Catherine O'Hara, the award-winning actress best known for her roles in "Home Alone," "Beetlejuice," and "Schitt's Creek," died on January 30, 2026, at the age of 71, following a brief illness. The news sent shockwaves through Hollywood and beyond, prompting emotional tributes from colleagues and fans alike.
O'Hara portrayed the exuberant matriarch Moira Rose on the Canadian sitcom "Schitt's Creek" from 2015 to 2020, starring alongside Eugene Levy, Dan Levy, and Annie Murphy. The cast of "Schitt's Creek" reacted to O'Hara's death with profound sadness, saying "It's hard to imagine a world without her in it," according to Variety.
Michael Keaton, Christopher Guest, and other prominent figures also remembered O'Hara in emotional tributes, calling her "one of the comic giants of our age," Variety reported.
O'Hara began her career in comedy and was known for seamlessly blending humor, drama, and emotionality into her performances. Her iconic films and television shows, including "Second City Television" and "The Studio," are available for streaming online, according to Variety.
In other news, the federal government is poised to enter a partial shutdown just after midnight on Friday, Time reported. Lawmakers from both parties expect the lapse to last only through the weekend. The expected shutdown comes even as the Senate was moving Friday evening to pass a bipartisan spending package that would keep most of the government funded through the end of the fiscal year while buying two more weeks to negotiate new limits on the Administrations immigration enforcement tactics. With the House out of session until Monday, lawmakers acknowledged there was no practical way to send the bill to President Donald Trump before the deadline, making a short shutdown all but unavoidable. The pressure now shifts to the House, where lawmakers will have to decide whether to swiftly ratify the Senate plan.
Meanwhile, in California, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom filed a civil rights complaint against Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Time reported. Newsom's complaint alleges that Oz made baseless and racially charged allegations against the Armenian community in Los Angeles in a video posted on January 27, accusing Armenian crime groups of being responsible for health care fraud. "My office is filing a civil rights complaint seeking an investigation into Dr. Oz's baseless and racist allegations against Armenian Americans in California," Newsom said, according to Time. The complaint was addressed to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Also this week, the family drama "Take Me Home," directed by Liz Sargent, premiered at Sundance, Variety reported. The film, which won an award at the festival, intimately portrays two adopted daughters grappling with the realities of aging parents and disability.
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