YORK) — As evidence mounts that the omicron variant is less deadly than prior COVID-19 strains, one oft-cited explanation is that viruses always evolve to become less virulent over time.
The problem, experts say, is that this theory has been soundly debunked.
The idea that infections tend to become less lethal over time was first proposed by notable bacteriologist Dr. Theobald Smith in the late 1800s. His theory about pathogen evolution was later dubbed the “law of declining virulence.”
Simple and elegant, Smith’s theory was that to ensure their own survival, pathogens evolve to stop killing their human hosts. Instead, they create only a mild infection, allowing people to walk around, spreading the virus further afield. Good for the virus, and, arguably, good for us.
But over the past 100 years, virologists have learned that virus evolution is more chaotic. Virus evolution is a game of chance, and less about grand design.
In some cases, viruses evolve to become more virulent.
Continued virus survival, spread and virulence are all about the evolutionary pressures of multiple factors, including the number of people available to infect, how long humans live after infection, the immune system response and time between infection and symptom onset.
Unfortunately, that means it’s nearly impossible to predict the future of the pandemic, because viruses don’t always evolve in a predictable pattern.
There have been thousands of identified COVID variants, each with unique mutations. But most new variants emerge and then quickly die out, unable to compete with the reigning dominant variant.
Some variants, however, have clear “advantages to continued survival, such as those that evade the immune system and spread easily,” said Dr. Abir Hussein, associate medical director for infection presentation and control at University of Washington Medical Center.
Experts warn that it is important to assess the severity of omicron in the context of existing immunity through vaccines and prior infections.
“It is difficult to determine with new variants like delta and omicron if variants are evolving to be more or less virulent. This is because these variants emerged at a time when we had a good deal of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in certain countries,” said Andrew Pekosz, a professor of microbiology at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
People who are vaccinated or recently infected will have milder symptoms if they experience a breakthrough infection or a reinfection, studies show.
“This is not because the variant is less virulent, but because your immune system was primed from prior vaccination and infection,” said Pekosz.
Experts say omicron should not be taken lightly or thought of as a less lethal form of COVID. Even if less deadly, the omicron variant is also significantly more transmissible, leading to more deaths overall.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predict that 22,000 more people could die of COVID-19 over the next two weeks.
People who are unvaccinated remain significantly more at-risk, with officials estimating they are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized and 20 times more likely to die of COVID-19 compared to people who are vaccinated.
“The available COVID vaccines provide immunity for a range of variants and continue to be the first line of defense,” said Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
As for the future of the pandemic, experts say new variants may emerge in the future, but they won’t be easy to predict.
Jess Dawson, M.D., a masters of public health candidate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
NBC has gone all-in on a sequel to the former ABC drama, Life Goes On, with original star Kellie Martin attached to reprise her role, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The series, from All American showrunner Nkechi Okoro, will center on Martin’s Becca Thatcher, “now an accomplished doctor, and her extended family as she returns to her hometown,” according to THR. Life Goes On, which ran on ABC from 1989-1993, was a groundbreaking series and featured the first network show to feature a regular character who had Down syndrome — portrayed by Chris Burke…
Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson has been tapped to star in the upcoming horror thriller The Home, according to Deadline. Davidson will play Max, “a troubled man who starts working at a retirement home and realizes its residents and caretakers harbor sinister secrets,” according to the entertainment trade. While investigating the building’s “forbidden fourth floor,” he uncovers “connections to his own past and upbringing as a foster child,” the outlet reports…
Actor Richard Burgi has been fired from CBS’ daytime drama The Young and the Restless for what he claims was his inadvertent violation of the show’s Covid policy. The Desperate Housewives and General Hospital alum said in a video posted to his Instagram Stories that he, “naively and inadvertently violated the show’s Covid policy” by following the CDC’s recent recommendation of a five-day isolation period, according to Deadline. He said he was unaware of the show’s a 10-day isolation policy. The 63-year-old actor said he was visiting family “back East” over the holidays when he tested positive for COVID-19 around Christmas. Guiding Light actor Robert Newman will take over Burgi’s character Ashland Locke beginning in February…
Monarch, the Fox country music family dynasty series starring Susan Sarandon and Trace Adkins, is the latest victim of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Variety. Monarch was originally meant to premiere on Sunday, January 30, immediately after the NFC Championship game on Fox. It would then shift to Tuesday nights beginning February 1 for the remainder of its first season. Instead, the show will now debut as part of the network’s the fall 2022 schedule. Monarch follows America’s “first family” of country music, including mother Dottie Cantrell Roman and father Albie Roman – played respectively by Sarandon and Adkins — as well as daughters Gigi Taylor-Roman and Nicolette “Nicky” Roman and son Luke Roman — portrayed by Anna Friel, Beth Ditto and Joshua Sasse — whose dynasty is threatened by “uncomfortable truths from the past”…
The NBC drama Chicago PD was suspended on Wednesday after a number of positive COVID tests, including cases in Zone A, which includes the cast and those who directly interact with them, according to Deadline. Another Chicago drama, Chicago Fire, also paused production last Wednesday and is reportedly slated to resume filming today. Chicago Med has remained in continuous production. The three shows all film in Chicago, using separate crews…
Rod Stewart‘s scheduled tour of Australia is the latest casualty of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
Sir Rod, who turned 77 on Monday, was to have performed nine shows Down Under in March and April, but now those shows have been canceled “due to the ongoing surge of COVID in Australia and the reimposition of indoor entertainment venue capacity limits,” reads a statement announcing the news.
Rod, meanwhile, said, “My dear friends, once again I feel we’ve all been cheated by this evil disease…My thoughts are with all your families at this difficult time as we come out of the joyous and hopefully safe holiday season and I look forward to returning to Australia as soon as the health situation permits.”
He added, “I’m absolutely gutted with disappointment and when I do eventually get there we‘ll have the party to end all parties. Guaranteed!” All ticketholders will get automatic refunds.
Billboard reports that the Australian state of Victoria has temporarily banned indoor dancefloors, while the state of New South Wales has instituted a “no singing, no dancing” policy in entertainment venues. Meanwhile, the state of Queensland recorded its largest number of COVID deaths in a single day on Thursday.
At the moment, Rod is still scheduled to perform two shows in Hollywood, FL on February 14 and 15, and to resume his residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in May.
One of Hollywood’s most idolized relationships has come to an end.
In a joint statement shared on Wednesday, Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet announced they are parting ways after 16 years together.
“We have all felt the squeeze and changes of these transformational times… A revolution is unfolding ~and our family is of no exception… feeling and growing from the seismic shifts occurring And so~ We share our Family news~ That we are parting ways in marriage,” the statement posted to the Game of Thrones alum’s Instagram began.
“We share this not because we think it’s newsworthy ~ But so that~ as we go about our lives we may do so with dignity and honesty,” they explained. “The love between us carries on, evolving in ways it wishes to be known and lived. “We free each other ~to be who we are learning to become.”
The duo concluded, “Our devotion unwavering to this sacred life & our Children Teaching our Children What’s possible ~ Living the Prayer May Love Prevail J & L.”
Momoa and Bonet reportedly began dating in 2005 before tying the knot in 2017. They share two children Lola Iolani Momoa, who was born in 2007, and Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha Momoa, who they welcomed the following year.
(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 843,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 62.6% 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 13, 5:02 am
Biden sending medical teams to hospitals overwhelmed by COVID-19
President Joe Biden will deploy military medical teams to hospitals in six states where COVID-19 infections are surging.
Teams of doctors, nurses and clinical personnel will be sent as early as next week to New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Michigan and New Mexico, Biden is expected to announce on Thursday alongside Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.
Biden in December directed the defense secretary to ready 1,000 military medical personnel to deploy to hospitals across the country as needed in January and February. The teams now being readied will be the first to start arriving at hospitals.
They’ll be sent to Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, Henry Ford Hospital near Detroit, University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque and University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey.
Biden, Austin and Criswell on Thursday will also “be briefed on the administration’s efforts to send resources and personnel to hard-hit communities across the country that are experiencing a surge in hospitalizations due to the Omicron variant,” according to a White House official.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson
Jan 12, 7:24 pm
Testing labs now struggling with their own staffing shortages due to virus
The labs shouldering much of the nation’s PCR COVID-19 testing are getting slammed with demand again during omicron’s surge, and now they’re grappling with a new challenge: their workforces are getting hit by the virus they’ve been tasked with tracking.
The American Clinical Laboratory Association, the national trade association representing some of the leading clinical labs responsible for COVID diagnostics, is warning that their members’ workforce is strained as more workers call out sick.
“Labs are now facing a wave of new issues brought on by a fast-spreading variant that has not spared the laboratory care work force,” an ACLA spokesperson told ABC News.
COVID-19 infections have increased laboratory staff sick leave — a “significant factor in determining overall capacity” at an industry-wide level, the spokesperson said.
“We have been pressured to get our capacity where we believe it can be because of the labor problems we see,” Quest Diagnostics CEO Steve Rusckowski said Wednesday at the JPM Healthcare Conference. “Some of this is just getting the labor to do our work, but secondly, is because of callouts because of the virus have been considerable over the last two weeks.”
-ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik
Jan 12, 7:00 pm
Chicago teachers accept deal to reopen classes
Chicago teachers voted Wednesday to accept the deal made by the union and city to re start in-person classes.
The deal ended the five-day standoff after the union voted to switch to remote learning due to the omicron surge.
Union leaders made a tentative agreement on Monday and urged teachers to back the deal despite frustration that the district wouldn’t grant demands for widespread coronavirus testing or commit to districtwide remote learning during a COVID-19 surge.
The final agreement will expand COVID-19 testing and create standards to switch schools to remote learning.
The deal also resulted in the purchase of KN95 masks for students and teachers and bigger incentives to attract substitute teachers. The city also agreed to give teachers unpaid leave related to the pandemic.
Jan 12, 6:07 pm
96% of Army members fully vaccinated
The U.S. Army released an update on the vaccine status of its members.
As of Jan. 11, 96% of members are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and 97% have at least one dose, according to the Army.
All armed service members are mandated to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Around 18,000 members remain unvaccinated, the data showed.
The Army has chosen not to discharge unvaccinated soldiers but instead “flag” them so they’re not promoted and are not allowed to re-enlist.
“To date, Army commanders have relieved a total of six active-duty leaders, including two battalion commanders, and issued 2,994 general officer written reprimands to soldiers for refusing the vaccination order,” the Army said in a news release.
(PARIS) — What would you do if your ideal presidential candidate was only a few swipes away?
That’s the promise of the French app Elyze, which was created by students Grégoire Gazcarra, 22, and François Mari, 19, who will participate in their first presidential election in less than three months.
Elyze is for voting, not dating, but like the popular dating app Tinder, it asks users to swipe right or left — right to agree, left to disagree — with more than 500 anonymous propositions. It then ranks each user’s matches by affinity to each of the dozen candidates. In addition, the app offers a short explanation tab for each topic, and a third option if the user wants to pass rather than agree or disagree.
With the first round of the French presidential elections around the corner, Elyze’s founders want to convince young French people to vote on April 10.
“I see around me that my friends have a more distanced, even more critical relationship with the political class, and that many people do not go to vote because they have the impression that politics no longer has an impact on their daily lives, that it is no longer able to improve our lives, and that their voices, their votes, will not change anything or even are not legitimate,” Gazcarra told ABC News.
Elyze was invented to convince citizens, particularly young ones, “whatever their political sensitivity, their personal background, that their voice is worth hearing,” Gazcarra added.
The app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times since its launch on Jan. 2.
Abstention, especially among young voters, regardless of the type of election, has been a major issue in France for many years now, with notably 82% of young people ages 18 to 35 having abstained from voting during the regional elections last year.
“Our generation is disconnected from social issues and presidential elections … and multiple initiatives tried to resolve these problems, but they did not use our generation’s codes, like the swipe … So we try to use new codes,” Mari, who first got interested in politics during the first lockdown, told ABC News.
Gazcarra, who founded the non-partisan movement “Les Engagés” in 2017 to “give young people a taste for politics,” and co-created the NGO A Voté for “the defense of civil rights and democratic progress,” is convinced that, even though many French politicians are on social media, education is to blame for young people’s lack of interest and involvement in politics today.
“Our belief is that our generation is no less engaged than the previous ones, but it engages differently. … And we are convinced that to reconcile our generation with politics, we must reclaim its codes,” Gazcarra said. “We must talk to young people where they are, especially in digital spaces. … there is still a challenge for politicians to truly understand how young people interact on these platforms and what they expect from them. That said, our drive with Elyze was … to explain that the real issue is that of pedagogy.”
Since the start of his mandate, French President Emmanuel Macron has demonstrated his mastery of social media, and in recent months has increased his efforts toward connecting with young people. Back in May, in an unprecedented communication exercise, the president shot a video with famous YouTubers McFly and Carlito at the Élysée palace, following a challenge to reach 10 million views on their video about barrier measures against COVID-19.
Last summer, in a counter-offensive after the anti-health pass mobilization, he defended, phone in hand, the COVID-19 vaccination from Fort Brégançon, in a virtual Q&A with young people on TikTok and Instagram, while wearing a T-shirt.
With the rising number of COVID-19 cases amid the omicron surge in France, the presidential candidates have had to adjust their campaigns to follow the recent health guidelines. In the opposition, The Republicans (LR) cancelled a 5,000-person gathering to induct their candidate, Valérie Pécresse, on Dec. 11.
While Elyze’s creators hope to soon reach 1 million users, a recent Ifop poll revealed that more than half (59%) of 18- to 30-year-olds plan to not vote in the presidential election.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is expected to head to Capitol Hill on Thursday in an attempt to persuade Democratic lawmakers to back a major change to the Senate’s rules that would allow a pair of voting rights bills to move forward.
The trip amounts to him putting his money where his mouth is, after delivering an impassioned speech Tuesday in which he said there was “no option” except for senators to do away with the filibuster — a rule that requires 60 votes, rather than a simple majority of 50, to advance most legislation — if the bills could not be advanced another way.
“I’ve been having these quiet conversations with members of Congress for the last two months,” he said Tuesday. “I’m tired of being quiet!”
The White House has said that in the wake of his speech in Atlanta — where Biden was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris — Biden and Harris “will be working the phones over the next several days pushing members of the Senate to support voting rights legislation and changes to Senate rules.”
On Thursday, the White House said, Biden will meet with Senate Democrats “to discuss the urgent need to pass legislation to protect the constitutional right to vote” and “again underline that doing so requires changing the rules of the Senate to make the institution work again.”
But Biden faces an uphill battle transforming rhetoric into action. A pair of Democratic senators — Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — have remained intransigent in their opposition to taking such a step.
With prospects of passage so uncertain even after his fiery speech, the president is risking his political capital, particularly as he struggles to get another domestic priority — his “Build Back Better” social legislation — through the Senate.
Biden has made clear this week who he thinks would be to blame if he’s unsuccessful: Republicans, who he said Tuesday were choosing the side of standing in the way of advancing civil rights if they block the bills.
And all 50 Republican senators oppose the bills, which Democrats say are needed to create national standards for making voting more accessible and to put a check on new state laws that make it more difficult for members of minority groups and others to cast their ballots.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared visibly angry Wednesday as he blasted Biden’s speech, calling it “profoundly, profoundly unpresidential.” He deemed the remarks a “rant” that “was incoherent, incorrect and beneath his office.”
When asked by ABC News about McConnell’s rebuke, Biden said: “I like Mitch McConnell. He’s a friend.”
Despite Biden’s support for a carveout to the filibuster, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Wednesday that Democrats planned to use existing rules to prevent Republicans from using the filibuster to block debate from starting.
House Democrats are expected to replace an existing piece of legislation — one that would not require a vote for debate to begin — with both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, allowing them to bypass Republicans’ attempts to block the legislation from debate.
“The Senate will finally debate voting rights legislation, and then every Senator will be faced with a choice of whether or not to pass the legislation to protect our democracy,” Schumer wrote in a memo to the Democratic Caucus Wednesday.
Still, Republicans will have another opportunity to block the bill from passing by filibustering before debate ends. Without changing the rules around the filibuster, the legislation will still require 60 votes to pass.
Biden, a veteran of the Senate and a self-described “institutionalist,” has undergone an evolution in his view of the filibuster during the first year as president.
In an interview in March, Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that he supports bringing back the “talking filibuster,” a version of the rule that would require a senator to “stand up and command the floor” and “keep talking” in order to hold up legislation.
Biden went further during a CNN town hall in October, noting that he would be open to “fundamentally altering” the filibuster on issues of particular consequence like voting rights.
But Biden’s most definitive comments came in December while speaking with ABC News’ David Muir, saying he would support a carveout to the filibuster in order to pass the voting rights legislation if that was the “only thing” standing in the way.
“If the only thing standing between getting voting rights legislation passed and not getting passed is the filibuster, I support making the exception of voting rights for the filibuster,” Biden told Muir.
ABC News’ Trish Turner and Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.
