Even more Game of Thrones is coming — and no, it's not The Winds of Winter.
A stage show based on Game of Thrones is in the works, with plans for productions in New York City, London, and Australia, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show is set to take place 16 years before the events of the series at Westeros' Great Tourney at Harrenhal, a competition that numerous established characters including Ned Stark and Jaime Lannister attended.
Author George R.R. Martin is developing the story, with playwright Duncan MacMillan and director Dominic Cooke also on board. The show's official description promises to take "audiences deeper behind the scenes of a landmark event that previously was shrouded in mystery," featuring "many of the most iconic and well-known characters from the series."
This is just the latest expansion of the Game of Thrones franchise in addition to multiple prequels in the works at HBO, and Martin recently signed a five-year overall deal for more projects with the network. The franchise will be following a similar path as Harry Potter, which also headed to Broadway with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
The Thrones stage show is reportedly launching in 2023. Meanwhile, the final two books in the series have still yet to be published, leaving open the possibility we'll see an avalanche of tie-in movies, shows, musicals, and theme park rides before the actual original original source material is even completed. Brendan Morrow
The World Health Organization on Tuesday released a report on the origins of the novel coronavirus that sparked the ongoing pandemic and how it may have first spread to humans.
There were no hard conclusions, but the report, drafted by a 34-member team of Chinese scientists and international experts who searched for clues in Wuhan, China, dismissed the theory that the virus may have first jumped to humans as a result of a laboratory accident as "extremely unlikely." However, in what The New York Times described as "an unexpected move," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the question deserves another look.
"I do not believe that this assessment was extensive enough ... although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist experts, which I am ready to deploy," Tedros said in prepared remarks during a briefing of member states.
The consensus in the scientific community still seems to be that the virus jumped from bats to an intermediary species that infected a human in nature, perhaps at a wet market, but there is a growing minority that believes the accidental lab leak theory deserves at least serious consideration. Read more at The New York Times and check out Tedros' full remarks here. Tim O'Donnell
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) may be eying an exit from Congress — and an entrance at Newsmax.
The Republican lawmaker has been telling confidants he's "seriously considering" not running for re-election and maybe even not finishing his current term in Congress so he can take a job at the conservative network Newsmax, Axios reported on Tuesday.
Gaetz, the report says, has told allies "he's interested in becoming a media personality," and he has reportedly been in early discussions with Newsmax about a possible position there. Newsmax has been seeking to compete with Fox News, especially as some conservatives have complained that Fox hasn't been sufficiently loyal to former President Donald Trump and criticized the network's 2020 election projections.
There may be a slight complication in this plan, though, as The New York Times' Michael M. Grynbaum was quick to point out that if Gaetz takes this job at Newsmax, "he'd be blackballed at Fox News," meaning should he make this move, he may "end up with less influence than he has now." Brendan Morrow
Joseph Stiglitz, one of the world's most renowned economists, thinks his colleague, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, is overreacting about the potential risks of President Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus plan.
In an op-ed published by The Washington Post in February, Summers wrote that the relief package, which was signed into law earlier this month, was "admirably ambitious," but warned it could lead to "inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation." Summers later doubled down on his position during a conversation with another famous economist, Paul Krugman, arguing the American Rescue Plan goes "way beyond what's necessary" to help victims of the pandemic.
But Stiglitz, a proponent of the stimulus, told Axios that Summers "didn't really think through what he was saying" about inflation. That's because, in Stiglitz's view, "we've been in a long period where we've been facing [a] lack of aggregate demand at the national and global level." Therefore, there's actually "an awful lot of scope to increase demand," allowing people to spend their extra money from the stimulus without overheating the economy, Stiglitz argued. He added that he finds Summers' fears ironic given that he has talked about "secular stagnation" himself, implying increased demand would be welcome. Read more at Axios. Tim O'Donnell
As COVID-19 vaccines continue rolling out throughout the United States, a new poll suggests vaccine hesitancy is on the decline.
In a Census Bureau survey conducted in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17 percent of adults said they definitely or probably wouldn't get vaccinated against COVID-19, a decline from 22 percent in January, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The decline was more prominent among those who said they "probably" would not get vaccinated, as 13 percent said as much in January compared to nine percent in March. Eight percent of respondents said they "definitely" won't get the vaccine, down only one point from nine percent in January.
The poll also breaks down the responses by state, and though hesitancy was highest in the South, there were notable declines in Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina, the Journal notes. Among Black Americans, 22 percent said they probably or definitely wouldn't get the vaccine, down from 34 percent in January.
Meanwhile, a separate poll released by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed 13 percent of respondents said they will "definitely not" get vaccinated. Among Republicans and white evangelical Christians, almost 30 percent said they wouldn't get the vaccine. The poll also showed, though, that 55 percent of Black adults either had received their vaccine or soon planned to do so, which was up 14 percentage points from February.
The Census Bureau's latest survey spoke with almost 80,000 U.S. adults between March 3 and March 15. Read more at The Wall Street Journal. Brendan Morrow
Republicans in Kentucky overrode a veto of a bill that would let a GOP committee pick the options for a temporary replacement of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), should he retire before completing his term.
The Kentucky legislature on Monday overrode Gov. Andy Beshear's (D) veto of Senate Bill 228, which "restricts his ability to fill any vacancies that arise if one of the state's U.S. senators dies or leaves office early," the Louisville Courier Journal reports.
As the report explains, the governor of Kentucky has previously been able to pick anyone from either party to temporarily complete the rest of a senator's term when there's a vacancy. But under Senate Bill 228, the governor is required to pick a replacement of the same political party as the senator departing and also choose from a list of three options provided by the executive committee from that senator's state party. The bill was "designed to ensure the governor can't appoint a Democrat to what's likely to be a safe seat for Republicans," the Louisville Courier Journal explains.
McConnell himself backed the bill, which led to some speculation that he could retire before his new six-year term is completed, though the lead sponsor of SB 228 said McConnell isn't planning his retirement, according to the report. Beshear has criticized the bill, saying it "delegates the power to select a representative to an unelected, unaccountable political committee that only represents a fraction of Kentuckians, when a senator is supposed to represent all of us." Read more at the Louisville Courier Journal. Brendan Morrow