Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.(NEW YORK) — Could we be any more disappointed? The long-anticipated and oft-delayed reunion of Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, Monica, Chandler and Joey has been bumped again.
Variety reports that delays related to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis were to blame for the latest postponement of the unscripted HBO Max special.
The special was initially supposed to shoot back in March with a live audience, with the plan it would be a main attraction for the new streaming service that launched in May. However, the pandemic shut down production, which was just starting to ramp up in Los Angeles and elsewhere. That in turn nixed plans the Friends special’s completion by the summer’s end.
As of now, there’s no date set to start production, according to the trade.
RCA RecordsWhat started as a series of mysterious, cat-centric posts on social media has become something very real, and very strange: Old Dominion dropped the “Meow Mix” version of their self-titled third album this week.
Yes, that means that the band re-recorded every single song by meowing instead of singing the words.
“Cat’s out of the bag!” the group announced, as they shared their new project. “We are re-releasing our entire album, only this time, it’s all ‘meows.’ Sometimes you gotta be silly. #ODmeowmix is out meow.”
The “Meow Mix” album features the group’s feline takes on fan-favorite tracks like “Make It Sweet,” “One Man Band,” Some People Do” and “My Heart Is a Bar.” Fan reactions’ ranged from delighted to just plain baffled.
“If this isn’t the most 2020 thing ever…” wrote one Twitter user. “It’s just the gift that keeps on meowing.”
If you can believe it, Old Dominion aren’t the first band to re-release an entire album using “meows” instead of words. Rock group Guster applied the trope to their Keep It Together album in 2003, and rap duo Run the Jewels released a revamped “Meow Mix” project of their own, Meow the Jewels, in 2015.
Big Machine RecordsTim McGraw might have simple tastes when it comes to most things in life, but in the newest song to be released ahead of his Here on Earth album, the singer can’t help bragging about his “Good Taste in Women.”
“Yeah, I sleep like a baby in a Motel 6 / I like dive bar bands that can’t sing a lick / But I’ve got good taste in women,” he sings in the song’s chorus. “Lookin’ at you just lookin’ at me / Got everybody thinkin’ I’m high-class livin’ / I got good taste in women.”
The song’s message feels particularly true to Tim’s life, as he’s married to none other than country superstar Faith Hill. The pair have toured together and duetted quite a bit over the years.
“Good Taste in Women” follows a handful of poignant, message-forward tracks off Here on Earth, including “I Called Mama” and “Hallelujahville.” The full 16-track project comes out on August 21.
Though the COVID-19 pandemic is preventing Tim from celebrating his new album’s release with his fans in person, he did recently announce a virtual Here on Earth event, which will include performances of songs from the album and offer fans a peek behind the process of creating it.
narvikk/iStockBy WILLIAM MANSELL and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — (NEW YORK) — A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 716,000 people worldwide.
More than 19.1 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some national governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their outbreaks.
The United States is the worst-affected country around the world, with more than 4.8 million diagnosed cases and at least 160,255 deaths.
Here’s how the news is developing Friday. All times Eastern:
11:40 a.m.: All New York school districts can open, Cuomo says
In New York state, which was once the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, all school districts can open for the fall based on the infection rate, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on a conference call Friday.
“Every region is well below our COVID infection limit,” Cuomo tweeted. “If the infection rate spikes, the guidance will change accordingly.”
Each of the 749 school districts must have a reopening plan approved by the state’s Department of Health, the governor said. So far, 127 districts have not submitted plans to the department of health.
Each district should also post a remote learning plan and a plan for testing, he said.
11:20 a.m.: Florida has 4 counties with no ICU beds
Hard-hit Florida has 47 hospitals with no available intensive care unit beds, according to the state’s Agency for Healthcare Administration.
Four counties — Bay, Monroe, Nassau and Putnam — had no open ICU beds as of Friday morning, the agency said.
Thirty-one hospitals in the state had just one available ICU bed.
These numbers are expected to fluctuate throughout the day as hospitals and medical centers provide updates.
Florida has over 518,000 coronavirus cases, according to state Department of Health data. Florida has the second-highest number of cases in the country behind California.
9 a.m.: Entire high school football team quarantined in Alabama
The entire football team at Alabama’s Oneonta High School is under quarantine due to coronavirus cases, ABC Birmingham affiliate WBMA-TV reported.
Practice will resume on Aug. 18 and the team’s first game is set for Aug. 21, WBMA reported.
Oneonta High School’s school year has been delayed to start on Aug. 18 after an emergency school board meeting vote on Thursday, the school said.
Classes will have a hybrid in-person/remote learning schedule. Some students have registered for full-time remote learning, the high school said.
7:38 a.m.: CDC says up to 190,000 dead by end of August
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its COVID-19 death projections, saying the coronavirus death toll could reach 190,000 by the end of August. The government’s ensemble forecast predicts “deaths may decrease,” but another 15,000 to 30,000 more Americans may die from COVID-19 over the next 23 days.
This week’s national ensemble forecast predicts that weekly reports of new COVID-19 deaths may decrease over the next four weeks, with 4,500 to 10,600 new deaths reported during the week ending Aug. 29. Its forecast predicts that 175,000 to 190,000 total COVID-19 deaths will be reported by that date.
State-level forecasts, according to the CDC, predict that the number of reported new deaths per week may increase over the next four weeks in Hawaii and Puerto Rico and may decrease in Florida, Mississippi, New Mexico, the Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Texas, Vermont and the Virgin Islands.
The COVID Tracking Project reported that for the first time since early March, the number of people tested for COVID-19 is down. This week’s tests were 9.1% lower than last week’s national peak of 5.7 million tests.
New cases of COVID-19 were also down this week by 10.4% , according to the COVID Tracking Project.
5:20 a.m.: US weekly COVID-19 cases, deaths down
Another day, another grim milestone for the U.S. as the coronavirus pandemic continues across the globe. Overnight, the U.S. surpassed 160,000 deaths, bringing its total to at least 160,104 as of 4:30 a.m., according to Johns Hopkins. The U.S. crossed 150,000 deaths last week.
In good news, however, an internal Federal Emergency Management Agency memo obtained by ABC News shows that the U.S. is slightly coming down from its recent national surge. New cases and deaths in the last week have both decreased in week-over-week comparisons. At least 396,559 new cases were confirmed during the period of July 29 and Aug. 5, which is a 12.6% decrease from the previous seven-day period.
There were 7,348 deaths recorded in the same time frame, marking a 2.4% decrease in new deaths compared with the previous week.
The national test-positivity rate is also going down. In the last seven days, the rate was 7.5%, which is down from 8.6% from the previous week.
Only two states and territories, according to the FEMA memo, are in an upward trajectory of new cases, while eight are at a plateau and 46 states and territories are going down.
Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — In an interview on Instagram Live with Posecreator Steven Canals, Zoe Saldana tearfully confessed she regretted portraying Nina Simone in Nina, a widely-panned 2016 biopic of the legendary singer and social activist’s life.
“It’s painful,” an emotional Saldana said, “I should have tried everything in my power to cast a Black woman to play an exceptionally perfect Black woman.”
Saldana is of Haitian, Puerto Rican and Lebanese descent. However, her skin was darkened to play the role, and she wore prosthetics in an attempt to more closely approximate the singer’s appearance, which led to widespread criticism at the time.
“I thought back then that I had the permission, because I was a Black woman,” Saldana said of playing the role as she did. “And I am, but it was Nina Simone. And Nina had a life and a … journey that should be honored to the most specific detail…She deserved better.”
Her voice breaking, Saldana added, “With that said, I’m so sorry. Because I love her music…She’s one of our giants. Somebody else should step up and tell her story.”
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.(NEW YORK) — Could we be any more disappointed? The long-anticipated and oft-delayed reunion of Ross, Rachel, Phoebe, Monica, Chandler and Joey has been bumped again. 
