Academy of Country Music postpones awards show amid virus

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Academy of Country Music postpones awards show amid virus

The show won’t go on for the Academy of Country Music, after all.

The academy said Sunday that it was postponing its annual awards show, which was to be held April 5 at the MGM Garden Arena in Las Vegas and televised on CBS, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The plan now is to hold the show in September, at a date and venue to be determined.

The academy “went to great lengths to find a safe solution for the show to go on,” said Damon Whiteside, academy CEO. The decision to postpone came after “constant conversations” with everyone involved, he said.

It’s the latest in a wave of events that were due to draw big audiences to fall by the wayside, given health advice for people to keep their social distance to avoid transmission.

Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, Elle King and Ashley McBryde were among the artists scheduled to perform on the show.

While the coronavirus causes only mild symptoms such as fever or cough for most people, in can cause more severe illnesses, particularly among older adults and people with existing health problems.

The South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, was canceled over concerns of spreading the coronavirus, and the California-based music festivals Coachella and the country-themed Stagecoach are being postponed until the fall.

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Source: Associated Press

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Ticket sales plunged to their lowest at North American movie theaters as the coronavirus pandemic led to one of Hollywood’s worst weekends at the box office

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Ticket sales plunged to their lowest at North American movie theaters as the coronavirus pandemic led to one of Hollywood’s worst weekends at the box office

Ticket sales plunged to their lowest levels in at least 20 years at North American movie theaters as the coronavirus pandemic led to one of Hollywood’s worst weekends at the box office.

Receipts totaled about $55.3 million in U.S. and Canada theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday. Not since 2000 has weekend box office revenue been so low, according to data firm Comscore, when $54.5 million in tickets were sold on a quiet September weekend. More people went to the movies the weekend after Sept. 11, 2001.

Disney’s latest release from Pixar, “Onward,” remained the top film, earning $10.5 million in its second weekend. The Christian romance “I Still Believe” from Lionsgate brought in $9.5 million. Sony’s comic-book adaptation “Bloodshot,” with Vin Diesel, grossed an estimated $9.3 million in its debut. The Blumhouse horror satire “The Hunt” opened with $5.3 million.

All of those totals were notably below expectations. Most films last week had aimed to do 25% to 50% better. The weekend’s sales overall were down 45% from the weekend before, according to Comscore.

While this weekend’s crop of films weren’t expected to compete with the same timeframe last year, when “Captain Marvel” was in release, revenue was down 60% from the same weekend last year.

Pixar films virtually always hold well for weeks, but “Onward” dropped 73% from its opening weekend. “The Hunt,” which remounted its release after its debut was canceled last fall following a wave of deadly shootings, had hoped to do twice as well.

Most of Europe’s cinemas have shuttered in recent days, as have theaters in China, India, Lebanon and Kuwait. Those closures have already slashed international grosses. Health officials are urging for those who can stay home to do so, to help stymie the spread of the virus.

But the wide majority of North American theaters remained open for business over the weekend. The continent’s two largest chains, AMC Theaters and Regal Cinemas, said they wouldn’t fill theaters to more than 50% capacity to facilitate social distancing. Others asked moviegoers to leave empty seats around them. All pledged to clean theaters in between screenings.

Other theaters opted to close completely, including many in New York. Of the roughly 5,800 theaters in the United States, about 100 were closed over the weekend.

Jim Orr, Universal’s distribution chief, said the industry was doing its best to navigate the unknown.

“We’re still all working through it. The circuits are doing a great job of taking government mandates and applying it to their businesses the best they possibly can,” Orr said. “This is a unique point in time in our industry and maybe in our nation. But we’ll get to the other side of it, and the box office will come back very healthy. It’s just a matter of when that might be.”

Health officials urged people to stay home and minimize social interaction, especially in states that have instituted bans on larger gatherings. California put a limit on gatherings of 250 people; New York set its ban at 500 people; Ohio banned gatherings of 100 people or more.

“With the worldwide coronavirus epidemic causing many domestic theater chains to go to reduced seating and many international territories to either completely or partially close all theaters, as well as creating uncertainty about going to crowded spaces, all titles have seen larger than expected drops,” Disney said in a statement.

Much of the entertainment world has shut down. Broadway theaters, major museums and theme parks have closed their doors. Concerts have been called off. Festivals including South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and the Tribeca Film Festival in New York have been canceled or delayed. Most live-action film and TV production has been put on hiatus.

Hollywood also has postponed most of its upcoming releases. Next week’s most anticipated movie, “A Quiet Place Part 2,” has been removed from the schedule. Other major releases, including Disney’s “Mulan” and the James Bond film “Die Another Day” have been put off.

That means that even if movie theaters remain open in the coming weeks, they will have little to play. Theaters could potentially play older films to help them get by.

“It’s so hard to predict how this will play out,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “It’s an ever-changing, ever-evolving situation that the entire world is trying to wrap their minds around. For the short term, obviously there’s an impact.”

For now, it’s likely more theaters will soon close their doors. Over the weekend, cinemas were shuttered in both New Jersey’s Bergen County and Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County after local governments advised closing all entertainment venues.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included.

1. “Onward,” $10.5 million ($6.8 million international).

2. “I Still Believe,” $9.5 million.

3. “Bloodshot,” $9.3 million ($13 million international)

4. “The Invisible Man,” $6 million ($6.2 million international).

5. “The Hunt,” $5.3 million ($700,000 international)

6. “Sonic the Hedgehog,” $2.6 million ($2.9 million international).

7. “The Way Back,” $2.4 million.

8. “The Call of the Wild,” $2.2 million ($1.1 million international).

9. “Emma,” $1.4 million.

10. “Bad Boys for Life,” $1.1 million.

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Source: Associated Press – JAKE COYLE

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US Starts Clinical Trial for Coronavirus Vaccine Monday

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US Starts Clinical Trial for Coronavirus Vaccine Monday

WASHINGTON (AP) – The first participant in a clinical trial for a vaccine to protect against the new coronavirus will receive an experimental dose on Monday, according to a government official.

The National Institutes of Health is funding the trial, which is taking place at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. The official who disclosed plans for the first participant spoke on condition of anonymity because the move has not been publicly announced.

Public health officials say it will take a year to 18 months to fully validate any potential vaccine. 

Testing will begin with 45 young, healthy volunteers with different doses of shots co-developed by NIH and Moderna Inc. There’s no chance participants could get infected from the shots, because they don’t contain the virus itself. The goal is purely to check that the vaccines show no worrisome side effects, setting the stage for larger tests.

Dozens of research groups around the world are racing to create a vaccine as COVID-19 cases continue to grow. Importantly, they’re pursuing different types of vaccines – shots developed from new technologies that not only are faster to produce than traditional inoculations but might prove more potent. Some researchers even aim for temporary vaccines, such as shots that might guard people’s health a month or two at a time while longer-lasting protection is developed.

Also in the works: Inovio Pharmaceuticals aims to begin safety tests of its vaccine candidate next month in a few dozen volunteers at the University of Pennsylvania and a testing center in Kansas City, Missouri, followed by a similar study in China and South Korea.

Even if initial safety tests go well, “you’re talking about a year to a year and a half” before any vaccine could be ready for widespread use, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

That still would be a record-setting pace. But manufacturers know the wait – required because it takes additional studies of thousands of people to tell if a vaccine truly protects and does no harm – is hard for a frightened public.

President Donald Trump has been pushing for swift action on a vaccine, saying in recent days that the work is “moving along very quickly” and he hopes to see a vaccine “relatively soon.”

Today, there are no proven treatments. In China, scientists have been testing a combination of HIV drugs against the new coronavirus, as well as an experimental drug named remdesivir that was in development to fight Ebola. In the U.S., the University of Nebraska Medical Center also began testing remdesivir in some Americans who were found to have COVID-19 after being evacuated from a cruise ship in Japan.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The worldwide outbreak has sickened more than 156,000 people and left more than 5,800 dead. The death toll in the United States is more than 50, while infections neared 3,000 across 49 states and the District of Columbia. 

The vast majority of people recover. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three weeks to six weeks to recover.

Copyright 2020. The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

Source CBN

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Rita Wilson’s ‘Quarantunes’ and a ‘Prayer for a Pandemic’: Reframing sacrifice as service

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Rita Wilson’s ‘Quarantunes’ and a ‘Prayer for a Pandemic’: Reframing sacrifice as service

Since we can all use some encouragement these days, we’ll begin this morning with Rita Wilson’s “Quarantunes.”

As you know, she and her husband, Tom Hanks, are in isolation after testing positive for coronavirus. To help pass the time, she has made a playlist for those dealing with social distancing. Her song choices include “All By Myself,” “Lonely People,” “So Far Away,” and “Right Here Waiting.” But it also includes “I Will Survive” and “Amazing Grace.” 

In other news, the CDC announced last night that it is advising against gatherings of fifty people or more for the next eight weeks. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo stated that New York City’s public school system will be shutting down this week. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders engaged in a presidential debate last night without a live audience. And churches across the country held worship services online rather than in person. 

These are all responses to social distancing, an imperative that is more urgent than ever. 

Knifing a man over toilet paper 

According to the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, we need a “dramatic” reduction in social activity to fight the spread of coronavirus. He warned yesterday that America’s death toll from the disease depends on our response. 

As statistical models show, the sooner we take steps to end public gatherings, close workplaces and some schools, engage in mass testing, and fortify hospitals, the better. Without such intervention, one model predicts that a third of Americans—more than one hundred million people—could become infected and one million could die. 

Tragically, crises such as this can bring out the worst in humanity. A woman at an Australian supermarket allegedly knifed a man in a confrontation over toilet paper. A student of Chinese ethnicity was beaten on the streets of London and left with a fractured face. Protesters welcomed returning cruise passengers…

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Joyce DiDonato and Piotr Beczala, making sure the show goes on, performed from the living room of DiDonato’s New York City apartment

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Joyce DiDonato and Piotr Beczala, making sure the show goes on, performed from the living room of DiDonato’s New York City apartment

Joyce DiDonato and Piotr Beczala made sure the show went on, albeit in an unusual format and venue — from the living room of DiDonato’s New York City apartment.

 

The American mezzo-soprano and Polish tenor had been scheduled to star in Massenet’s “Werther” at the Metropolitan Opera starting Monday. The Met’s shutdown because of the coronavirus outbreak caused the cancellation of the first five of six scheduled performances through March 31.

Accompanied by Met assistant conductor Howard Watkins at the piano and principal harp Emmanuel Ceysson, the pair performed excerpts for nearly 90 minutes Sunday that were streamed live on DiDonato’s Facebook and Instagram pages.

Given that many artists have lost at least two months of income because of force majeure provisions in their contracts, they used the livestream to ask for donations for the American Guild of Musical Artists relief fund and Artist Relief Tree.

Beczala, singing the title role, was in a suit and open collar shirt, and DiDonato, as Charlotte, wore a black dress.

“Since we can’t sing on Monday night, we thought let’s get together in this salon, like they used to do in the old days, which we might have to do in the new days, too,” she said.

“Just two of us,” Beczala interjected.

“Who needs baritones and sopranos?” she added.

He grabbed a flower from a vase atop the upright piano, and they danced in the first act.

“Technically, this is not a Metropolitan Opera live in HD,” she said. “This is literally an iPhone and a laptop.”

Judging from the thousands of comments, the stream was watched by people around the world. One even wrote it was nice to hear no applause interrupting the third act following Werther’s big aria, “Pourquoi me reveiller (Why do you awaken me)?”

“Everybody should have the chance to have a harp in their house at one time,” she said, adding, “and a tenor — I meant Piotr.”

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Source: Associated Press – RONALD BLUM

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Australian TV journalist Richard Wilkins said he was tested for the virus shortly after meeting with Tom Hanks’ wife Rita Wilson and the result came back positive

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Australian TV journalist Richard Wilkins said he was tested for the virus shortly after meeting with Tom Hanks’ wife Rita Wilson and the result came back positive

An Australian television journalist said Monday he has the new coronavirus and assumes he contracted it while meeting with actress-singer Rita Wilson in Sydney.

Wilson and her husband Tom Hanks have been isolated in an Australian hospital since they were both diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 12.

Authorities said last week several contacts Hanks and Wilson had in Australia were being traced, but no other results of those efforts have been made public. Hanks had been working on a film in Australia and Wilson had concert performances in the country before they were diagnosed.

Nine Network entertainment editor Richard Wilkins said he was tested because he met Wilson at the Sydney Opera House on March 7 and again at Nine’s Sydney studio on March 9. The result came back positive on Sunday.

“I’m surprisingly very well,” Wilkins told Nine by Facetime from his Sydney home, where he has self-isolated since Wilson’s diagnosis.

“You could’ve knocked me over with a feather last night when I got that call. It took me a couple of minutes to reel from the news that they gave me. But I feel fine. I feel 100%,” Wilkins added.

The virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, for most people but can be severe in some cases, especially older adults and people with existing health problems. People with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may need six weeks to recover.

The 65-year-old journalist said he could only assume that he had been infected by Wilson.

“We’re assuming this is from Rita. It may not be. They’ve all said it could be anyone, anywhere, any time, such is the prevalence of this thing,” Wilkins said.

“I was having a chat to her and that’s probably my best guess as to what happened,” he added.

Wilkins was one of 37 new case confirmed over 24 hours in New South Wales state, bringing the state total to 171. The increase was the largest for Australia’s most populous state in a day. Authorities say at least 67 cases arrived from overseas and 44 were transmitted locally while the remainder could not be determined or were still under investigation. Australia has about 300 cases overall.

Wilkins’ son Christian Wilkins was tested because he spent the night of March 10 in his father’s Sydney home. The 25-year-old son is competing in the Australian version of the reality TV show “Dancing With the Stars,” which is being broadcast without a studio audience because of the COVID-19 risk.

Richard Wilkins said he did not inform his son until after he had danced on the program, which is performed in a Melbourne studio on Sunday nights.

“I called him up after his show last night. He was and still is very, very upset,” the father said.

“He’s going to get tested in an hour and, fingers crossed, he’ll be OK, which I’m sure he is,” he added.

Two Nine hosts who interviewed Wilson in their Sydney studio on March 9, David Campbell and Belinda Russell, remained in isolation in their homes on Monday waiting on test results.

Hanks’ diagnosis prompted an outpouring of get-well wishes in Australia and Hollywood. During the couple’s isolation, Hanks has posted on social media thanking their caregivers and evoking his famous movie roles.

A recent post of a stuffed kangaroo and two slices of toast slathered in Australian fave Vegemite was captioned “Thanks to the Helpers.” The advice for children to look to “helpers” in scary times is credited to American children’s TV host Mr. Rogers, whom Hanks portrayed in “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”

Hanks had been in Queensland state shooting an Elvis Presley biopic directed by Baz Luhrmann. The double Oscar winner plays Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker. The film, slated for release in October 2021, has suspended production, Warner Bros. said.

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Source: Associated Press – ROD McGUIRK

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The Foster Church Movement – ThomRainer.com

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By Thom S. Rainer

Fostering and adoption are typically words connected to families and individuals.

But now the movements are connected to congregations as well. It is an exciting time. 

Let’s get my meanings clear so we can be on the same page. Here are three definitions I often use together: 

Revitalization is the process where a church seeks to get healthier using its own internal resources of people, funds, and processes.

Adoption is the process where a church seeks to get healthier by being adopted by an external organization, usually another church.

Fostering is the process where a relatively healthy church provides people and other resources for a relatively unhealthy church over a specified period of time. 

Revitalization, adoption, and fostering could have different approaches, but the essence of each is consistent. “Revitalization” takes place with a church’s internal resources. “Adoption” takes place externally. I coined the word “fostering” as a natural extension of “adoption.” Both words are used of human families and congregational families.

Here are some essential principles of fostering a church: 

The essence of fostering is one church caring for another. The relationship takes place when a relatively healthy church makes itself available to help a less healthy church. Both churches are typically in the same community or in nearby communities. 

One common form of fostering is for the healthier church to provide specific resources the less healthy church…

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How Stephen Hightower Went From Janitor to Owner of a Multi-million Dollar Oil Empire

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How Stephen Hightower Went From Janitor to Owner of a Multi-million Dollar Oil Empire

“If you don’t think that you can be great, you’ll never be great,” said President and CEO of Hightowers Petroleum Stephen Hightower.

Hightower is one of America’s top oil tycoons with $434 million in revenue but life wasn’t so smooth for him at the beginning.

His first job was working nights and weekends for his parents’ cleaning business. But, “I wanted more,” Hightower said.

“I started as a janitor. I started cleaning floors and toilets and doing those things that most people would never even dream of doing,” Hightower said on CNBC’s “Blue Collar Millionaires.”

In 1978, Hightower graduated from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio and he started his own small construction company.

While trying to grow his business amidst the struggle with access to credit, Hightower learned about a program to sell gas in Ohio.

Discouraged with the hurdles he was encountering in construction, Hightower developed an oil and transport business, “Hightowers Petroleum Co.” in 1983.

By 1984, he had just one employee, an accountant. The business didn’t immediately grow as expected but when Hightower saw the company’s first $100, he was super excited.

“I remember when our first one hundred dollar bill came in, I just remember our excitement,” he said.

Today, his company buys oil products from refiners and delivers those products to corporate customers such as FedEx and GM all over the country, with 85 employees and sales of 140 million gallons of oil per year.

From those humble beginnings and through persistence, drive, and determination, Hightower has grown his wholesale fuel distribution business into an energy solutions enterprise.

Source: Face2Face Africa

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‘Black Ink Crew: Chicago’ Star Charmaine Walker and Her Husband Welcome a Baby Girl

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‘Black Ink Crew: Chicago’ Star Charmaine Walker and Her Husband Welcome a Baby Girl

Welcome to the Black Ink Crew: Chicago family, baby Nola Glenda Bey!

Charmaine Walker and husband Nick Bey have welcomed their first child together, a daughter, on Saturday.

Walker, 31, welcomed her baby girl at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital with Bey by her side.

“SAFE DELIVERY! Head full of hair!” Bey proudly announced on Instagram.

One day after announcing that she and Bey were expecting their first child together, Walker stopped by PEOPLE TV‘s Reality Check in early December to exclusively reveal that they’d recently tied the knot.

The reality star revealed her pregnancy news on Instagram. Sharing a video from an ultrasound appointment, she wrote, “Expecting Baby Bey March 2020 💕🦋 Shoutout to Momma Glenda. She was so excited 🦋 The night before she unexpectedly passed away she said ‘I still can’t believe my baby is having a baby!’ I’ll never forget those words.”

Source: People

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Danielle White to Retire From Robes of Faith, Official Designer of the AME Church’s Clerical Apparel

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Danielle White to Retire From Robes of Faith, Official Designer of the AME Church’s Clerical Apparel

Danielle White has announced she wishes to retire from Robes of Faith. She has been designing robes for the AME Church and organizations for over 30 years. Along the way, she has acquired many friends and traveled over 900,000 miles across the country and seas with her late husband Henri.

The Whites received their big break in the “church clothes” industry in 1992. Having presented their unique robe designs at several AME Church conventions, Bishop Richard Allen Chappelle, the then-president of the Council of Bishops, called on the couple to design and produce a robe for the bishops.

After Danielle drew up several designs, the bishops picked the one that would become known as the “Unity Robe,” now one of the most iconic AME Church robes befit for a spiritual leader. “When I put on that robe, it was made clear to me at that moment the responsibility that comes with wearing the robe,” said Bishop Carolyn Tyler Guidry, who was voted in and consecrated as a bishop in 2004. “It’s not just your little congregation. Now you have an impact on the much wider area of the church. That was my first realization,” she added. More than 20 years after its debut, the Unity Robe is still one of the official robes for the church’s bishops.

Upon procuring his Unity Robe following his election in 2012, Bishop Clement Fugh reflected, “As a demonstration of how intricately Mrs. White is woven into the fabric of African Methodism, when I was aspiring to Episcopal Service, she informed me that she didn’t take orders for bishop’s robes. She had a ‘feeling’ about who would be elected so she brought the appropriate sizes with her when she came to the General Conference. Sure enough, after my election, I went to Mrs. White’s booth. She handed me a robe, told me to try it on—and that it only needed minor alterations.”

That successful design helped the Whites launch Robes of Faith—an official designer of AME Church robes, apparel, and paraments. Over the years, the company has designed and produced robes for bishops and other clergy, stoles, paraments sets, and even fabric, helping the AME Church become one of the first protestant denominations to have a uniform look across the church.

Robes of Faith has been a constant presence at AME Church conferences for almost 30 years. Danielle is ready to step down and sell the operation to someone who wants to continue this “divine” business.

“One of the most important things is that the church makes you feel good,” White said. “There has never been a situation that I did not feel good about coming to a conference because I knew I was coming to see friends. It was more than a business situation.”

The story of Robes of Faith began when the Whites were married in 1988. At the time, he was a retired gemologist and she was a Fashion Institute of Technology-trained clothes designer working out of her home in New Rochelle, New York. She had been making clothes since she was eight-years-old, having been initially taught by her mother and grandmother. So when it came to the business of designing and selling robes, White says it was a match made in heaven. “He was the person who made the business go and I was the one who did the designing,” White said. “So it was a perfect match in terms of who did what and how did we get along,” she commented.

Source: The Christian Recorder

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