Lana Del Rey is stepping away from social media to give her full attention to her upcoming projects.
The “Summertime Sadness” singer announced Saturday that she will be pulling the plug on her Twitter, Instagram and other social accounts.
“Hi, guys. I just wanted to let you know that tomorrow we are going to be deactivating our social media accounts, my social media accounts,” she told her followers, according to Rolling Stone. “That is simply because I have so many other interests and other jobs I’m doing that require privacy and transparency.”
Naming her announcement video “On the record,” the six-time Grammy nominee expressed gratitude to her fans for supporting her over the years and promised she will continue to release new music and dabble in poetry.
“I’m still very present and love what I do. I’m absolutely out here for the music and that I’m also just going on some different endeavors,” Lana said. “For right now, I think I’m going to just keep my circle a little bit closer and continue to develop some other skills and interests.”
The 36-year-old signed off by telling fans she will now spend her days “living life” and that she had enjoyed sharing “all these very small tidbits” with her followers.
Lana did not reveal when or if she will return to social media.
In the meantime, her eighth album, Blue Banisters, is due out October 22. Last week, she released the single “Arcadia,” which will be featured on the upcoming studio effort.
After its first-ever Emmy wins — WandaVision picked up two at the Creative Arts ceremony on Saturday — Marvel Studios has unveiled its first peek at its next Disney+ adventure, Hawkeye.
Soundtracked to Andy Williams‘ holiday classic “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” the Christmas-set trailer blends action, humor, and intrigue.
Jeremy Renner‘s Clint Barton is still dealing with his exploits as seen in Avengers: Endgame: once his family was “snapped” away by Thanos, he went on a revenge bender as the cloaked vigilante, Ronin. But as Barton readjusts to the normal life he saved, Ronin returns — only it’s not Barton. Hawkeye tracks down the sword-wielding archer wearing his disguise to find Hailee Steinfeld‘s Kate Bishop, and he soon takes her under his wing.
“You’re Hawkeye!” she enthuses.
“Who the hell are you?” Barton replies.
“Some people have actually called me the world’s greatest archer,” she boasts.
As Barton tries to balance family life — Endgame co-director Joe Russo‘s daughter Ava Russo returns as his daughter, Lila, and they have tickets to the Captain America musical ROGERS, after all — Barton and Bishop find themselves on the run in New York City.
“When I wore that suit I made a lot of enemies,” Barton warns. And as the teaser shows, those enemies are coming in spades.
As you’d expect, the pair show off some amazing archery skills, at one point back-to-back on the Rockefeller Center skating rink. The trailer closes with both archers imitating Hawkeye’s backwards mid-air shooting as seen in the pages of Marvel Comics, and The Avengers.
Hawkeye also stars Vera Farmiga and Florence Pugh, the latter reprising her Black Widow character, Yelena. It hits Disney+ on November 24.
Marvel is owned by Disney, parent company of ABC News.
(LOS ANGELES) — Every weekend, Shirley Raines gets up early to head to Skid Row, a neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles known for its struggles with homelessness and poverty.
At Skid Row, Raines wears many different hats: she’s a makeup artist, a hair technician, a provider and a mother figure. She gives makeovers, dyes hair, hands out food and sends her clients off with a warm, “I love you.”
Beauty 2 The Streetz, a group started by Raines herself, has served hundreds, if not thousands, of homeless people in the region for six years. She and her team provide those in need with hot showers, hygiene products and other necessities to make life easier for those living on the streets.
Raines has begun documenting her work, and the stories of the people she serves, on social media, earning millions of views and likes on TikTok. In the comments section, she fends off stigma against homeless and impoverished communities. But she hopes her videos remind viewers that her clients are just as deserving of love, happiness and a good life.
“I would like for people to understand and know that at any given time, this could be you,” Raines said, referring to those living with homelessness. “How come we taught society that these people are to be blamed for their circumstances?”
How Beauty 2 The Streetz began
In 1987, Raines lost her son Demetrius just days before his third birthday. She spent years mourning, looking for answers to her loss and pain.
Six years ago, in an effort to make sense of her grief, she stumbled upon a friend at church who was off to feed the homeless and invited her along. That was the start of Raines’s path to Beauty 2 The Streetz.
“I think it just hit me — that I’ve got to do something with this pain,” Raines said. “I never expected this work to be so healing for me.”
She continued her work at Skid Row with a local charity organization at first, and soon enough, she was known as the “makeup lady.” Raines always rolled up with a full face of makeup and a head of colorful hair when she volunteered. It quickly grabbed the attention of her clients.
She began to provide hair and makeup services herself, fully funded with her own money. And though the makeup and hair skills of her and her team help others look and feel great, she says it’s the connections and friendships that keep her clients coming back.
“I really, really in my heart do not think it’s the hair color or the makeup, I think it’s the time that someone spends with them,” Raines said. “It’s the time that someone spends touching them, it’s the time someone spends catering to them. … A lot of people don’t even look in the mirror, girl!”
There’s a brightness in their eyes when they walk away from the salon chair. That joy is healing for Raines, but she also knows that’s not enough.
Though she offers help and assistance in the ways that she can, she is adamant that local officials do the work to address systemic issues of poverty, addiction and violence that plague the neighborhood.
Improving Skid Row
Skid Row has one of the largest stable homeless populations in the United States, with roughly 3,000 homeless people out on the streets, according to the Community Redevelopment Agency of the city of Los Angeles.
It’s a heavily condensed area; the Community Redevelopment Agency reports that the neighborhood contains roughly 3% of the county’s homeless population, yet it makes up only 0.0001% of the county’s total land area.
“It’s one of the most dangerous areas in Los Angeles,” Raines said. “It’s considered toxic, it’s considered an area that’s filled with dangerous people and people who have been dismissed by life.”
But she denounces that understanding of the Skid Row community, a fact evident in her TikTok videos, which she hopes can crush the stereotypes and preconceived notions of homeless people that her viewers have.
Kirkpatrick Tyler, director of Skid Row Strategy at the Mayor’s Office of Public Engagement, said that the work to improve Skid Row and the conditions of life there is ongoing.
Tyler said initiatives on mental health care, substance abuse rehabilitation, violence and affordable housing are in progress, building on years of attempts to address these issues. He said community members are helping lead the discussions on how to move the city forward.
“Skid Row is full of vibrant people with big hearts that believe in themselves, that believe in one another, and that are committed and dedicated to transforming that community,” Tyler said.
“For our office, that was actually one of the first things that we had to address — that we were no longer going to speak about Skid Row as an area in downtown that had a homeless problem, that we would speak about Skid Row as a community,” he added.
He said efforts like Raines’ help give people that human connection that makes the neighborhood the community that it is.
Turning strangers into friends
Every time she hands out food or works on someone’s hair, Raines tells her clients that she loves them. She never expected them to say it back, but since her son’s death, she knew how important and impactful those words can be.
“I love you” were some of the last words she told her son before he died. Now, those words are said back to her every time she heads to Skid Row.
“It’s so funny when I watch back videos, there are random strangers coming to my window like, ‘OK, love you, see you next week.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, love you too,'” Raines said, laughing. “It just feels good, because I know how hard it is to trust when life hasn’t been kind to you, people haven’t been kind to you.”
And though nothing can heal the wound of a lost child, Raines said she finds solace and recovery in her work. She reminds her viewers to have compassion for people experiencing homelessness — and to give back to those in need as much as possible.
She thanks the many donors on social media who have already helped her fund the initiative.
“We think that they’re a burden to society but they’re not a burden to society. Society is a burden to them,” Raines said. “The goal in life is not to have as much as you can; the goal in life is to give as much as you can.”
Dua Lipa is finally getting the chance to bring her chart-topping music to her U.S. fans in person.
The superstar has officially announced the North American leg of her Future Nostalgia tour, which will kick off February 9 in Miami, FL and conclude on April 1 in Vancouver, Canada. The opening acts will vary based on the show date, but they include Megan Thee Stallion, Caroline Polachek and Lolo Zouaï.
The tour will include Dua’s first-ever headlining shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden and at The Forum in Inglewood, CA. Tickets and VIP packages go on sale Friday, September 17 at 12 p.m. local time via Ticketmaster.
“I’m so thrilled to tour again and see my angels in person! How amazing that we all get to dance and celebrate together once again,” says Dua in a statement.
“When I was writing Future Nostalgia, I imagined the songs being played in clubs on nights out with your mates,” she adds. “I’m so excited that this fantasy is finally coming true. I can’t wait to experience these songs with you together live!”
Foo Fighters, Machine Gun Kelly and Twenty One Pilots all performed during Sunday’s 2021 MTV Video Music Awards.
Dave Grohl and company, who were honored at the ceremony with the Global Icon Award, performed a three-song medley including the classics “Everlong” and “Learn to Fly,” as well as “Shame Shame,” the lead single from their latest album, Medicine at Midnight.
Meanwhile, Kelly and his Tickets to My Downfall collaborator Travis Barkerrocked his new single, “Papercuts,” and Tyler Joseph and Josh Dunpainted the town with their song “Saturday.”
Kelly also won won the Best Alternative VMA for his song “My Ex’s Best Friend” with blackbear. Other VMA winners include John Mayer‘s “Last Train Home” for Best Rock, and Billie Eilish‘s “Your Power” for Video for Good.
MGK, by the way, seemed to have quite the eventful night. In addition to his performance and award win, he also appeared to get into some sort of confrontation with MMA fighter Conor McGregor on the red carpet. Photos and footage from the event seem to show McGregor charging towards Kelly as the two appeared to exchange words. A source tells People that McGregor had asked MGK to take a photo with him, but was denied by the “Bloody Valentine” rocker’s team.
“Conor went in on it a little bit,” the source said. However, a rep for the fighter denies to People that the photo request happened, and notes that Kelly attended McGregor’s last match. Meanwhile, McGregor spoke with Entertainment Tonight on the carpet shortly after the incident and downplayed the whole affair.
“No scuffle at all,” McGregor said. “I don’t know the man!”
“I only fight real fighters, people that actually fight,” he added. “I certainly don’t fight little vanilla boy rappers.”
(IN) — Neighbors, first responders, health care workers, teachers and coaches are the strong, quiet heroes that make up every corner of the country, and one Indiana man’s pep talks, booming voice and bear hugs will be greatly missed by his community but long remembered thanks to a new chapter of his legacy.
The student athletes, staff and families of North Central High School lost their beloved coach Paul Loggan, a towering figure in Indianapolis for more than 30 years, to COVID-19.
When his students learned about Loggan’s diagnosis, they did what their coach had done so many times for them — delivered pep talks.
His wife, Kathy Loggan, told ABC News “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir, “We had the nurses playing that for him over and over,” hoping the words of encouragement could help keep him alive.
After 12 days in the hospital, Paul Loggan died at 57 on April 12, 2020.
“I thought it would work. I really did,” she said through tears. “There’s nothing that he loves more than his student athletes. Besides his own kids.”
His son, Michael Loggan, added, “At the end of the day, he knew we loved him and we knew he loved us.”
Hours after students first heard the news of Coach Loggan, the school parking lot filled up with their cars to honor his life. In the days that followed, they organized a statewide remembrance at 7 p.m. when the stadium lights would turn on to remember coach Loggan.
The Loggan family set up a foundation in his name to continue his legacy of supporting athletic programs that will provide money for student athletes to pay for sports, uniforms, equipment and more.
“Good Morning America” surprised his wife and son live on Monday with a donation from the Indianapolis Colts for $10,000 to the Paul Loggan Foundation.
“He always wanted to make sure that his student athletes came first and if those kids couldn’t afford to play or they were having financial issues or couldn’t afford those pair of cleats or those spikes for track — we would pay for it personally out of our own fund,” his wife said. “This foundation just helps us continue his legacy and keeping his name alive for all these future student athletes that won’t get to have the honor of actually knowing him and getting his big bear hugs and his big booming voice that always gives you those words of encouragement that he did.”
ABBA in 2021, in motion-capture suits/Credit: Baillie Walsh
ABBA‘s long-awaited return has British fans saying “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” to their new music.
“Don’t Shut Me Down,” one of two new songs the Swedish superstars released earlier this month, has debuted in the top 10 of the Official U.K. Singles chart. It’s the first time ABBA’s been in the top 10 on that chart since 1982. “I Still Have Faith In You,” ABBA’s other new song, debuted at number 14.
The two new entries brings the band’s total of top-40 U.K. singles to 28. In addition, the group’s best-of album, Gold, is back in the top five on the British album chart for the first time since 2008.
Both of the new songs will appear on ABBA’s new album, Voyage, due out November 5. As previously reported, it’s set a record as Universal Music U.K.’s biggest-ever album pre-order.
All the ABBA hype is leading up to the debut of a virtual concert experience, which will debut next year in London. It’ll feature digital avatars of ABBA’s four members performing all their legendary hits.
(SEOUL, South Korea) — Fourteen content providers in China including Tencent and Weibo are promising a “healthy” cyberspace environment as Chinese authorities expand control over the entertainment industry.
The China Association of Performing Arts, an organization affiliated with the Chinese government, summoned representatives from content providers last Friday to discuss ways to promote contents with positive values in order to “clear” the cyberspace.
“The platforms would strengthen their management of accounts and restrict those that spread baseless star gossip or stir up conflicts between fan groups,” the association said on its WeChat statement Saturday, just a week after China’s major microblogging platform, Sina Weibo, restricted the use of 21 fan club accounts.
Weibo’s crackdown on fan accounts took place shortly after an extravagant birthday celebration event for a K-pop star went viral on Twitter on Sept. 5. Fans following the Weibo account “JiMIN JMC,” a fan community for BTS member Jimin, raised money to plaster an airplane with his photo. Weibo blocked the fan page from writing new posts for 60 days, explaining that the procedure for collecting money was not legitimate.
“Irrational star-chasing behavior, when found, should be dealt with seriously,” Weibo said on its official website, referring to the fundraising activities of fandoms. “The company promptly banned 21 accounts for 30 days, and erased related inappropriate posts.”
The statement also said that stricter oversight of the fan groups would “purify” the online atmosphere and fulfill the platform’s responsibilities to society.
“Since China is a one-party state under a strict communist ideology, other social media companies will follow suit without any resistance once the authorities take control of one large company,” Kim Hern-sik, a commentator who studies and analyzes K-pop, told ABC News. “[For] Weibo, being the most influential social media in China, there will be setbacks in selling K-pop goods and keeping up online fan communities within the country.”
The Chinese government has been clear that it intends to have pop culture under control this year. Last month, the Cyberspace Administration of China posted a guideline to take care of “disorderly fandom management.” The guidelines include restricting minors from spending money on fan club activities and giving entertainment agencies the responsibility of managing fan clubs. There is strong solidarity among fan-made communities on Weibo and Twitter that raise funds for birthday events and gifts for celebrities, but the Chinese government depicted the particular fan culture as “chaotic.”
“Do not induce fans to consume. One should not organize contests to encourage or stimulate consumption,” the Cyberspace Administration of China clearly states in its guidelines published on Aug. 27. China’s National Radio and Television Administration went on to ban broadcasters and internet platforms from organizing “marketing activities to stimulate fan consumption” in a notice on Sept. 2.
Following the announcements, QQ Music and Tencent’s music streaming service in China decided to restrict customers from purchasing more than one copy of an album online.
Album sales are considered an index of popularity for pop stars. According to the South Korean music chart Hanteo, China had the third largest share of K-pop album sales verified on the Hanteo website in the first half of 2021 among 96 countries, following the U.S. and Malaysia.
The largest Twitter fan community of BLACK PINK member Lisa informed followers it would not be able to order as many copies of Lisa’s new album as planned.
“As we are writing this, we are sorry to inform you that we may not be able to order as many copies as we had expected. We have run into unexpected obstacles with tightened restrictions on fan clubs,” the account said in a tweet Aug. 31.
Last Thursday, China’s National Radio and Television Administration announced that Chinese media should stop effeminate male celebrities as well as celebrities who are not politically vocal from appearing on television.
“Tackling down people’s fan community participation cannot be finished at one stroke, but it seems the Chinese authorities will continue expanding its influence step by step,” Kweon Sang Hee, a professor at Sungkyunkwan University, told ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — When Lt. Nathan Brashear saw the call for National Guard service members to help as hospitals were reaching a crisis point during Kentucky’s delta surge, he didn’t hesitate to volunteer.
For about two weeks, Brashear, a member of the Kentucky Army National Guard, has been leading a team of 30 National Guard members at The Medical Center at Bowling Green, doing “everything little thing” they can to help give the hospital staff a much-needed break.
“That’s one thing that makes this mission so important to us as soldiers,” Brashear, who was a deputy jailor before he went on active-duty orders, told ABC News. “We live and work in these communities. So for us to be able to support the communities is something that really impacts us.”
In recent weeks, several states have deployed hundreds of National Guard service members to help overwhelmed and understaffed hospitals, as COVID-19 hospitalization rates have reached points not seen during the pandemic.
The service members are not doing clinical work, but instead offering administrative and logistical support so hospital staff can focus on patient care. That could be anything from taking patients to appointments to cleaning beds to serving and clearing food.
“This is really the latest in demonstrated need that we’re seeing, obviously across the state and nation, that a lot of these hospitals are feeling the strain — both increased patients and a decrease in the available personnel to really help take care of everybody,” Lt. Col. Stephen Martin, director of public affairs for the Kentucky National Guard, told ABC News. “Our main mission there is really just to offload the logistical and administrative support that those hospitals have so that the full-timers there can better care for the needs of the patients that are coming in.”
The Kentucky National Guard was winding down its pandemic response, which has included helping set up drive-through COVID-19 testing sites and assisting food banks, when, about three weeks ago, it was called for the first time during the pandemic to assist hospitals overburdened by COVID-19 patients — most of them unvaccinated.
The size of National Guard teams and length of their deployment varies by hospital size and demand, and will stay as long as they can in whatever capacity is needed, Martin said.
“We as Guardsmen fancy ourselves as Swiss Army knives. We’ve got multiple skillsets, not only in what we’re trained on but being able to accomplish the mission before us,” he said. “We can send a small team into the hospital and say, ‘Here’s your left and right limits, these are the things that we want you to focus on and provide support to, and more than anything, just help these folks out.'”
“They’re in a bad way and we’re really just helping to alleviate that workload for a little it, let them catch their breath and catch up and really focus on the needs of the patients in the hospital,” he added.
Over two-thirds of Kentucky hospitals have critical staffing shortages as they’re overrun with COVID-19 patients, and doctors are “quickly approaching” the point where they would need to ration care, Gov. Andy Beshear told CNN on Wednesday.
More than 100 soldiers and airmen had already been deployed to four hospitals, including The Medical Center at Bowling Green, when Beshear announced Friday that over 300 more will be sent to 21 additional hospitals in the state’s largest-ever National Guard deployment for a health crisis.
“Our hospitals are at a breaking point,” Beshear said during a COVID-19 briefing Friday. “We have 93 total ICU beds left statewide. That is one of the lowest numbers, I think they would tell you, in our lifetime.”
The announcement came a day after Kentucky set new records for its statewide COVID-19 testing positivity rate, reaching 14%, and the number of patients on ventilators, the governor said.
Kentucky is not the only state to turn to the National Guard for COVID-19-related hospital support in recent weeks.
Late last month, Idaho Gov. Brad Little announced the state was deploying up to 150 Guardsmen, among other personnel, to help overwhelmed hospitals.
More than 600 patients are hospitalized with COVID-19 in Idaho, the highest on record for the state, as the number of intensive care unit beds dwindles and hospital staff are stretched thin. On Tuesday, Idaho public health leaders announced they had activated “crisis standards of care” for the state’s northern hospitals, enabling them to ration care.
In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown announced last month she was deploying up to 1,500 National Guard members to hospitals around the state to provide support.
The service members have been met by applause by grateful health care workers as they’ve arrived at their hospitals.
Over the past few weeks, they’ve helped with nonclinical tasks, including screening visitors at hospital entrances, manning COVID-19 hotlines and changing patients’ bedding in the ICU.
Some have even used their talents to boost morale. Senior Airman Skadi Freyr of the Oregon National Guard has been playing piano during her lunch break while working at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.
“A beautiful moment of someone in uniform who was blessing us on her break with some beautiful music, which really was grounding for me, to remind me of the beauty and the good in the midst of this really hard time,” OHSU oncology social worker Jen Smith told the Oregon National Guard last week.
Freyr said she doesn’t have any plans to stop playing after seeing the impact on staff.
“Now that I’ve seen that it has such a good sort of healing effect on people, it makes me more driven to do it, because I know that it’s really gonna just help them,” she said. “And I really like to be of service.”
(NEW YORK) — North Korean officials announced they test-fired long-range missiles this weekend.
The “long-range cruise missiles” were launched on Saturday and Sunday and allegedly hit a target 1,500 kilometers away, officials said on North Korea’s state-run media.
The missiles flew for over two hours, according to the report.
The officials claimed the test was successful, and said the missile is “a strategic weapon of great significance,” to North Korea’s defense plans.
Although the report said several top North Korean leaders and scientists were in attendance for the launches, there was no mention of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un being present.
South Korean officials have not yet commented on the test launch.
