Coinciding with the release of her sophomore album Happier Than Ever, Billie Eilish has released the music video for the title track.
The clip, directed by Billie herself, begins with the singer in a softly lit pastel-colored room as she sings the song into the receiver of an old fashioned telephone as if it’s a conversation to the person on the other line.
As the video goes on, water begins to seep into the room and the lights start to flicker. When Billie opens the door, a deluge of water rushes in and fills the rooms. She manages to swim out and up onto the roof, where she sings the rest of the song as rain pours down.
Happier Than Ever, also featuring the songs “Your Power,” “Lost Cause” and “NDA,” is out now.
A new track that Paul McCartney recorded in collaboration with famed DJ/producer Mark Ronson and synth-pop veteran Gary Numan has been released as part of the soundtrack album for a new Ronson-hosted Apple+ series that premiered today.
Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson is a six-part series that follows Ronson as he “uncovers the untold stories behind music creation and the lengths producers and creators are willing to go to find the perfect sound.” To do that, he interviews artists including McCartney, Numan, Foo Fighters‘ Dave Grohl, Beastie Boys members Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and “Mike D” Diamond, and more.
Each episode ends with Ronson debuting a new piece of original music created with the guest artist using various groundbreaking techniques and technology.
McCartney and Numan are featured in an episode focusing on the synthesizer, and the tune they created with Ronson is called “I Know Time (Is Calling).”
The six-track soundtrack is available now as a digital download and via streaming services.
Here’s the full track list of Watch the Sound (Original Soundtrack):
Autotune: “Show Me” — Mark Ronson
Sampling: “Why Would I Stop” — DJ Premier featuring Wale
Reverb: “One Life” — Mark Ronson featuring Diana Gordon & Jónsi
Synth: “I Know Time (Is Calling)” — Mark Ronson featuring Paul McCartney & Gary Numan
Drum Machine: “You’ll Go Crazy” — Mark Ronson featuring King Princess
Distortion: “Do You Do You Know” — Mark Ronson featuring Santigold & Kathleen Hanna
(WASHINGTON) — Adding more insight into the CDC’s updated mask guidance, newly published details of the Provincetown outbreak raise concern that the now-dominant delta variant may be able to spread among fully vaccinated people.
Following multiple large gatherings in Provincetown, Mass., from July 3-17, investigators identified 469 COVID-19 cases, two-thirds of which were in fully vaccinated people. The delta variant was responsible for 90% of those cases. The breakthrough infections were among people vaccinated with Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. None of the vaccinated people died, but most had some symptoms.
During the outbreak investigation, researchers learned that the amount of virus in the noses of vaccinated people experiencing a breakthrough infection was the same as in an unvaccinated person — a worrying sign vaccinated people can spread the virus.
“This finding is concerning and was a pivotal discovery leading to CDC’s updated mask recommendation,” said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky in a statement.
“This is a very concerning outbreak — pretty much a ‘super spreader event,'” said Dr. Carlos Del Rio, executive associate dean and global health expert at the Emory School of Medicine.
Experts caution that more studies are needed to understand if what happened in Provincetown holds up in subsequent outbreak investigations. The CDC report noted the social gatherings were “densely packed.” And breakthrough infections are still relatively uncommon, with the majority of cases driven by spread among unvaccinated people. Meanwhile, an internal CDC briefing first published by the Washington Post and confirmed by ABC News outlined additional new data suggesting that the delta variant is different from prior variants in other ways. Chiefly, this variant appears to be extraordinarily contagious — possibly more so than Ebola, Spanish flu, chickenpox and the common cold. It’s also possible delta leads to more severe illness, but for now this is only a possibility and not firmly established.
Taken collectively, these new revelations prompted the CDC to update its mask guidance Tuesday to recommend that vaccinated people once again don masks indoors, especially in high-transmission areas. And that includes schools this fall.
“The rules have changed,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “We have a different epidemic now that we did in May.”
Throughout the spring and summer, the CDC based its guidance on scientific studies of prior COVID-19 variants, including the then-dominant alpha variant, which was first identified in the U.K. and swept the United States during the 2020-2021 winter surge.
But the delta variant — which only just surpassed alpha as the dominant variant on July 6 — is different. It hit the U.S. so fast that only in the past few weeks has sufficient data emerged to show scientists just how significant those differences were.
That means that throughout the summer, the nation’s public health guidance may have been based on alpha variant rules while the nation was living in a delta variant world.
It’s a game of catch-up that’s all-too-familiar to doctors and scientists who have dedicated their lives to preventing infectious disease.
“This is what I always say in a pandemic: I wish I knew today what I’m going to learn tomorrow,” Del Rio said.
“When we released our school guidance on July 9, we had less delta variant in the country, we had fewer cases in the country,” said Walensky, speaking at a Tuesday press conference. “And importantly, we were really hopeful that we would have more people vaccinated, especially in the demographic between 12 to 17 years old,” she said.
Now, Del Rio said, new data is telling us “that the virus has changed — it’s a lot more transmissible, and it has been able to adapt.”
Although it now seems that vaccinated people can pass the virus, “the great majority of transmissions is still coming from vaccinated people,” Del Rio said. “That’s why you’re seeing mandates come left and right. People are saying, enough is enough.”
Experts say this is still a pandemic largely of the unvaccinated, with a majority of cases among unvaccinated people, meaning it’s more important than ever for anyone who is not vaccinated to get vaccinated.
Crucially, current vaccines appear to work just as well against delta to dramatically reduce the risk of severe illness and death. But they may not work as well at preventing mild infections.
“Current vaccines continue to provide strong protection against severe illness and death, but the delta variant is likely responsible for increased numbers of breakthrough infections — breakthroughs that could be as infectious as unvaccinated cases,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D., the chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.
The CDC brief said one of the agency’s biggest challenges moving forward is countering the public perception that vaccines don’t work. But the fact that roughly half the nation is already vaccinated likely saved the United States from an even deadlier summer surge, experts agreed.
“If it were not for the vaccines, there likely would have been a massive overwhelming surge in this county,” Barouch said.
Even still, large portions of the country — including children — remain unvaccinated. And what scientists are learning about the delta variant’s capacity to transmit between vaccinated people might mean we need to mask up again — especially in those high transmission areas.
“We have to get the unvaccinated vaccinated. And in the meantime, masking is useful, but not sufficient so we have to also add testing to the mix of mitigation strategies,” Del Rio said.
For now, the future remains uncertain. Many scientists worry about a winter surge, while others feel encouraged that the delta variant might fade away as suddenly as it arrived.
“There is some evidence — first from India and now from the U.K. — that the delta variant surges and then begins to dissolve,” Barouch said. “We don’t fully understand why the sparks catch fire, and we don’t fully understand why the flames go out.”
ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik, Anne Flaherty, Arielle Mitropoulos and Eric Strauss contributed to this report.
(ST. PETERSBURG, Russia) — At the start of June, St. Petersburg’s local administration stopped publishing information about how many COVID-19 patients had been hospitalized in the Russian city.
The sudden disappearance of the previously daily reported figures happened to coincide with the opening of one the city‘s most prestigious annual events, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
The forum, a gathering of Russia’s elite and a showcase for its biggest companies, has become a flagship event under President Vladimir Putin. Over five days, 13,000 people were expected to attend the event, where Putin told the audience that life was “gradually returning to its normal routine” after the pandemic.
But the forum was opening just as St. Petersburg was seeing a terrifying surge in COVID-19 cases, as a third wave fueled in part by the delta variant bore down on the country. The last bulletin before the numbers vanished had shown St. Petersburg hospitalizing 500 people a day — a record number and one that meant the city would run out of hospital beds within days.
Journalists and critics of the government quickly started asking if the disappearance of the COVID-19 statistics was connected to holding the forum. St. Petersburg’s administration refused to comment and the latest figures weren’t published again until nearly three weeks later. They were no longer updated daily, either.
“They need to create the impression that everything is OK,” said Boris Vishnevsky, an opposition lawmaker from St. Petersburg’s city assembly, who also opposed holding the forum. “They don’t care about people’s lives and health.”
Throughout the pandemic, Russian authorities have been accused of massaging statistics to hide the real scale of the country’s COVID-19 impact. The Kremlin has repeatedly suggested that although it has been difficult, Russia has fared better than most other countries, even as it has neglected to impose tough lockdown measures.
But publicly available mortality statistics, as well as other data, show an ever growing, yawning gap between Russia’s official COVID-19 figures and what are likely the far larger real numbers. The data suggest the true death toll may already be over a half-million people. Far from doing better than most, the data suggests that, in reality, Russia has suffered one of the deadliest COVID-19 epidemics in the world.
The toll is growing even steeper now as Russia endures a deadly third wave that has remained largely unchecked amid few restrictions and poor vaccination uptake — the latter caused in part by some of the highest levels of vaccine scepticism in the world.
Russia’s official COVID-19 death toll, published by the government’s coronavirus task force, currently stands at around 155,000. In total numbers, that still places Russia fourth in the world, behind only Brazil, India and the United States. But, given the size of the country’s 144 million population and the number of cases it has had, that number appears puzzlingly low.
There is a consensus among experts internationally that the best method to assess the true toll of the pandemic in Russia is by counting so-called “excess deaths.” That is, comparing the total number of deaths from any cause in a country during the pandemic periods with the total number of deaths in an average year.
Almost every country hit by the pandemic has seen a steep increase in total deaths compared to the average. Although some of those extra deaths can be attributed to other causes, such as disruption to health systems, most experts believe the vast majority are COVID-19 deaths.
Russia’s official death toll doesn’t take into account excess deaths, but its national statistics service, Rosstat, has quietly continued to release total mortality data for each month, publishing it in spreadsheets on its website. That has allowed independent demographers and journalists to calculate excess deaths for Russia during the pandemic.
The mortality data so far released by Rosstat shows that in 2020, Russia suffered 340,000 more deaths than in 2019. For the first five months of 2021, there were 133,000 more excess deaths.
That means Russia has sustained at least 473,000 more deaths during the pandemic than usual, already three times higher than its officially reported toll. That does not yet include June and July, the deadliest months of the current third wave.
“I think that by the end of September, the overall excess mortality will be at least 700,000 people,” said Alexey Raksha, an independent demographer who previously worked at Rosstat. “It is a huge number.”
By proportion of the population, the current figures give Russia the highest death toll of any major country in the world and place it in the top five of any country in the world, behind only Peru, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Serbia, according to a ranking by The Economist tracking excess deaths globally.
“In November and December of last year, the number of deaths have been record. The biggest in history, in post-war history in Russia,” said Raksha.
Raksha was fired from his job as a demographer at Rosstat last year after he publicly pointed out the discrepancies in the official COVID-19 statistics. He has accused Russian authorities of crudely manipulating the numbers, which he says is visible in the unnatural anomalies in the data released by the country’s coronavirus task force.
He points to line graphs showing monthly deaths for Moscow, where steep curves indicating increasing deaths at certain times suddenly flatline and hold steady for several days.
“It’s in contradiction with all statistical, epidemiological, demographical law,” Raksha said. “It’s just impossible.”
He said the sudden plateaus are nicknamed the “Soybanin’s Shelf,” referring to Moscow’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin. He said they were the result of city officials simply putting a limit on the number of deaths that could be published that day.
“At some point, Sobyanin just ordered not to show more than 75 deaths daily in Moscow. That’s it,” Raksha said.
Russian health officials have previously said they take a more conservative approach to assessing COVID-19 deaths. But that does not explain the vast difference and, at times, officials have acknowledged the real death toll is substantially higher.
In December, Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova, who oversees the COVID-19 response, acknowledged that around 81% of all excess deaths in Russia were caused by COVID-19. The federal statistics service in June also published an estimate suggesting there had been over 270,000 COVID-19 deaths.
But Russia’s primary official death toll, which is most often used internationally and in state media, has not been updated to match those statements.
A recent investigation by three independent Russian investigative news sites also found evidence that internal government records show it is also concealing the scale of COVID-19 cases in the country by as much as five times.
The sites, Meduza, Kholod and Mediazona, reported that an oversight by Russia’s health ministry in issuing certificates confirming recent COVID-19 patients had inadvertently revealed the ministry has a database containing 29 million recorded COVID-19 cases. The official public count currently only shows six million.
The government has denied the reports, but issued conflicting responses, saying the database was not accurate and that it also contained vaccination numbers.
Critics have said the efforts to make Russia’s bout with the pandemic appear less deadly are making it worse by discouraging people from taking the virus seriously, which they say also hampers its push to vaccinate. Although Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has been found to be effective, authorities are struggling to persuade Russians to get it.
With few restrictions in place and still less than 20% of the population fully vaccinated, doctors in the city told ABC News they feared a fourth wave in the autumn was already inevitable.
“Doctors will answer for it, not the government,” said a paramedic in St. Petersburg, who requested anonymity over concerns she could face retaliation.
In St. Petersburg last week, Alexander Yablokov, a 68-year-old soccer manager, said he did not believe the official death toll after he spent three weeks in a COVID-19 hospital. While there, he said he was in a small ward where all but one of seven patients with him died within a week. He said he had pulled his blanket over his head whenever he heard the sound of a gurney coming down the corridor, knowing another of his neighbors had passed.
“I thought I had found myself in a morgue. Not a hospital but a morgue,” he said
Anyone attending the upcoming 73rd annual Emmy Awards, as well anyone appearing on stage or working behind the scenes on a Broadway production, and audience members, will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The announcements came Friday amid rising concern over the so-called Delta variant of COVID-19.
ABC Audio has confirmed The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which stages the Emmys, again noted that only nominees and their respective “plus ones” will be allowed to attend the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremonies on Sept. 11 and 12. Same goes for the main awards show itself on September 19. And in all cases, attendees must show proof of vaccination.
Earlier this month, the Academy announced it was cancelling its traditional Governors Ball events preceding the Emmys celebration, for the second year in a row, over rising COVID-19 concerns.
As recently reported, the 73rd Emmy Awards will return with a limited live audience on Sunday, Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and streaming live and on demand on Paramount+. Cedric The Entertainer will host.
Meanwhile, The Broadway League, the national trade association for the Broadway industry, clarified that the owners and operators of all theaters in New York City will require “audience members, as well as performers, backstage crew, and theatre staff, for all performances through October 2021” to be fully vaccinated.
The organization also noted, “masks will also be required for audiences inside the theatre, except while eating or drinking in designated locations.”
The Broadway League also said that ticket holders for performances through October 31 will be notified of the new rules and be kept abreast of an anticipated review of the policies in September. The organization said the future review, “may include a relaxation of certain provisions if the science dictates.”
Stars — they’re just like us. Which in this case means they also watch reality TV. And this time, that star is Rihanna.
The Fenty Beauty founder recently weighed in on an episode of The Real Housewives of New York City, in which RiRi was name-dropped by cast member Leah McSweeney.
In the scene, Leah, who owns the streetwear brand Married to the Mob, got into a small argument with her co-star Ramona Singer, who sarcastically offered to model her clothes, saying, “Let me promote Leah Mob or Mob something.”
Leah hit back, “You aren’t exactly my demographic, so it’s all good,” before adding, “I already have Rihanna wearing my s***, you think I need you wearing my s***?”
Rihanna herself caught wind of the clip and made her stance on the reality stars’ tiff clear by sharing an Instagram post of herself rocking a “B**** Mob” t-shirt early Thursday morning. She captioned the selfie, “what was said @ramonasinger ? [crying laughing emoji] #RHONY.”
Leah commented on the post, writing, “I love you so much” followed by the crying laughing emoji, red heart emoji, and flame emoji.
It doesn’t appear as if Ramona has responded as of Friday morning.
Earlier this month, Zac Brown Band shared not one but two new songs — “Out in the Middle” and “Old Love Song.”
Now, the band’s got another two-pack of songs to share, and this time, both tunes are reflective and soulful twists on the kinds of songs that ZBB fans have come to know and love over the years.
One, “Stubborn Pride,” is a bluesy love song all about finding good love and making it last — even if it means leaving your pride at the door. Americana-leaning up-and-comer Marcus King co-wrote the track, and also lends vocals to a verse.
“Sometimes it takes people a long time to get everything right,” reflects frontman Zac Brown. “But with your stubborn pride, it’s hard to admit that you messed up a little bit and that you need a change. I tell people that are having a hard time that it’s never too late to get it right.”
Then there’s “Paradise Lost on Me,” a beachy song that will sound familiar to fans of ZBB classics like “Toes.” But unlike some of the band’s more carefree, tropical-leaning songs, if you listen closely, the track’s about heartbreak.
“I love the second verse: ‘Without you it’s just waves trashing kids’ castles and it’s the salt in the wound all over again,’” notes Zac. “The guy found love there at this spot and never found anything like it again, so he comes back to that place again to be close to where it happened. In the song, we never give away what happened to her, but you know it was something he could never actually get over.”
ZBB kicks off their The Comeback Tour this summer. It’ll run through October.
Today, you can hear Metallica as you’ve never heard them before — twice — on the soundtrack of the new Disney movie, Jungle Cruise.
The band worked with noted composer James Newton Howard to reimagine “Nothing Else Matters” for the film. Two different instrumental versions of the song appear on the soundtrack: one is a mostly sedate, acoustic guitar-and-strings version that runs for about a minute-and-a-half, and the other is a much more rocking version featuring strings plus the Metallica thunder.
In a statement, the band says, “It was an honor to work with renowned, legendary composer James Newton Howard as we reimagined the song by performing his arrangement and creating a rendition we like to think is fit for an excursion through the Amazon.”
They add, “Not only are we big fans of Disney, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with Howard, an eight-time Oscar nominee who has been recognized for films such as The Fugitive, Michael Clayton, and The Village.”
Set around World War I,Jungle Cruise, which is now in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access, stars Emily Blunt as an adventurer who hires an Amazon riverboat captain, played by Dwayne Johnson, to take her and her brother in search of a magical plant that can cure all illnesses.
Of course, if you want to hear even more versions of “Nothing Else Matters,” there are 12 different ones on the upcoming The Metallica Blacklist album, performed by everyone from Miley Cyrus and Phoebe Bridgers to My Morning Jacket and country star Chris Stapleton.
“‘Movin’’ was a song I wanted to have fun with and challenge myself by literally Movin’ with some choreography,” David says in a statement. “I wanted just a touch of Latin feel even though it’s not necessarily Latin music.”
He adds that he asked his producer, Nate Dodge, to “spice up” the original mix of the song and he ended up liking the remixed version so much that he decided to release both.
David also announced rescheduled dates for his OK, All Right 2022 tour. The six-week North American trek kicks off in February.
Aside from music, David will be releasing his first children’s book on October 12, based on his song “My Little Prayer.” It’s available for pre-order now.
Dan + Shay are continuing to roll out new music off their upcoming album, Good Things. The country duo dropped their new tune, “Lying,” this week, a bouncy, piano-driven heartbreak tune that puts lead singer Shay Mooney’s vocal prowess front and center.
To go along with their new song, the pair dropped a music video that the two band mates meeting in the dive-y, Western-themed Cactus Club, nursing their broken hearts with tequila before they hop on stage to perform.
Speaking of hopping on stage, Dan + Shay are planning to celebrate the release of Good Things with a special show at The Great Lawn in Centennial Park in Nashville. It’ll be the first major concert event to happen there, and will take place August 13, the same day that Good Things comes out.
Good Things will be the band’s fourth album to date. It includes the chart-topping “I Should Probably Go to Bed,” as well as “10,000 Hours,” Dan + Shay’s hit duet with Justin Bieber. When they announced their new album earlier this month, they also shared its title track.
