Mariah Carey can officially shake off some of her legal woes. The singer has settled the $3 million lawsuit levied against her ex-assistant, Lianna “Azarian” Shakhnazarian, for alleged trying to blackmail her.
The lawsuit, which was filed in 2019, was closed out on Wednesday by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Andrew Borrok, who simply wrote “Case settled,” Page Six reports. The terms of the settlement were not made public.
Carey, 51, accused her former assistant, who was fired in 2017, of betrayal and blackmail — claiming that Shakhnazarian secretly filmed her during personal activities and then threatened to release them if she didn’t pay her $8 million. The pop star also claimed that a non-disclosure agreement that Shakhnazarian signed when she was hired in 2015 was violated.
(NEW YORK) — You may have noticed that prices for some goods at the grocery store are going up. But now, there’s another type of inflation that consumers should be on the lookout for — it’s called “shrinkflation.”
The term has be coined by experts to describe when manufacturers shrink package sizes but make shoppers pay the same price. And, they warn, the practice is on the rise.
ABC News’ Becky Worley appeared on Good Morning America Thursday to let consumers know what to look out for:
Angela Bassett, who played Chadwick Boseman‘s onscreen mother in Black Panther, wasn’t able to reveal much about the movie’s upcoming sequel, Wakanda Forever, but did promise that the film will honor the late actor.
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, Bassett — who plays Ramonda, the mother of Boseman’s character, King T’Challa, aka Black Panther — revealed just how much work and detail is being poured into the sequel, the production of which has just begun.
“There have been about five incarnations of the script and I hear another one’s coming,” she disclosed. Because of the current fluid state of the plot, Bassett said of the movie, “I don’t know what it’s going to look like at all.”
However, Bassett assured fans the film will honor Boseman.
“Of course, with our dear king going on to glory, a lot of things had to be shifted and changed, so thankfully, Ryan [Coogler] and Joe Robert Cole, they’re just such masterful storytellers that they’ve found a way into this world,” Bassett promised. “And, hopefully it will be satisfying, I think, for the fans and it will be honorable of our Chad. We love our king.”
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige announced last year that the role of T’Challa would not be recast following Boseman’s death in August at age 43 after a private battle with cancer. Instead, Feige vowed Wakanda Forever would focus on “furthering the mythology and the inspiration of Wakanda.”
The sequel is slated to premiere in theaters a year from today — July 8, 2022.
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
(NOTE LANGUAGE)Jada Pinkett Smith is opening up her previous struggles with drugs and alcohol — including being high while working on a comedy classic film.
During Wednesday’s episode of Red Table Talk, the 49-year-old co-host, who’s been candid about her lifelong struggles with substance abuse, revealed her own personal “eye-opening incident” that occurred while filming the 1996 comedy The Nutty Professor, which starred Eddie Murphy.
“So I wasn’t the type of person that was drinking every day. You know, I was, like, a weekend party girl,” Jada began, explaining that she would party from Thursday to Monday mornings.
Smith’s mother and co-host, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, then asked if her partying schedule ever “interfered with your being able to go to work.”
“I had one incident,” Smith confessed. “That was an eye-opening incident for me as well. I had one incident on Nutty Professor. I passed out. Makeup trailer,” she admitted. “I went to work high, and it was a bad batch of ecstasy.”
“I told everybody that I had taken — I must’ve had old medication in a vitamin bottle. That’s what I said. But I tell you what I did though. Got my a** together and got on that set,” Smith added. “That was the last time.”
Lil Nas X is revealing more about what led him to kiss one of his male backup dancers during his 2021 BET Awards performance.
Speaking with the OHP Uncut podcast, the 22-year-old Grammy winner, who is openly gay, discussed the controversial end to his BET performance of “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” and revealed it was not a spur-of-the-moment call.
“I feel like it’s what needed to be done,” remarked Lil Nas X. “Because it’s easy to just hug a guy, but I feel like if you kiss the guy, you get straight to the point. I really sugarcoat the performance, and it gets the job done.”
The rapper said the inspiration for the kiss struck in May when he guested on Saturday Night Live, where he also performed his number-one hit. Lil Nas X revealed the dancer he kissed at the BET Awards was the one who licked his neck during his SNL performance.
The “Old Town Road” singer said he broached the idea to the dancer, recalling, “I was like, ‘Hey, what if we kissed in this one?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, sure.'”
Despite the public backlash, Lil Nas X said he cared more about his family’s reaction to the kiss, and revealed they were super supportive.
“My family had no idea it was about to happen, but they loved it,” he grinned. “I think one of my sisters, I forgot exactly what she said… She was like, ‘Wow, you absolutely murdered that.’ She was like, ‘The best performance of the night, not just saying that.'”
According to TMZ, only three FCC complaints were filed about the kiss — compared to Jennifer Lopez and Shakira‘s 2020 Super Bowl halftime show, which received over 1,000 complaints.
(NEW YORK) — It was more than 90 degrees in Moranda Rasmussen’s Portland, Oregon, apartment during a historic heat wave late last month when the 27-year-old began to panic. They have cerebral palsy and depression and rely on Supplemental Security Income while they work on their degree.
They said they couldn’t afford an air conditioner and couldn’t charge their electric wheelchair battery because it could easily overheat. Taking antidepressants also wasn’t an option, because it makes it difficult to regulate their body temperature.
Rasmussen said they were left scrambling for a solution to escape the searing heat, which reached a high of 115 degrees. In Portland, the average high temperature in June is around 74 degrees.
“We don’t get temperatures like that in the Pacific Northwest,” Rasmussen said. “I was just really frantic. What if we have more days like this? When am I going to be able to take my medication again? When am I going to be able to charge my wheelchair again?”
With heat waves battering the Northwest and Northeast and heatwave season extending and intensifying, people with disabilities like Rasmussen are preparing for the worst. Though climate change is impacting communities across the globe, experts say disabled people will likely be adversely affected by global weather extremes, including events where evacuation is needed.
It is unclear how many of the 106 people who are believed to have died due to the heat wave in Oregon were disabled. In Multnomah County, many of those who died were found alone and without air conditioning or a fan, according to the county medical examiner. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of the people who die from hyperthermia-related causes, when the body is unable to cool itself, had an underlying cardiovascular condition.
Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury has since demanded that local agencies work to open three 24-hour cooling centers and nine cooling spaces, reach out to seniors, people with disabilities and pregnant women directly, and coordinate with 60 outreach groups focused on people without housing or shelter.
Rasmussen, along with climate and disability activists, is calling on policymakers to not only remember disabled residents in their emergency plans but to turn the tide on climate change in an effort to mitigate the plights of people with disabilities in the future.
“Disabled people are the first people to be set aside,” Rasmussen said. “A lot of policy around disabled folks needs to change.”
1 in 4 adults in the US
In a study by the United Nations, the organization affirmed that climate change will continue to have direct and indirect impacts on the human rights of people with disabilities. In climate emergencies, disabled people disproportionately experience higher rates of morbidity and mortality, and are typically the least able to access emergency support, the study said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a disability as any mental or physical condition that makes it “more difficult for the person with the condition to do certain activities” or “interact with the world around them.” Some 61 million adults, or 1 in 4, have a disability in the United States, and roughly one billion people across the globe have some kind of disability.
The diverse population includes people with mental illnesses, chronic health conditions, physical or visual impairments and others.
“I cannot sweat to cool down my body — if it’s a very hot day, I don’t have that thermoregulation,” said Alex Ghenis, a disability and climate activist who founded Accessible Climate Strategies, a disability consulting organization, who has a severe spinal cord injury and lives in Oakland, California. “Anybody really with a cardiovascular or chronic health condition is going to be disproportionately affected by extreme heat events on the physiological level.”
However, the way that climate change affects people with disabilities is as diverse as the population.
“With folks experiencing the effects of wildfire smoke, a lot of disabilities have respiratory components to them,” Ghenis said. “Someone with asthma is going to have a hard time with smoke, and someone who uses a ventilator is going to have a hard time with the smoke.”
Director of the Disability Mobility Initiative Anna Zivarts said her organization aims to help people who don’t have transportation or accessible forms of public transportation to get around.
Transportation is vital to escaping wildfires, heading to a cooling shelter, stockpiling goods during an emergency, or getting to a health professional. Even when they arrive, many public facilities are inaccessible to people with mobility impairments, service animals and more.
Almost 14% of disabled people have a mobility disability, with serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs, according to the CDC.
Disabled people are also more likely to be impoverished and experience high unemployment rates, according to the National Council on Disability, an independent U.S. agency.
“Many folks in the disability community are poor,” Zivarts said. “So they can’t afford to flee, to relocate, to get air conditioners, to have a car, to hire an Uber. There’s so many reasons that people get trapped or stuck in situations that are really, really harmful.”
This often gives them a disadvantage when it comes to fighting, escaping, or living with the consequences of climate change.
A way forward
Climate activists, in agreement with the United Nations’ findings, recommend collaborations with leaders of the disability rights movement to create accessible and disability-inclusive solutions to climate change and emergency events.
“We are constantly having to move and live in a world that doesn’t exist for us,” Marlena Chertock said. “People are forced to create workarounds and build things that work for themselves and come up with creative solutions. So, there’s a lot that people could learn from people with disabilities.”
Columbia University’s Climate Adaptation Initiative states that protections for people with disabilities are essential in emergency planning and that as long as much of the country’s infrastructure remains inaccessible, it prioritizes the non-disabled and puts disabled people at risk.
Ghenis said that the solutions range from simple fixes — like, making emergency shelters accessible and providing quality public transportation — to structural changes that could lift disabled people out of poverty and ensure that they’re protected in an emergency.
Rasmussen went online to vent about their poor living conditions — and after their plea for help went viral, they were able to crowd-fund an air conditioner. They want lawmakers to know that disabled activists are prepared to hold them accountable.
“One of the biggest things that lawmakers and policymakers can do is really put pressure on these corporations to do better,” Rasmussen said. “Things definitely need to change.”
(NEW YORK) — Elsa is moving through the Carolinas on Thursday morning with heavy rain and gusty winds and winds currently at 40 mph making it a weak tropical storm which could weaken into a tropical depression anytime.
There have been four reported tornadoes in three states thanks to Elsa with Florida, Georgia and South Carolina all reporting damage.
Elsa is now moving up the East Coast with a tropical storm warning issued from Georgia to Massachusetts, including Boston.
Elsa is expected to move through the Carolinas Thursday with a tornado threat, flash flooding and gusty winds.
Later Thursday night, Elsa will move into the mid-Atlantic states and approach Long Island, New York by Friday morning with gusty winds of up to 40 to 50 mph possible across the region and heavy rain and flash flooding possible for major cities in the Northeast, including Philadelphia, New York City and Boston.
The highest winds gusts will be along the coast from the Jersey Shore to eastern Long Island and into Cape Cod, Massachusetts and coastal Maine.
Elsa will then move into coastal New England in the late morning on Friday and will be out of the United States and into Canada by Friday night.
A flash flood watch has also been issued from North Carolina to Maine due to all of the heavy rain forecast in a short period of time across the region.
A tornado watch will also continue Thursday morning for South and North Carolina all the way from Charleston to Wilmington.
Some areas in the Northeast could see up to 5 inches of rain with heavy rain bands from Elsa starting Thursday night into Friday morning as flash flooding is expected along the I-95 corridor.
(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Elsa is now charging up the East Coast after making landfall along Florida’s Gulf Coast Wednesday, causing at least one death and miles of destruction, according to officials.
Elsa made landfall at about 11 a.m. Wednesday in Taylor County, in Florida’s Big Bend region.
Elsa, which slammed Florida and Georgia with gusty winds and heavy rain, strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane Tuesday night before weakening back to a tropical storm before landfall.
The storm churned two tornadoes Wednesday evening and tornado watches were issued from Jacksonville, Florida, to Charleston, South Carolina, Wednesday night.
One person was killed after a tornado was reported in Jacksonville, according to Mayor Lenny Curry. A tree fell on the victim when the storm swept through the city, Curry said.
Curry said there were no other major injuries reported as of Wednesday evening but several homes and businesses were damaged and over 11,000 households were without power.
“Just be ready,” he told the public.
A second tornado was reported to have caused serious damage at the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia. Photos and video showed motorhomes flipped on their sides and trees uprooted.
A spokesperson for the base told ABC News about 10 people were injured. None of the injuries are believed to be life-threatening, but they were serious enough to be transported off the base, according to the spokesperson.
Slow-moving bands of heavy rain along the Georgia coast triggered dangerous flash flooding. Central Glynn County reported between 3 to 6 inches of rain Wednesday evening.
A boat capsized near Key West as Elsa blew through on Tuesday, according to the Coast Guard. Nine people remain missing.
Elsa is now barreling up the East Coast, set to bring heavy rain and flash flooding from Georgia to Maine through Friday.
The latest path shows Elsa moving over Georgia Wednesday night, South Carolina Thursday morning and North Carolina Thursday night.
Elsa is forecast to weaken to a tropical depression by Thursday morning as it brings rain and wind to Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Wilmington.
By Thursday night Elsa will be blowing through Virginia, Maryland and Delaware with heavy rain, gusty winds and flooding. Elsa will hit New Jersey overnight Thursday into Friday.
On Friday morning, Elsa will head up the Interstate 95 corridor with heavy rain and gusty winds from New York City to Boston.
(NEW YORK) — The suspension of Sha’Carri Richardson, the sprinter who finished first in the 100-meter dash at the U.S. Olympic trials, over a failed drug test for marijuana has already sparked calls from advocates for a change within the international sports world.
Although the 21-year-old told reporters she used marijuana during the Olympic trials in Oregon, which has legalized the substance for recreational use, as a way to cope with the loss of her birth mother, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency suspended her for 30 days citing the World Anti-Doping Agency’s ban on cannabis.
Marijuana legalization advocates said Richardson’s case should propel the U.S. to urge international sports leaders to take a hard look at the association’s rules and the reasoning behind them.
“America is the birthplace of harsh cannabis policies and like many things we exported it around the world,” Matthew Schweich, the deputy director of the nonprofit group the Marijuana Policy Project, told ABC News. “There’s a lot that needs to be undone.”
However, Schweich and other experts warned that this battle will be a marathon and not a sprint due to the rest of the world’s strict policies on marijuana use.
“I don’t think you’ll see the world community will flip a switch [on cannabis rules] just because the United States says it’s legal,” Mark Conrad, the director of the sports business program at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, told ABC News.
Cannabis has been on the WADA list of banned substances since 2004. A substance is banned by the association if it meets two out of three criteria: “potential to or enhances sport performance”; “actual or potential risk to health” and “against the spirit of sport.” Athletes can apply for a “therapeutic use exemption” with a doctor’s approval if they need medical cannabis.
In 2011, WADA published a paper in Sports Medicine explaining why marijuana fit all three criteria. As a performance enhancer, the paper stated the substance “reduces anxiety, allowing athletes to better perform under pressure.” For risk to health, the paper said marijuana causes “slower reaction times and poor executive function or decision making.” And as a sign of it being against the spirit of sport the paper said it’s “not consistent with the athlete as a role model for young people around the world.”
Schweich said that the organization’s reasoning is hypocritical given that alcohol and nicotine are permitted by WADA even though they have similar effects on the body.
“The World Anti-Doping Agency is supposed to stop doping,” he said. “Sha’Carri Richardson’s marijuana use has nothing to do with doping.”
Schweich said WADA’s research on cannabis’ effect on performance is questionable given other studies in recent years. A 2018 study published in The Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine found “no evidence for cannabis use as a performance-enhancing drug.”
The paper’s researchers looked at data from previous studies on cannabis in sports dating as far back as the 1960s. They did not take into account the number of participants in each previous study nor the magnitude of effect within each individual study when making their conclusions.
“Medical and nonmedical cannabis use among athletes reflects changing societal and cultural norms and experiences,” researchers wrote in their conclusion.
Dr. Niteesh Bharara, a sports medicine and regenerative medicine physician at the Virginia Spine Institute, told ABC News that some of his athletes use marijuana for recovery. Cannabis mostly helps those patients with pain and modulating spasms, he said.
“Now, I don’t see it as a performance-enhancing drug, though. It has no evidence that it does actually improve performance,” Bharara told ABC News.
Conrad said Richardson’s case wasn’t the first time WADA’s rules have come up for debate. He noted there are many medications on the banned substance list that have been questioned by athletes and coaches, such as legal decongestants and cold medicines.
However, when it came to cannabis, Conrad, who teaches law and ethics, said there is a bigger hill to climb since almost all countries, including Olympic host nation Japan, have deemed the substance illegal for any use.
“The system is an international system and the U.S. is really just a small part of that,” he said.
Conrad said WADA will likely amend its rules on cannabis as more places legalize the substance, but that move will take time and more calls from world leaders.
Still, Richardson’s situation has sparked some calls for change from prominent American leaders and organizations. Last week, when asked about her suspension, President Joe Biden told reporters that the “rules were the rules,” but added, “whether those should remain … is a different issue.”
In announcing that Richardson would not be going to Tokyo, the U.S. Track and Field team said its athletes “must adhere to the current anti-doping code,” but also said “that the merit of the World Anti-Doping Agency rules related to THC should be reevaluated.”
Schweich said he’s disappointed that the president hasn’t taken more action to defend Richardson and protest WADA’s policy. He noted that the argument would be stronger if there was a national change to the marijuana laws.
“Federal reform sends a powerful message to the world,” he said.
Schweich reiterated that the federal government will have to address the issue soon as more states legalize the substance.
As of July 7, 18 states and the District of Columbia allow for recreational and medicinal marijuana for adults. In the last year, seven states have legalized it through voter referendums or legislative action.
In the meantime, Schweich said Richardson’s plight has resonated with a lot of Americans who have lived through personal losses and turned to cannabis for relief.
“Sometimes it takes real lives and real stories to shift people’s opinion,” he said.
(TERRE HAUTE, Ind.) — An FBI Task Force officer and 30-year police department veteran was shot and killed in the line of duty Wednesday after being ambushed outside an FBI building in Indiana, police say.
The incident occurred at approximately 2:15 p.m. local time, when FBI Task Force officer Greg Ferency was “ambushed and fatally shot” at the FBI Indianapolis Resident Agency in Terre Haute, Indiana, according to a statement from FBI Indianapolis Special Agent Paul Keenan.
Ferency had been an FBI Task Force officer since 2010 and was a 30-year veteran of the Terre Haute Police Department.
Authorities said another FBI agent was able to shoot the alleged gunman involved in the ambush. The suspect was subsequently taken into police custody and is now receiving medical attention at a local hospital.
“We want to extend our deepest sympathy to TFO Ferency’s family, friends and fellow officers,” Keenan continued in his statement.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb called Ferency’s death “senseless” in a statement on Twitter.
“The tragic events that unfolded today are senseless. Our heart breaks for Detective Greg Ferency’s family, loved ones and those who served with him every day protecting the residents of the Wabash Valley,” Holcomb said. “[My wife] and I are thinking of the Terre Haute Police Department, the community and Detective Ferency’s family as I know they will be steadfast in honoring his life, service and dedication to the residents of Vigo County.”
Indiana Sen. Mike Braun also tweeted about the tragedy and called on the public to keep Ferency’s family and colleagues in their prayers.
“Terre Haute PD Officer Greg Ferency was killed today in the line of duty doing what he has done for 30 years: selflessly protecting and serving his community. Please keep his family and fellow officers in your prayers, and all those who wear the badge,” said Braun.
Indiana Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch also expressed her condolences in a statement obtained by ABC News’ Indianapolis affiliate WRTV.
“I want to send my heartfelt prayers to Terre Haute and Hoosier law enforcement across Indiana, after learning of the violent and careless assault on Terre Haute Police Detective Greg Ferency,” said Crouch. “Attacks on the brave men and women who answer the call to be our heroes and protect our citizens and state will not be tolerated. Detective Ferency was an honorable servant, who kept drugs off our streets and partnered with federal authorities to defend Hoosiers and his community. I am keeping Ferency’s family and those who worked side by side with him during his 30 years of service in my thoughts as we come together to honor his commitment to making Indiana a safer place.”
The shooting is now under investigation by the FBI’s Inspection Division in accordance with FBI police.
“The review process is thorough and objective and is conducted as expeditiously as possible under the circumstances,” said Keenan.
