AJR has teamed up with the indie pop band Daisy the Great for a new song called “Record Player.”
The track is a reworked version of the Daisy tune “The Record Player Song,” which was originally released in 2017 before finding a new life recently on TikTok. It was on TikTok that AJR‘s Jack Met heard the original song, and decided to reach out.
“This has never happened to us before, but we came across this Daisy the Great chorus, and thought it was the catchiest thing we’d ever heard,” AJR says. “We thought if we could team up with the artists behind that hook and build a new song using the existing hook as the basis, it could be something pretty special.”
You can download “Record Player” now via digital outlets. Its accompanying video is streaming now on YouTube.
“Record Player” follows AJR’s new album OK ORCHESTRA, which was released in March. It includes he singles “Bang!” and “Way Less Sad.”
AJR will launch a headlining U.S. tour in support of OK ORCHESTRA September 7 in Madison, Wisconsin. Daisy the Great is opening for the fall trek.
Elton John has announced that he’s, well, making an announcement tomorrow. And from some of the hints he’s posted on social media, it seems like it could be some kind of duets project.
On his Instagram stories, Elton has posted a sparkling rhinestone star graphic, and on top of that, various names are displayed, including Stevie Nicks, Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder, Charlie Puth, Stevie Wonder, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, rappers Young Thug, Nicki Minaj and Lil Nas X, country star Jimmie Allen, singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile, British act Years & Years, alt-rockers Gorillaz, British singer/songwriter Rina Sawayama and American pop duo Surfaces.
In the past year and a half, Elton has released singles with Years & Years, Rina Sawayama, Gorillaz and Surfaces. He’s very friendly with Brandi Carlile, and he’s just worked on a Metallica cover song with Miley Cyrus. In addition, in the past, he and Charlie Puth have both referred to some sort of collaboration they did. And of course, Dua Lipa and Elton just released their new single “Cold Heart.”
As for Nicks, Minaj, Wonder, Lil Nas X, Vedder and Jimmie Allen, well, Elton pretty much knows everyone, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he’s worked with those folks too.
Based on the artists involved, it’s likely that the project will collect all the collaborations Elton’s done since the pandemic, along with some newly recorded tracks.
In 1993, Elton released an album called Duets that featured him collaborating with the likes of Don Henley, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Wonder, George Michael, the late Little Richard and Leonard Cohen, and more.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden, speaking to the nation Tuesday, gave his fiercest defense yet of his self-imposed deadline to withdraw the U.S. military from Afghanistan — a day after the last troops left the country, bringing America’s longest war to a close — but only after a chaotic and deadly exit.
“Let me be clear, leaving August the 31st, is not due to an arbitrary deadline. It was designed to save American lives,” a defiant Biden said, responding to harsh criticism both of his decision to leave and how it was handled.
After praising what he called the “extraordinary success” U.S. troops had in conducting the rushed and dangerous evacuation, he bluntly blamed both the Afghan army and the Afghan government for collapsing so quickly and the Trump administration for making a deal with the Taliban, that he said inherited, that would have withdrawn all ground troops by May 1.
“So, we were left with a simple decision. Either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan or say we weren’t leaving and commit to another tens of thousands more troops going back to war,” he claimed. “That was the choice, the real choice. Between leaving or escalating. I was not going to extend this forever war. And I was not extending a forever exit.”
His voice rising in anger at times, Biden continued, “It was time to be honest with the American people again. We no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan. After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refuse to send another generation of America’s sons and daughters to fight a war that should’ve ended long ago.”
The president’s prepared remarks from the State Dining Room of the White House came 24 hours after the last military plane cleared airspace above Afghanistan but without more than 100 Americans on board who still wanted to get out of the country, something Republicans and other critics have blasted as “leaving Americans behind.”
Biden downplayed that part of the foreign policy crisis, saying the U.S. had reached out to the remaining Americans 19 times.
“The bottom line, 90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave. And for those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out,” Biden said, without detailing out how that could happen.
Biden had told ABC News’ George Stephanopolous in an exclusive interview on Aug. 18, “If there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out.”
On Tuesday, he said that when he made the decision in April to end the war and set the Aug. 31 deadline, U.S. officials had assumed that the more than 300,000 Afghan national security forces that they had trained over the past two decades would stand up to a Taliban takeover.
“That assumption, that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown, turned out not to be accurate,” Biden said. “But I still instructed our national security team to prepare for every eventuality. Even that one. And that’s what we did.”
He did not mention the problems that have marred the past week in Afghanistan.
“The decision to end the military lift operation at Kabul airport was based on unanimous recommendation of my civilian and military advisers,” he said.
“I take responsibility for the decision. Now some say we should have started mass evacuations sooner, and couldn’t this have been done — been done in a more orderly manner? I respectfully disagree,” he said. “The bottom line is, there is no evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges, threats we faced. None.”
Biden also used the national spotlight to fire back at critics who say the U.S. could have maintained a limited military presence.
“Those asking for the third decade of war in Afghanistan, I ask, what is the vital national interest?” Biden said. “The fundamental obligation of a president in my opinion is to defend and protect America. Not against threats of 2001 but against the threats of 2021 and tomorrow.”
Pres. Biden: “We succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan over a decade ago. Then we stayed for another decade. It was time to end this war.” https://t.co/TQIuZzC8oGpic.twitter.com/uu2YDmXKTa
“My fellow Americans, the war in Afghanistan is now over. I’m the fourth president that must face the issue of whether and when to end this war. When I was running for president, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war. Today I’ve honored that commitment,” he said.
With the military and diplomatic withdrawal now complete as the U.S. approaches 20 years since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Taliban has again taken over the country, including the Kabul airport, the site of an often-desperate evacuation effort the past two weeks. Shots were fired into the air to celebrate the withdrawal in Kabul on Monday night.
The Pentagon said that 2,461 troops were lost in the war, which started as it began: under Taliban rule. Since the evacuation mission began, 6,000 citizens and more than 123,000 people — Afghans “friends and allies” — were airlifted out by the U.S. and partners, but alarms are being raised over those left behind.
The president’s poll numbers, too, showed uncommon cross-partisan agreement among Americans that withdrawing all U.S. troops by Biden’s deadline could be a grave mistake, according to an ABC/Ipsos poll conducted after Thursday’s suicide attack in Kabul which killed 13 service members and wounded 20. The survey found the percentage of Americans who think U.S. troops should stay until all Americans are out of Afghanistan is 86% among Democrats, 87% among Republicans and 86% among Independents.
“I give you my word with all of my heart,” Biden said Tuesday. “I believe this is the right decision, a wise decision, and the best decision for America.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden addressed the nation Tuesday and continued to defend his self-imposed deadline to withdraw the U.S. military from Afghanistan — a day after the last troops left the country, bringing America’s longest war to a close — but only after a chaotic and deadly exit.
“Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan, the longest war in American history,” Biden began, going on to tout the historic evacuation numbers. “No nation, no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history. Only the United States had the capacity and will and ability to do it.”
“The real choice was between leaving or escalating,” he claimed.
The president’s prepared remarks from the State Dining Room of the White House come 24 hours after the last military plane cleared airspace above Afghanistan but without more than 100 Americans on board who still wanted to get out of the country.
“There is no deadline” for Americans who want to leave, he said, at the same time saying “90% of Americans who wanted to leave were able to leave,” adding the U.S. would continue efforts to help those who wanted to get out.
Biden said that when he made the decision in April to end the war and set the Aug. 31 deadline, “The assumption was that more than 300,000 Afghan national security forces that we had trained over the past two decades and equipped would be a strong adversary in their civil wars with the Taliban.”
“That assumption, that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown, turned out not to be accurate,” Biden said.
His speech did not focus on the operational miscues that have marred the past week in Afghanistan but instead homed in on why the U.S. entered the war 20 years and why he didn’t want to pass the war on to another president.
“I was not going to extend this Forever War,” he said.
As Americans still remain in the country, Biden repeated an administration line that “there is no deadline” on getting Americans out, but did not offer operational details for retrieving remaining Americans with the airport under Taliban control.
On Monday, it was not Biden, who has long opposed the war, who marked its conclusion after 20 years on Monday, but Pentagon and State Department officials.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki offered a preview of Biden’s remarks earlier, saying that he would express his thanks to the service members who executed the “dangerous mission” as well as the veterans and volunteers who offered support.
“He will lay out his decision to end the war in Afghanistan after 20 years, including the tough decisions he made over the last seven months since he took office to bring the war to a close,” her statement said. “He will make clear that as President, he will approach our foreign policy through the prism of what is in our national interests, including how best to continue to keep the American people safe.”
Biden on Monday did release a written statement thanking commanders and service members for completing the withdrawal on schedule “with no further loss of American lives,” praising the evacuation effort as “the largest airlift in US history,” and teasing his defense not to stay beyond Aug. 31.
“For now, I will report that it was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned,” he said in the statement, although military leaders had lobbied Biden earlier this year to leave a residual U.S. force in Afghanistan to support the Afghan army and government.
With the U.S. military and diplomatic withdrawal now complete as the U.S. approaches 20 years since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Taliban has again taken over the country, including the Kabul airport, the site of an often-desperate evacuation effort the past two weeks. Shots were fired into the air to celebrate the withdrawal in Kabul on Monday night.
The Pentagon said Monday that 2,461 troops were lost in the war, which started as it began: under Taliban rule. Since the evacuation mission began, 6,000 citizens and more than 123,000 people — Afghans “friends and allies” — were airlifted out by the U.S. and partners, but alarms are being raised over those left behind.
Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopolous in an exclusive interview on Aug. 18, “If there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out.”
His poll numbers, too, showed uncommon cross-partisan agreement among Americans that withdrawing all U.S. troops by Biden’s deadline could be a grave mistake, according to an ABC/Ipsos poll conducted after Thursday’s suicide attack in Kabul which killed 13 service members and wounded 20. The survey found the percentage of Americans who think U.S. troops should stay until all Americans are out of Afghanistan is 86% among Democrats, 87% among Republicans and 86% among Independents.
Tuesday’s speech comes amid outrage expressed by some family members of those service members killed in last week’s airport attack over his handling of the withdrawal.
Some have criticized the president following Sunday’s dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base, where he met with families. White House press secretary Jen Psaki wouldn’t respond directly to criticism from one family but said that the president feels responsible for their loss at a briefing on Monday.
Republican lawmakers have also blasted Biden for his handling of the withdrawal, with Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., calling the withdrawal a “national disgrace” and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., claiming Biden has armed the Taliban by leaving behind equipment.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, in an exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” defended the withdrawal and contended that only the president, as commander in chief, knows what it is to make these hard decisions.
“Those criticizing are not the ones who have to sit in the Situation Room and make the hard calls about the threats that we face and the objectives we’re trying to obtain and President Biden made that hard call and it is a call he believes will ultimately serve the interests of our people, all of our citizens and our country,” he said on Tuesday.
Perhaps foreshadowing Biden’s remarks, Sullivan also claimed the U.S. and the international community have “enormous leverage” on the Taliban to ensure those Americans and Afghans who want to get out can do so.
But the administration hasn’t provided a clear plan for those evacuations beyond saying it’s relying on a Taliban commitment to provide “safe passage.”
The 100 to 200 Americans that Secretary of State Antony Blinken said still wanted to be evacuated weren’t able to reach the airport in Kabul on Monday before the last U.S. plane left. Of the five final flights, no American civilians made it on board.
Thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S., who fear reprisal from the Taliban, also did not make it out and are forced to rely on Afghanistan’s new rulers for departure — of which there is no guarantee.
It’s unclear what the evacuation picture will look like now that the U.S. military is gone.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden is set to address the nation Tuesday, defending his self-imposed deadline to withdraw the U.S. military from Afghanistan — a day after the last troops left the country, bringing America’s longest war to a close — but only after a chaotic and deadly exit.
Biden is scheduled to deliver remarks in the State Dining Room of the White House at 2:45 p.m. — nearly 24 hours after the last military plane cleared airspace above Afghanistan but without more than 100 Americans on board who still wanted to get out of the country.
It was not Biden, who has long opposed the war, and who carries a card in his pocket with the number of casualties from Afghanistan and Iraq, to mark the 20-year conclusion of the war on Monday but Pentagon and State officials.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki offered a preview of Biden’s remarks, saying that he would express his thanks to the service members who executed the “dangerous mission” as well as the veterans and volunteers who offered support.
“He will lay out his decision to end the war in Afghanistan after 20 years, including the tough decisions he made over the last seven months since he took office to bring the war to a close,” her statement said. “He will make clear that as President, he will approach our foreign policy through the prism of what is in our national interests, including how best to continue to keep the American people safe.”
Biden did release a written statement thanking commanders and service members for completing the withdrawal on schedule “with no further loss of American lives,” praising the evacuation effort as “the largest airlift in US history,” and teasing his defense not to stay beyond Aug. 31.
“For now, I will report that it was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned,” he said in the statement, although military leaders had lobbied Biden earlier this year to leave a residual U.S. force in Afghanistan to support the Afghan army and government.
With the U.S. military and diplomatic withdrawal now complete as the U.S. approaches 20 years since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Taliban has again taken over the country, including the Kabul airport, the site of an often-desperate evacuation effort the past two weeks. Shots were fired into the air to celebrate the withdrawal in Kabul on Monday night.
The Pentagon said Tuesday that 2,461 troops were lost in the war, which started as it began: under Taliban rule. Since the evacuation mission began, 6,000 citizens and more than 123,000 people — Afghans “friends and allies” — were airlifted out by the U.S. and partners, but alarms are being raised over those left behind.
Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopolous in an exclusive interview on Aug. 18, “If there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out.”
His poll numbers, too, showed uncommon cross-partisan agreement among Americans that withdrawing all U.S. troops by Biden’s deadline could be a grave mistake, according to an ABC/Ipsos poll conducted after Thursday’s suicide attack in Kabul which killed 13 service members and wounded 20. The survey found the percentage of Americans who think U.S. troops should stay until all Americans are out of Afghanistan is 86% among Democrats, 87% among Republicans and 86% among Independents.
Tuesday’s speech comes amid outrage expressed by some family members of those service members killed in last week’s airport attack over his handling of the withdrawal.
Some have criticized the president following Sunday’s dignified transfer ceremony at Dover Air Force Base, where he met with families. White House press secretary Jen Psaki wouldn’t respond directly to criticism from one family but said that the president feels responsible for their loss at a briefing on Monday.
Republican lawmakers have also blasted Biden for his handling of the withdrawal, with Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., calling the withdrawal a “national disgrace” and Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., claiming Biden has armed the Taliban by leaving behind equipment.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, in an exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” defended the withdrawal and contended that only the president, as commander in chief, knows what it is to make these hard decisions.
“Those criticizing are not the ones who have to sit in the Situation Room and make the hard calls about the threats that we face and the objectives we’re trying to obtain and President Biden made that hard call and it is a call he believes will ultimately serve the interests of our people, all of our citizens and our country,” he said on Tuesday.
Perhaps foreshadowing Biden’s remarks, Sullivan also claimed the U.S. and the international community have “enormous leverage” on the Taliban to ensure those Americans and Afghans who want to get out can do so.
But the administration hasn’t provided a clear plan for those evacuations beyond saying it’s relying on a Taliban commitment to provide “safe passage.”
The 100 to 200 Americans that Secretary of State Antony Blinken said still wanted to be evacuated weren’t able to reach the airport in Kabul on Monday before the last U.S. plane left. Of the five final flights, no American civilians made it on board.
Thousands of Afghans who worked with the U.S., who fear reprisal from the Taliban, also did not make it out and are forced to rely on Afghanistan’s new rulers for departure — of which there is no guarantee.
It’s unclear what the evacuation picture will look like from now that the U.S. military is gone.
The latest episode of Fox’s reboot of that ’70s classic Fantasy Island airs tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern. Roselyn Sanchez stars as Elena Roarke, a descendant of Ricardo Montalban‘s iconic and mysterious host, Mr. Roarke.
The actress tells ABC Audio that she remembers the original series well. “I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. So I remember it was the 70s, I was young, but everybody knows when you say Fantasy Island — for me, it was La Isla de la Fantasia. You know, I was very familiar with the show and I remember that, Tattoo and Ricardo Montalban. I remember ‘The plane, the plane!’ In my case, it was ‘La avion! La avion!’
Sweetening the deal for Sanchez, the new series was shot in her native Puerto Rico. “I was actually going to go back to my homeland. To do it was a dream! It was incredible,” she says.
Sanchez adds of her series, “The original was maybe a more mysterious [show]. You know, the Roarke character was not as involved with the fantasies and the guests. This time around, she’s very human, she’s very much involved, and she feels for them, and she’s also going through her own self discovery.”
The first Fantasy Island ran on ABC from 1977 to 1984. Fantasy Island was rebooted in 1988 but only lasted a season. It was also made into a poorly-received horror film of the same name in 2020, with Michael Peña in the lead.
Sanchez adds, “[I]n the end, we just want people to have a good time. And it’s visually stunning…it’s well acted, it’s well-written, and so I’m hoping that people are going to embrace it and love it as much as they did the original.”
Selena Gomez‘s new Hulu series Only Murders in the Building debuts today. It features Selena and comedy legends Steve Martin and Martin Short as neighbors who make a true-crime podcast while investigating a murder in their apartment building. In real life, Selena is a fan of true-crime content — though not necessarily the murder-y part of it.
“I love the psychology behind it,” she explains to ABC Audio. “I think it’s really interesting to see how people solve the cases. It is weird to say that I’m interested in it, but I think that it’s not so much that I’m interested in, necessarily, the morbid part. I think it’s more just the fascination of [figuring out the] A to Z.”
While Selena is decades younger than her co-stars, Martin Short tells ABC Audio that he and Steve Martin loved working with her.
“I think what was the delightful element of it was how quickly she fit in with our energies, in the sense that we all approach creating something in front of the camera [in] the same [way],” Short notes. “It should be light, it should be fun. You should want to go to the set…And it was kind of ideal…how quickly we all fell into the same similar type of filming groove.”
As for what it was like for her, working with the two legendary funnymen, Selena says she wasn’t cracking up after every scene…but “most scenes,” she tells ABC Audio.
“The laughs didn’t stop when the cameras stopped rolling. It was really fun,” she adds. “Obviously, we had moments where it was silent and we were able to enjoy each other’s company. And then most of the time, it was just us shooting the s***.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court could decide as soon as Tuesday evening whether Texas can move forward with a controversial ban on most abortions after 6 weeks of pregnancy that’s set to take effect on Sept. 1.
The law, Senate Bill 8, which would be among the strictest in the nation, also authorizes private citizens to sue anyone who helps a woman obtain abortion services and in turn receive at least $10,000 in damages per instance.
Abortion providers on Monday appealed to the court for an immediate emergency injunction blocking the law while legal challenges continue. They claim the Texas restrictions would “immediately and catastrophically” limit abortion access for 85% of patients and force many clinics to close across the state.
Justice Samuel Alito, who oversees matters coming out of federal courts for the 5th Circuit, which includes Texas, gave the state until 5 p.m. Tuesday to lay out its argument for rejecting the request. He could decide on his own or refer the matter to the full court for a vote.
“In less than two days, Texas politicians will have effectively overturned Roe v. Wade,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is leading the challenges to Texas’ law.
“Patients will have to travel out of state – in the middle of a pandemic – to receive constitutionally guaranteed healthcare. And many will not have the means to do so. It’s cruel, unconscionable, and unlawful,” she said.
Attorneys for Texas have said the abortion providers lack legal standing to preemptively challenge the law since it has not yet taken effect or had any impact on their patients or services.
Texas is one of 13 states that have passed laws banning abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy; legal challenges have so far prevented all from taking effect.
S.B. 8 runs plainly counter to the Supreme Court’s precedent in 1973’s Roe v. Wade and affirmed in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which established that state restrictions on abortion before a fetus can be viable outside the womb are unconstitutional.
“SCOTUS really might be on the verge of functionally ending legal abortion in TX and hoping no one notices,” said ABC News legal analyst and Cardozo law professor Kate Shaw in a post on Twitter.
The court is set to reconsider its precedents later this fall in the biggest abortion rights case to come before the justices in years. The case, which is out of Mississippi, will determine whether all pre-viability abortion bans are unconstitutional or whether a new standard should be applied.
David Lee Roth apparently did not “Jump” at the opportunity to open for Mötley Crüe.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the “Dr. Feelgood” rockers asked the Van Halen icon if he wanted a spot on the bill for their upcoming stadium reunion tour. When bassist Nikki Sixx got an answer back from Roth, Diamond Dave did more than just decline the invitation.
“‘I don’t open for bands that I influenced,’ Sixx says Roth told him,” the Los Angeles Times report reads.
As for who will be sharing the lineup with the Crüe on the tour, that’d be Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts. The outing is finally set to kick off in June 2022 after being postponed from 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
By the way, Roth turning down Mötley Crüe isn’t the only bit of opening-act drama he’s been involved in this year. He was supposed to support KISS on their ongoing farewell tour, like he had been doing before the pandemic. However, when the trek started up again this summer, Roth wasn’t included on the bill anymore.
Asked about Roth’s absence by Rolling Stone, Gene Simmons suggested that he is no longer the “ultimate frontman” of his “heyday,” and seemed to compare him to “bloated naked Elvis on the bathroom floor.”
Roth then responded by posting 18 photos of a boy giving the middle finger on his Instagram, after which Simmons apologized for hurting Dave’s feelings with his comments, admitting that he suffered from “diarrhea of the mouth.”
(LA.) — Hurricane Ida battered Louisiana as a fierce Category 4 storm on the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, bringing a new wave of devastation to the South.
Ida made landfall in Louisiana twice, first near Port Fourchon before noon local time and again two hours later in Lafourche Parish, obliterating neighborhoods and turning clear roads into rivers.
Ida appears to be less lethal than Katrina, which hit as a Category 3, claimed more than 1,800 lives and caused more than $100 billion in damage.
So far, three deaths have been attributed to Ida: a 60-year-old man in Ascension Parish died Sunday when a tree fell on a home, a motorist drowned in New Orleans, and a third person died in Jefferson Parish.
In Mississippi, two people died and at least 10 others were injured when a part of a highway near Lucedale gave out and sent vehicles plunging into a hole. Mississippi Highway Patrol Cp. Cal Robertson said the inundating rain may have caused the collapse.
The storm dumped up to 15 inches of rain in some places like Rigolets-Slidell, Louisiana, and 13 inches in New Orleans. Ida also brought powerful winds gusts of over 100 mph in some regions.
Ida also knocked out power to more than 1 million homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi — including all of New Orleans — and temporarily halted the city’s 911 emergency response system.
Over 1 million customers remain without power in Louisiana, as of Tuesday morning, according to poweroutage.us, as well as 55,000 in Mississippi and 7,000 in Alabama.
Officials in Jefferson Parish, home to 400,000 residents, warned it could be 21 days before power is restored.
Communities reeling from the destruction are now stranded without water. Some 18 water system outages have impacted over 312,000 customers and 14 boil water advisories are in place impacting over 329,000 people, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a press conference Monday evening.
Heat advisories are active in parts of Louisiana, threatening communities grappling with no electricity or access to air conditioning. The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory for southern Louisiana and Mississippi from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Another element Katrina didn’t have is the COVID-19 crisis. Some Louisiana hospitals pushed to the brink with an influx of coronavirus cases were forced to evacuate due to physical damage, water and electrical issues.
The Louisiana Department of Health told ABC News at least 11 hospitals had evacuations on some level and Terrebonne General Health System’s evacuation is still underway.
At least 39 medical facilities were operating on generator power, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said, Associated Press reported.
The state fire marshal office’s leading task force of about 900 individuals from 15 different states is conducting search and rescue missions with local responders. Some 5,000 National Guard members are also on the ground.
Edwards said at least 671 were rescued by Monday afternoon, with some desperate locals fleeing to their attics or roofs to wait for help.
Over 2,200 evacuees are staying in 41 shelters, Edwards said.
Jaclyn Hotard, the president of St. John the Baptist Parish, called Ida, “one of the worst natural disasters I’ve ever seen in St. John,” noting that “almost 800 people” have been rescued due to extreme flooding.
Entergy New Orleans, a major electricity company in the region, said a storm team of more than 20,000 and growing is assessing the vast damage and destruction across New Orleans and southeast Louisiana that toppled power poles and other equipment.
Over 3,600 FEMA employees have been deployed to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas to help with meals, water and generators for power, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.
Ida, now a tropical depression, is centered on the border of Missouri and Tennessee and threatens to bring deadly flash flooding to the Gulf coast overnight as it continues to move north and east. Almost 80 million in 17 states are on flash flood alert from Mississippi to Massachusetts.
