Paramount has made 2022 the year of Tom Cruise. The studio has bumped his pandemic-delayed Top Gun: Maverick until 2022, along with the star’s anticipated seventh Mission: Impossible film.
Paramount now says Maverick will open May 27, over Memorial Day weekend of 2022, and Mission: Impossible 7 will come to theaters on Sept. 30, 2022.
Incidentally, Top Gun: Maverick‘s move from its November 19, 2021 release date led Sony to bump by a week the release of its own pandemic-delayed film, Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The movie will now open on that date to take advantage of IMAX and other higher-quality theaters that Top Gun‘s move freed up.
As part of the celebration, John and Yoko’s experimental 1971 film Imagine will be screened that day at 2:30 p.m. ET at select theaters or online for free. Fans also will be able to check out the movie, which was restored and re-released in 2018, on Amazon Prime’s music-themed streaming service The Coda Collection. A free seven-day trial is available for non-subscribers.
Also, U.K. radio presenter Tim Burgess will host a special edition of his popular Tim’s Twitter Listening Party at the same time as the Imagine screenings. A variety of notable people associated with Lennon and the album are confirmed to take part in the event, including Yoko, Sean, bassist Klaus Voormann and drummer Alan White.
Subscribers of the AXS TV channel in the U.S. also will be available to watch the movie. The Imagine film can be rented or purchased via Apple TV, iTunes or Amazon Prime, or on Blu-Ray and DVD.
Prior to the September 9 celebrations, AXS TV will be airing an Imagine-related programming block on September 6 starting at 8 p.m. ET. The channel will screen the 1988 documentary Imagine: John Lennon, followed by the Imagine film.
Various well-known musicians also will appear on AXS TV to discuss how John and Yoko have impacted their lives, and the influence the “Imagine” song and album.
Also, a limited-edition, two-LP white-vinyl set featuring the 2018 “Ultimate Mix” of Imagine plus select outtakes will be released on September 10. Here’s the track list:
LP 1: Imagine — Ultimate Mixes
Side A
“Imagine”
“Crippled Inside”
“Jealous Guy”
“It’s So Hard”
“I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don’t Wanna Die
Side B
“Gimme Some Truth”
“Oh My Love”
“How Do You Sleep?”
“How?”
“Oh Yoko!”
LP 2: Imagine Outtakes
Side C
“Imagine” (Original demo recorded at Ascot Studios)
“Imagine” (Take 1)
“Crippled Inside” (Take 3)
“Crippled Inside” (Take 6 alternate guitar solo)
“Jealous Guy” (Take 9)
“It’s So Hard” (Take 6)
Side D
“I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier Mama I Don’t Wanna Die” (Take 25)
“Gimme Some Truth” (Take 4)
“Oh My Love” (Take 6)
“How Do You Sleep?” (Takes 1 & 2)
“Oh Yoko!” (From Bed Peace footage – Sheraton Hotel, Bahamas 1969)
Taraji P. Henson and Gabrielle Union are teaming up behind the camera for a brand-new project.
According to Deadline, the two have signed on to produce Sorcerority, a feature film adaptation of Mikhail Sebastian and George Watson‘s graphic novel of the same name. The book follows Melanie, a young girl who follows in her late mother’s footsteps by enrolling into a historically African-American coven and university of magic. There, she “discovers her enrollment into the school may not be entirely of her own choosing, but rather the calculated actions of a higher authority.” Casting for the film has yet to be announced.
In other news, Jay Ellis, Kiersey Clemons and Alison Brie are set to star in Dave Franco‘s romantic comedy Somebody I Used to Know. Directed and co-written by Franco, the film follows Brie as a workaholic who reunites with an ex-boyfriend, played by Ellis, during a trip to her hometown. During their encounter, Ally begins to “question all of her prior life choices.” A release date for Somebody I Used to Know has not been announced.
Finally, fresh off of his Candyman box office success, Jordan Peele has inked a multi-year television deal with Universal Studios via his Monkeypaw Productions banner, Deadline reports. As you may recall, Peele had previously signed a first-look TV deal with Amazon Studios back in 2018. Under his new deal, the Oscar winner will get to develop television projects across Universal Studio Group divisions.
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(CHICAGO) — As new COVID-19 cases emerge with the spread of the delta variant, businesses have implemented updated health protocols to ensure staff and customer safety.
While certain cities and states now require proof of vaccination to dine inside or shop in stores, fast food chains are assessing their own best practices.
Joe Erlinger, president of McDonald’s USA, recently discussed in an internal company meeting the enhanced safety policies for their restaurants and franchisees in consultation with public health experts and the Mayo Clinic.
According to the fast food company, Erlinger surmised in the meeting that McDonald’s will continue to operate its business from the same mindset they had during the peak of the pandemic 18 months ago.
“We’re monitoring the impact of the delta variant closely and recently convened together with our franchisees to underscore existing safety protocols, reinforce our people-first approach and provide updates on the rise in cases in the country,” a representative said in a statement shared with “Good Morning America.”
While the company said it has successfully served customers through digital, delivery, drive-thru and dine-in over the last 18 months, McDonald’s said it will consider adapting as needed.
“Should we see further changes in customer behavior, we are well positioned to adapt while maintaining high standards for safety,” the statement said.
McDonald’s initially closed its U.S. dining rooms in March 2020 and reopened to 70% capacity last month with procedures that incorporate local case counts, local regulations and guidance and community feedback.
Local owners and operator work in partnership with the field offices to make dining room decisions.
McDonald’s has implemented a facial covering requirement for all crew and customers in hot spot counties regardless of vaccination status. Additionally, all corporate employees are required to get vaccinated.
Erlinger also told employees that meetings are continuing, but with strict safety protocols and limits on size in place.
(WASHINGTON) — For the first time in 39 years, Social Security payments made to retired Americans this year, and every year after, will exceed tax revenues coming into the federal government in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic’s economic downturn, according to a new government report.
Social Security payments for retired Americans will be exhausted in 2034 — a year earlier than previously predicted, says the 2021 report from the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees, which oversees both programs. After that, tax incomes will only cover 76% of anticipated benefit needs. As for Social Security’s disability insurance program, those funds will run dry in 2057 — eight years earlier than previously predicted.
The recession and increased mortality rate due to the COVID-19 pandemic are the main factors driving the earlier depletion of funds, according to the report — the red flags adding to the pressure for federal lawmakers to act as a wave of retiring baby boomers and the pandemic’s new variants are sure to put more strain on an already stressed system.
The report says last year’s Social Security income exceeded costs by $11 billion. When excluding interest earned on the program’s trust fund assets, the program’s deficit is $65 billion.
While the funding shortfall would seem to point to benefit cuts, the nonpartisan Concord Coalition estimated Wednesday that Social Security could start liquidating the trust funds’ bonds to cover its obligations absent congressional action.
“Sudden and substantial benefit cuts await Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries in less than 15 years — well within the lifetimes of many current recipients — as long as lawmakers continue to ignore the warning signs in these reports. Solutions must be found that are fiscally and generationally responsible,” said Robert Bixby, the coalition’s executive director.
Though there has been no movement on Capitol Hill or within the Biden White House to address the report’s findings, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen affirmed the administration’s commitment to sustaining some of the nation’s most prominent social welfare programs.
“Having strong Social Security and Medicare programs is essential in order to ensure a secure retirement for all Americans, especially for our most vulnerable populations,” Yellen said in a statement Tuesday. “The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to safeguarding these programs and ensuring they continue to deliver economic security and health care to older Americans.”
As for Medicare, the report indicated the depletion of its funds in 2026 remains unchanged.
Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., issued a statement Tuesday saying Congress must work “hand in hand with President Biden” to ensure the continuation of both Social Security and Medicare.
When Social Security funds are dried up, “workers in the future will take a 25% cut in benefits, even though they’ll still be contributing to Social Security with every single paycheck,” Wyden said in the statement. “And while the projected depletion of the Medicare Trust Fund remains unchanged from last year’s report, this provides cold comfort to the millions of Americans who rely on the Medicare program for their health care.”
The report says both Social Security and Medicare will soon face “long-term financing shortfalls.” The COVID-19 pandemic and accompanying recession significantly impacted both programs’ funds, with employment, earnings, interest rates and GDP dropping substantially last year.
On average, 65 million Americans receive Social Security benefits each month, and a rapidly growing retired population, compounded by a decreasing birth rate, will only increase program costs.
By 2034, adults 65 and older are projected to outnumber the population under age 18 for the first time in the nation’s history, according to data from the Census Bureau.
ABC News’ Trish Turner contributed to this report.
Starting today, the streaming service Shudder is getting a jump on the spooky season with its second annual “61 Days of Halloween” lineup.
The subscription service, which caters to fans of horror movies and thrillers, announced a massive slate of both new and classic content that will unfurl as we get closer to October 31.
The lineup features new movie premieres and original series debuts. Included will be a new Halloween special with genre fave Joe Bob Briggs, a new season of the drag competition Dragula, and new offerings to Shudder’s library of scary films, including Brian De Palma‘s classic Carrie and Tobe Hooper‘s Poltergeist.
Shudder will also unveil a new version of its annual yule log — that is, the 24/7 streaming jack-o-lantern known as the Ghoul Log — as well as a return of Shudder’s Halloween Hotline, which lets fans get personalized movie recommendations from the streaming service’s head curator, Samuel Zimmerman.
If you’re a Lady Gaga fan, you may want to have some Words with Friends today.
Gaga’s charity, the Born This Way Foundation, has teamed up with a number of partners, including Zynga’s super-popular game, Words with Friends, to promote its annual #BeKind campaign, now in its fourth year. Today, September 1, the Word of the Day on Words with Friends is “Kindness,” in honor of the campaign, which encourages players to sign up to practice kindness for 21 days.
Specifically, the #BeKind21 campaign is asking participants to pledge to do one act of kindness each day from September 1 to September 21 to build “kinder, more connected communities” that “foster mental wellness.”
Words with Friends is one of 400 non-profit organizations, businesses, communities and school districts that are coming together for #BeKind21. Some of those partners include Duncan Hines, CareBares, Hilton, Indeed, Kate Space, PacSun, MGM Resorts, Under Armour and Zappos.
Gaga’s mom, Cynthia Germanotta, the president and co-founder of the Born This Way Foundation, says, “We’ve learned from young people that they believe experiencing, and even witnessing, more kindness in the places they live, work, and play will help to improve their mental wellness.”
(AUSTIN, Texas) — A law that took effect in Texas Wednesday outlaws abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
The law effectively bars abortions in the America’s second most populous state, making it the most restrictive abortion law in the nation.
Here are six questions answered about Texas’ new law.
1. What does the law allow and not allow on abortions?
The law, Senate Bill 8, bans abortion once the rhythmic contracting of fetal cardiac tissue can be detected. That’s usually around six weeks, before some women may even know they’re pregnant. Most of the abortions performed nationwide are after six weeks of pregnancy.
There is an exception in the Texas law for abortions in cases of medical emergencies. The law does not make exceptions for pregnancies resulting from incest or rape.
When a person is six weeks pregnant, it typically means the embryo started developing about four weeks prior, based on the formula used to figure out when a person will give birth. People don’t often realize they are pregnant until after the six-week mark.
A fetal heartbeat is typically first detected five to six weeks after gestation.
2. Who will enforce the law?
The Texas law is unusual in that it prohibits the state from enforcing the ban but allows private citizens to bring civil suits against anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion — i.e. driving a person to an appointment or offering financial assistance — but not the patient herself.
People who successfully sue an abortion provider under this law could be awarded at least $10,000.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the so-called “heartbeat ban” on May 19 and it went into effect on Sept. 1.
The heartbeat bill is now LAW in the Lone Star State.
This bill ensures the life of every unborn child with a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion.
3. Is the law here to stay or can it be blocked in court?
The law — which went into effect after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, canceled a hearing on the law planned for Monday — is currently facing several legal challenges in lower courts.
Women’s health groups filed an emergency request with the U.S. Supreme Court to block the law while legal challenges continue. The court has not yet responded to the request.
The court has only been asked at this stage to decide whether or not to issue a temporary injunction on the law while lower-level court proceedings continue. Whatever the decision, legal experts cautioned that it will not have direct bearing on the precedent in Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, or abortion rights more broadly across the country.
The justices are likely to weigh in on the matter but do not operate on a fixed timeline.
Legal experts say the law’s enforcement mechanism — allowing private citizens to sue — has complicated the legal dispute before the Supreme Court because it is not clear who might bring a lawsuit and how widespread private legal action might be.
4. What will women who live in Texas do now for abortions?
Texas is home to nearly 14 million women who now face expensive and time-consuming options to obtain care, abortion rights advocates argue.
Abortion providers told the Supreme Court the law is expected to limit abortion access to 85% of patients across Texas.
“Patients will have to travel out of state – in the middle of a pandemic – to receive constitutionally guaranteed health care,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is leading the challenges to Texas’ law. “And many will not have the means to do so. It’s cruel, unconscionable and unlawful.”
Several clinics in Texas reported full waiting rooms up until the midnight deadline.
“Our clinic staff saw patients until 11:56 last night, just 3 minutes before the 6 week abortion ban went into effect in Texas,” Whole Women’s Health, a top abortion provider in Texas, posted on Twitter.
Abortion clinics in Texas will still remain open though, but only those in compliance with the law, according to abortion rights providers.
“We’re offering ultrasounds to women … if there is no fetal cardiac activity, we’re able to prepare them for abortions,” Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Women’s Health, which operates four clinics in Texas, told reporters Wednesday.
All 24 of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas’ health centers also remain open, providing consultation and other services, including abortions, in compliance with the law, according to Vanessa Rodriguez, a call center manager for the organization.
5. Will other states follow Texas’ lead?
Eight other U.S. states have enacted similar six-week bans and all have been blocked by courts, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which claimed in May that Texas’ law intends to “harass, frighten, or bankrupt people who seek care and those who provide it.”
However, if the Texas law stands in federal court, it would be likely that other states trying to restrict abortion access will move to pass similar laws.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule when its next term begins in October on the state of Mississippi’s appeal of lower court decisions striking down a state ban on all abortions after 15 weeks, with exception of medical emergencies or severe fetal abnormality.
The case is seen as a major challenge to Roe v. Wade.
6. What happens when women don’t have access to abortions?
Women who carry unwanted pregnancies to full-term often face long-term physical and mental health complications, data show.
In Texas, the maternal mortality rate is 18.5 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Patients who are denied abortions also face a “large and persistent increase” in financial distress in the years after, according to a working paper published last year by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Looking at credit report data, researchers found that being denied an abortion increases the amount of debt 30 days or more past due by 78% and increases negative public records, such as bankruptcies and evictions, by 81%. The economic fallout appeared to be the worst for women who were forced to have a child when they were not prepared to, the data show.
ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and Alexandra Svokos contributed to this report.
Jimmie Allen is joining Elton John on a song, “Beauty in the Bones,” on John’s upcoming The Lockdown Sessions, out on October 22. The 16-track project includes collaborations from artists of all genres, including Brandi Carlile, Stevie Wonder, Eddie Vedder, Charlie Puth and more.
Allen is thrilled to join his musical hero on the new record. “I have been a [Elton John] fan for as long as I can remember. One of my ultimate dreams was to work with him.. IT HAPPENED!” Allen wrote on Instagram.
All of the songs were recorded during the pandemic.
“Some of the sessions were recorded under very stringent safety regulations: working with another artist, but separated by glass screens,” John said in a statement. “But all the tracks I worked on were really interesting and diverse, stuff that was completely different to anything I’m known for, stuff that took me out of my comfort zone into completely new territory.
Although he had never written via Zoom before, John did say it was reminiscent of his early years as a studio musician.
“At the start of my career, in the late 60s, I worked as a session musician,” he explained. “Working with different artists during lockdown reminded me of that. I’d come full circle: I was a session musician again. And it was still a blast.”
(WASHNGTON) — When the young boy, just 13 or 14 years-old, was safely inside the gates of Kabul’s international airport, U.S. State Department officials there asked two questions: Where were his parents? And why was there blood all over his clothes?
“He said that somebody was killed right in front of him, and his whole family dispersed,” said a State Department official, recounting their harrowing 12 days on the ground in Afghanistan.
They were one of dozens of U.S. diplomats who, along with thousands of U.S. troops, helped evacuate more than 123,000 of their fellow Americans, Afghans, and other foreigners fleeing the Taliban.
But that effort also left behind as many as 200 U.S. citizens who were trying to escape and the “majority” of Afghans who worked with U.S. diplomatic and military personnel, according to a senior State Department official, and now fear their lives are at risk from Taliban reprisals.
“Everybody who lived it is haunted by the choices we had to make and by the people we were not able to help depart in this first phase of the operation,” said the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity at the State Department’s request.
The all-hands-on-deck effort marshaled hundreds of State Department personnel in Washington and at embassies around the world, even rivaling the global repatriation operation at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, according to officials.
Afghanistan Coordination Task Force, an emergency operation headquartered at the State Department, has brought together hundreds of U.S. officials across agencies, including from the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services, which manages refugee resettlement, and helped coordinate approximately 55,000 calls and 33,000 emails to U.S. citizens in Afghanistan to try to bring them to safety, according to the department. As that operation shifts to help Americans and Afghans left behind, the senior State Department official conceded the evacuation efforts weren’t “pretty, it was very challenging. … It involved some really painful tradeoffs and choices for everybody involved.”
The youngest of those Americans still there may be “Ali,” whose real name ABC News is not using to protect him and his family. The three-year-old boy was born in the Sacramento area, and both his father “Ramin” and mother “Sahar” are U.S. lawful permanent residents, or Green card holders. Ramin moved the family, including Ali’s three older siblings, to Kabul a couple of years ago, drawn to a career as a social worker in his home country.
But with the collapse of the Afghan government – the speed of which surprised even U.S. officials – they scrambled to get out, the family told ABC News affiliate KGO. They said they received instructions from the U.S. embassy in Kabul on how to approach the airport, but were beaten back and blocked by Taliban fighters – too fearful to attempt again.
The senior State Department official said while there was enough cooperation with the Taliban to get tens of thousands of evacuees through, it regularly broke down when the militant group’s checkpoints were overwhelmed by the crowds or when messages from leadership didn’t travel fast enough to fighters on the ground.
“We had zero ability to control that inflow beyond the physical gates of the airport complex,” they told reporters Wednesday.
The State Department’s operation also struggled to provide detailed instructions on how to access the airport to Americans and Afghan partners that wouldn’t end up spreading through the massive crowds. Instead, any unique credential was quickly shared and became useless for U.S. and allied service members manning the fortified walls of Kabul airport.
“It was no longer a viable credential to differentiate among populations, and we simply did not have the people or the time to be able to try to sift through that crowd of people demanding access,” the senior official said.
That meant especially for Afghans who worked for the U.S. — sometimes known as SIVs, for the special immigrant visas they’ve applied for — were left in the crowds.
“We weren’t able to differentiate in the ways we all wanted to pull in those SIV populations,” the senior official added, declining to provide any figures for how many were evacuated, but saying “anecdotal evidence” suggested the “majority” were not.
Operations to rescue Americans, Afghan partners, and other foreigners also became increasingly dangerous as the operation stretched on. The threat from ISIS-K became horribly real when a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside Abbey Gate last Thursday, killing at least 182 people, including 13 U.S. service members.
But officials were also concerned about the crowds themselves, especially as desperation grew with the clock ticking down to President Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline.
“It’s not a criticism of the people who were desperate to leave, it’s just the characteristics of human behavior in those kinds of conditions — I think people don’t understand that those crowds that were outside the access points were on the verge of flipping to a mob at any given moment of any given day,” said the senior official.
Now, it will be up to U.S. consular officers to help the hundreds of other Americans and tens of thousands of Afghan partners escape whatever comes next in Afghanistan.
“It was really disheartening,” a second consular officer, who flew to Washington from the U.S. embassy in Canada to assist in evacuation efforts, said of the long shifts on the phone or emails trying to help U.S. citizens in Afghanistan.
In some cases, those individual calls provided personalized instructions for U.S. citizens and residents or at-risk Afghans to access Kabul airport, including a rally point to meet before approaching the gates amid the high threat of attack.
A third State Department official, based at the U.S. embassy in New Delhi, recounted talking to an Afghan woman who only spoke Dari, the Afghan dialect of Persian, but in her basic Urdu and his broken Hindi, he was able to provide instructions on how to access the airport.
“That kept us going all the time — that everybody felt the desperation of the Afghans and wanted to help them and knew it was a matter of time, that we had limited time to help as many people as possible and everybody went out of their way,” said the first State Department official.
But sticking to that timeline has drawn outrage against Biden, accused by Republican lawmakers and some veterans’ groups of abandoning Americans and especially Afghan allies.
“The unwillingness of the U.S. government to protect these trusted allies is an unconscionable failure that could have been avoided,” Adam Bates, policy counsel at the International Refugee Assistance Project, or IRAP, said Tuesday. “The United States not only has an ongoing moral, but also a legal obligation to protect them and all Afghan allies.”
Biden rejected that in an address Tuesday, saying staying longer would have put more U.S. troops at risk by violating former President Donald Trump’s deal with the Taliban: “That was the choice, the real choice – between leaving or escalating.”
For that first State Department official, however, there was no time to dwell on the life-or-death implications for the Afghan people they encountered just inside Kabul airport’s fortified gates – some of whom they were forced to turn away if they weren’t cleared by the U.S. government to travel.
“There were so many people, the need was so great all the time, that we just tried to do what we were supposed to do and get as many people out,” said the official.
Volunteering to help process people, the official arrived with other consular officers on Aug. 17, just two days after Kabul fell to the Taliban. Working 12-hour shifts, consular officers waited behind a line of U.S. special forces to check the documents of Americans, Afghans, and others who were granted entry to the airport — before they could move through another line of U.S. forces and board evacuation flights.
Warning shots were being fired “constantly” by Afghan and Taliban troops on the perimeter, per the official, with the use of flash bangs and at least one instance of tear gas as well. Most people waited three to five days just to get inside, they added — calling it “horrendous.”
“The people that tried to get through those gates, it was a horrifying experience for them, and as consular officers, we were thrilled to be able to do what we could to evaluate their eligibility as quickly as possible,” the official said.
Among the most heartbreaking scenes were the unaccompanied minors — children who lost parents and ended up inside the airport’s walls. Scores of them have been evacuated from Kabul to Doha, Qatar, where UNICEF has custody of them and is working to reunify them with parents and family, according to State Department officials.
Asked how so many children ended up alone, the official said, “Chaos. You can’t even imagine the chaos that was outside the gate.”
“On any given day, we had over 30 children that were separated … They were all traumatized,” the official added.
At least four children were orphaned after their father was killed by the Taliban and their mother was crushed in the crowds outside the airport, a source on the ground told ABC News last week. Others may have been pushed through “for safety” by their parents, according to the State Department official, “But I can tell you any parent that did that did that out of desperation and a love for their child.”
Officials from the U.S. and allied countries, especially Norway, worked together at the airport to care for them, with service members playing with them, rocking babies, and providing supplies like diapers, food, and bottles. Norway set up a reunification center that “quickly got overwhelmed, there were so many children that were separated,” the official said.
For Ali and his family, they are at least still together. But the road ahead — perhaps literally — is unclear.
The family told KGO that they have connected with other Americans on the ground in Afghanistan, leaving a safe house in Kabul to find their own way.
