The Jonas Brothers helped close out the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on Sunday by performing their anthemic single “Remember This” during the Games’ closing ceremony.
Kevin Jonas shared the band’s performance on Twitter, calling their experience “a moment I’ll never forget.”
Nick Jonas also celebrated JoBros’ Olympic debut on Sunday, saying it was “an honor” to be involved in the Games. He added, “We are so proud of you @TeamUSA [flexing emoji] Let’s get it!!”
“Getting to perform this song at the Olympics Closing Ceremony is quite the bucket list moment for me,” Joe Jonas shared on his Twitter.
The three-minute performance video included shots of the brothers’ rooftop performance spliced with callbacks of various Olympic athletes preparing for and dominating their respective events.
The United States took home the most overall medals at this year’s Games out of all competing nations with 113 — 39 gold, 41 silver and 33 bronze. Many of those moments were included in the “Remember This” reel, which aired on NBC, this year’s home of the Olympic Games.
“Remember This” by the Jonas Brothers is available for digital download and on-demand now.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 delta variant continues to raise new concerns for Americans, parents can follow a set of five principles to help make going back to school safer for their children.
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, joined Good Morning America Monday to share his five-point strategy:
1. Vaccinate everyone who is eligible and who will be around children in schools
“Those kids who can’t get vaccinated, the way you protect them is making sure everyone around them is vaccinated,” Jha said.
2. Upgrade ventilation in schools
“We’ve got a lot to do to improve the air quality in schools,” he said of ventilation and filtration.
3. Test in schools
“We should be testing every unvaccinated person on a regular basis in schools,” Jha said about extensive access to testing.
4. Wear masks
5. Avoid super-crowded events
Jha suggested avoiding assembly halls and concerts.
As for the latest surge hitting the U.S., Jha said he expects “that until we put in mitigation measures and get more people vaccinated, we’re going to be struggling with the delta variant for a while.”
Fleetwood Mac‘s Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham are now reunited. Well, at least their catalogs are.
According to Variety, McVie, who just turned 78, has just sold her 115-song catalog to Hipgnosis, a music company that’s made headlines in the past few years for spending billions to acquire pop and rock copyrights. It includes the hits she’s written for Fleetwood Mac — a list that includes “Don’t Stop,” “Over My Head,” “Say You Love Me” and “You Make Loving Fun” — as well as the songs she wrote with her pre-Mac group, Chicken Shack, plus her solo material.
In January, ex-Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham sold his publishing rights to Hipgnosis. Stevie Nicks, meanwhile, sold a chunk of her catalog last year to a company called Primary Wave, while drummer Mick Fleetwood made a similar deal with BMG.
As Music Weekpoints out, thanks to Hipgnosis’ deals with McVie and Buckingham, it now owns the rights to eight of the 11 songs on Rumours, seven of the 11 songs on the band’s 1975 self-titled album, 11 of the 16 songs on Greatest Hits, and 15 of 20 songs on Tusk.
In a statement, Merck Mercuriadis, the head of Hipgnosis said, “It’s wonderful for us to welcome Christine to the Hipgnosis Family and particularly wonderful to reunite her once again at Hipgnosis with Lindsey Buckingham.”
McVie added, “I am so excited to belong to the Hipgnosis family, and thrilled that you all regard my songs worthy of merit. I’d like to thank you all for your faith in me, and I’ll do all I can to continue this new relationship and help in any way I can!”
Jessica Springsteen, the daughter of Bruce Springsteen and wife Patti Scialfa, rocked her first-ever Olympic Games over the weekend, taking home the silver medal for the U.S. Equestrian jumping team.
According to Entertainment Tonight, the Springsteen clan reacted with pure joy and triumph after Jessica’s Olympic victory.
“I FaceTimed them really quick,” the 29-year-old Springsteen said after collecting her medal. “They were all screaming, I don’t think we understood anything.”
This latest win now pushes Jessica to a new ranking. Prior to competing, she was listed as 27th in the world; now, she ranks 14th.
“It was also super exciting,” the Olympian added, noting she dealt with some “jitters” before making her final run in Tokyo. “My horse jumped it beautifully. And we really gave it our all out there.”
She competed alongside fellow Team USA members Kent Farrington, Laura Kraut and two-time gold medalist McLain Ward in a neck-and-neck race for first against Sweden.
The two countries faced against each other in a jump-off, with the Swedes eking out Team USA with a slightly better time of 122.90. Team USA completed the jump-off with an overall time of 124.20. Both managed the course with no penalties.
Despite taking home the silver, Team USA managed to make history: Not only does this mark Jessica’s first Olympic Games and medal, but teammate Laura Kraut, 55, is now the oldest Olympic medalist.
Kathy Griffin is showing fans what she currently sounds like after having a portion of her left lung removed following a recent cancer diagnosis.
The comedian took to Instagram on Saturday to share a short video, where she directly addressed her followers to let them know she is in good spirits.
“I might start to post little videos about… my recovery and stuff, but my voice is, like, really hoarse, and I don’t want to scare people,” Griffin joked. “Also, for some reason, I laugh at everything now and, if it’s horrible, I laugh way more!”
The following day, Griffin shared an additional update that included new standup material from her very eventful Sunday, which she laughed through. Her voice was also noticeably stronger.
The 60-year-old comic revealed that her husband had an accident in the kitchen and remarked, “If he’s calling for my help, it must be bad because I can’t do anything!”
“I’m going to hell for laughing,” she continued, noting she ran from the bedroom where she was resting and was only in her undergarments. Griffin’s wild story continued as she revealed that, while her husband was away to go get stitched up, someone knocked on their door.
Griffin noted she was “too famous” to safely answer the door but remembered a friend of hers promised to mail her ice cream bars.
“I’m thinking, ‘I don’t care if I have cancer… I’m getting those [damn] ice cream bars,'” she giggled.
Griffin revealed last week that she’d been diagnosed with Stage 1 lung cancer. She underwent surgery the next day to remove half of her left lung.
Among those wishing her well in her latest updates were famous friends Laverne Cox, Kris Jenner and Rosie O’Donnell.
Despite glowing reviews, The Suicide Squad fell short of the $30 million insiders had predicted, only managing to deliver an estimated $26.5 million in its opening weekend. That was in direct contrast to its predecessor, 2016’s Suicide Squad, which opened with $133.7 million amid bad reviews.
To be fair, The Suicide Squad‘s lackluster performance faced new challenges — the new surge in COVID-19 cases and the fact that it was simultaneously available to HBO Max subscribers at no additional cost. The streamer has not made the number of home viewers available.
The movie, from director James Gunn and starring Viola Davis and Margot Robbie — reprising her role as Harley Quinn — along with franchise newcomers Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Pete Davidson, Daniela Melchior, Peter Capaldi and Sylvester Stallone as the voice of Nanaue/King Shark, added an estimated $45.7 million overseas, bringing its worldwide total to $72.2 million.
Last week’s box office champ, Disney’s Jungle Cruise, slipped to number two in its second week, delivering an estimated $15.7 million. That brings the movie’s stateside total to $65.3 million, to go with its estimated $56.5 million overseas, and pushes its worldwide tally to $121.8 million.
M. Night Shyamalan’s horror feature Old earned an estimated $4.1 million, pushing its three-week stateside total to $38.5 million. Marvel’s Black Widow took fourth place with an estimated $4 million, for a domestic box office total of $174 million. Its global total stands at $359.8 million.
Rounding out the top five is Stillwater. The indie thriller, starring Matt Damon, grabbed an estimated $2 million in its second week of release. The film has has yet to open internationally.
Trevor Moore, who co-founded the sketch comedy group The Whitest Kids U’ Know and star of Comedy Central’s The Trevor Moore Show, died Friday in an unspecified accident. He was 41.
Deadline obtained a statement from the comic’s widow, Aimee Carlson, and his family from Moore’s manager, who confirmed his death.
“We are devastated by the loss of my husband, best friend and the father of our son,” the statement read. “He was known as a writer and comedian to millions, and yet to us he was simply the center of our whole world. We don’t know how we’ll go on without him, but we’re thankful for the memories we do have that will stay with us forever.”
The family is requesting privacy as they grieve. Those wishing to honor Moore are encouraged to donate to NEXT for Autism.
Moore’s fellow WKUK troupe members Sam Brown and Sam Cregger honored his memory, sharing in a joint statement, “He was our best friend, and we speak for all of us in saying that the loss of Trevor is unimaginable. We are heartbroken.”
Adam Sandler also mourned Moore’s passing on Sunday, taking to Instagram to share a video tribute and his memories of the late comedian.
“Sending love to his family. Got to hang with Trevor a few times and just thought he was such a great sweet funny man,” Sandler wrote. “Such a tragedy.”
Besides founding WKUK, which won Best Sketch Group at HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in 2006, Moore spearheaded the Disney XD comedy series Walk the Prank and executive-produced and co-created the Disney show Just Roll Wwith It. He also created the Trevor Moore Show on Comedy Central.
He is survived by his wife Aimee and their son, August.
Bob Odenkirk is “doing great” after suffering a heart attack on the set of Better Call Saul nearly two weeks ago.
“I am doing great,” he shared in a tweet on Saturday. “I’ve had my very own ‘It’s a wonderful life’ week of people insisting I make the world slightly better,” he continued. “Wow! Thank you, I love everyone right now but let’s keep expectations reasonable!”
Odenkirk was rushed to the hospital July 27 when he collapsed on the set while shooting the sixth and final season of his AMC series in New Mexico. A few days after the incident, the 58-year-old actor tweeted, “I had a small heart attack. But I’m going to be ok thanks to Rosa Estrada and the doctors who knew how to fix the blockage without surgery.”
Odenkirk continued, “Also, AMC and SONYs support and help throughout this has been next-level. I’m going to take a beat to recover but I’ll be back soon.”
(NEW YORK) — Amid mask mandates and social distancing of a global pandemic, Barry’s, a boutique fitness club, says it’s disrupting the industry by giving consumers access to their product in ways that didn’t exist just one year ago.
But what it took to get there was a road wrought with challenge, uncertainty and innovation.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Barry’s, like so many fitness clubs, took a massive economic hit and had no digital offerings or infrastructure in place.
Priding themselves as “the best workout in the world,” Barry’s says it created opportunity in the height of COVID-19 lockdowns worldwide by remaining committed to keeping connections to their community alive and thriving. When it became clear global shutdowns would not be brief, the company immediately launched workouts live on Instagram, then formal at-home classes on video conferencing apps, like Zoom.
As 2020 wore on, the company eventually launched 19 outdoor studios that occupied spaces like parking garages, rooftops and empty, undeveloped land, converting those spaces into their infamous “Red Rooms” across the country.
Reopening their physical brick-and-mortar clubs would prove to have its own set of challenges when it became time.
Developing new operating and safety protocols and augmenting them to meet local government mandates has been an incredibly labor intensive process over the past 16 months, Barry’s told Good Morning America.
“We updated our HVAC system, introduced the use of EPA-registered cleaning supplies and at one point, social distancing in class and added five-minute breaks in between rounds to allow for extra cleaning and mask mandates.”
Now, as the world slowly begins to reopen, despite the lingering threat of COVID-19 and its emerging variants, Barry’s seems to have found footing in developing hybrid models of their business by blending versions of all their pandemic-era products into an omni-channel of offerings, including the newly unveiled “Barry’s X,” which includes live as well as on-demand classes.
According to Barry’s: “Barry’s X” is the first community-driven digital fitness product that seamlessly integrates key touch points of an in-person studio experience into a digital setting. Not only are you checked in by a moderator (who organizes the class and provides the same attention as the front desk), you’re also able to participate in a many-to-many experience which provides their fitness community with the opportunity to see and be seen.
“‘Barry’s X'” was created to provide people with the opportunity to experience the best workout in the world, taught by the best instructors, alongside an incredible global community – no matter where you are,” Barry’s CEO Joey Gonzalez told GMA exclusively.
The company says users will be able to turn their camera on during a live class, allowing the instructor to correct their form in real time, allowing them to see others in the class and be seen themselves. This will allow for an immersive digital experience that will allow instructors to help and correct form during a class, the brand touts, while also being able to check in with friends who are also taking the same class together.
“The camera-on feature allows you to be seen, as well as see old friends, new faces,” Gonzalez said. “And since it’s Barry’s, you can expect to see some famous ones as well.”
Another feature: Users will also be able to connect with their friends by sending friend requests and view their schedules and stats. Friends will also be able to invite each other to a class.
Gonzalez told GMA that they do expect a rise in hybridization as we continue to emerge from the pandemic.
“A number of boutique fitness studios across the country closed permanently during COVID, which means those respective workout communities have been displaced and will be looking for a new studio. As far as digital workouts, the landscape has never been more crowded,” Gonzalez said.
(NEW YORK) — A United Nations climate panel has confirmed — in its strongest language ever — that the impacts of human-caused climate change are severe and widespread, and that while there is still a chance to limit that warming, some impacts will continue to be felt for centuries.
“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” the report reads. “Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”
The UN panel said there is more evidence than ever before that human activity and greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet at a rate unprecedented in the last 2,000 years and that the impacts of that warming are already severe and widespread.
“Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe,” according to the report.
“Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and their attribution to human influence, has strengthened” since the last UN climate science report in 2013.
The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was compiled by 234 authors from 66 different countries who analyzed more than 14,000 scientific reports about climate change. It will set the stage for global negotiations later this year on how to more drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the impact of warming temperatures as much as possible.
John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said the report underscores the “overwhelming urgency” and high stakes for those international talks.
“The world must come together before the ability to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is out of reach. As the IPCC makes plain, the impacts of the climate crisis, from extreme heat to wildfires to intense rainfall and flooding, will only continue to intensify unless we choose another course for ourselves and generations to come. What the world requires now is real action,” he said in a statement.
That review confirmed that warming temperatures are contributing to more extreme events in every inhabited part of the world and that if temperatures increase an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, the world will see increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons, and shorter cold seasons. At 2 degrees of warming, the changes will start to reach levels that could threaten human health and agricultural systems in parts of the world.
Global average temperatures have increased between 0.8 degrees and 1.3 degrees Celsius since the industrial age, and climate researchers around the world have ruled out any natural explanation for the rapid rate of increasing temperatures. The report says “some recent hot extremes over the past decade would have been extremely unlikely to occur without human influence on the climate system.”
The report finds that global surface temperatures, meaning the temperatures of the oceans and on land, will continue to increase until at least 2050, regardless of actions taken to decrease emissions.
And unless greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced, the world will exceed 1.5 degrees of warming in the next 20 years. Limiting future warming to 2 degrees Celsius will require “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” according to the IPCC.
Ko Barrett, a vice chair for the UN climate panel and senior adviser for climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that even though the world’s current path is likely to meet or exceed the amount of warming targeted in the Paris Agreement there is still a chance to limit the amount of warming and limit the impacts of climate change.
“It’s true that unless there are immediate rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be beyond reach. But there are pathways that take us to keep these levels in check. It just requires strong rapid and sustained reductions in CO2 (carbon dioxide), methane and other greenhouse gases,” she told ABC News.
Barrett said that even with the sobering findings of the report, she’s seen a stronger reaction from governments and young people throughout the world who want to prevent the worst-case scenarios.
“At the same time that it’s, you know, undeniable that these — some of these findings are dire. There also is, at least in my mind, a real sense of hope and a drive for action,” she said.
While drastic emissions reductions could stabilize rising temperatures and prevent more dire consequences from additional warming, the UN panel found that some impacts of climate change to the oceans and ice in the Arctic are locked in for years to come, while the amount of emissions will determine how rapidly those impacts accelerate.
The report found that oceans will continue to warm, become more acidic and contain less oxygen for the rest of the 21st Century — though those impacts can still be made less severe if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Glaciers and permafrost are also almost certain to continue melting for decades — or even centuries — and the report says the Arctic may “practically” be ice free in September near the middle of the century under certain greenhouse gas scenarios. September is when we usually see the minimum sea-ice coverage in the Arctic.
“If we were to stop emitting greenhouse gases today the planet would stop warming, but sea level would continue to rise. However, I think it’s important to manage that our emissions matter hugely for the long-term amount of sea level rise and how quickly it comes,” Bob Kopp, an author of the report and director of the Rutgers Institute of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, told reporters on Sunday.
The report found that global mean sea level has already risen by .656 feet between 1901 and 2018 and will continue to rise at least through 2100.
“In the longer term, sea level is committed to rise for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean warming and ice sheet melt and will remain elevated for thousands of years,” the report says.
While the report lays out some dire impacts of climate change it’s also a call to action for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to prevent some of these worst-case scenarios and limit these impacts as much as possible.
“Stabilizing the climate will require strong, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and reaching net-zero CO2 emissions. Limiting other greenhouse gases and air pollutants, especially methane, could have benefits both for health and the climate,” said IPCC Working Group I Co-Chair Panmao Zhai.
The IPCC is expected to release two more reports on adapting to the impacts of climate change and possible policy solutions to limit warming and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement in early 2022.
