How the Army Band performed and inspired many amid the pandemic
After a year of broadcasting their performances to millions around the world, the Army Band is staying positive and looking forward to the new year.
The U.S. Air Force is changing its rules on how women in the service are allowed to wear their hair. Starting next month, women will be allowed to wear their hair in longer braids, ponytails and bangs, Air Force officials announced Thursday. The new rules, based on feedback from thousands of women in the Air Force, are intended to reflect the diversity among enlisted Airmen and officers.
Retired U.S. Army Gen. Lloyd Austin on Friday took over as the first black Pentagon chief shortly after being confirmed 93-2 by the Senate. Austin was greeted outside the Pentagon with an elbow bump by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley before heading inside to be sworn in and begin his first day as defense secretary, leading a military that is now nearly 17 percent African American. "I look forward to working with you, see you around campus," Austin said to reporters, ignoring questions.
Baseball icon and Hall of Famer Henry "Hank" Louis Aaron died Friday. The outfielder from Mobile, Alabama, was one of the greatest power hitters in Major League Baseball history. Aaron held the all-time record for home runs, at 755, for 33 seasons after surpassing Babe Ruth's total of 714 in 1974.
It's Girl Scout cookie time and this year, amid the coronavirus pandemic, Girl Scouts are getting creative to sell cookies in socially distant ways. A Girl Scout in Michigan, Kadence, recorded herself on video delivering a passionate sales pitch to help reach her goal of selling 2,000 cookies. The video was shared by Kadence's mom, Natasha Heykoop, on Facebook earlier this month.
A New Jersey policeman has adopted a 14-week-old pit bull he and his fellow officers rescued earlier this month. Officer Matthew O'Hanlon of the Mount Laurel Police Department told "Good Morning America" that he took the puppy in after he and his colleagues found him wandering about an industrial area of Mount Laurel on Jan. 2. O'Hanlon named the pup Thor.
Gun control advocate Eileen McCarron faced blowback last year when she quipped that newly elected Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert would be heading to Washington to lead the "nut-job caucus." Afterward, McCarron said she wondered if she had gone too far. Now, McCarron told ABC News, she thinks Boebert "may actually be worse" than she feared.
After over a year-long hiatus, Olivia Jade Giannulli has returned to YouTube. Giannulli's parents, "Full House" actress Lori Loughlin and fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, were both sentenced to prison last year after pleading guilty to the charges related to the scandal. Loughlin, 56, served two months and was released in December and Mossimo, 57, is currently serving a five-month sentence.
The House will deliver the impeachment article against former President Donald Trump to the Senate on Monday, formally launching trial proceedings next week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Friday. Schumer's announcement comes after a request from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to delay the trial until February and give Trump and his still-forming legal team time to prepare a defense. Trump will be the first former president to face an impeachment trial.
Carrie Underwood marked a special occasion on Thursday -- her youngest son, Jacob, turned two. The 37-year-old mother of two described little Jacob as "silly and strong" who loves to "play and sing and follow your big brother around." The American Idol winner, who shares Jacob and son Isaiah, 5, with husband Mike Fisher, previously revealed that she suffered three miscarriages over the course of two years before becoming pregnant with her youngest child.
Former first lady Michelle Obama is still earning praise for her headline-making inauguration look and now her stylist has given a behind-the-scenes account of her outfit. Meredith Koop, who worked with Obama during her eight years in the White House, took to Instagram to share details of the former first lady's monochrome pants, coat and top designed by Sergio Hudson, a 36-year-old Black designer from South Carolina who also designed Vice President Kamala Harris' inauguration evening dress and worked with Obama on her "Becoming" book tour. When it came to the Biden-Harris inauguration, Koop said she immediately knew she wanted Obama to wear pants.
As President Joe Biden was sworn into office on Wednesday, inauguration attendees bundeled up to stay warm in the mostly cloudy, 42-degree weather, but no one appeared more prepared than Sen. Bernie Sanders. Bernie dressed like the inauguration is on his to do list today but ain’t his whole day. The mittens that made such a splash were handmade by Jen Ellis, a second grade teacher from Vermont, who gave the fleece-lined winter accessories to Sanders in 2016.
In November, Home Depot reported sales up more than 20% on items including appliances and vinyl plank flooring. “As these customers complete a project, they are gaining the confidence to tackle their next project ...,” Craig Menear, chairman, CEO and president of Home Depot, said during a November 2020 earnings call. In addition, Lowe’s pointed out in its third quarter earnings report, that sales of appliances like refrigerators and freezers have spiked since last March.
A young teenager who formed a special friendship with President-Elect Joe Biden, bonding over their shared struggle with stuttering, stepped into the Inauguration Day spotlight. Brayden Harrington, who met President Biden on the campaign trail in New Hampshire and was a presenter at the Democratic National Convention, spoke to "Good Morning America" about his role on the historic day. Harrington said he would be "[reciting] famous addresses" during the primetime address.
As of Friday morning, 11 states, from California to Minnesota, are on alert for heavy snow and treacherous road conditions. The first storm is expected to bring rain and snow to the West Friday -- all the way into Southern California. A winter weather advisory has been issued for the mountains outside of San Diego, where some areas may see up to 8 inches of snow.
Alabama is grappling with surging deaths as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations remain high and intensive care unit capacity is stretched. The state reported record numbers of new cases and hospitalizations following the holidays. This week has already been the deadliest of the pandemic in the state, according to an analysis by The COVID Tracking Project.
Traditionally, individuals are assessed income taxes in the state where they live and people generally lived in states where they worked or nearby. Commuters who came from neighboring states were usually covered by agreements that avoided double taxation. Six states have what is known as convenience rules, which allow companies located in their jurisdictions to issue an income tax on their employees even if they don't reside in the state.
In recent months, new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 have been popping up all over the world, and experts say even more will continue to be identified as this pandemic continues. In the United States, variants have been found in California and the Midwest in recent weeks, and last month, new variants from the U.K., South Africa and Brazil were identified. All viruses naturally gain mutations, so these variants "are normal and expected," said Dr. Richard Kuhn, director of the Purdue Institute of Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease and editor-in-chief of the journal Virology.
The almost unthinkable act, on the day that Congress was ratifying Joe Biden's victory, was based for many on the erroneous belief that the election was "stolen," a notion that President Trump and many of his allies propagated since November (and laid the groundwork for long before). Now -- five deaths and dozens of arrests later -- the nation is left grappling with the very real and harmful effects of conspiracy theories, which have gained larger audiences in recent years. Scientific literature tells us that everyone -- regardless of political leanings -- is equally vulnerable to the pull of conspiracy theories.
The novel coronavirus pandemic is testing the nation's 470 ski and snowboard areas and the local economies that depend on them, as millions of Americans hit the slopes in search of a quarantine escape. "If you're coming to one of our resorts, we are going to put safety first," Robert Katz, CEO of Vail Resorts, the largest mountain resort ski company in the world, told ABC News. Nearly a year after COVID-19 forced an abrupt and early end to the winter ski season, operators have adopted sweeping new rules and restrictions to keep athletes safe and remain open.
President Joe Biden plans to sign a pair of executive orders Friday aimed at expanding food assistance for tens of millions of Americans and launching a process that will require federal contractors to pay their workers a $15 minimum wage and provide emergency paid leave. The moves come on Biden's second full day in office, and continue a string of executive actions he's taken to jumpstart his agenda and set the tone for his administration amid a COVID-19 pandemic that has left families struggling economically.