Peacock(LOS ANGELES) — Peacock’s Saved by the Bell sequel has graduated to a second season, the streamer has announced.
In Peacock’s reimagining of the classic ‘90s high school sitcom, Zack Morris — played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who returns in a recurring role — is now the governor of California, who, after getting into hot water for shutting down too many low-income high schools, proposes sending students from the affected schools to the highest performing schools in the state, including his alma mater, Bayside High.
The cast includes Haskiri Velazquez, Josie Totah, Alycia Pascual-Peña, Mitchell Hoog, Belmont Cameli, Dexter Darden and John Michael Higgins. Original cast members Elizabeth Berkley Lauren and Mario Lopez are also regulars.
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic(LOS ANGELES) — (NOTE LANGUAGE) Donnie Darko celebrated its 20th anniversary Tuesday and star Jake Gyllenhaal voiced his appreciation for the cult hit that launched his career.
Taking to Instagram to celebrate the movie’s milestone, the 40-year-old Oscar-nominee reflected, “Pulled out my script and some artifacts from Donnie Darko… It was released 20 years ago today.”
“It’s a film that changed my life and my career and it’s been unreal to watch this story find afterlives with new audiences and new generations, and yet, what Donnie said to Roberta Sparrow is still true: ‘there is so much to look forward to,'” continued Gyllenhaal, adding the movie still brings him joy.
He laughed, “Thank you to all the fans who’ve come up to me over the years with that confused look on their faces and asked me: ‘what the f*** is Donnie Darko about??'”
“Happy 20th Donnie! Let’s keep confusing people. Here’s to 20 more,” the Spider-Man: Far From Home star concluded.
Gyllenhaal shared a snap of the movie’s original script that has some of his notes scribbled across the title page. Several pieces of papers, including envelopes and tags, are shoved into the binder’s pocket.
Donnie Darko, released January 19, 2001 at the Sundance Film Festival, was not a box office hit. When it was slated to hit theaters in October, commercials for Donnie Darko were limited in light of the 9/11 attacks because they featured a crashing jet.
Donnie Darko went onto earn $7.5 million in the global box office despite touting an impressive cast, like Patrick Swayze and Drew Barrymore. It also starred Jake’s sister Maggie Gyllenhaal.
The film went onto achieve critical acclaim and has since developed a major cult following.
Empirealso lists the movie as the 2nd greatest independent film of all time.
ABC/Craig Sjodin(LOS ANGELES) — After driving away and into the sunset midway through her season of The Bachelorette, Clare Crawley’s engagement to Dale Moss has come to an end.
The former NFL star confirmed Tuesday that their fairytale romance is over.
Taking to Instagram, Dale explained, “I wanted to share with you all that Clare and I have decided to go our separate ways. We appreciate the love and support we’ve received from so many people, but this is the healthiest decision for both of us at this time.”
“We strongly believe in leading with love and always remaining true to oneself – something our families have taught and instilled in us throughout our lives. We only hope the best things for one another,” he concluded.
The announcement comes after Clare, 39, and Dale, 32, began sharing cryptic messages on social media that alluded to a possible heartbreak.
For Clare, she shared a photo of her holding her mother’s hand last week and wrote in the caption, “She has good days and bad, Just like we all do. Well today I couldn’t hide my hard day. A mother always knows. Without saying a word, she reached in her pocket and pulled out this tissue and just squeezed my hand.”
Sparks flew for Clare and Dale the second they locked eyes on the first episode of The Bachelorette, with Clare gushing to the cameras after their initial meeting, “I think I may have just met my husband.”
Their whirlwind romance eventually “blew up” season 16, as stated by host Chris Harrison when the two decided to leave the show halfway through and start their new lives together — ushering in new Bachelorette Tayshia Adams.
Dale has requested fans to respect his and Clare’s privacy “as we work through this together.” Clare has not yet addressed the breakup.
Samara Heisz/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, ERIN SCHUMAKER and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 96.2 million people worldwide and killed over two million of them, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Here’s how the news is developing Wednesday. All times Eastern:
Jan 20, 9:51 am Vatican begins vaccinating Rome’s homeless against COVID-19
Vatican City began offering free COVID-19 vaccinations to Rome’s homeless community on Wednesday, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.
The vaccinations took place in the atrium of the Paul VI Audience Hall, the massive auditorium where the Pope holds his weekly general audiences. An initial group of around 25 homeless individuals, who are all looked after in facilities run by the Office of Papal Charities, received their first doses of the vaccine Wednesday morning, according to Bruni.
“Further groups are to follow in the coming days,” Bruni said in a statement.
Vatican City, an independent enclave surrounded by Rome that serves as the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, launched a COVID-19 immunization campaign last week, administering doses of a vaccine developed by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. The tiny city-state has a population of only around 800 people but employs more than 4,000.
Both Pope Francis and his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, have received their first doses of the vaccine.
The vaccination campaign is voluntary and people under the age of 18 are being excluded for the time being, according to Bruni.
Since the start of the pandemic, Vatican City has reported at least 27 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Jan 20, 8:49 am Some UK hospitals are ‘like a war zone,’ government’s top scientific adviser says
Some hospitals in the United Kingdom look “like a war zone” as doctors and nurses workers grapple with an influx of COVID-19 patients, according to Patrick Vallance, the British government’s chief scientific adviser.
“It may not look like it when you go for a walk in the park, but when you go into a hospital, this is very, very bad at the moment with enormous pressure and in some cases it looks like a war zone in terms of the things that people are having to deal with,” Vallance told Sky News in an interview Wednesday.
He said there have been “huge numbers” of COVID-19 cases in recent days and that the country’s health care system “is under enormous pressure at the moment.” Official figures show nearly 38,000 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 across the U.K.
Vallance’s comments come after the U.K. reported a record 1,610 additional deaths from COVID-19 on Tuesday, as the cumulative total approaches 100,000. Since the start of the pandemic, the country has confirmed more than 3.4 million cases of the disease, including more than 91,000 fatalities, according to the latest data published on the British government’s website.
The U.K. — an island nation of 66 million people made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — has the fifth-highest number of diagnosed cases worldwide and the fourth-highest death toll, according to a count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Jan 20, 7:56 am Zimbabwe’s foreign minister dies from COVID-19
Zimbabwe’s minister of foreign affairs and international trade, Sibusiso Moyo, has died from COVID-19, officials said. He was 61.
Moyo “succumbed to COVID-19 at a local hospital” early Wednesday morning, according to a statement from presidential spokesman George Charamba.
Zimbabwean President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa took to Twitter to confirm the news and post a photo of Moyo.
“Zimbabwe has lost a devoted public servant and a true hero, and I have lost a friend. He fought his entire life so that Zimbabwe could be free,” Mnangagwa tweeted. “May he rest in peace.”
Moyo gained recognition in November 2017 as the army general who announced on national television that the Zimbabwean military had placed then-President Robert Mugabe under house arrest, while insisting it was not a coup. The move ended Mugabe’s 37-year rule and Moyo was appointed to Mnangagwa’s cabinet when he took power with military backing.
Zimbabwe has recently seen a surge in COVID-19 infections amid fears of a new, more contagious variant of the novel coronavirus that emerged in neighboring South Africa. Zimbabwe has confirmed more than 28,000 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, including at least 825 deaths, according to the latest data from the Africas Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jan 20, 6:41 am Over 15.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in US so far
More than 15.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States to date, according to data published on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website.
Over 13.5 million people have received one or more doses of the vaccine, while more than two million have received two doses, according to the CDC data, which was updated Tuesday.
Jan 20, 5:39 am US reports over 168,000 new cases
There were 168,058 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in the United States on Tuesday, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The latest daily case count is far less than the country’s all-time high of 298,031 newly confirmed infections on Jan. 2, Johns Hopkins data shows.
An additional 2,550 fatalities from COVID-19 were registered nationwide on Tuesday, down from a peak of 4,462 new deaths on Jan. 12, according to Johns Hopkins data.
COVID-19 data may be skewed due to possible lags in reporting over the holidays followed by a potentially very large backlog.
A total of 24,253,368 people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and at least 401,730 have died, according to Johns Hopkins data. The cases include people from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and other U.S. territories as well as repatriated citizens.
Much of the country was under lockdown by the end of March as the first wave of the pandemic hit. By May 20, all U.S. states had begun lifting stay-at-home orders and other restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The day-to-day increase in the country’s cases then hovered around 20,000 for a couple of weeks before shooting back up over the summer.
The numbers lingered around 40,000 to 50,000 from mid-August through early October before surging again to record levels, crossing 100,000 for the first time on Nov. 4, then reaching 200,000 on Nov. 27 before nearing 300,000 on Jan. 2.
Walt Disney Television/Yolanda Perez(NEW YORK) — Alec Baldwin has put the breaks on Twitter, permanently.
The 30 Rock star has repeatedly vented his frustration over how the internet has reacted to the cultural appropriation controversy surrounding his wife, Hilaria Baldwin. The lifestyle influencer was accused by a Twitter user in December of a “decades long grift in which she impersonates a Spanish person.”
The accuser, LeniBriscoe, backed up the claims by including interviews where Hilaria speaks in a Spanish accent and opens up about her parents, who are natives of Massachusetts.
The fallout was immediate and Alec has threatened to quit Twitter multiple times because his wife is continuously harassed, he says.
On Monday, the 63-year-old actor said he is closing up shop on Twitter, saying the website “is like a party where everyone is screaming. Not much of a party.”
“Goodbye for now,” he added.
Hilaria has repeatedly tried to clear the air since the scandal broke in December. She first took to Instagram to share her side of the story, confessing that she was born in Boston “and grew up spending time with my family between Massachusetts and Spain.”
Hilaria added that she’s “really lucky I grew up speaking two languages” and is also raising her children to be bilingual.
The fitness model also confessed that she is a “white girl” born “Hillary,” not Hilaria, which she said is what her Spanish relatives called her and which she eventually adopted professionally.
Mrs. Baldwin continued to ward off accusations of cultural appropriation and opened up about her contested heritage in a lengthy piece in The New York Times.
It is unknown when or if Alec intends to return to social media.
Peacock(LOS ANGELES) — Peacock’s Saved by the Bell sequel has graduated to a second season, the streamer has announced. 
