ABC/Image Group LAJust in time for Christmas, Dan + Shay have teamed up with the Safe Haven Family Shelter to give three Nashville-area families the gift of a lifetime.
The duo recently surprised three families experiencing homelessness with their own starter homes, fully furnished and even decorated for the holidays. When the families arrived to check out their new homes, the band mates were waiting inside to greet them in person, wish them happy holidays and even play a song or two.
“For us to be able to come here and sing some songs and help people get back on their feet, to get into a home, to get some amazing new furniture — it’s an incredible feeling for us,” the band mates explain in a video.
Dan + Shay also told People that the experience was a deeply meaningful one for both of them.
“I speak for both of us when I say it was life-changing,” explains Dan Smyers. “It put everything into perspective, and made us truly appreciate all the blessings in our life that we can sometimes take for granted.”
The pair is getting into the holiday spirit from a musical standpoint, too. They recently released two festive original songs, “Take Me Home for Christmas” and “Christmas Isn’t Christmas.”
narvikk/iStockBy ROSA SANCHEZ, EMILY SHAPIRO and IVAN PEREIRA, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now infected more than 77.8 million people worldwide and killed over 1.7 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:
Dec 23, 8:55 am 803,000 Americans filed jobless claims last week
Another 803,000 workers lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance last week as the pandemic rages, the U.S. Department of Labor said Wednesday.
The latest figure is slightly less than last week’s figure, but still remains well above pre-pandemic levels.
The DOL also said Wednesday that some 20.3 million people were still receiving some form of unemployment benefits through all government programs as of the week ending Dec. 5. That figure was 1.7 million for the comparable week in 2019.
The latest economic data from the DOL also comes as the COVID-19 relief package, which includes extended unemployment benefits, faces a new hurdle as President Donald Trump has indicated he will not sign the bill yet.
The unemployment rate in the U.S. was 6.7% last month, according to the DOL’s most recent employment situation report. In February, prior to the pandemic, the unemployment rate was 3.5%.
Dec 23, 7:13 am Pfizer, BioNTech to supply US with 100M more vaccine doses
The U.S. government has ordered 100 million additional doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Business Wire announced Wednesday morning.
This brings the total doses of the vaccine for the country to 200 million.
“With these 100 million additional doses, the United States will be able to protect more individuals and hopefully end this devastating pandemic more quickly,” said Albert Bourla, the chairman and CEO of Pfizer. “We look forward to continuing our work with the U.S. government and healthcare providers around the country.”
All 200 million doses are expected to be delivered by July 31, 2021, allowing for 100 million people in the U.S. to be vaccinated.
“Securing more doses from Pfizer and BioNTech for delivery in the second quarter of 2021 further expands our supply of doses across the Operation Warp Speed portfolio,” said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. “This new federal purchase can give Americans even more confidence that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021.”
Dec 23, 6:46 am US sees second deadliest day with over 3,000 deaths
Tuesday became the second deadliest day on record since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., with 3,401 new deaths, according to new data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The deadliest day was last week, Dec. 16, when 3,656 new deaths from the virus were reported.
The U.S.’ seven-day average of daily deaths is now 2,654, according to The COVID Tracking Project.
December is set to surpass April as the deadliest month since the start of the pandemic.
Courtesy of Netflix(NEW YORK) — George Clooney is not one to shy away from challenges, but when it came to making his first Netflix film, The Midnight Sky, he admits he took on a lot.
“Look, this was a big, tall order because it was one of the more difficult acting jobs I’ve ever had,” Clooney tells ABC Audio. “And it’s certainly the most difficult directing job I’ve ever had.”
Clooney, who also serves as the film’s producer, says he picked the project, which is based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton, because he felt it was “really interesting and timely.”
“I felt like it was a good time to talk about all of these kind of issues,” he says. “And I thought it was an entertaining, smart movie. So it seemed like if you’re going to do it, this is the right one to do it on.”
The film, also starring Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo, follows Clooney’s character of Augustine, a scientist in the Arctic who races to stop astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe. Clooney says the film is really about his character “com[ing] to terms with his own regrets and his seeking redemption along the way.”
“And I think that that’s sort of what drives him the whole way,” he says. “So maybe that sort of blinds him to everything else.”
While Clooney admits it was a heavy lift to make a project set in both outer space and the Arctic, the Oscar-winner jokes that the real challenge was dealing with Clooney himself.
“Well, George Clooney is a pain in the [butt] to direct. I’m going to tell you right now,” he quips. “He doesn’t listen to the director.”
BBR Music Group In a year when many are seeking comfort in Christmas cheer, Runaway June‘s Jennifer Wayne got a head start by writing a Christmas song in the middle of a scorching hot Tennessee summer.
Jennifer co-wrote “When I Think About Christmas” alongside Tiffany Goss and Josh Matheny, which describes the joy of having someone to celebrate the season with. The jazzy song ultimately became the title track to Runaway June’s Christmas EP.
“It’s funny, we weren’t even trying to write a Christmas song. It was like in the middle of August and we were so hot. It was two of my friends and they were over at my house and we were drinking wine and we were like ‘gosh, I wish it was Christmas,’ so we just started writing it,” she explains to ABC Audio about the writing process.
“We were like, ‘When I think about Christmas, I think about all these things,’ and that’s kind of what inspired it,” Jennifer adds. “So we wrote a Christmas song in the middle of August.”
When I Think About Christmas features another original song, “Christmas on the Radio,” along with covers of holiday classics including “O Holy Night” and “Let it Snow.”
ABC/Image Group LAJust in time for Christmas, Dan + Shay have teamed up with the Safe Haven Family Shelter to give three Nashville-area families the gift of a lifetime. 
