Fox’s New Year’s Eve Toast & Roast 2022 special, which was going to feature performance by Imagine Dragons, has been canceled due to the surging number of COVID-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant.
The show was set to be hosted live in New York City’s Times Square by Ken Jeong and Joel McHale, alongside special correspondent Kelly Osbourne, daughter of Ozzy Osbourne.
A statement from Fox obtained by Varietyreads, “While we are confident in the health and safety protocols for Fox’s New Year’s Eve Toast & Roast 2022, the recent velocity of the spread of Omicron cases has made it impossible to produce a live special in Times Square that meets our standards.”
“We will not be moving forward with Fox’s New Year’s Eve Toast & Roast 2022 in New York,” the statement continues. “The health and safety of our casts and crews has always been, and will continue to be, of the utmost importance. Replacement programming for New Year’s Eve on Fox will be announced in the coming days.”
Variety notes that it “remains to be seen” whether the announced musical guests, including Imagine Dragons, who pre-recorded their performance, will still be part of said replacement programming.
Founding Vanilla Fudge lead singer and keyboardist Mark Stein recently released his first official solo album, There’s a Light.
Stein put the album together during the COVID-19 pandemic, mixing brand-new songs with older originals and a few covers, all featuring themes reflecting issues that the U.S. and the world have been facing during this volatile period in history.
Speaking about There’s a Light to ABC Audio, Stein notes that the album features “songs about love and patriotism and social issues that we’ve all been dealing with. Songs like ‘Racism’ and ‘All Lives Matter’ and ‘We Are One‘ and my cover of [The Temptations‘] ‘Ball of Confusion.’ It all holds together and has a message.”
Stein says the song that kickstarted the project was “We Are One,” a song about unity that he wrote in response to the divisiveness he noticed in the U.S. during the early days of the pandemic.
“I wrote that about six weeks after the initial pandemic, in April 2020,” he recalls. “I was compelled to write this song, and it started out like a ball of fire.”
Another song with a positive message on the album is “Let’s Pray for Peace,” and Mark recently released a music video for the tune to coincide with the holidays.
“During this Holiday Season, I hope this song helps to bring our volatile world a little closer together,” Stein says in a message. “Merry Christmas & A Happy Healthy New Year.”
Among the guest musicians featured on “There’s a Light” are longtime Utopia bassist Kasim Sulton, former Billy Joel drummer Liberty DeVitto and Vanilla Fudge’s bassist, Pete Bremy.
There’s a Light is available now. Limited-edition bundles featuring a signed CD copy of the album and special merchandise items can be purchased at MerchBucket.com.
The International Animated Film Society revealed the nominees for its 49th Annie Awards on Tuesday, and Netflix leads leads the pack with 52 nominations, followed by Disney with 29 between its film and TV projects. Netflix picked up nine nominations for Arcane, its series based on Riot Games’ online multiplayer game League of Legends. The Mitchells vs. The Machines earned eight nods, with the streaming service’s limited series Maya and the Three, has seven. Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon led all content with 10 nominations, followed by Encanto, which picked up nine. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a double nominee for feature music. He’s nominated Germaine Franco for Encanto as well as for his work on Sony Pictures Animation and Netflix’s Vivo, alongside Alex Lacamoire. The complete list of nominees can be found here...
FX has set February 23 for the season five premiere of its hit drama series Snowfall, according to Deadline. The series, co-created by the late John Singleton takes place in 1980s South Central, Los Angeles, where the crack epidemic has taken over, as Franklin Saint, played by Damson Idris, expands his California drug empire. Snowfall‘s fourth season was the cable net’s most-watched series of 2021…
Fox has scratched its New Year’s Eve Toast & Roast 2022 production in New York due to the ongoing surge of COVID-19 and its Omicron variant. “While we are confident in the health and safety protocols for Fox’s New Year’s Eve Toast & Roast 2022, the recent velocity of the spread of Omicron cases has made it impossible to produce a live special in Times Square that meets our standards,” Fox Entertainment said in a statement obtained by Variety. Joel McHale and Ken Jeong were set to co-host the program, alongside special correspondent Kelly Osbourne. Musical performances by Billy Idol, Imagine Dragons, Pink, Maroon 5 and others were also set to appear…
Actress Sally Anne Howes has died at age 91, Variety reports, citing a tweet from Howes’ nephew. A Tony-nominated stage and musical theater star for most of her career, which spanned more than 50 years, the British actress and singer is best know to most for playing Truly Scrumptious opposite Dick Van Dyke in the 1968 children’s musical film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, about a magical flying car, based on the novel by James Bond creator Ian Fleming. Howes died December 19…
(LOS ANGELES) — The Port of Los Angeles predicts it will break a new cargo record in 2021.
The port said it would process about 10.7 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) this year, a 13% increase from its 2018 record.
“As we approach a new cargo milestone amid this pandemic, I’m so proud of the resilience of this Port, our labor force and all of our partners,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said in a press release. “While there is much more that we need to improve upon, we’re delivering record amounts of cargo and goods are making their way into the hands of consumers and manufacturers.
Exports have actually been declining in 33 of the last 37 months, according to the release.
The increase in activity at the nation’s busiest port comes as U.S. firms are grappling with supply-chain issues and product shortages, The Associated Press previously reported.
(NEW YORK) — What comes around goes around: Your discarded plastic water bottle may soon become part of your next car.
Automakers are racing to make their vehicles more sustainable — the industry’s favorite buzzword — by turning environmentally unfriendly materials into seat cushions, floors, door panels and dashboard trims. First it was reclaimed wood. Then “vegan” leather. Now, plastic waste from the ocean, rice hulls, flaxseeds and agave are transforming the manufacturing process.
“Everyone is awakening to the problems of plastic and waste,” Deborah Mielewski, a technical fellow of sustainability at Ford, told ABC News.
Ford in particular has been championing the use of renewable materials in its vehicles. In 2008 it replaced the petroleum-based polyol foam in its Mustang sports car with seat cushions made from soy, an industry first. More recently Mielewski and her team started examining how to transform some of the 13 million metric tons of ocean plastic, which threaten marine life and pollute shorelines, into parts for future Ford vehicles. The result? Wiring harness clips in the new Ford Bronco Sport that were once nylon fishing nets.
“Two years ago there was a lot of publicity around ocean pollution and we felt an obligation to do something,” Mielewski said.
Ford acquires the recycled plastic from its supplier DSM, which collects the nets from fishermen who are paid to return them. The nets are harvested, sorted, washed and dried before they’re cut into small pellets and injection-molded into harness clips, which weigh about 5 grams and guide wires that power side-curtain airbags in the Bronco Sport.
Mielewski said Ford is currently testing the recycled plastic’s durability for the Bronco Sport’s wire shields, floor side rails and transmission brackets.
“My hope is we can replace many parts with this material,” she said, adding that more than half of Ford customers “care deeply about the environment and want to understand what companies are trying to minimize their footprint.”
Brian Moody, executive editor of Autotrader, said automakers like Ford have been attempting to produce environmentally responsible vehicles for years. He recalled Ford’s Model U concept which premiered on Jan. 5, 2003, at Detroit’s North American International Auto Show. It had a hybrid engine and its door panels were built with a natural fiber-filled composite material.
“This is not just a passing trend. Sustainability is here to stay,” Moody told ABC News. “Environmental regulations are likely to become more strict in the years to come [and it’s] another incentive for automakers to start looking for a solution right now.”
Automakers deliberately added plastics to reduce the weight and cost of vehicles and increase performance and fuel economy, according to Gregory Keoleian, director of the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan.
“About 40 different types of basic plastics and polymers are commonly used to make cars today and state-of-the-art separation technologies are very capital intensive,” he told ABC News. “The majority of plastics are derived from petroleum and natural gas feedstocks and when vehicles are retired these materials are generally disposed of in landfills.”
For German automaker Audi, sustainable materials are a launching point to becoming net CO2 neutral by 2050. Recycled PET bottles are ground up and transformed into a polyester yarn, accounting for 89% of the seat material in Audi’s fourth-generation A3 car. An additional 62 PET bottles were recycled for the carpet in the A3. The carpet and floor mats in the all-electric e-tron GT are made from Econyl, a recycled nylon fiber constructed from fishing nets. The e-tron GT’s 20-inch wheels are also assembled from low-CO2 emission aluminum.
In August, the company showed off its skysphere electric roadster concept, which featured sustainably produced microfiber seat fabric, environmentally certified eucalyptus wood and synthetically produced imitation leather.
“Audi is committed to sustainable materials and we’re implementing these changes in new vehicles,” Spencer Reeder, director of government affairs at Audi, told ABC News. “We have very high standards and fully vet these products.”
Reeder, however, said Audi’s top priority is expanding its lineup of electrified vehicles. By 2025, 30% of Audi vehicles in the U.S. will be full battery electric or plug-in hybrid.
“We’re delivering on things that really truly matter to the environment,” he said. “The focus right now in the industry is on battery materials — nickel, lithium, magnesium — and sustainably sourcing those materials.”
Keoleian pointed out that 17% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are from automobiles.
“Automakers leading in sustainability are companies accelerating their launch of EV models,” he said.
Stephanie Brinley, an analyst at IHS Markit, said automakers are promoting these green efforts aggressively because consumers are more curious and aware of the manufacturing process. These eco-friendly materials “have to look good and be durable and work” to win over consumers, she told ABC News.
“If the material performs just as well, consumers will be happy,” she noted, adding, “You’d be hard-pressed to find a consumer who is against sustainable materials.”
Volvo, the Swedish automaker, said it’s addressing all areas of sustainability — not just carbon emissions — in its vehicles. The company said it will go leather-free by 2030 and use a material it developed called Nordico that consists of textiles made from recycled material such as PET bottles, bio-attributed material from sustainable forests in Sweden and Finland and corks recycled from the wine industry.
The automaker has even been “looking to reduce the use of residual products from livestock production which are commonly used within or in the production of plastics, rubber, lubricants and adhesives, either as part of the material or as a process chemical in the material’s production or treatment,” according to Rekha Meena, Volvo’s senior design manager for color and material.
“We see a growing trend in consumer demands for more sustainable materials, particularly alternatives to leather, in most of our key markets due to concern over animal welfare and the negative environmental impacts of cattle farming, including deforestation,” she told ABC News. “We share these concerns and are choosing to transition away from leather and focus on high-quality sustainable alternatives, like Nordico, to meet this customer need.”
Polestar, Volvo’s electric performance brand, cut plastic from its car interiors by choosing a composite made from flax.
The instrument panel in BMW’s all-electric iX SUV is treated with a natural olive leaf extract to avoid any production residue that is harmful to the environment, according to the company. BMW also chose FSC-certified wood and a large chunk of the iX’s door panels, seats, center console and floor are manufactured from recycled plastics.
For its all-new MX-30 EV, Mazda wanted to use materials that “show an even greater respect for environmental conservation,” a spokesperson told ABC News. The center console and door grips in the MX-30 EV are made of cork and the seats feature leatherette and a fabric that uses 20% recycled threads. The door trims also use recycled PET bottles.
Environmental aesthetics will certainly attract a discerning segment of drivers, according to Brinley.
“Some consumers will feel much better about their vehicles,” she said. “But we’re still pretty far away from having a car made entirely from renewable materials.”
Geoffrey Heal, a Columbia Business School professor, said automakers could make an even greater impact by powering their factories with renewable electricity and building cars that are easily recyclable at the end of their life cycle. Reusing plastic and biodegradable materials is laudable but would have to be done at a significant scale to truly be effective, he argued.
“Automakers are doing this because they feel pressure both by consumers and the government. But there is genuinely some concern [by automakers] to make the world a better place,” Heal told ABC News. “These are small steps but every little step helps.”
Ford’s Mielewski said the company will continue experimenting with innovative and earth-friendly materials — agave, potato peels, coffee chaff — to try to reduce Ford’s impact on the planet.
“We’ve been doing this for quite a long time. I hope everyone will join us,” she said.
Once the holidays wrap up, Mariah Carey won’t be going into hibernation. In fact, she is planning a very busy 2022 and is already teasing some of her upcoming projects.
Speaking to Harper’s Bazaar, Mariah hinted she has something musical cooking with Brandy, but declined to reveal the name of their collaboration. But she was willing to reveal how the two wound up in the recording studio together.
“She was like, ‘Mariah, I love you. I want to do this with you. Can we please do it?’ And I was like, ‘Please? Can we please do it? I’m asking you,'” she recalled.
Mariah added that she’s gained a whole new appreciation for Brandy, noting, “The people have no idea. She’s a mother. She’s doing this and that. She is doing it all.”
Mariah is also teaming with the luxury jeweler Chopard for a special holiday collection. “They’ve always been so generous,” the singer gushed of Chopard, noting that her relationship with the company has lasted decades, even throughout all her career ups and downs.
In her shoot for Harper’s, Mariah is dripping in Chopard jewels, but it’s not clear if they’re from her forthcoming collection.
The singer also revealed that she very recently rolled up her sleeve for the COVID-19 booster, but admitted that it made her feel a little ill. “No one warned me, ‘Oh, by the way, it might take you out a little bit,'” she joked.
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills just got two new additions to its cast — Will Smith‘s ex-wife, Sheree Zampino, and Diana Jenkins.
The two newbies will appear on the show’s forthcoming season 12 alongside existing cast members Kyle Richards, Lisa Rinna, Erika Jayne, Dorit Kemsley, Garcelle Beauvais, Sutton Stracke, Crystal Kung Minkoff and Kathy Hilton, E! News revealed.
Zampino, 54, will appear on RHOBH in the “friend of” role. She was previously married to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air for three years before divorcing in 1995. She and Will share 29-year-old son, Trey Smith.
Jenkins, 48, will join the cast as a full-time housewife. She is a mother of three and also is the founder, chair and CEO of Neuro Brands, a lifestyle drink company. Jenkins is also a philanthropist and activist.
A premiere date for RHOBH season 12 has not yet been announced.
After nine years of marriage, Meagan Good and DeVon Franklin are going their separate ways.
In a joint statement shared to their respective Instagram pages Tuesday, the pair announced, “After much prayer and consideration we have decided to go into our futures separately but forever connected.”
“We celebrate almost a decade of marriage together and a love that is eternal,” the statement continued. “There’s no one at fault, we believe this is the next best chapter in the evolution of our love. We are incredibly grateful for the life-changing years we’ve spent together as husband and wife.”
They concluded, “We are also extremely thankful to God for the testimony being created inside us both and for blessing our lives with each other.”
Good, 40, and Franklin, 43, posted the announcement alongside a photo of the two with their backs to the camera as they sit admiring the green pastures. They both tagged the location as “Forever Love.”
The Harlem star and film producer got engaged in May 2012 and married in June 2012 after meeting while filming the 2011 rom-com Jumping the Broom.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.3 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 810,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
About 61.6% 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:
Dec 22, 9:33 am
Ohio hospitals take out an ad in local paper pleading for people to get vaccinated
Six hospitals in Ohio have taken out a full-page ad in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer in a desperate plea for people to get vaccinated as the state faces a renewed surge.
The ad, which appeared in Sunday’s paper, says in big letters: “Help.”
“We need your help. We now have more COVID-19 patients in our hospitals than ever before,” the ad says. “And the overwhelming majority are unvaccinated. This is preventable.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announced last week that he would deploy the state’s National Guard to help with hospital strain. Ohio is now averaging more than 9,100 new cases every day — up 67.5% in the last month. Statewide, more than 5,200 patients are hospitalized with COVID-19.
“The best way to avoid serious illness is the vaccine,” the ad said. “So, get vaccinated and get your booster … we need you to care as much as we do.”
-ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Dec 22, 8:48 am
Booster shots ‘will really help us’ with omicron: CDC director
About 73% of U.S. COVID-19 cases are now the omicron variant, but that number rises to 90% in areas like New York, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told “Good Morning America” Wednesday.
“Things are moving quickly,” she said. “The doubling times of this virus are very fast, around two days.”
But Walensky said the booster shot “will really help” with this variant.
“What we know about omicron is that it has a lot of mutations, and with more mutations we need more immune protection. And that’s really why this booster shot will really help us,” Walensky said.
Asked if President Joe Biden’s decision to mail 500 million free at-home rapid tests to Americans in January is too late to help the current surge, Walensky responded, “We have been ramping up testing.”
“We have much more testing now than we had just months ago,” she said. “And we were in the middle of a delta surge as omicron hit, so really right now there are so many things that we can do in addition to testing to keep safe — and that really does mean getting 40 million Americans who continue to be unvaccinated vaccinated and making sure that people get that booster shot.”
Dec 22, 3:46 am
Portugal bans outdoor drinking, large gatherings for New Year’s Eve
Portugal said it would limit outdoor gatherings to 10 people and prohibit outdoor drinking on New Year’s Eve.
The country, which has 52 confirmed omicron cases, will also require most people to work from home starting on Saturday, the president’s office told ABC News on Tuesday.
The new restrictions, which are set to expire Jan. 10, will require people to present negative COVID-19 tests as they enter sporting events, theaters, weddings and other large gatherings.
Bars, discos, and schools will close on Saturday, the president’s office said.
The country reported an uptick in COVID-19 cases between Dec. 16 and Dec. 19, but numbers were slightly down on Tuesday, with 2,752 newly diagnosed cases and 18 deaths, according to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 dashboard. Portugal’s adult population is 87% fully vaccinated.
-ABC News’ Aicha El-Hammar Castano
Dec 21, 7:53 pm
California to require all health care workers to get booster
California Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted Tuesday evening that he will require that all health care workers in the state to get their booster shot.
“With Omicron on the rise, we’re taking immediate actions to protect Californians and ensure our hospitals are prepared,” he tweeted.
More details about the order will be shared on Wednesday, according to Newsom.
Dec 21, 7:05 pm
Chicago to institute vaccine mandate for indoor events
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a vaccine mandate for most indoor events as the city grasps with a rise in COVID-19 cases.
Starting Jan. 3, anyone over the age of 5 will have to show proof that they are fully vaccinated to “to dine indoors, visit gyms, or enjoy entertainment venues where food or drink are being served,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.
Patrons 16 and older will also need to “provide identification that matches their vaccination record,” according to the statement.
Chicago is averaging more than 1,700 new COVID-19 cases a day — a 79% increase from one week ago, the mayor’s office said.
Dec 21, 4:36 pm
New Hampshire hospital seeing record-high number of patients
Elliot Hospital in New Hampshire is now seeing three to four times as many patients as it had at the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Laura McPhee told ABC News.
She said their ICU is full with COVID-19 patients and staff is running thin.
“We’re tired. It’s been extremely hard on everybody,” McPhee said, stressing that “most of the patients that we’re seeing are unvaccinated.”
“Most days I’ve been angry and frustrated. … Because this is preventable. It doesn’t have to happen,” she said. “I’ve not ever seen a patient here in the ICU who has been fully vaccinated with a booster.”
(ATLANTA) — Life expectancy in the United States decreased by nearly two years in 2020, mainly because of the pandemic, a new federal report suggests.
In 2019, Americans had a life expectancy — the average number of years a person is expected to live — of 78.8 years.
But new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) found this figure fell to 77.0 years in 2020, marking the biggest drop seen since World War II.
“The thing that stands out to me is just this staggering decline,” Dr. Robert Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at the NCHS, told ABC News.”I know 1.8 years doesn’t seem like a whole lot but, on a population scale, that’s a huge decline in life expectancy.”
This is the biggest decrease seen since World War II, when life expectancy fell by 2.9 years from 66.2 years in 1942 to 63.3 years in 1943.
Although the report lays bare the impact that the virus has had on life expectancy, the team behind the report said other factors also played a role, including an increase in deaths due to diabetes and accidental injuries, such as drug overdoses.
Diabetes deaths topped 100,000 for the first time, Anderson said, and accidental or unintentional injury deaths, such as drug overdoses, topped 200,000.
However, he said that COVID-19 is undoubtedly the biggest reason for the decline.
According to the report, there were more than 3.38 million deaths in the U.S. last year, about 530,000 more than there were in 2019.
Of that 3.38 million, more than 350,000 deaths were attributed to COVID-19, meaning 10.4% of all deaths in 2020 were caused by the virus.
“I can tell you it’s the primary driver in the decline in life expectancy and the increase in mortality,” Anderson said. “We’re talking about 350,000 deaths. That accounts for the bulk of the increase in morality — the overwhelming majority.”
Men saw a bigger decrease in life expectancy, losing 2.1 years — from 76.3 in 2019 to 74.2 in 2020 — compared to a decline of 1.5 years — from 81.4 in 2019 to 79.9 in 2020 — for women.
COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in 2020, responsible for 85 deaths per 100,000 people.
Anderson said it is the first time a new disease has entered the top 10 leading causes of death so quickly.
“A disease that comes out of nowhere and ends up in the top 10 or top five? You’d have to go back to the early days of the HIV epidemic to see something similar.”
He said HIV never got higher than the eighth-leading cause of death and, even then, it took a few years after the virus was first identified before it reached the top 10.
“This is sort of similar, but even more dramatic, because in one year it goes from nothing to the third-leading cause of death,” Anderson added. “Remarkable.”
