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At the age of 73, legendary songwriter John Prine passed away due to coronavirus complications on Tuesday night. Elevating from a working-class mail carrier to a remarkable country and folk-leaning musician, his influence has traveled with him throughout the decades. Even into his sixties and seventies, he had yet to lose a step as he continued to produce incredible work. With his fingerprint on so many decades and generations of musical talents, fans of all ages and classes expressed an outpouring of grief on social media to honor the legendary songwriter.

Amber Coffman shared how much John Prine meant to her and her music. “I grew up on John Prine’s music- his was some of the first music I remember hearing as a little kid. If you’re not familiar, I highly recommend doing a deep dive. #RIPJohnPrine.”

Strand Of Oaks and Jack Antonoff also shared their thoughts and condolences online as well. Strand Of Oaks said Prine “represented everything I love about music,” while Antonoff called him “as good as it gets.”

Reactions to the passing of John Prine also came in from Marc Maron, Margo Price, Stephen Colbert, Bon Iver, Andy Ritcher, and more.

Prine’s influence was felt throughout entertainment, and his impact went far beyond music in many ways.

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Coronavirus has millions across the world and hundreds of thousands in the United States are fighting the virus day in and day out. As its spread continues, many notable figures have unfortunately been impacted by the deadly virus spreading across the globe as a pandemic. Nearly a week after the passing of Founders Of Wayne founder and Emmy-winning songwriter Adam Schlesinger, the family of John Prine confirmed to Rolling Stone that the legendary songwriter passed away Tuesday night due to coronavirus complications. He was 73.

via Billboard:

Americana legend and revered singer-songwriter John Prine died Tuesday (April 7) from complications of COVID-19, Prine’s family confirmed to Rolling Stone and Billboard separately confirmed. The two-time Grammy-winning artist was 73.

Prine was first hospitalized with complications from the coronavirus on March 26 and at that time he was listed in critical condition. A few days later his wife Fiona Prine took to social media to shared a promising update on his condition.

“I have recovered from Covid-19,” she wrote at the time. “We are humbled by the outpouring of love for me and John and our precious family. He is [stable]. Please continue to send your amazing Love and prayers.” Upon hearing news of his condition, fans came together to show support for the legendary songwriter, but sadly things turned for the worse in recent days. A few days ago, Fiona returned with another update on John via a series of tweets.

“He still needs quite a bit of help with his breathing. Like many patients currently in ICU beds all around the world, John has pneumonia in both lungs. He has also developed some peripheral issues that are being treated with meds, including antibiotics. He is very ill and yet I remain hopeful that he can continue to fight this devastating virus and come home where we can care for him.”

While fans from all over praying and hoping for a full recovery from the legendary songwriter, Prine’s battle with the virus sadly came to an end just two weeks after being hospitalized.

We are a week and a half away from the first live action sporting event in some time, as UFC 249 continues to push forward with a new main event featuring Justin Gaethje against Tony Ferguson and a new location, one that still is yet to be officially revealed.

UFC president Dana White has been insistent on this particular event taking place, even after he begrudgingly suspended three fights due to the COVID-19 pandemic. White recently boasted he was working on securing a private island so they could put on fights long-term, even if the pandemic continues to shut down sports leagues through the summer. However, that’s not the planned locale for UFC 249, as Jeff Sherwood of Sherdog.com and Kevin Draper of the New York Times brings word that fight — and possibly two months of events going forward — will take place at the Tachi Palace Casino on native land outside of Fresno, California.

The location will be the Tachi Palace Casino Resort outside Lemoore, Calif., about 40 miles south of Fresno, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because White had not announced the venue. The casino, which closed the night of March 20 because of the pandemic, is on land belonging to the Tachi-Yokut Tribe, part of the federally recognized Santa Rosa Indian Community.

With the venue being on native land, the events will not have to be sanctioned by the California State Athletic Commission, which has refused to be a part of any fights and is backing governor Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home order by canceling all fights through May 31. There will surely be plenty of appetite for the fight card given the lack of sports happening right now, but there’s also not a single other entity willing to put their athletes at risk right now amid the continued unknowns of the situation due to the lack of widespread testing.

Future has been consistently active for the majority of 2020, a level of activity that began with the release of his Drake-featured track, “Life Is Good.” Since then, he’s shared a remix of the track with DaBaby and Lil Baby, released another track with Drake, worked alongside 2 Chainz Jhene Aiko and Rich The Kid, vowed to donate masks to nearby Atlanta hospitals to protect health professionals in the midst of the coronavirus. He also placed his beloved Beast Mode mixtape on streaming platforms.

Aside from his mask donation, we now know Future’s recent activity will lead up to a new project in the near future. In a recent profile with XXL for their Spring 2020 issue, Future shared the title of the upcoming project. Revealing its title to be Life Is Good, Future explained its title and its meaning to him personally.

It’s about life and being good and just enjoying life. So many tragedies and catastrophes and everything is going on in the world. And you want to enjoy life, as long as you have it. Waking up, breathing, well, you want to be able to soak it all up and be appreciative for every moment on this earth, every moment that you’re living.

Later in the interview, Future was asked about Juice WRLD’s tragic death and whether he feels he influenced the rapper to go down a bad path with drugs.

Me having an influence on that, I just feel like…that is not my intentions. My intention was just to be me. I’m just being me and what you get from it is what you get from it, but at the same time, I wouldn’t want no one to go through anything to harm theyself or to bring death to theyself and Juice Wrld is a touchy situation. I’m heartbroken by the whole thing. My heart goes out to his family, his mom.

Prior to their joint project WRLD On Drugs, Juice WRLD admitted in an interview with Vulture Future was the artist who influenced him to experiment with lean. “That’s the first thing I told him. He just was like, ‘Wow.’ He kind of apologized.”

Check out Future’s recent video for “Tycoon” here.

[via XXL]

There are a lot of aspects of social distancing and quarantining that make life today very different from normal, with one of the things many of us took for granted and likely never will again being the opportunity to go out and get your haircut when needed.

Around the country, folks are tasked with the difficult question of whether to just let their hair grow and grow or cut it themselves, with the ever-present risk of giving yourself a disastrous cut. Ray Allen, who has long shave his head, has decided on the former and announced this with an Instagram picture showing just how bad his hairline is currently. He’s also calling on his fellow bald and “going bald” brothers like LeBron James, Shaq, and Stephon Marbury to do the same.

I wasn’t gonna post this but two tears in a bucket! This is where I’m at with it. Lol So I’m gonna ride #myJefferson out until the “Rona” kicks rocks! For those of you that don’t know I have cut my own hair my whole life so it’s been hard not to put the clippers to it but when I look back at these pics I will remember the Rona! Lol Fish don’t fry in the kitchen, beans don’t burn on the grill, took a whole lotta tryin, just to get up that hill, now we’re up in the big leagues, getting our turn at bat, as long as we live, it’s you and me baby, there ain’t nothing wrong with that”! I nominate all my bald or going bald brothers to let it grow out, y’all know who you are! Lol. #pulluptothescenewitmyceilinmissin #shoutouttothefivehead #movinonuptotheeastside #myjeffersonon @kingjames @ripcity3232 @mrcbooz @shaq @starburymarbury @dwilk3000 @jermaineoneal @therealchrisspencer #napsknotsandbeebeeshots #georgejeffersonchallenge #kickitray

The “George Jefferson Challenge” is quite funny and it would be pretty great if some NBA legends and current bald and balding stars join in to make everyone else feel a little better about letting their hair get a bit out of control right now. We’ll see if anyone follows suit and joins in on the fun, most notably LeBron and Shaq, who we saw where his hairline is recently after losing a bet to Dwyane Wade.

Television may be the least essential of industries impacted by a global pandemic, but as the impact of COVID-19 stretches from early spring to summer and uncertainty looming over when work on shows can resume, traditional networks are looking for creative solutions to give people things to watch.

Sitting in front of the TV and watching shows is pretty much good, solid medical advice at this point as people do their best to practice social distancing and stay out of crowds. Those with streaming subscriptions have strained the internet as they hunker down and start Schitt’s Creek a few years too late, but those tethered to traditional cable and over-the-air antenna for their entertainment are seeing a lot of productions filmed from home or, well, not at all.

Once that backlog of taped episodes runs out, however, networks will be faced with an interesting dilemma. Will Jeopardy! simply run old episodes when those taped before COVID-19 shut down tapings catch up to their usual built-in backlog. And what will networks used to rolling out entire slates of new fall lineups do when they’ve filmed little to no episodes over the summer?

It’s a quandary The Hollywood Reporter explored on Tuesday and revealed some interesting options, including a concept reportedly floated by NBC: raid existing streaming libraries to show “new” content to TV viewers.

Should no returning or new shows be able to launch during September’s annual Premiere Week, ABC, CBS and NBC have also started conversations with their streaming counterparts to see if any originals from Disney+, Hulu, CBS All Access or even upstart Peacock may be available to air on linear networks. Should ABC, for example, look to air content from Disney+ on the linear network, the studio would likely need to ink new deals with profit participants.

CBS is also expected to harness programming from CBS All Access, Showtime and its recently re-acquired brands MTV, VH1 and Paramount Network, say sources, though affiliates could balk. “It doesn’t make affiliates happy when you promote your competition,” notes one exec, while another adds, optimistically: “The trade-off might be getting them better numbers versus standing on principle about where programming came from.”

It’s an interesting proposition, and one that does have some merit: not every consumer has both streaming services and also watches network TV. So there’s a potential to get those watching traditional television new content while also serving as an ad for the platforms on which they are usually available. Still, getting those shows there would require some considerable legal maneuvering and renegotiating some content.

As the story noted, NBC in particular has a huge window to fill with the Tokyo Summer Olympics delayed until 2021. That’s 85 hours of content to fill, and only so many game shows can fill the void. Fox, meanwhile, has a lot of animated shows that will air uninterrupted by the pandemic’s chaos. But as one source told THR’s Lesley Goldberg, it’s only a matter of time before every major network has a much bigger problem on, well, all of our hands.

Of course, if the shutdown carries on for several more months, one exec suggests much of this will be moot. “If that happens,” he says, “it’ll be all news, all the time.”

Whether we’ll see Quibi originals on over-the-air broadcasts come this fall seems uncertain right now, but with TV production essentially halted across the industry there’s a lot of holes to fill and even more uncertainty about when those holes can be filled by more traditional content.

[via THR]

Navajo Nation — in the “Four Corners” area, with land that covers part of Northeastern Arizona, Southeastern Utah, and Northwestern New Mexico — has been hit hard by COVID-19. So far there are 354 confirmed cases with 15 confirmed deaths. As with much of the nation, the testing picture is incomplete. Navajo Schools stayed open two days longer than non-reservation schools, but the Navajo Nation has taken up strong distancing precautions since then. The Diné have now issued stay-at-home orders and instituted a strict curfew. They’ve also declared a state of emergency.

The seriousness of this response isn’t without precedent. The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-1920 was devastating for the Navajo Nation. According to historical records, 12 percent of the population perished, or 3,377 people. So far, COVID-19 has mortality rates anywhere from less than one percent to ten percent or more, depending on a long list of factors. But preparedness seems to be a major determiner and Navajo Nation is woefully ill-equipped to fight off a virus like this. It’s certainly worth noting that 2009’s Swine Flu was four times more deadly in Indian Country than the rest of the U.S.

Why Is The Pandemic Particularly Dangerous For The Navajo?

One of the biggest factors at play is the severe poverty of Indian Country. According to data from the state of Arizona, 38 percent of Diné live in poverty and have an average income of $27,389. That’s half the average income of Arizona in general and twice the poverty rate. This is compounded by the fact that the U.S. government continually underfunds Indian Country year after year.

As we’ve mentioned before, the Navajo Nation only has 170 hospital beds, 13 I.C.U. beds, 52 isolation rooms, and a mere 28 ventilators available for the entire population of 350,000 people. Moreover, the U.S. government underfunded Indian Health Services by $30 billion in 2020 alone. $1 billion has been allocated to (all of) Indian Country to help fight the virus locally, but that money has not come yet. That comes coupled with around $8 billion more in emergency funds in general for communities. It’s been revealed that the White House and Republicans in Congress fought to give the tribes no funding whatsoever from the trillion-dollar bailout.

All of this is compounded by the rural nature of Navajo Nation. 75 percent of all un-electrified houses in the United States are on Navajo land. That equals around 15,000 homes without power. That’s before we even dive into the lack of running water. For many on Navajo land, getting clean water is an all-day ordeal that few can afford. Then are also underlying health issues facing the Diné. Due to a forced Western Diet and massive food insecurity (there are only 13 grocery stores for the whole nation), obesity, hypertension, and diabetes are rampant. Diabetes is so prevalent that one in three Diné is diagnosed as either diabetes or pre-diabetic. Diabetes is on the “high risk” list for severe illness from COVID-19, published by the CDC.

All of this could spell disaster for one of the United States’ most at-risk communities. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham reportedly has called the White House directly and told the president that this virus might “wipe out” Indigenous populations. The governor also noted a higher number of younger people in her state need hospitalization and ventilators. HuffPost reports that Trump responded by directing officials in the room to get started on building an emergency hospital.

What You Can Do To Help, Right Now

It’s important to note that the hospital has not been built yet nor have emergency funds been released. That’s not to say they won’t. It just means that the time is now to help where you can.

Diné attorney and leader Ethel Branch has set up the Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund on GoFundMe (she also set up a Relief Fund for the Havasupai). This is the fastest and most direct way you can help people right now.

So far the Relief Fund has 2,000 families seeking assistance. The money is going to packages that are being dispatched throughout Navajo Nation. The Guardian reports that each package is filled with “flour, beans, rice, canned soups, dried meat, fever and cough medicine, as well as fresh vegetables, fruit, and meat when available.” These are crucial lifelines for many Diné.

So far, the Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund is at about 50 percent of its goal. You can donate directly right here.

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