(NEW YORK) — A taste of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is coming to the menu at McDonald’s with a new item inspired by the highly-anticipated Black Panther sequel.
Starting Thursday, a new Happy Meal with superhero toys based on characters from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be available for a limited time nationwide.
There are 10 characters from the movie available in the exclusive new Happy Meals, including fan favorites like Shuri, Okoye and newcomers like Namor and Ironheart. Customers can get their hands on one of the new Happy Meals at participating restaurants nationwide, while supplies last.
Jennifer Healan, vice president of U.S. marketing, brand content and engagement at McDonald’s, said in a statement that the first Black Panther film “set a whole new standard for representation on the big screen. And now, we’re excited to bring that experience to our restaurants and help fans see and celebrate their inner hero with this new Happy Meal — because seeing is believing.”
“The Happy Meal has brought millions of smiles to our customers for decades, and we’re excited to collaborate with Disney and give our fans one more way to experience the kingdom of Wakanda,” the company said in a press release.
Marvel is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News and Good Morning America.
(NEW YORK) — The top executives of three civil rights groups are demanding a meeting with new Twitter owner Elon Musk following what they say has been a rise in racial and religious hatred on the social media platform.
The groups are asking for Musk to have “strong content moderation standards that foster a safe and healthy online environment.”
In a joint letter sent to Musk on Wednesday, the heads of the NAACP, Urban League and National Action Network say they are “alarmed by the rise in white supremacist propaganda and racial and religious hatred on the Twitter platform over the weekend.”
The civil rights groups say the purpose of their request is to “address our concerns and better understand your content moderation plan to protect our communities against abuse on Twitter by those who seek not simply to express controversial views, but who seek to harm us and undermine our democracy.”
They went on, “And as we have seen over the last several years, online behavior has offline impact, including leading to violence and harassment online and otherwise.”
Separately, NAACP President Derrick Johnson met with Musk on Tuesday “to express our grave concerns with the dangerous, life-threatening hate and conspiracies that have proliferated on Twitter under his watch,” according to an NAACP statement.
Johnson said, “Nazi memes, racial slurs, and extreme far-right propaganda do not belong in the ‘town square’ of any democracy or online platform. Taking the necessary actions is not rocket science, but failing to do so will put human lives at risk and further unravel our democracy.”
Noting the upcoming midterm elections, Johnson said he believes “it is critical that Twitter’s existing election integrity policies remain in effect until at the very least after the midterm elections have been certified.”
A new study from Montclair State University showed a dramatic increase in hate speech on Twitter immediately following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform.
Musk acquired the platform on Oct. 27 and promised to reduce Twitter’s content restrictions to promote free speech. He also said a “content moderation council” will be formed to review company policies.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement when the deal was announced.
A spokesperson for Twitter did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — Starbucks is officially in holiday mode with the return of its iconic red cups and special holiday menu.
Starting Thursday, Nov. 3, Starbucks will celebrate the return of holiday beverages and festive food, as well as 25 years of the holiday cups.
The coffee chain first rolled out the cups, initially designed by Sandy Nelson in 1997, to signify the arrival of the holiday season. This year, the classic red and Starbucks green colors have accents of mint and sparkles as a nod to the Peppermint Mocha, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Additional fan favorites back on the holiday menu include the Caramel Brulée Latte, Chestnut Praline Latte, Toasted White Chocolate Mocha, Irish Cream Cold Brew, and returning for the second year, the nondairy Iced Sugar Cookie Almondmilk Latte.
The pastry case is also getting the festive treatment for the season with a brand new Chocolate Pistachio Swirl and the return of Reindeer Cake Pops, Sugar Plum Cheese Danish, Cranberry Bliss Bars and Snowman Cookies.
Starbucks is also debuting its annual limited-edition holiday merch lineup, which features an array of colorful cold cups, tumblers, mugs and more in a variety of holiday designs.
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it was raising its short-term borrowing rate another 0.75% to slow key areas of the economy and tame inflation, which is at a 40-year high.
The central bank said its new target range is 3.75%-4%, the highest level since January 2008.
The aggressive move is the latest in a string of borrowing cost increases imposed by the Fed in recent months as it tries to slash price increases by cooling the economy and choking off demand. The approach, however, risks tipping the U.S. into a recession and putting millions out of work.
The fourth rate hike of 2022 also arrives less than a week before the midterm elections.
“Russia’s war against Ukraine is causing tremendous human and economic hardship. The war and related events are creating additional upward pressure on inflation and are weighing on global economic activity. The Committee is highly attentive to inflation risks,” Fed officials said in a statement. “The Committee anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate in order to attain a stance of monetary policy that is sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to 2 percent over time.”
Data on consumer prices released last month showed that costs rose 0.4% on a seasonally adjusted basis in September, defying efforts to bring prices down. Consumer prices overall rose 8.2% over the 12 months ending in September, exceeding economists’ predictions.
The Federal Reserve is expected to raise the benchmark interest rate by 0.75%, repeating the same hike it imposed at each of the last three meetings, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. Prior to this year, the Fed last matched a hike of this magnitude in 1994.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on several occasions has reiterated the central bank’s commitment to bring inflation down to a target rate of 2%, saying in September the Fed expects to put forward “ongoing increases” to its benchmark interest rate.
The personal consumption expenditures price index – the inflation measure preferred by the Fed – stands at a year-over-year growth rate of 5.1%, government data showed last week.
“Powell has been very clear that inflation is unacceptably high and we have to stay the course to get it down,” Anne Villamil, an economist at Iowa University, told ABC News. “Markets have been a little hopeful that we could have a pause – I don’t see that happening.”
Despite persistent inflation, growing evidence suggests that the Fed’s moves have put the brakes on some economic activity.
Mortgage rates reached a 20-year high last week, as the U.S. faces an ongoing slowdown in home sales and housing construction.
Job growth has persisted at a strong rate but has shown signs of moderating.
U.S. employers added 263,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.5% from 3.7%, exceeding expectations and demonstrating the continued strength of the labor market.
But the total came in well below the typical jobs added over a given month in 2022. Monthly job growth has averaged 420,000 so far this year versus 562,000 per month in 2021, according to the Department of Labor.
Meanwhile, hires and quits fell slightly in September, suggesting that the demand for labor from employers has begun to ebb, government data released on Tuesday showed. The number of job openings, however, increased in September, a sign that the need for workers remains robust.
While some data points to an economic slowdown, a government report released last month showed significant economic growth over three months ending in September. U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.6% over that period; by contrast, economic activity shrank a combined 2.2% over the first six months of the year.
“We’re getting these very conflicting signals,” Villamil said. “That’s why the Fed has a tough job.”
(NEW YORK) — CBS and its senior leadership knew about multiple allegations of sexual assault against former chief executive Les Moonves but intentionally concealed them from shareholders, regulators and the public, according to an investigation by the New York attorney general’s office that alleged insider trading and violations of consumer protection law that are now part of a $30 million settlement.
A senior CBS executive who knew about the allegations, former chief communications officer Gil Schwartz, sold millions of dollars in company stock in the weeks before the allegations became public, the attorney general’s office said.
The network fired Moonves in December 2018 after two law firms conducted an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations. That triggered a lawsuit by shareholders who alleged CBS and some of its current and former executives made false statements or failed to disclose material information about how the company handles sexual harassment complaints in the workplace.
The attorney general’s investigation also accused a captain of the Los Angeles Police Department of “direct and repeated interference” and violating confidentiality rules when the captain informed CBS about one complaint against Moonves and worked with network executives to prevent the complaint from becoming public.
“Hopefully we can kill media from PD. Then figure [sic] what [Complainant #1] wants,” the attorney general’s office quoted a text message from Moonves as saying.
The New York attorney general’s office said it has referred the matter involving the LAPD captain to the California attorney general.
The LAPD released a statement Wednesday acknowledging the New York attorney general’s investigation “involving the actions of a former command officer of the Department while assigned as a Captain to Hollywood Division.”
“We are fully cooperating with the New York and California Attorney General offices and have also initiated an internal investigation regarding the conduct of the retired command officer as well as to identify any other member(s) of the organization that may have been involved,” the statement said.
LAPD Police Chief Michel Moore added, “What is most appalling is the alleged breach of trust of a victim of sexual assault, who is among the most vulnerable, by a member of the LAPD. This erodes the public trust and is not reflective of our values as an organization.”
According to the attorney general’s office, the same day an individual filed a confidential criminal sexual assault complaint against Moonves at an LAPD station in Hollywood, the former LAPD captain informed a CBS executive of the confidential complaint. The LAPD captain shared an unredacted police report with the executive, who shared it with Mr. Moonves and other executives at CBS, the AG’s investigation found.
The settlement requires Moonves and CBS to pay $30.5 million to shareholders. CBS must reform its human resources practices around sexual harassment and provide biannual reports to the attorney general’s office.
“CBS and Leslie Moonves’ attempts to silence victims, lie to the public, and mislead investors can only be described as reprehensible,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James. “As a publicly traded company, CBS failed its most basic duty to be honest and transparent with the public and investors. After trying to bury the truth to protect their fortunes, today CBS and Leslie Moonves are paying millions of dollars for their wrongdoing.”
As CBS tried to hide these allegations, the company authorized its former chief communications officer, Schwartz, who was one of the few people with information about the allegations and the LAPD police report, to sell his shares, the attorney general’s office said. Schwartz died in May 2020.
Six weeks before the first article about the allegations became public, Schwartz sold 160,709 shares of CBS stock at an average weighted price of $55.08 for a total of $8,851,852. The stock dropped 10.9% from the day before the news broke to the trading day after, according to the attorney general’s office.
“We have reached an agreement in principle to resolve the matter with the Investor Protection Bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s Office,” Paramount Global, CBS’s parent company, said in filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday. “The resolution includes no admission of liability or wrongdoing by the Company.
Moonves agreed to pay $2.5 million, and CBS will pay the rest of the settlement, according to a letter filed Wednesday with the federal judge in Manhattan handling the case.
Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — CVS Health on Wednesday said it had agreed to a $5 billion settlement designed to “substantially resolve” opioid lawsuits against the pharmacy chain.
“We are pleased to resolve these longstanding claims and putting them behind us is in the best interest of all parties, as well as our customers, colleagues and shareholders,” said Thomas Moriarty, CVS’s chief policy officer and general counsel, in a statement. “We are committed to working with states, municipalities and tribes, and will continue our own important initiatives to help reduce the illegitimate use of prescription opioids.”
The national settlement, which has been agreed to in principle, would resolve lawsuits brought by states and other governments, the company said. Some of those claims date back a decade or more. The settlement isn’t an “an admission of any liability or wrongdoing,” the company said.
CVS Health shares ticked up about 2.4% in premarket trading on Wednesday, as it released third-quarter results alongside the settlement announcement.
The settlement payments would be spread over a 10-year period beginning in 2023, depending on the number of governmental entities that agree to join the settlement. The parties are still determining the “non-monetary” terms to be included in the settlement, CVS said.
The payments would include about $4.9 billion to be paid to states, cities, counties and other political plaintiffs, CVS said. About $130 million would be paid to tribes, according to Wednesday’s statement.
(WASHINGTON) — Economists expect another jumbo-sized increase in borrowing costs when the Federal Reserve announces its interest rate decision on Wednesday. Mounting evidence suggests that previous rate hikes have slowed key areas of the economy but inflation remains highly elevated.
The move would mark the latest in a string of borrowing cost increases imposed by the Fed in recent months as it tries to slash price increases by cooling the economy and choking off demand. But the approach risks tipping the U.S. into a recession and putting millions out of work.
Arriving less than a week before the midterm elections, the rate hike would indicate that the central bank considers inflation a continued threat to the U.S. economy.
Data on consumer prices released last month showed that costs rose 0.4% on a seasonally adjusted basis in September, defying efforts to bring prices down. Consumer prices overall rose 8.2% over the 12 months ending in September, exceeding economists’ predictions.
The Federal Reserve is expected to raise the benchmark interest rate by 0.75%, repeating the same hike it imposed at each of the last three meetings, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. Prior to this year, the Fed last matched a hike of this magnitude in 1994. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on several occasions has reiterated the central bank’s commitment to bring inflation down to a target rate of 2%, saying in September the Fed expects to put forward “ongoing increases” to its benchmark interest rate.
The personal consumption expenditures price index — the inflation measure preferred by the Fed — stands at a year-over-year growth rate of 5.1%, government data showed last week.
“Powell has been very clear that inflation is unacceptably high and we have to stay the course to get it down,” Anne Villamil, an economist at Iowa University, told ABC News. “Markets have been a little hopeful that we could have a pause — I don’t see that happening.”
Despite persistent inflation, growing evidence suggests that the Fed’s moves have put the brakes on some economic activity.
Mortgage rates reached a 20-year high last week, as the U.S. faces an ongoing slowdown in home sales and housing construction.
Job growth has persisted at a strong rate but has shown signs of moderating.
U.S. employers added 263,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.5% from 3.7%, exceeding expectations and demonstrating the continued strength of the labor market.
But the total came in well below the typical jobs added over a given month in 2022. Monthly job growth has averaged 420,000 so far this year versus 562,000 per month in 2021, according to the Department of Labor.
Meanwhile, hires and quits fell slightly in September, suggesting that the demand for labor from employers has begun to ebb, government data released on Tuesday showed. The number of job openings, however, increased in September, a sign that the need for workers remains robust.
While some data points to an economic slowdown, a government report released last month showed significant economic growth over three months ending in September. U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.6% over that period; by contrast, economic activity shrank a combined 2.2% over the first six months of the year.
“We’re getting these very conflicting signals,” Villamil said. “That’s why the Fed has a tough job.”
(NEW YORK) — A new study from Montclair State University showed a dramatic increase in hate speech on Twitter immediately following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform.
Musk, who describes himself as a free speech absolutist, closed the deal on the platform on Thursday, Oct. 27. He said he promised to reduce Twitter’s content restrictions to promote free speech, yet no official changes have been made since the acquisition aside from the announcement of a to-be-formed “content moderation council” that will review company policies.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement when the deal was announced.
Some online have expressed concerns about what they see as a rise in misinformation and hate speech on one of the most popular social media sites.
Despite the lack of changes to content restrictions, some researchers say that a number users seemed to take Musk’s leadership as an open invitation to spread hate online.
Montclair State University researchers who studied how often certain homophobic, antisemitic and racial hate terms were used found no more than 84 tweets featuring hate terms were posted per hour when looking at the seven-day average before Musk acquired Twitter. This totals to just over 1,000 tweets in 12 hours.
On Oct. 28, in the first 12 hours following Musk’s acquisition, hate speech was tweeted an estimated 4,778 times, according to the report.
“The character of what Twitter will look like with Musk as the head remains speculative, despite his stated intentions,” the report reads. “What is not speculative, however, is the extent to which his date of formal acquisition was celebrated by racist and extremist users on the platform.”
The Montclair State researchers found that the potential number of times a term posted in Twitter could have been viewed was more than 3 million.
In similar research by the cyber research organization National Contagion Research Institute, the use of the N-word racial epithet skyrocketed by over 500% on the website on Oct. 28.
Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — A commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday called on the U.S. government to ban social media platform TikTok over concerns about how the China-owned app handles the data of American users.
The remarks, made in an interview with Axios, come as the fast-growing app holds ongoing negotiations with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, about whether it can continue business in the U.S. if it is sold from Chinese parent company ByteDance to an American company.
Brendan Carr, one of five commissioners of the FCC, called on CFIUS to ban TikTok, citing the company’s alleged inability to secure the data of U.S.-based users.
There is not “a world in which you could come up with sufficient protection on the data that you could have sufficient confidence that it’s not finding its way back into the hands of the [Chinese Communist Party],” Carr told Axios.
The company told ABC News in a statement that Carr is not involved in negotiations with the U.S. government regarding the app.
“Commissioner Carr has no role in the confidential discussions with the U.S. government related to TikTok and appears to be expressing views independent of his role as an FCC commissioner,” said Brooke Oberwetter, a TikTok spokesperson.
“We are confident that we are on a path to reaching an agreement with the U.S. Government that will satisfy all reasonable national security concerns,” Oberwetter added.
The FCC did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on Carr’s statements.
The Biden administration and TikTok wrote up a preliminary agreement to address national security concerns posed by the app but obstacles remain in the negotiations, the New York Times reported in September.
TikTok says that it stores the data of U.S. users outside of China, and has never removed U.S. posts from the platform at the request of the Chinese government.
Recent news stories have called into question the security of user data.
Buzzfeed reported in June that TikTok engineers based in China gained access to intimate information on U.S. users, such as phone numbers. Forbes reported last month that ByteDance intended to use the app to access information on some users.
The Trump administration tried to ban TikTok in 2020, eventually calling on ByteDance to sell the app to a U.S. company. However, the sale never took place.
The remarks from Carr arrive less than a week before the midterm elections, after which a new Congress may take further steps to ban or limit the app.
(NEW YORK) — Midterm election results may come down to the price of a gallon of gas.
Roughly half of Americans say either the economy or inflation is the most important issue in their vote for Congress, making bread-and-butter financial issues by far the most dominant in the lead-up to the midterm elections, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday.
Meanwhile, research has established a relationship between gas prices and presidential approval ratings that reaches back decades, despite the limited control that presidents exert over fuel costs, experts told ABC News. Presidential approval ratings, in turn, mark a key indicator of midterm success or failure for the party in control of the White House, they said.
After reaching a summer peak, gas prices declined for about 100 consecutive days, buoying Biden’s approval rating. But a price spike in early October weighed on his approval.
Over the last few weeks, prices have returned to a steady decline – though they remain elevated – leaving an open question about whether consumers will recognize the trend and reward the Democrats or punish them for too little, too late.
“Swing voters will be deciding as they’re literally walking into the voting booth,” Colin McAuliffe, co-founder of left-leaning research firm Data for Progress, told ABC News.
The ubiquity of gas prices emblazoned on towering roadside signs can affect the financial attitude of those who do not even purchase gas. For those who do, filling up the tank offers a few minutes of repose with little to do but watch the price slowly add up, the experts said.
“People know their grocery bill has gone up but they can’t say necessarily how much the price of meat versus milk versus cereal has changed,” Laurel Harbridge-Yong, a professor of political science at Northwestern University who has studied the political implications of gas prices, told ABC News. “Gas is a very visible item and an item you buy one at a time, without bundling it with others.”
In 2016, a study in the academic journal Political Psychology examined the relationship between gas prices and presidential approval rating between the mid-1970s and mid-2000s, finding that elevated gas prices drove a president’s approval downward. To be exact, each 10-cent increase in the gas price was associated with more than half a percentage point decline in presidential approval, the research showed.
Further, the researchers studied press coverage of the gas prices, finding that the effect on presidential approval occurred regardless of how much attention the prices got. On that score, gas prices contrast with other economic indicators, like the unemployment rate or overall inflation, which typically require media coverage that gives voters a sense of the trend, said Harbridge-Yong, one of the researchers who conducted the study.
McAuliffe, of Data for Progress, has established more recent findings, demonstrating a correlation between gas prices and presidential approval during Biden’s time in office stretching to as recently as August. “The correlation has held up pretty strongly,” he said.
The continued salience of gas prices amid inflation under Biden comes as no surprise to Jon Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University who co-authored the 2016 study. “When we see gas prices go up as much as they have gone up, clearly there are implications,” he said.
Despite the relationship between gas prices and presidential approval rating, presidents exert little control over fuel costs, leaving them largely powerless to address perceptions of their performance in this area, experts said.
The U.S. is set to produce an average of 11.8 million barrels oil per day in 2022, which stands 500,000 barrels short of a record set in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But oil prices are set on a global market, where supply shortages caused by the Russia-Ukraine War and OPEC+ output cuts cannot be offset by a comparable short-term increase in U.S. oil output.
Typically, gas prices drop ahead of midterm elections, since the Fall brings a decline in demand as Americans scale back from summer travel, said Patrick De Haan, an oil and gas analyst for GasBuddy. In recent weeks, the drop has also stemmed from the repair of damage at a string of oil refineries, which brought them back online and increased overall output, he added.
“It’s normal for prices to go down this time of year,” De haan told ABC News. “It’s not political.”
The price relief may have arrived too late for voters to notice, said Krosnick, of Stanford University.
“There’s not a lot of time between now and election day,” he said. “Obviously any change in gasoline prices has to take place and be detected by the public.”
Biden highlighted the issue on Monday, threatening oil and gas companies with higher taxes if they do not relieve a supply shortage with increased output. Many of the major oil producers have reported recorded profits in recent quarters.
On election day, gas prices will play an unmistakable role in the outcome, Krosnick said.
“People bring to the table a mix of issues. You can think of it as making a complicated soup with lots of ingredients that play a part,” he said. “Gas prices clearly are a part of the soup.”
