The Beatles and Us, an award-winning short documentary about the relationship that the city of Liverpool, England, had and continues to have with its most famous native sons, The Beatles, is now available as a digital download and via streaming platforms.
The film offers a profile of Liverpool and looks at how its history, traditions and culture helped shaped the members of The Beatles. The movie also examines the band’s influence on the city, its music scene, tourism industry and more.
The Beatles and Us features interviews with various Liverpool residents reflecting on the Fab Four’s impact on the northern U.K. port city and recalling their experiences meeting or seeing the group’s members.
“I suppose I’m biased, given my family are from Liverpool, but I do think it’s a special city,” says the film’s director, Chris Purcell. “Quite different to anywhere else in the U.K., it’s a quirky, off-kilter kind of place that has its own singular character. Coming from a town like that gave The Beatles, who were already magically blessed with the right combination of talents, just the edge they needed to conquer all before them.”
The flick won the Best International Documentary prize at the Venice Shorts film festival, and was selected as a finalist at the New York International Film Awards.
(WASHINGTON) — Nearly 70% of all military personnel have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, but a debate has begun to swirl about whether the Pentagon should make vaccinations mandatory for the ranks should the Food and Drug Administration formally approve the vaccine in the future.
While COVID-19 vaccinations in the U.S. military are taking place under the same emergency use authorization that has allowed vaccinations to take place in the general population, Pentagon officials have said publicly that they would consider whether to make the vaccinations mandatory, as is done with more than a dozen other vaccines, should the FDA formally approve the vaccine.
The issue blew up over the weekend when Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., tweeted that he had been contacted by members of the military who told him they would “quit” if ordered to take the vaccine.
The tweet generated both positive and negative responses, with some pointing out that because military personnel sign enlistment contracts they cannot quit. Others noted that the U.S. military requires as many as 17 vaccinations for military service.
Massie later tweeted “NO ONE should be forced or coerced by ANYONE to take the COVID vaccine. The fact that policy discussions in the US are centered around “proof of vaccine” instead of ‘evidence of immunity’ shows that science and reason have been drummed out by politics, profits, and superstition.”
According to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, three in 10 American adults said they have not gotten a coronavirus vaccine and definitely or probably will not get one.
Earlier this week the Army Times obtained an internal Army memo that said commanders should “prepare for a directive to mandate COVID-19 vaccination for service members (on or around) 01 September 2021, pending full FDA licensure,” the order said.
“As a matter of policy we do not comment on leaked documents. The vaccine continues to be voluntary,” Maj. Jackie Wren, an Army spokesperson told ABC News. “If we are directed by DOD to change our posture, we are prepared to do so.”
At a Pentagon briefing on Tuesday the Pentagon’s top spokesman emphasized the success that the U.S. military has had in recommending the use of the vaccines.
“It is not FDA approved, and therefore, it is still a voluntary vaccine,” said John Kirby. “I would like to add that as we speak, almost 69% of DOD personnel have received at least one dose. That’s not bad.”
However he added that should the FDA fully approve one of the vaccines “then I am certain that Pentagon leadership — we’ll take a look at what our options are going forward, including the potential option of making mandatory but I’m not going to get too far ahead of process right now,” he added.
Kirby acknowledged that there had been “some preliminary discussions at senior levels within the department to think about what the next logical steps would be if and when FDA approval comes in.”
“I don’t think that should surprise anybody that we’re trying to think about what the implications would be and what how we would, how would react to that but I don’t have any decisions to announce today or specific procedures and protocols to speak to,” said Kirby.
Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(SURFSIDE, Fla.) — At least 36 people, including three children, have been confirmed dead and 109 others remain unaccounted for after a 12-story residential building partially collapsed in South Florida’s Miami-Dade County last month.
The disaster occurred on June 24 around 1:15 a.m. local time at the Champlain Towers South condominium in the small, beachside town of Surfside, about 6 miles north of Miami Beach. Approximately 55 of the oceanfront complex’s 136 units were destroyed, according to officials. Since then, hundreds of first responders have been carefully combing through the pancaked piles of debris in hopes of finding survivors.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced Tuesday morning that four more bodies were recovered from the rubble. In the evening, she announced another four bodies had been recovered, bringing the official death toll to 36. Twenty-six of the victims have been identified.
Meanwhile, investigators have confirmed that 70 of the 109 people who are still missing were in fact inside of the condominium at the time of the partial collapse. Another 191 people who were living or staying in the building at that time have been accounted for and are safe, according to Levine Cava, who has stressed that the figures are “very fluid” and “will continue to change” as detectives continuously audit the list.
Although officials wouldn’t say when the search and rescue operation will formally transition into a recovery mission, Levine Cava told reporters that the crews will “continue as now to thoroughly, carefully sift through these piles,” looking for “bodies and belongings.” The process is a “very thorough and exhaustive” one, she said.
Crews have hauled away nearly 5 million pounds of concrete from the vast scene of wreckage, but large piles of rubble still remain. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Alan Cominsky said the rescue workers have been “aggressively” searching for any voids or “liveable spaces” within the debris where there could be trapped survivors but that they are “not coming across that.” No survivors have been discovered in the wreckage of the building since the morning it partially collapsed.
“We’re not seeing anything positive,” Cominsky told reporters on Tuesday morning.
The massive search and rescue mission is now in its 13th day, as teams are able to operate at full capacity and search in areas that were previously inaccessible.
The part of the building that remained standing was cleared of any people or pets before it was demolished on Sunday night, due to concerns about its structural integrity. However, it was too dangerous for surviving residents to enter the building to retrieve their belongings, officials said.
Video released by the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue on Monday night showed crews working atop the piles, braving the elements as Tropical Storm Elsa approached the Sunshine State.
The incoming storm, which has weakened from a hurricane, initiated the discussion about demolishing the rest of the building and fast-tracked the process, according to Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett. Elsa made landfall in Cuba on Monday and by Tuesday morning the storm’s center was moving through Key West with maximum sustained winds of 60 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service.
Prior to the demolition, the search and rescue operation was halted for almost an entire day last week due to safety concerns for the crews regarding the remaining structure. Poor weather conditions have also forced them to temporarily pause working.
The cause of the partial collapse to a building that has withstood decades of hurricanes remains unknown and is under investigation. Built in the 1980s, the Champlain Towers South was up for its 40-year recertification and had been undergoing roof work — with more renovations planned — when it partially collapsed, according to officials.
“The whole world wants to know what happened here,” Levine Cava told reporters on Tuesday morning. “I look forward to learning the truth, as do we all, but I think it’ll be a while before it is understood.”
Like so many musicians, Men at Work frontman Colin Hay had his 2020 touring plans sidelined because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the singer/songwriter has now unveiled a new series of U.S. solo concerts scheduled for late summer.
The trek is plotted out from an August 4 show in Hyannis, Massachusetts, through a September 11 performance at the Beachlife Festival in Redondo Beach, California.
Hay will be promoting a brand-new studio album on the tour, a 10-track collection of covers titled I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself that’s due out on August 6.
Colin was inspired to make the album during the COVID lockdown, after he recorded a version of the Gerry and the Pacemakers hit “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” following the death of that group’s lead singer, Gerry Marsden, in January 2021.
Hay’s frequent collaborator and producer Chad Fischer suggested Colin record more cover tunes, and Hay decided to make a full album of tunes he loved when he was younger.
I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself also features the title track, which was penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and was a big U.K. hit for Dusty Springfield in 1964, as well as songs by The Beatles, The Kinks, Faces, Blind Faith, Glen Campbell and Jimmy Cliff.
The album can be pre-ordered now, and is available on CD, vinyl and in various digital formats.
“I recorded an album of songs written by other people that have meant a lot to me ever since I was a young fellow,” Hay notes. “I can’t wait to play them for you on this upcoming jaunt across the land.”
Here’s the full I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself track list:
“I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” (Dusty Springfield)
“Waterloo Sunset” (The Kinks)
“Wichita Lineman” (Glen Campbell)
“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” (The Beatles)
“Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” (Gerry and the Pacemakers)
“Ooh La La” (Faces)
“Driving with the Brakes On” (Del Amitri)
“Across the Universe” (The Beatles)
“Can’t Find My Way Home” (Blind Faith)
“Many Rivers to Cross” (Jimmy Cliff)
(WASHINGTON) — When the Senate returns to Washington next week, lawmakers will be in a race against the clock to navigate a precarious political landscape in time to progress President Joe Biden’s infrastructure agenda before the summer comes to a close.
There are only four weeks remaining for lawmakers to make major moves on infrastructure, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised that both a bipartisan package focused on core infrastructure items and a second, larger, fast-tracked budget bill aimed at other priorities in Biden’s American Families Plan will be introduced in July.
Prospects for the $1.2 trillion bipartisan deal, forged by a group of five Senate Democrats and five Senate Republicans got a boost Tuesday from the bipartisan House Problem Solvers caucus, who gave the proposal it’s seal of approval in a statement.
“I’m thrilled to have the Caucus’s support for our bipartisan agreement to make historic investments in upgrading America’s critical infrastructure, creating jobs and expanding economic opportunities across the country without raising taxes,” said Senator Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who led Senate negotiations on the bipartisan infrastructure package.
But critically, the caucus only lent it support to the stand-alone bipartisan bill. The group did not endorse tying the bipartisan infrastructure package to a larger bill that would be passed using a fast-track budget procedure called reconciliation, as some progressive Democrats have called for.
“We support bringing this bipartisan, bicameral proposal, which is strongly supported by the White House, to the House floor as a stand-alone vote,” Problem Solvers Caucus co-Chair Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., said Tuesday. “Let us vote on this package now — no strings attached. Let this bill be considered up-or-down on its own merits.”
It is not yet clear whether lawmakers will have a chance to consider the bipartisan package separate from a reconciliation package. Democratic leaders are pursuing a “two-track” approach that would move both pieces of legislation at the same time.
Biden faced considerable backlash following the announcement of the bipartisan deal last month for saying he would only consider the bipartisan package “in tandem” with the larger reconciliation package. The president had to issue a clarification to soothe Republican detractors.
Republicans have all but demanded the bipartisan bill stand alone for it to earn their backing while progressive Democrats have threatened to vote against the bipartisan deal unless they’re assured the larger package will also pass.
Legislative language is still coming together behind the scenes while the Senate is on recess.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during a press briefing Tuesday that the White House is in contact with congressional staff working on crafting both the bipartisan package and the legislation that would be used in a budget reconciliation process. No bill text on either package is yet available.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to happen with Congress, and we expect over the next week there to be a lot of behind the scenes bill writing negotiations discussions on Capitol Hill, long nights, lots of coffee over the course of the next several days,” Psaki said. “Given that Leader Schumer has conveyed that he would like to see both the reconciliation package and the infrastructure bill on the floor in July, and we’re in July now in terms of the president’s priorities.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reaffirmed on Wednesday that she is still committed to tying the bipartisan package to a reconciliation package. It remains to be seen if those commitments will be enough to coax progressives in both the House and Senate who are reluctant to support the bipartisan deal without assurances of a reconciliation package to vote in favor of the bipartisan deal.
Democrats are working with the narrowest of margins in both chambers. In the House, there is a slim majority. In the Senate, every single Democrat, plus the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, will be needed to pass a reconciliation package that will almost certainly face unanimous opposition from Senate Republicans.
Unanimity among the Senate Democratic Caucus is going to prove its own challenge, especially under such time constraints. Budget reconciliation is a time-consuming process, and Democrats as of late are on wildly different pages about the appropriate amount of money to allocate.
Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., whose committee will lead the reconciliation process, has proposed as much as $6 trillion for the second package. But moderate Democrat Joe Manchin said he will only support that which can be credibly paid for.
“I want to make sure we pay for it. I do not want to add more debt on,” Manchin said on ABC News’ “This Week.” “So if that’s $1 trillion or $1.5 trillion or $2 trillion, whatever that comes out to be over a 10-year period, that’s what I would be voting for,” Manchin said.
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell conceded at a press event on Tuesday that if all Democrats are united behind a reconciliation effort, there’s little he can do to prevent them from moving forward.
That leaves the Republican leader dependent on Manchin — as well as other moderate Democrats — who he said may find the spending levels Sanders is proposing “offensive.”
McConnell said he still sees a path forward on the bipartisan infrastructure deal but promised that Senate Republicans are “going to make it hard” for Democrats to move forward on a reconciliation package.
“This is not going to be done on a bipartisan basis,” McConnell said of the larger reconciliation package. “This is going to be a hell of a fight over what this country ought to look like in the future and that’s all going to unfold here in the next few weeks.”
Amazon Prime has released the trailer for its upcoming documentary about the life of Val Kilmer, called Val. Culled from thousands of hours of film and video footage that Kilmer shot himself over his many years in Hollywood, the doc also details his battle with throat cancer, which has left his voice slurred, but his spirit unbroken.
The footage also is a time capsule: It takes viewers behind the scenes of iconic movies in which Kilmer starred, including Top Gun, The Doors, Heat, Tombstone and others.
Amazon says of Val, “This raw, wildly original and unflinching documentary reveals a life lived to extremes and a heart-filled, sometimes hilarious look at what it means to be an artist and a complex man.”
Megan Thee Stallion had a ball hosting a ‘Hottie Party’ at OMNIA nightclub in Las Vegas on Saturday.
The “Savage” rapper on Tuesday shared a video recap of her party, including clips of her in her hotel room, pouring shots from a bottle of D’ussé cognac, and two girls making out.
“Vegas was lit. This whole weekend was lit, lol. We back in Vegas again on the 10th,” Megan wrote on Instagram. “You don’t want to miss thee next hottie party.”
“Cause it’s not going down. It’s going dine,” said Megan in the video, which features her single, “Thot S***.”
Megan’s boyfriend Pardi Fontaine was also spotted in the video showing support for his favorite hot girl while she performed on stage. “We won’t want no bougie girl s***. We want real hot girl s***,” Megan says to the crowd in the video.
Megan Thee Stallion’s encore Hottie Party will be held at Hakkasan Nightclub in Las Vegas on Saturday, July 10th — the same night as the UFC fight between Dustin Porter and Conor McGregor. For ticket and booth information, visit HakkasanGroup.com.
Last week, Iggy Azalea released a statement in support of Britney Spears, insisting that Britney was “not exaggerating and lying” when she detailed her “abusive” conservatorship in an LA court last month, and offering an eyewitness account of Britney’s father’s “controlling” behavior. Now, Iggy’s explaining why she decided to speak up.
She tells People, “I know [Britney] and love her. She’s such an icon and inspiration and was so kind to me that if I could help her in any way that I can, then I want to do that.”
Iggy’s supportive statement detailed her experiences working with Britney when the two collaborated on the 2015 track “Pretty Girls” — during which time she says she “personally witnessed the same behavior Britney detailed in regards to her father.”
The Australian rapper says Britney was restricted from “even the most bizarre and trivial things,” and claims that Britney’s dad forced Iggy to sign an NDA moments before she was about to take the stage with Britney at the Billboard Music Awards.
Iggy explains to People, “I never said anything before because I really wanted to respect her privacy but after she spoke, I just thought if I were in her shoes, I would want my friends to back me up. I felt like, ‘You know what? Regardless of what people might think about it, I have to say something.'”
Iggy, who just released the new single “I Am the Strip Club,” added that she “would want someone to say something for me.” She now believes that Britney’s situation with her conservatorship “has to change,” because “there are too many people now in her defense.”
Disney+ launches its Monsters, Inc. spin-off series Monsters at Work with two episodes droppingon Wednesday. Billy Crystal returns as one-eyed would-be funnyman Mike Wazowski and John Goodman reprises his role as his fuzzy buddy, James P. “Sully” Sullivan.
The series is based on the 2001 big screen hit Monsters, Inc., which posited that monsters scaring kids at night generated energy for the City of Monstropolis. But the movie closed with the Monsters finding a new source of energy: comedy.
Crystal tells ABC Audio, “The show starts the next day after the first movie ended, and so now they’re harvesting laughs.”
He explains, “Now the slogan is ‘It’s laughter we’re after,’ so the Scare Floor is gone. So now they have to find ways to be funny. And for monsters to try to be funny is really funny.”
Crystal adds, “For Mike, he fancies himself [a comedian], ‘Oh, I’ll teach a comedy class…I’ll teach these monsters how to be funny.’ And Mike’s not that funny, which makes it funny.”
Series newcomers Mindy Kaling, who voices Val Little, and Superstore‘s Ben Feldman, who plays new employee Tylor Tuskmon, leapt at the chance to join the Monsters world.
“I just love the movie so much…it’s so timeless,” Kaling said. “I showed it to my daughter recently, and she loved it. I was actually prepping her for the show so that I’ll be regaled as a hero, but she loved it.”
Feldman adds, “I can’t believe the movie was 20 years ago…And so, you know, I guess the goal is for our show to be as timeless?”
Monsters at Work also features the voices of Kelly Marie Tran, Jennifer Tilly, Pixar veteran John Ratzenberger, Henry Winkler, and comedian Gabriel Iglesias.
(WASHINGTON) — President President Joe Biden is doubling down on efforts to get more Americans vaccinated despite missing his self-imposed Fourth of July deadline of having 70% of American adults vaccinated with at least one dose and 160 million people fully vaccinated.
The president was briefed on the state of the coronavirus by his COVID-19 response team Tuesday afternoon and continued to urge Americans to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated — particularly as the delta variant continues to spread across the country.
“Our fight against this virus is not over. Right now, as I speak to you, millions of Americans are still unvaccinated and unprotected. And because of that, their communities are at risk, their friends are at risk, the people that they care about are at risk. This is an even bigger concern because of the delta variant,” Biden said in remarks Tuesday afternoon.
The president said one topic of discussion during his briefing was the alarming rate of spread for the variant he described as “more easily transmissible” and “potentially more dangerous.”
“It seems to me it should cause everybody to think twice. And it should cause reconsideration, especially to young people who may have thought that they didn’t have to be vaccinated, didn’t have to worry about it and didn’t have to do anything about it up to now.”
The president stressed the efficacy of the vaccine against the delta variant, and said the administration’s efforts to get more shots into arms was far from over — pledging to “devote the remainder of the summer to a special focus on five ways to make gains” in the vaccination rate, in part by turning to a hyperlocal focus in place of mass vaccination sites.
“We need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood and, oftentimes, door to door — literally knocking on doors — to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus,” Biden said.
“We’re gonna put even more emphasis on getting vaccinated in your community, close to home, conveniently, at a location you’re already familiar with,” Biden said, “First thing we’re gonna do, this includes 42,000 local pharmacies where folks with questions can talk to the pharmacists they know and already have … dealt with.”
The White House will also focus on getting the vaccines to more family doctors and health care providers, according to Biden, to allow those hesitant to get the vaccine “from the folks that they know and they trust the most.”
The administration will also increase the number of vaccines available to pediatric doctors in an effort to ramp up rates among children 12 to 18 as they prepare for the upcoming school year.
Biden reiterated the administration’s call to employers to reduce barriers for their employees to get their shots and said the administration would expand their mobile clinic outreach in an additional effort to meet Americans where they already are.
“At special events, summer festivals, sporting events, as well as places of worship, wherever we can find people gathered,” he said
The White House faces an uphill battle on that front. A new ABC News-Washington Post poll found that among unvaccinated Americans, 74% said that they are unlikely to get the vaccine.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was pressed Tuesday afternoon about the polling and if unvaccinated Americans were still persuadable. Psaki said that the community approach was already having an impact.
“So, we’ve seen, actually, even people who didn’t — had no intention of getting the vaccine for a range of reasons, maybe they didn’t know how to get it, maybe they don’t know where to get it, maybe they were scared of the impacts, actually get vaccinated. And that, to us, is an encouraging sign that we can continue to press and make progress moving forward,” she said.
While neither of Biden’s July Fourth goals have been met, the president did tout the strides the U.S. has made under his administration, teasing that his goal of having 160 million Americans fully vaccinated should be met at the end of this week — only a few days off from his self-imposed deadline.
“We can’t get complacent now. The best thing you can do to protect yourself and your family and the people you care about the most is get vaccinated. The best thing the community can do to protect themselves is to increase vaccination rates. You can do this. You can do this. Let’s finish the job, finish it together,” he said.
