The number of COVID-19 cases across the U.S. has surged past 100 thousand, and as the situation in New York City, considered the country’s epicenter of the pandemic, grows more dire, national, state and local officials are bracing for what’s expected to be an “acceleration phase’ of confirmed cases in growing hotspots.

Seattle, the first American hotspot, has the highest number of cases outside New York City, but there are growing concerns about worsening conditions in New Orleans, Boston and Chicago in the wake of Mardi Gras and students returning from Spring Break.

In fact, Louisiana has experienced the fastest growth of new cases worldwide, and in New Orleans, its huge convention center is being converted into a massive field hospital.

Cases are also spiking in Los Angeles which is expected to match the infection numbers in NYC sometime in the next five days.

The Army Corps of Engineers top brass are looking at potentially converting about 114 facilities across the U.S. into field hospitals – many to treat non-C19 patients to ease the burden on front-line hospitals.

In many cities, medical personnel have been taking to social media to complain about a lack of protective clothing and supplies, and to warn families that they may not be able to save their loved ones because they are running out of ventilators.

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Apple has launched a COVID-19 screening tool  website and app that allow users to screen themselves for symptoms of the coronavirus.

Developed in partnership with the CDC, FEMA, and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Apple cautioned that it’s “designed to be a resource for individuals and does not replace instructions from healthcare providers or guidance from state and local health authorities.”

When you visit the website or download the app, the first thing you’re asked is whether you’re screening for yourself or someone else.

After you click your answer, a warning screen appears instructing anyone with constant chest pain or pressure, extreme difficulty breathing, severe and constant dizziness or lightheadedness, slurred speech or difficulty waking up to immediately call 911.

If you aren’t experiencing any of those symptoms, you’ll continue to a questionnaire that asks about symptoms, travel, preexisting conditions and contact with other people.

After you submit your answers, the tool shows recommendations from the CDC on how to proceed, including guidance on social distancing and self-isolation, how to monitor symptoms at home, whether to get tested and when to seek advice from a medical professional.

Apple says the screening tool does not require signing in with an Apple ID, and the company says “individual responses will not be sent to Apple or any government organization.”

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given emergency use authorization (EUA) to Abbott Laboratories for the fastest available molecular point-of-care test for detecting the COVID-19 Coronavirus.

Abbott says its “ID Now” unit can deliver positive results in as quickly as five minutes, and negative results in 13 minutes.

The company says it’s ramping up production to deliver 50 thousand “ID Now” tests per day, starting next week.

Because the unit is about the size of a small toaster, it can be used in a variety of locations outside hospitals, such as doctors’ offices and urgent care clinics.

Abbott plans to use “ID Now” in conjunction with another system that received emergency use authorization last week to produce about five million tests in April.

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Compiled by Wikipedia. Best viewed in landscape orientation on smartphones

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Fans of legendary singer-songwriter John Prine had been holding their collective breath since March 29.

On that day, amidst the surging COVID-19 data noise enveloping the world, it was like a hush fell over the audience after his wife and manager, Fiona Whelan Prine, informed those fans that the two-time cancer survivor was hospitalized because of coronavirus infection and was in critical condition.

Nine days later, on April 7, that collective breath became a huge sigh of sadness at his passing.

The next day, Fiona wrote on his website (we quote a portion), “Our beloved John died yesterday evening at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville TN.

I sat with John – who was deeply sedated- in the hours before he passed and will be forever grateful for that opportunity.

My dearest wish is that people of all ages take this virus seriously and follow guidelines set by the CDC. We send our condolences and love to the thousands of other American families who are grieving the loss of loved ones at this time – and to so many other families across the world.”

The feeling many of us have when someone we know passes is “there are no words”. No words that could possibly articulate the utter depth and mix of emotions at times of loss.

However, in the case of John Prine, there are more words than you can imagine.

Slate.com music critic Carl Wilson articulates many of them in a wonderfully-written, and heartfelt celebration of John Prine’s life and career in “Please Don’t Bury John Prine“.

And we’ve placed a few gems from John Prine’s “Americana” below. In the end, it’s most appropriate for Fiona to have the last words:

“We have no words to describe the grief our family is experiencing at this time. John was the love of my life and adored by our sons Jody, Jack and Tommy, daughter in law Fanny, and by our grandchildren.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the outpouring of love we have received from family, friends, and fans all over the world. John will be so missed but he will continue to comfort us with his words and music and the gifts of kindness, humor and love he left for all of us to share.

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Iconic Italian shoe designer Sergio Rossi has died from COVID-19 infection. He was 84.

He was based in a part of the world hit hardest by the new coronavirus pandemic – the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and had been hospitalized for days in the ICU of the Buffalini Hospital in Cesena.

Learning the craft from his father in the town of San Mauro Pascoli, and taking over his father’s business in 1956, Rossi once said, “I was born among leather . . . watching my father at work, I stole his trade. I have always thought of myself as a calzuler, a cobbler, then I became a ‘creative manager.”

Rossi launched his namesake label in 1968. As Carrie Goldberg writes in Harper’s Bazaar, “Rossi’s innovation in the world of women’s shoes was undisputed; one of his most notable designs, the Opanca sandal, featured a curved sole, which flows seamlessly into the heel.”

At footwear news.com, (FN) where she provides a look back at Sergio Rossi’s most iconic shoes, Shannon Adducci takes the description of the Opanca sandal a step further as “a Slavic-inspired sandal with an insole that curved upwards around the foot. With a kitten heel and thin strips of red leather hugging the top of the foot, it was an early model for the sexy, strappy sandal that is so ubiquitous today (it’s also a shoe that his son Gianvito Rossi is well known for).”

The article provides photos of iconic designs from each decade, and chronicles later partnerships with names like Gianni Versace and Dolce & Gabbana. Rossi revealed his strategy in a 2003 interview: ” I followed designers, rather than advertising.

This way the Sergio Rossi brand travelled and became known by the right circles, press, buyers, thus reaching our customers through the advertising photos of the designers with whom I collaborated.”

In 1999, Rossi sold 70% of his company to Gucci Group (now Kering), and retired several years later. Kering sold the company in 2015 to an Italian private equity firm.

Current CEO Riccardo Sciutto has been meticulous in protecting the integrity of the founder’s legacy and designs. He told FN that he last saw the designer over Christmas when he showed him the Sergio Rossi archive assembled at the brand’s San Mauro Pascoli headquarters.

Sciutto revealed “He was so amazed to see it all in one place. He said to me, ‘I can die here.’” Those words, Sciutto admits, have been haunting him since.

Stephanie Hirschmiller writes, in an FN exclusive, that the CEO now has plans for a museum to honor the late founder.

Closing words we’ll leave to the designer’s son Gianvito Rossi, who created his own namesake luxury shoe label in 2007.

“He has always stood out for his class and his strong, charismatic, generous, courageous character: a natural leader, loved and respected at the same time by his collaborators, with whom, in the long journey of his life he created one big family.

There are those who have had the good fortune to transform their art into a work and those who have the extraordinary talent of transforming their work into a work of art. Sergio Rossi was this man.

A husband, father, grandfather and progenitor of a family that followed his example. The family offers, with love, their last goodbye. With the unquenchable fire of your passion, you taught us that there are no limits for those who love what they do. Goodbye maestro.”

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If you wanted to capture the essence of Patricia Bosworth in a paragraph, you’d be hard – pressed to do any better than the opening of an appreciation of her life penned by Mark Rozzo for Vanity Fair, which is how the world learned of her passing:

“Patricia Bosworth, who died this week due to coronavirus complications, at 86, wrote breezily, with a gossamer touch, as if an intimate friend were telling you the latest over a coffee or a martini. Which is very much how she was: a champion chatterbox, charmer, encourager, motivator, and, above all, truth-teller.” 

It is a lovely tribute from the magazine where she wrote for decades. As Rozzo puts it, “Her editors were always delighted to get one of her pieces; they promised to be full of sparkle even as they tangled with dark themes, much like her best-selling books.”

Born into privilege on April 24, 1933 in San Francisco, Patricia Crum was later advised by her lawyer father, Bartley Crum, to take her mother’s maiden name for her acting aspirations to avoid giving future critics the potential ammunition to calm a role a “crummy performance.”

Her father’s defense during the “McCarthy Era” communist witch – hunt, of the members of the “Hollywood Ten“, and his support of left-wing causes put his career into a slow, painful dive. In her first memoir, Patricia revealed her father had informed on two colleagues.

Subsequently labeled as a subversive, Crum lost most of his clients. The subsequent stress of harassment culminated in two suicide attempts – the second one, successful in 1959.

It was the second of two suicides in her family. Six years earlier, her brother, said to be conflicted over his homosexuality, compounded by depression, shot himself in his dorm room at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.

The year before, Patricia had graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and auditioned for famed acting coach Lee Strasberg, founding Artistic Director at The Actors Studio where she studied alongside future iconic names such as Brando, McQueen, Monroe, Newman and Fonda. As in Jane, a future subject of her bestselling biographies.

After initial stage works, Patricia starred beside Audrey Hepburn in 1959’s “The Nun’s Story“. Throughout this timeline, she married twice, took up writing pieces for The New York Times and New York magazine, eventually editing at Harper’s Bazaar, McCall’s, Mirabella and Vanity Fair magazines.

Biographies and two powerful memoirs followed. The first project, “Montgomery Clift: A Biography” in 1978, won acclaim in The Times. Patricia first met the subject when he was lounging in the family’s living room as a client of her father. She pilfered one of his cigarette butts from an ashtray and kept it for the rest of her life.

Other biography subjects would be photographer Diane Arbus, and actors Marlon Brando and Jane Fonda. They were either suicides (Arbus), survivors of a relative’s suicide (Jane Fonda) or flamboyantly self-destructive (Clift, Brando).

She explained in an interview that writing these books was “one of the ways I coped with and tried to understand why the two men I loved most in the world had decided to kill themselves.”

The memoirs of Patricia Bosworth, “Anything Your Little Heart Desires” and “The Men in My Life” were written two decades apart. The first, a chronicle of her father’s life – the second, her survival of the two suicides, her sexual awakening and an actor’s life in New York.

In her later years, Patricia taught literary non-fiction at Columbia University and Barnard College and ran the Playwright – Directors Unit at the Actors Studio.

Just before she fell ill, Patricia had returned from doing research for her next book. She had emailed Frank Rozzo about her “incredible trip to the Deep South”, visiting landmarks of the civil rights movement and freedom fighters in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.

The resulting “Protest Song: Paul Robeson, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Equality,” is to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux next year. 

You can learn more details about this prolific writer in obituaries penned by Elsa Dixler in The New York Times, and Matt Schudel in The Washington Post.

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Coronavirus complications have claimed the life of singer – songwriter – producer Adam Schlesinger at the age of 52. The passing of the member of 90s group Fountains of Wayne sadly became one of more frequently  emerging cases that COVID-19 was killing not just the elderly.

Schlesinger, a divorced father of two daughters, had been in a hospital in Poughkeepsie in upstate New York, and was placed on a ventilator for over a week. His lawyer, Josh Grier, said the day before he died, Schlesinger was “very sick and heavily sedated.”

As well as the work with his band, Schlesinger was a prolific composer  in the fields of  music, theater, film and television. He worked as a producer and mixer for others, including The Monkees and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin.

His songs have been covered by other artists, including Katy Perry, the Jonas Brothers, America, Sara Silverman with will.i.am , Ken Jeong with Nicki Minaj and Pat Monahan and  on “The Billboard Music Awards”, and The Monkees.

Schlesinger’s compositions for TV programs earned three Grammy nominations with one of them winning the 2009 Grammy for Best Comedy Album “A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All“, co-written with long-time collaborator David Javerbaum, the executive producer of “The Daily Show”, and co-produced with Steven M. Gold.

He racked-up nine Emmy nominations, winning three – the most recent being the Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics award in 2019 for “Antidepressants Are So Not a Big Deal“.

Schlesinger wrote songs for a number of Broadway and off-Broadway theater productions, earning two 2008 Tony nominations with David Javerbaum for the musical adaptation of John Waters’ film Cry-Baby.

At the time of his death, he had been collaborating with Sarah Silverman on a musical adaptation of her book “The Bedwetter“. It was set to begin previews in May, and opening night was set for June 10, 2020.

On the film front, Schlesinger’s music, whether written, scored and/or co-produced, has been featured in live-action and animated movies, including “Shallow Hal“, “Ice Age: Continental Drift“, “There’s Something About Mary“, “Scary Movie” and more.

He was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award in 1997 for writing and co-producing the title song for the movie “That Thing You Do.”

It was a fictional story of a one-hit wonder band set in the 1960s and was directed by Tom Hanks, who recently  posted on his social media pages, “There would be no Playtone without Adam Schlesinger, without his That Thing You Do! He was a One-der.

 Lost him to COVID-19. Terribly sad today.”

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Thirteen new deaths have been recorded from COVID-19 in the state of Illinois. One of them was an infant under the age of one.

Illinois Public Health Director, Dr. Ngozi Ezike says, “There has never been a case of COVID-19 death in an infant. If you haven’t been paying attention, maybe this is your wake-up call.”

At a press conference on Saturday, Governor Jay Pritzker said: ‘Upon hearing it, I admit I was shaken. We should grieve with our family of state employees, with the many people we’ve already lost to this virus, young and old.’

A letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Chinese researchers earlier this month reported the death of a 10-month-old with COVID-19. The infant had a bowel blockage and organ failure, and died four weeks after being hospitalized.

Officials in Illinois have not specified the exact age of the infant who died.

Earlier in the week week, a three-week-old infant in New York was identified as the youngest patient in the US to test positive for the new coronavirus.

Fox News reports the baby was treated at NYU Winthrop Hospital on Long Island in Mineola for several days, but has since been released and is now recovering at home.

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The New York Police Department is mourning the loss of three highly respected employees to COVID-19 infection.

In the photo montage above from left to right, 48 year-old Detective Cedric Dixon died Saturday;  Giacomina Barr-Brown, a civilian employee for the NYPD, died of the virus inside her home on Thursday; and 62 year-0ld Dennis Dickson, a custodial assistant, died earlier this week.

Detective Dixon, a 14-year veteran who reportedly had asthma and diabetes, was the first uniformed officer from the force to die from C19. Barr-Brown was a seven-year veteran of the NYPD staff, and Dickson fell ill after he had been disinfecting 1 Police Plaza.

Over 500 NYPD personnel, including 442 officers have contracted C19, according to records obtained by DailyMail.com. In just one day, 4,111 uniformed officers – or more than 10% of the force – called in sick.

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As infection and death rates from C19 continue to rise around the world, more stories are emerging of patients being refused treatment and then subsequently dying of the disease.

A 17 year-old boy in Los Angeles with no pre-existing health conditions, who had developed respiratory problems, died after being turned away from an urgent care facility.

The reason? He didn’t have health insurance and his family was told to take him to a public hospital. The boy went into cardiac arrest on the way, and died  six hours later.

Overseas, 36-year-old Kayla Williams died at her flat in south London of suspected Covid-19 a day after calling 999 and being told to look after herself at home.

The mother of three, died a day after paramedics were called to her home in Peckham, and her husband was told she was not a priority.

This may be a harbinger of things to come as test kits become more available and confirmed C19 cases are expected to spike in the coming weeks.

With hospitals in many countries reporting a shortage of ventilators, there is a fear doctors will have to make tough decisions about who will get treatment and who won’t based on severity of symptoms and age, as well as the availability of both medicine and equipment.

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It was only a matter of time before the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease would be taking a toll on notable pioneers in American culture and life.

Such was the case on April 1 when it claimed Ellis Marsalis, the patriarch of New Orleans’ most famous musical family. 

As NPR put it, “Over a lifetime in music, he achieved renown not only as a pianist and composer in his own right, but as one of the most influential music educators in the U.S. — imparting his extensive knowledge to students like pianist and vocalist Harry Connick Jr., trumpeter Terence Blanchard and of course, his four (of six) sons who followed his path into music.”

NPR’s Jazz Profiles provides a 53 minute listen to a detailed overview of Ellis Marsalis’ life and career.

We’ll focus on the tributes from those whose lives he impacted in many ways:

Statement of Branford Marsalis:

It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of my father, Ellis Marsalis Jr., as a result of complications from the Coronavirus.  He was admitted to the hospital on Saturday and died peacefully this evening. My dad was a giant of a musician and teacher, but an even greater father.  He poured everything he had into making us the best of what we could be. And to quote my friend and Harvard Law Professor David Wilkins who just sent me the following text: “We can all marvel at the sheer audacity of a man who believed he could teach his black boys to be excellent in a world that denied that very possibility, and then watch them go on to redefine what excellence means for all time.”

Statement of Harry Connick, Jr.:

among the countless lessons ellis taught me, the most important was the process of discovery. he already knew everything i was trying to learn; but he always made me figure things out for myself. he was a grand master educator, an inimitable pianist, a caring mentor and a dear friend. i wouldn’t be who i am without him. i’ll miss him with all my heart.

Statement of EMCM Leadership:

Our hearts are broken as we mourn the passing of a true legend, Ellis Marsalis, Jr.  A gifted master educator, Ellis enriched the lives of thousands, including in his tireless work as the artistic director of the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, established in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Ellis was a deeply kind person of great character who was passionate about education and music. We at EMCM are dedicated to upholding and fulfilling the vision of this great  American and New Orleans treasure. And while the pandemic that took Ellis from us will delay our celebration of his life, we will have a celebration befitting Ellis’s legacy. Stay tuned.

Statement of Michele Brierre, Executive Director:

A true legend has passed but not without enriching  the lives of so many of us whom he touched. Ellis Marsalis was a master educator with a unique ability to share his gifts and wisdom.  As important, Ellis defined character. In how he lived his life, he set a worthy example for us all. It has been my life’s great fortune and pleasure to work under Ellis’s guidance for the past decade as the Executive Director of the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.  The Center lives on to fulfill the passion and to uphold the legacy of this great  American treasure.

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Entertainment industry veterans who were part of the indelible sights and sounds etched into the memories of those who are old enough to have lived through the Sixties have now reached the age range that makes them most vulnerable to the ravages of COVID-19 disease.

Julie Bennett, best known as the voice of Cindy Bear in “The Yogi Bear Show“, died March 31 at the age of 88 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after testing positive for the new coronavirus the week before.

As well as various incarnations of Cindy Bear, Bennett’s  voice was also cast in Garfield and Friends, Spider-Man: The Animated Series and a Spider-Man video game. She did have some live-action roles in the TV series Moonlighting and Crossings.

Born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles, she returned to Manhattan after college to appear in soap operas on radio and dramas on TV.

Also a writer, Bennett was known for The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure (1967), Lux Video Theatre (1950) and Mathnet (1987).

In what was referred to as her second act, Julie Bennett became a realtor on the side and also a talent agent, representing clients under the pseudonym Marianne Daniels.

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As the great scourge that is the COVID-19 pandemic blankets more of the world, Twitter has become a moving repository for tributes to “the fallen”.

Jazz bassist Christian McBride tweeted, “Our collective spirits are taking some serious blows these days. Saying goodbye to one my beloved big brothers is especially hard. May the great Wallace Roney RIP.”

Roney, a protege of jazz icon Miles Davis, and a legend in his own right over a four-decade career, died of complications from coronavirus infection at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center in Paterson, New Jersey. He was 59.

Born in Philadelphia, Roney got his early jazz education at home from his father’s love of Miles Davis, and his mother’s appreciation of Thelonious Monk.

Perfect pitch and trumpet lessons from the age of 5 eventually earned him a place as the youngest member of The Philadelphia Brass at 12. A few years later, his family moved to Washington, D.C., and he attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and later earned degrees at Howard University and the Berklee College of Music.

Roney began his career in the early 1980s and was a member of both Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and the Tony Williams Quintet. Roney studied with Davis from 1985 until the latter’s death in 1991.

Nate Chinen from 88.3fm WBGO.org public radio via NPR, takes us through the finer details of Wallace Roney’s illustrious career and what he describes as the “public benediction by his idol and mentor, Miles Davis, that catapulted him into a rare stratum of jazz celebrity.”

An article at heavy.com provides additional insights and video examples of different stages in Roney’s career, including some poignant words from some young musicians who contributed to what would be his last album.

And among his “last words” in an interview with Glide magazine at the time, Roney said “My music is uncompromising, so I look for musicians who have an expansive understanding of what’s possible and who have the ability to play above that, but who are always cognizant of what’s going on around them.

I tell them ‘be true to who you are. Go all the way in, learn every part of what the masters have done, but let it come out of you’.

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The COVID-19 death of Star Wars actor and dialect coach Andrew Jack became another heartbreaking example of families separated by quarantines.

His representative Jill McCullough told Metro.co.uk: ‘He died this morning of Covid-19  at St Peter’s Hospital, Chertsey.

Andrew lived on one the oldest working houseboats on the Thames, he was fiercely independent but madly in love with his wife – also a dialect coach – Gabrielle Rogers.

Tragically she is stuck in quarantine in Australia having just flown in from NZ last week. She was unable to see or talk to him at the end of his life and there is a chance a funeral may not be held.”

Andrew played Major Caluan Ematt in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and was actively working until a few weeks ago. His career as a dialect coach is even more prolific, having worked on over 80 films with some of the biggest stars, including Robert Downey Jr. in 1992’s Chaplin and Pierce Brosnan in his first outing as James Bond in 1995’s Goldeneye.

At the time of his passing, Andrew Jack had been working on the upcoming The Batman movie with Robert Pattinson.

Tributes have started to roll in from some of the many stars he’s worked with. Mark Hamill, 68, who originated the role of Luke Skywalker, tweeted “I’m so sorry and saddened to hear we have lost Andrew Jack. He was such a kind gentleman who was deeply gifted & beloved by all who knew him. My deepest condolences to his family.”

Australian actor Chris Hemsworth worked with Andrew on a number of films, starting with 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman, 2019’s Men In Black: International, and more recent movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

He wrote on Instagram alongside a picture of Andrew: “I lost a dear friend this week to Coronavirus. Andrew Jack was a wonderful, kind, beautiful soul and I and many others will miss him greatly.

I worked on a number of films with him over the years and he was the best dialect/voice coach in the game and was beyond instrumental in helping shape me as an actor. My love and support goes out to his family and to anyone and everyone who is struggling during this time. Sending everyone across the globe love and compassion. Peace.”

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“The Coronavirus took my father this morning. I was given 2 minutes to say my goodbyes before I was rushed out.”

Mirroring a heartrending trend for spouses and children of hospitalized COVID-19 patients as the pandemic lurched through more and more families, a daughter wrote a heartbreaking goodbye to her father on Facebook.

The father was 70’s rocker Alan Merrill, 69, who co-wrote the song “I Love Rock and Roll” for his band The Arrows in 1975, which became a rock anthem when Joan Jett covered it in 1982.

The daughter is Lisa Merrill, who posted “He seemed peaceful and as I left there was still a glimmer of hope that he wouldn’t be a ticker on the right hand side of the CNN/Fox news screen. I walked 50 blocks home still with hope in my heart . . . By the time I got in the doors to my apartment I received the news that he was gone.”

Joan Jett tweeted, “I’ve just learned of the awful news that Alan Merrill has passed. My thoughts and love go to his family, friends and music community as a whole.

I can still remember watching the Arrows on TV in London and being blown away by the song that screamed hit to me. With deep gratitude and sadness, wishing him a safe journey to the other side.”

Merrill is also survived by his wife, Joanna Lisanti, who took to Facebook to share the devastating details of the events leading up to his death.

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Two days after announcing he had tested positive with the C19 virus, country star Joe Diffie died on March 29 of complications from COVID-19 disease. He was 61.

The Tulsa, Oklahoma native was the first country celebrity to go public with a coronavirus diagnosis.

Diffie was a member of the famed Grand Ole Opry for over 25 years, and had a string of hits throughout the 1990s and his albums “Honky Tonk Attitude” and “Third Rock From The Sun” went platinum, spinning off 18 Top 10 singles, with five topping the Billboard record charts.

Married four times, Joe Diffie is survived by his wife Tara Terpening Diffie, and seven children.

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Princess Maria Teresa of Spain has died at the age of 86 after testing positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus, marking the first member of any royal household to succumb to the virus.

The Princess was born in Paris, France on July 28, 1933 to parents, Prince Xavier and Madeleine de Bourbon, one of six children.

The royals are members of the House of Bourbon-Parma which is a cadet branch of the Spanish royal family, descended from the French Capetian dynasty. A cadet branch is created when a young member of a Royal Family, who is not the current heir, is granted lands and titles of his own. 

The passing of the Princess comes after new headlines revealed that Prince Charles of the UK and Prince Albert of Monaco have both tested positive for C19 and have now emerged from self-isolating.

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Former French-Armenian Minister Patrick Devedjian has become one of the first high-profile politicians to die of COVID-19.

The 75 year-old former cabinet minister and former president of the Parisian Haut-de-Seine administrative district tweeted from his hospital bed Thursday morning that he had tested positive for C19.

“I am affected by the epidemic, therefore I am able to bear witness directly to the exceptional work of doctors and nurses. I’m sending them a big thank you for their constant help to all their patients.”

A lawyer by profession, Patrick Devedjian was a deputy for the 13th district of Hauts-de-Seine from 1986 to 2017, mayor of Antony from 1983 to 2002 and elected departmental councilor in 2004. He has chaired the department since 2007.

A close adviser of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy since the 1990s, he was Minister under the Prime Minister in charge of the Implementation of the Recovery Plan, a special ministerial post created for two years after the global financial crisis of 2008, since December 2008.

Armenia’s leaders immediately paid tribute to the late French-Armenian politician.

“It is with great sorrow that I learned of the demise of Patrick Devedjian. He was an exceptional personality, a politician of convictions and principles, faithful fighter for the Armenian cause, an essential figure in French-Armenian friendship,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a Twitter post.

“This is a severe blow to the French Armenians, the Armenian people and France,” Pashinyan added.

Your can learn more at MASSISPOST about Devedjian’s involvement as one of the lawyers of four members of the Armenian Secret Army for Liberation of Armenia who had captured the Turkish consulate in 1981, raking 60 hostages.

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“My beautiful, kind-hearted 21 year old niece has passed away from Covid-19. She had no underlying health conditions.”

Those sad words were posted on Facebook by Emily Mistry who urged others to “do your bit” to stop the spread of the disease.

Other family members of Chloe Middleton,  of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire in the UK, echoed the sentiments.

Her mother Diane said the family was “shattered beyond belief”, adding “the reality of this virus is only unfolding before our eyes. Please, please adhere to the government guidelines.”

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Beloved Chef Floyd Cardoz, who competed on “Top Chef,” and won “Top Chef Masters,” died of complications from COVID-19 He was 59.

A week before his death, Cardoz posted on Instagram that he was “feeling feverish” and “as a precautionary measure” had admitted himself to a New York hospital. He also apologized for “causing undue panic” about an earlier post about his health.

Cardoz, who operated successful restaurants in both India and New York, had traveled from Mumbai to New York through Frankfurt, Germany, on March 8.

He was born in India and moved to New York City to pursue a culinary career. In 1997, he opened his most famous restaurant, Tabla, followed by North End Grill, Paowalla and Bombay Bread Bar. In 2011, he won the third season of “Top Chef Masters.”

“Top Chef” host Padma Lakshmi was one of the first to pay tribute to Cardoz: “I am beyond saddened to wake up today and hear the news of my dear friend @floydcardoz’s passing. Floyd made us all so proud,” she wrote on Instagram. “Nobody who lived in NY in the early aughts could forget how delicious and packed Tabla always was. He had an impish smile, an innate need to make those around him happy, and a delicious touch. This is a huge loss, not only for the professional food world, but for Indians everywhere. My heart goes out to his wife Barkha and their whole family.”

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Terrence McNally, an American playwright whose career included winning Tony Awards for the plays “Love! Valour! Compassion!” and “Master Class” and the musicals “Ragtime” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” has died of complications from COVID-19.

He was 81.

McNally was a lung cancer survivor who lived with COPD – Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

McNally was the first-ever openly gay playwright and wrote the first play to feature a gay character on Broadway. He met John Steinbeck and traveled the world as a tutor to his children, dated Edward Albee and had his first play on Broadway flop, all before he was 24 year old.

A documentary about him, “Terrence McNally: Every Act of Life” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018. Lance Carter reviewed it at dailyactor.com.

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Mark Blum, an actor known for his roles in the films “Desperately Seeking Susan” and “Crocodile Dundee,” as well as the recent TV series “You,” has died of complications from COVID-19.

He was 69 and also had asthma.

Blum was an Obie Award winner, and, as Anita Gates puts it in a detailed obituary in the New York Times, “was an omnipresent figure in the Off-Broadway world for decades.”

At the time of his passing, Blum was an acting teacher at HB Studio in New York City.

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Lucia Bosè, the Italian actress, who appeared in more than 50 movies including Fellini’s “Satyricon,” died March 23 at age 89. Spanish reports said she died of pneumonia and was infected with COVID-19.

UK film critic Leonardo Goi tweeted, “I had a chance to revisit Marguerite Duras’ NATHALIE GRANGER not too long ago. Today, Lucia Bosè – who in the film stars opposite Jeanne Moreau and a super young Gérard Depardieu – died of coronavirus.”

Lucia found fame after winning the Miss Italia competition in 1947, at just 16 years of age. Before starting in films in 1950, she worked for several years in her family’s pastry shop, Pasticceria Galli, in Milan.

She known for playing played detached, ethereal beauties in movies such as The Lady Without Camelias (1953), Story of a Love Affair(1950) and Fellini Satyricon (1969). She was married to Luis Miguel Dominguín.

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The African jazz-funk saxophone legend died of coronavirus on March 24. He was 86. Manu Dibango was born in Cameroon and moved to Paris at 15.

A pioneer of “world music” in the 70’s, and a leader in the Afro jazz movement, Dibango was best known for the 1972 hit “Soul Makossa.”

It was the B-side of a recording made to support the Cameroon soccer team in the Africa Cup of Nations, but it went on to score radio play by influential New York DJs.

It exploded on the world stage  after being sampled by Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones on “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin‘,” as well as songs by Will Smith, Kanye West, Rihanna and A Tribe Called Quest.

In the end, the singer and saxophonist died of complications from the coronavirus in a hospital near Paris. 

His Facebook page carried the following announcement: “It is with deep sadness that we announce the loss of Manu Dibango, our Papy Groove, who passed away on 24th of March 2020, at 86 years old, further to covid 19. His funeral service will be held in strict privacy, and a tribute to his memory will be organized when possible.

If you wish to express your condolences, please write to the following email: [email protected].”

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The man known as “Japan’s Robin Williams” (although his style of comedy was closer to Monty Python) has died one week after testing positive for the new coronavirus.

Ken Shimura became the first Japanese celebrity to announce his infection, and the first the die from it.

The beloved comedian was hospitalized on March 20 after developing a fever and being diagnosed with pneumonia.  He was diagnosed with COVID-19 on the 23rd and succumbed to it on March 27.

Shimura’s passing sent a wave of sadness through multiple generations of Japanese society. A representative from Shimura’s agency said, “I am sure he was working hard with a sense of mission to deliver laughter to people. I don’t think he imagined he would die a death like this.”

Shimura was to begin work on a movie in April. He was set to run the Tokyo Olympic torch relay representing his hometown of Higashimurayama in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics until they were postponed to 2021.

Tributes poured-in and reflected his cross-generational appeal, especially since some of his classic routines are available to watch on YouTube, including everything from the crude “Fart Duel“, to one of his best-known bits as an English teacher.

Ken Shimura’s foray into comedy came into the public eye in the early 70s as part of a rock band-turned comedy troupe The Drifters. Patrick St. Michel, a contributing writer for “the japan times” has crafted a detailed overview of Shimura’s career progression and the influence of his subsequent entertainment legacy on the people of Japan.

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British actor and filmmaker Idris Elba and his wife, model and activist Sabrina Dhowre Elba have recovered from COVID-19 infection, and have been named as U.N. Goodwill Ambassadors for IFAD (the International Fund for Agricultural Development).

The celebrity couple helped to launch a new fundraising appeal set up by the U.N. agency on Monday to help farmers in poorer nations, calling on richer economies to provide aid to prevent “needless hunger and suffering” caused by COVID-19 triggering a global food crisis.

Seeded with an initial $40 million dollars from IFAD, and hoping to raise at least 200 million dollars more from governments, foundations and the private sector, the new fund aims to counter the effects of the pandemic on food production, market access and employment in developing countries.

In December, the Elbas visited rural Sierra Leone, where IFAD provided financial services to communities hit by Ebola.

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From the National Defense Radio Show: 

The National Defense is thrilled to welcome back to the show, a friend of veterans, soldiers, and their families, Tom Hanks!

In his first public interview since returning home and recovering from the Coronavirus alongside his wife, Rita Wilson, Tom discusses with Randy Miller his experience with the virus, his thoughts on where America will stand in the coming months, and also shares some great stories.

Thanks to Tom Hanks for all he does for veterans and their families. We’re thrilled to have you on the show, back home safe, and healthy!

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For many who beat COVID-19, their recovery doesn’t end after leaving the hospital.

NBC News’ Gadi Schwartz hears from coronavirus survivors, including those who are now even more inspired to help others.

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UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has thanked the NHS “for saving my life” after he was discharged from hospital following treatment in intensive care for Covid-19 infection.

He paid particular tribute to two nurses – one from New Zealand and one from Portugal – “who stood by my bedside for 48 hours when things could have gone either way”.

The prime minister added, “the efforts of millions of people across this country to stay home are worth it . . . together we will overcome this challenge, as we have overcome so many challenges in the past. “

Downing Street has said the Prime Minister “continues to make good progress” in his recovery from Covid-19 at PM’s country home Chequers.

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In an exclusive interview, P!nk had a candid conversation with Ellen Degeneres about what it’s been like since both she and her 3-year-old son Jameson contracted COVID-19, and how it’s the scariest thing she’s been through in her life.

The pop star talked about symptoms they had and didn’t have, how we can be superheroes just by staying home and helping others, and using her platform as a public figure not only to donate to funds fighting the pandemic, but by urging people to take the situation seriously and continue to have hope for the future.

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In a series of videos on Instagram, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, the wife of Canada’s Prime Minister says she has been given a ‘clear bill of health’ from health officials, after having tested positive for COVID-19 infection.

She was diagnosed after returning from the WE charity event that was held in London on March 4. At the time, she posed for a photo with actor Idris Elba (seen in the following column), who has since, also tested positive for C19.

Grégoire Trudeau thanked Canadians for their support and offered encouragement to get through the pandemic.

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Days after posing for a photo at the WE charity event in London with Canada’s “First Lady” Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, actor Idris Elba learned the Prime Minister’s wife had tested positive for C19.

While he didn’t show any symptoms, Elba posted a video on Twitter explaining why he decided to get tested, which turned out positive. His wife, Sabrina Dhowre, has also since tested positive for C19 and in a subsequent Twitter post that follows, Elba says they are doing ok.

The 47-year-old actor, also shut down rumors and conspiracy theories claiming that he and other celebrities have been paid to say that they have been infected by the COVID-19 virus.

He also addressed criticism that he got tested even though he didn’t have any symptoms, “I think the debate about rich and poor and who’s getting it and who’s not, I think, is not a healthy debate. It’s like, I got a test but I also got COVID. Does that make me preferential? I don’t understand that . . . I think that the negativity around test-shaming is counterproductive.”

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