Silk Sonic, the dynamic duo comprised of Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars, delighted fans by dropping “Skate,” their brand new single on Friday.
The groovy throwback tune, which infuses elements of the funk and soul music that flourished in the ’70s, serves as an invitation for .Paak and Mars’ object of affection that they hail as a “hundred dollars” in a “room full of dimes.”
“Got your hair in the wind and your skin glistening/ I can smell your sweet perfume/ Mmm, you smell better than a barbecue/ Oh, superstar is what you are,” the duo croons over a swell of strings, electric guitars and a rich chorus of drums.
The two then plead over a smooth refrain for the one they have their eye on to “skate to me” and “slide your way on over” because they “want to get to know ya.”
The sensual and charismatic tune, paired with a playful music video featuring the duo serenading a crowd of female skaters, is sure to skate its way up the Billboard charts.
The two previously hailed “Skate” as a “summertime jam” when teasing it on social media and fans are already predicting it could be a late entry to become the biggest song of the summer.
“Skate” follows in the footsteps of the duo’s predecessor, “Leave the Door Open,” which will be featured on their hotly anticipated debut album, An Evening with Silk Sonic.
Taylor Swift shared empowering messages for gymnasts Jade Carey and Suni Lee, who stepped up to represent the United States at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics following Simone Biles‘ decision to withdraw from the women’s all-around competition.
Taylor, speaking over the gentle intro of her song “evermore,” expressed confidence in the USA Women’s Gymnastics Team and commended the athletes for giving their all.
“Life can surprise you. It can humble you. It can test you. It can inspire you,” the Grammy winner stated in a new promo, which aired during NBC’s broadcast of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The promo shared never-before-seen video of Biles, Carey and Lee training hard for the Games. Taylor shifted the message to center on how the team is handling Biles’ absence.
“They didn’t expect this to be the story, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t ready for the spotlight,” she said as the footage shifted to Carey and Lee. “They’ve worked for this. They’ve dreamed about this. They belong here.”
Expressing confidence that Team USA will make America proud, Swift exclaimed, “So don’t be surprised as the story takes flight from here in the women’s all around in Tokyo!”
Taylor’s message rang true on Thursday night, with Lee making history by claiming the gold medal for the gymnastics all-around event. She is now the fifth consecutive gymnastics all-around gold medalist, following in the footsteps of Carly Patterson, Nastia Liukin, Gabby Douglas and teammate Biles, who was last to take home the gold in 2016.
Lee, who is 18, is also the first Hmong American Olympian. As for Carey, she finished in eighth place, losing points for taking a fall on the balance beam.
(TAMPA, Fla.) — A jarring reality check is taking place in intensive care units across the country as thousands of COVID-19 positive patients, nearly all of them unvaccinated, are streaming into hospitals in need of care.
This is particularly true in Florida, where virus-related hospitalizations have skyrocketed in recent weeks. The situation has escalated rapidly, now nearing peak levels, with nearly 7,900 patients hospitalized with the virus across the state, up by more than 320% in the last month, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It feels like it’s an impending storm … there’s no off ramp to this getting worse,” Dr. David Wein, an emergency room physician at Tampa General Hospital in Florida, told ABC News on Wednesday.
On Tuesday this week, more than 1,450 patients with COVID-19 were admitted to hospitals across the state, marking the highest number of patients seeking care within a 24-hour period in Florida since the onset of the pandemic.
“Right now, at Tampa General Hospital, we are really feeling the crush of this increase incidence of COVID-19, and so the delta area has really brought many patients to our emergency room, requiring treatment and admission,” Peggy Dugan, the executive vice president and chief medical officer at the hospital, told ABC News in an exclusive interview.
It was just six weeks ago that some of the team thought they may be out of the woods, with metrics steadily trending down across the country.
“It felt like we were ready to move in the right direction and start seeing it plateau. And it was a surprise to see it trend up like it did,” said Erika Mergl, nurse manager for the Tampa General Hospital’s Global Emerging Diseases Institute.
However, virus-related hospitalization levels are now nearing peak levels.
“We’re getting to numbers that were as high as last summer. In early July, we were down to 12 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, and today we have 80. So we’re really just seeing an escalation over a short span of time,” Duggan said.
The situation in Tampa is not an anomaly. Nearly every state in the country is now experiencing case, and COVID-19 hospitalization increases. Virus-related hospitalizations levels are now at their highest point since April, with nearly 33,700 patients receiving care — about 10,000 more patients than a week ago.
Many of the patients at Tampa General are younger, Dugan said, some as young as 22 or 23 years old, and “almost” all of them have been unvaccinated, the hospital said.
One of the hospital’s unvaccinated patients is 64-year-old patient Gerard Considine, who spent nine days intubated after he tested positive for the virus.
“I’m not used to being scared of anything, but this scared the hell out of me,” Considine told ABC News.
Considine said he didn’t get the COVID-19 vaccine because he had experienced adverse reactions to other vaccines, but despite his ordeal, he does not think he will choose to be vaccinated, believing that he has developed some antibodies, at this point.
However, said Duggan, “we’re seeing people who are recovering now very regretful that they didn’t get the vaccination in the first place.”
Many of the patients coming to the hospital are already quite ill when they arrive, said Wein.
“Unfortunately, we’re seeing people who are coming in days, or several days, into their disease and sicker, with difficulty breathing, needing to be admitted to the hospital. So it feels more like that winter surge that we had,” Wein said, adding that a number of these patients end up on ventilators.
“This is heartbreaking because all this could have been avoided, this is unnecessary human suffering that we are witnessing right now,” Dr. Seetha Lakshmi, the medical director of the Global Emerging Diseases Institute at Tampa General Hospital, told ABC News.
Several front-line workers at Tampa General Hospital expressed to ABC News their deep concern and fear about the next several weeks for their teams, given the state’s and the hospital’s exponential increase in infections and virus-related hospitalizations, stressing that their message to Americans is that vaccinations are key to controlling the pandemic and ending the suffering.
The difference in getting vaccinated, or not getting vaccinated is ultimately akin to “the difference between having a cold and dying,” said Wein. “If a vaccinated patient gets this, they’re most likely going to be just fine, and not going to end up in the hospital. Unfortunately, the unvaccinated person has a really high likelihood that he will end up hospitalized on a ventilator.”
L-R – Director David Lowery, Ralph Ineson, Dev Patel/A24
Today, the picturesque, trippy drama The Green Knight hits theaters. In the adaptation of the famed medieval tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, writer-director David Lowery has Slumdog Millionaire‘s Dev Patel playing Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur, who wants to prove himself to the king.
To that end, when a mysterious, monstrous, truthfully Groot-like knight strides into the king’s court and offers any worthy man a mysterious challenge, Gawain seizes his chance.
His choice sends him on an epic quest of self-discovery, in which he encounters ghosts, bandits and a mysterious castle full of temptation, and ultimately finds out if he’s worthy.
Patel and co-star Joel Edgerton, who plays a lord Gawain encounters on his quest, praised the Ghost Story director for bringing the haunting tale to life. “Everything is so considered in the film you know, down to every thread in that costume,” Patel tells ABC Audio.
“You’re part of this great visionary’s composition, and every frame really was a painting. It’s a process of submission in a way,” he continues, adding with a laugh, “I trusted him so much that you kind of just submit yourself up to the experience and let a great director and the wilderness in Ireland do the rest of the dictating in a way.”
Patel says of seeing the film for the first time, “My breath was taken away.”
Edgerton agrees. “I kind of blew my mind, actually,” he notes. “I was expecting no less, but I got a lot more than I was expecting…It just feels like a constantly evolving painting.”
The Green Knight also stars Oscar winner Alicia Vikander, Erin Kellyman from The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and Mission: Impossible series baddie Sean Harris.
Following Amber Heard and Johnny Depp‘s contentious divorce battle, which unearthed unflattering accusations concerning them both, fans of the Aquaman franchise demanded the actress’ removal from the upcoming sequel. But don’t hold your breath waiting for it to happen.
A petition that was signed by over one million people said the actress needed to be removed because of previous allegations that she abused Depp during their marriage.
However, a producer of the upcoming Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom confirms Heard, 35, will not be cut from the movie and will reprise her role of Mera, the love interest of Jason Mamoa‘s Aquaman.
“I don’t think we’re ever going to react to, honestly, pure fan pressure,” producer Peter Safran told Deadline about the backlash. “You gotta do what’s best for the movie. We felt that if it’s [director] James Wan, and Jason Momoa, it should be Amber Heard. That’s really what it was.”
Insisting that Heard is an integral part of the Aquaman franchise, Safran said, “One is not unaware of what is going on in the Twitter-verse, but that doesn’t mean you have to react to it or take it as gospel or accede to their wishes.”
“You have to do what’s right for the film, and that’s really where we landed on it,” he concluded.
(NEW YORK) — A flurry of new scientific findings is prompting renewed concern among doctors about the long-term cognitive impacts of COVID-19 in some patients.
Several new studies presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, being held this week in Denver, have found that many COVID-19 patients experience “brain fog” and other cognitive impairments months after recovery. This adds to a growing body of research on COVID-19’s apparent long-haul symptoms, which can include confusion, forgetfulness and other worrying signs of memory loss.
“This research features the first data from an international consortium, which includes the Alzheimer’s Association, investigating the long-term consequences of COVID-19 on the brain,” Heather Snyder, the vice president of medical and scientific relations for the Alzheimer’s Association said in prepared remarks.
Not enough time has passed for researchers to know if these worrying symptoms eventually clear up. However, they’re pointing to these studies as renewed evidence that everyone — especially older people who are already vulnerable to cognitive decline — should get vaccinated.
“While we work together to further understand the lasting impacts of COVID-19 on the brain, the take home message is simple: don’t get COVID-19. And the best way to do that is by getting vaccinated,” Maria Carrillo, chief science officer for the Alzheimer’s Association, said in prepared remarks.
Researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center studied the cognition and olfactory senses of 300 older adult Amerindians from Argentina who contracted COVID and found that 50% had persistent problems with forgetfulness and 25% had additional problems with language and executive dysfunction.
“A large portion of our patients in the COVID Recovery Program exhibit cognitive signs and symptoms long after the inflammatory phase of COVID has passed. We typically see many patients with naso-pharyngeal predominant illness come back to us with more neurocognitive deficits,” Dr. Thomas Gut, director of the Post-COVID Recovery Center at Staten Island University Hospital, told ABC News. Gut was not involved in any of the studies presented at the conference.
Researchers at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine studied blood samples of 310 patients admitted to NYU Langone Health with COVID for the presence of biomarkers that would indicate brain inflammation and damage. High levels of certain biomarkers were strongly associated with inflammation in the brain. Damage to the blood-brain barrier caused by inflammation can result in the brain’s inability to send messages from the brain to other parts of the body.
“So far, our efforts offering supportive therapies have shown improvement, but the recovery time is still measured in months. Finding a cause and mechanism for these inflammatory changes in the brain would be the first place to start in addressing how to reverse or prevent these inflammatory changes,” said Gut.
Researchers from the University of Thessaly reviewed the cognitive function and overall health of 32 patients with mild to moderate COVID infection two months post-hospitalization and found that more than 50% experienced cognitive decline, particularly with short-term memory. They also found that poorer memory and thinking scores were associated with lower level of oxygen saturation during a short walk test.
“Many of the cognitive changes that we see mirror in many ways Alzheimer’s disease or PTSD,” said Gut. “What is becoming clearer, is that the severity of acute infection does not directly predict neurocognitive changes after the acute phase has passed. We have many patients that had mild infection or illness struggle severely with memory or behavior changes.”
(NEW YORK) — As COVID-19 cases surge across much of the United States and many vaccinated people return to indoor masking, a pattern appears to be emerging — the same states that are seeing the biggest increases in COVID-19 infections also have high rates of residents who don’t have health insurance.
“It lines up with everything we’ve seen during the pandemic,” said John Brownstein, Ph.D., the chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “Uninsured communities have less access to testing, less access to vaccines and less access to care. So of course, you’re going to have increased overall risk among those populations,” he added.
“It’s playing out as we would have anticipated in a pandemic.”
Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has mocked the use of masks and issued an executive order to block government entities from requiring COVID-19 vaccines, has emerged as a cautionary tale. Along with Louisiana, Florida now has the country’s highest COVID-19 case rate, with more than 400 new cases per 100,000 residents as of Wednesday, according to CDC data.
“Florida is in the worst spot right now,” said David Radley, a senior scientist for The Commonwealth Fund, a New York City-based foundation that promotes better access to quality health care. “It has the highest emerging case rate and it has a high level of uninsured.”
Florida might hold the dubious distinction of having among the highest new COVID-19 case rates coupled with a 19% uninsurance rate, but a number of other states are struggling with increasing COVID burdens and a health system that’s not set up to easily handle — or pay for them.
Importantly, a correlation between high uninsurance rates and an increasing COVID-19 burden does not mean below-average insurance coverage is driving infections. Instead, a complex constellation of overlapping factors, including politics, might be at play.
“When we think about the policy choices states have made, which would leave a state in a place to have high uninsured rate — things like not expanding Medicare and Medicaid programs and having more restrictive Medicaid programs in the first place — are political choices that tend to align on the right side of the political spectrum,” Radley said.
“I think there are a lot of undercurrents that are driving high uninsured rates and the high case rate,” Radley added.
The reality of being uninsured during a pandemic
Having a high rate of uninsured residents is bad enough during normal times, experts say, but it’s especially harrowing during a pandemic.
Hospitals providing intense levels of COVID-19 care to uninsured patients won’t be reimbursed at the same rate that they would be for patients with insurance. Assuming they survive, those uninsured patients will likely face medical bills for their hospital stays, whether they can afford them or not, Radley explained.
There’s also a circular phenomenon in which people without insurance, or who are underinsured, may be less likely to seek timely care or get tested in the first place.
“I can see a scenario where it would create a spiral,” Radley said.
Compounding that delayed care is the fact that people who don’t have health insurance are more likely to be in high-risk groups, Brownstein explained. He pointed to a preprint study he worked on, which has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, which found that “vaccine deserts have more residents with self-reported COVID-19 exposures and pre-existing conditions as well as more individuals who lack health insurance.”
“If you have increased risk in those populations, it’s not just about increased cases, it’s increased hospitalizations and deaths,” Brownstein said.
The most current data available on insurance rates from the American Community Survey data is from 2019, meaning it doesn’t include the pandemic. But while experts feared that job loss during the pandemic would lead to higher uninsurance rates, Radley said that based on informal surveys, it doesn’t appear that those fears have come to pass. He expects 2020 rates to reinforce similar patterns to the 2019 rates.
“I would bet you that these are vast underestimates, because those that are uninsured are unlikely to get testing — either have access or be able to get testing covered,” Brownstein said. “The patterns that you’re witnessing might be even stronger if testing was equitable.”
“If we’re not taking care of fundamental issues of access to care at the most basic levels, and then you have worse outcomes among those patients because they didn’t have that care or access to testing, and they end up in hospitals,” Brownstein said. The end result: overflowing hospitals, which impact patients of all socioeconomic groups.
“Everyone suffers when you don’t do the right thing in terms of equitable access to care.”
The big-screen adaptation of Disney’s iconic Jungle Cruise ride opens in theaters today. The film stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as wise-cracking riverboat captain Frank Wolff, who is tasked with taking Emily Blunt‘s Dr. Lily Houghton into the heart of the Amazon so she can find a legendary tree with “unparalleled healing powers.”
For Johnson, who was also a producer on the film, getting Quiet Place star Blunt in the film was key — so important that he sent a personal video to her imploring her to join. “I said ‘Emily, you are the only one who can do this movie,'” Johnson recalled at a recent press gathering of the cast.
The pair’s onscreen chemistry was evident during the sit-down, which was also attended by Jack Whitehall, who plays Blunt’s onscreen brother, and Edgar Ramirez, who plays one of the heavies, Aguirre. Each took turns poking fun at Johnson and his video. “Jack can attest to this as a British person,” Blunt laughed, “if someone comes on too strong…It’s just better to go. ‘OK, just tone it down.'”
Aside from busting Johnson’s chops, Blunt admitted of the star, “We were pals for life immediately. It was like I knew when we met, we had this rapport that like ping pong back and forth so quickly and I just thought we could have a good time.”
“It’s very true,” Johnson agreed. “And then, you know, you look you hope to get lucky, you know, with your cast and you like to try to have some chemistry and this and a lot of times you at times you fake it…”
Blunt quickly added, “He’s been faking it for years,” which cracked Johnson up, adding, “I have and I will continue to fake it. Big faker!”
Following the resounding success of her debut studio album WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?, Billie Eilish has embarked on her new era in music with her sophomore release, Happier Than Ever. And she’s definitely very proud of it.
“I can’t even process it. this was the most fulfilling most satisfying and profound experience i’ve ever had with my music,” the 19-year-old Grammy winner posted on Instagram early Friday morning. “finneas and i were just on cloud 9 making this album i feel.. i love every song on this project so so much it literally scares me thinking about putting it out into the world for anyone to listen to. i feel like crying.”
Happier Than Ever, which boasts 16 tracks that dive into the singer’s most vulnerable thoughts, slides effortlessly between a range of complex emotions. In the deceptively upbeat “Getting Older,” Eilish relives the abuse she suffered that she was unable to confront or tell anyone out of fear. By comparison, her track “Lost Cause” is a ferocious takedown of one of her exes, whom she’s relieved is out of her life.
“I grew so much in the process of making this album and experienced so much self realization and self reflection. i wish i could go back and make this album all over again because it was some of the best nights in my life,” says Billie.
“Please take care of this project, it means the world to me,” she closed in the emotional post.
Happier Than Ever is available to purchase and stream now.
(NEW YORK) — It’s a simple device that can save lives and keep people out of emergency rooms.
But masks are once again a flashpoint after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended this week that everyone in areas with substantial or high levels of transmission, regardless of their vaccination status, return to wearing a mask in public, indoor settings and in schools, amid a concerning rise in the delta variant.
Despite a rise in cases and hospitalizations, several states are pushing back against the CDC’s new guidelines — which have changed dramatically over the past few weeks. Some governors have balked at what they’ve criticized as a whiplash reversion to overly draconian measures, vowing no mask mandate would succeed in their state.
The CDC’s reversal comes just two months after it announced it would no longer recommend masking for vaccinated Americans, and just as the nation was breathing a collective sigh of relief at the precipitous fall of cases and hospitalizations due to the rollout of mass vaccinations.
Here are some of the states battling back against the changing guidance, and why.
No ‘one size fits all’
“The time for government mask mandates is over,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted after the CDC’s announcement on Tuesday, adding that “now is the time for personal responsibility.”
Texas’ COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have seen a dramatic rise, with daily case averages roughly doubling in recent weeks. COVID-19 deaths in the state are also ticking up.
On Thursday, Abbott criticized President Joe Biden for the length of time it’s taking the Food and Drug Administration to upgrade the vaccines to a permanent authorization from their current emergency authorization — a concern often cited by those who are hesitant to get the shot.
For states like Texas and Iowa that have either passed laws or issued executive orders banning mask mandates, the latest CDC guidance is “counterproductive to vaccination efforts,” said Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.
Reynolds called the CDC’s recommendation “not grounded in reality or common sense,” and praised herself for leading one of several states that have passed laws restricting mask mandates
“I’m concerned that this new guidance will be used as a vehicle to mandate masks in states and schools across the country, something I do not support,” Reynolds tweeted.
In Arizona, another state where mask mandates are banned by law, Gov. Doug Ducey used the CDC’s recommendations to criticize Biden, saying that the new mask guidance is an example of the Biden administration’s “inability to effectively control the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Alabama officials also said they would not be following the CDC’s updated guidance. A spokesperson for Gov. Kay Ivey said the current circumstances do not warrant a “blanket one-size-fits-all” approach.
“The state of emergency has ended, and Alabama is moving forward,” the spokesperson told ABC News.
‘The vaccine works’
Following the CDC’s announcement this week, Biden said the decision was not a relapse but “another step on our journey to defeating the virus.”
“Unlike 2020, we have both the scientific knowledge and the tools to prevent the spread of this disease,” Biden said. “We are not going back to that.”
But some states’ leaders are pointing to the vaccines’ efficacy as a reason not to re-enforce masking.
“The vaccine works,” said Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina, where a state law prohibits school administrators from requiring students to wear a mask.
Health officials stress that while the vaccines are indeed safe and effective, many states still have a substantial number of residents who are unvaccinated — and with the exponential spread of the highly transmissible delta variant, a mask is meant to protect both wearer and bystander.
In Maryland, a health department spokesperson told ABC News that the state isn’t affected by the new CDC guidance because it’s not among the areas showing “high or substantial community transmission.” The spokesperson said that Maryland is one of the most vaccinated states in the country, and that “blunts the impact of the delta variant.”
For health experts like University of Washington professor of global health Ali Mokdad, who believes the CDC was late in reversing its guidance, the political debate over masks is “hurting our ability to contain COVID-19.”
“I do not understand how masks and vaccines could be a political statement,” Mokdad said. “Look at the new admissions in Florida for COVID-19 confirmed patients — if this will not make governors pause and take this virus seriously, what will?”
Some states, like California, New Mexico and New Jersey, have welcomed the latest mask guidance.
“It’s clear that the nation is at a critical moment in this COVID crisis,” said Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, lauding the CDC for “a hard look at where we are.”
“Illinois will follow this guidance, as we always have,” he said.
Left vs. right
Like other coronavirus issues, the updated mask guidance has divided parts of the country along largely political lines — even within states.
The attorney general of Missouri, where coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continue to rage, has announced that the state government is suing St. Louis city and county for bringing back mask mandates. But that didn’t stop Kansas City, on the other side of the state, from announcing Wednesday that it was also reinstating an indoor mask mandate.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, called the new CDC guidance “disappointing” and “concerning” Wednesday, adding that “it only serves to disrupt” the state’s slow uptick in vaccination.
In Atlanta, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, on Wednesday issued an executive order requiring masks in public indoor spaces — despite Gov. Brian Kemp’s longstanding opposition to any mask mandate.
“We don’t need mandates,” Kemp, a Republican, told ABC affiliate WSB-TV this week. “We need to continue to share the data and the facts.”
Georgia’s cases and hospitalizations are both at more than 10% and rising.
In Florida, a spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, told ABC News that imposing mask mandates would discourage people from getting vaccinated.
But Miami-Dade, the state’s most populous county, is pushing back against the governor’s ban on masks after reporting 11,000 new coronavirus infections in one day.
“When the health care system is overwhelmed, that is extremely dangerous for all of us, so we must do our part to keep people out of the hospital,” Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. a Democrat, said Wednesday.
Dr. Rich Besser, former acting CDC director and president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, told ABC News that the pandemic is far from over and that “we do need to do more.”
“We’re in a very fluid situation,” Besser said. “You know, there are many who wanted to declare victory over this pandemic several months ago, but it’s far from over.”
“We will see the end of this pandemic,” said Besser, who supports a “layered approach” out of the crisis. “But until that time, we are all at risk.”
