(NEW YORK) — Top Gun: Maverick soared into history this Memorial Day weekend as more Americans headed back to theaters to watch the long-awaited sequel.
The film raked in $156 million over the holiday weekend, making it the biggest Memorial Day release ever. The previous record holder was Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which took in $153 million.
The sequel to 1986’s Top Gun also marked the biggest opening weekend of Tom Cruise’s career.
(NEW YORK) — Todd English is the latest celebrity chef to embrace cooking with cannabis.
The James Beard award-winning chef and restaurateur recently rolled out his cannabis-infused line of gourmet mac and cheese, the first product launch from his new packaged food brand, LastLeaf.
“We’re getting a great response,” English told ABC News Live.
The mac and cheese currently comes in two flavors, white cheddar with shells, and a classic cheddar with elbow macaroni.
Cannabis-infused food and beverages have exploded onto the culinary scene as more states legalize marijuana. Already, 18 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the sale of recreational marijuana for adults over the age of 21.
English’s twist on traditional mac and cheese is currently only available in California, but later this year he hopes to expand the line to more cities that have legalized marijuana for recreational use.
Cooking with cannabis is not a new concept for English. He began preparing dishes with the ingredient more than a decade ago when his sister Wendy was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.
“I saw my sister and a number of my relatives go through horrible cancer,” English said.
“My sister passed away, unfortunately, but during the time she was in remission, I would prepare things with cannabis and it seemed to really help her get through the struggles of how she felt after chemo,” he said.
Together with his business partner, Keith Burkard, English set out to develop healthy food products that contain THC and CBD.
“Consumers are ready for it, but it’s going to take a little bit of time to get embedded into the marketplace,” Burkard said.
“The cannabis industry started out with a lot of secondary food groups like drinks, chips, snacks, chocolates, candies,” he added. “We’re introducing primary food group edibles.”
There is some scientific evidence that marijuana may benefit those with cancer, easing chronic pain and chemotherapy-induced nausea.
Medical experts, however, have cautioned against using cannabis to treat mental health conditions, as it may be ineffective or worsen symptoms in some people.
The cheesy packaged pasta is far from the last of English’s ventures. LastLeaf says it plans to launch cannabis-infused pasta sauces, rubs and olive oil in the coming months.
You won’t find the cannabis concoctions on his restaurant menus just yet — the chef currently owns a number of eateries in places like Las Vegas, Boston and New York City, as well as a handful of international hotspots. For the moment, he’s busy opening up new establishments, including The English Hotel in Las Vegas.
Located off the Vegas strip in the Arts District, English says his namesake hotel is a “very artisanal, little boutique hotel” with a “funky vibe.” It is also home to his new restaurant, The Pepper Club, a reflection of English’s two favorite cuisines, Mediterranean and Japanese.
While the global pandemic has hit the hospitality industry particularly hard, English said business at some of his restaurants, including in Alabama, Connecticut, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels.
“Weekends are jamming and people are out,” he said. “It’s just a question of us being able to handle the business because we don’t have all the pieces in place yet — staffing, supply chain — but it’s getting there.”
(NEW YORK) — As car travelers embark on trips over Memorial Day weekend, gas prices may shock them — even if they went to the pump just a few weeks ago.
The average price of a gallon of gas on Friday reached nearly $4.60, up some 46 cents since a month ago, according to data compiled by AAA. For the first time, the average price for a gallon of gas exceeded $4 in all 50 states, AAA data shows.
Gas prices could rise even higher over the coming weeks as the summer travel boom brings more people to the pump, industry analysts told ABC News. The spike in demand coincides with a shortage of crude oil supply amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which prompted a widespread industry exit from Russia that has pushed millions of barrels of oil off the market.
Meanwhile, a longstanding oil supply shortage endures from a pandemic-induced production slowdown that hasn’t caught up with a bounce back in demand, the experts said.
“There has been a widening imbalance between supply and demand,” Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told ABC News.
“When we see energy prices going up, we know it’s going to cost us,” he said. “Whether you want to see it or not, those LEDs at your corner gas station burn an image into your brain about how you feel about the economy.”
The reasons for high gas prices go back to the outset of the pandemic in spring 2020.
As people isolated themselves at home, car use and gas consumption plummeted. The average number of daily personal car trips taken by U.S. auto owners fell by 45% in April 2020 compared to the same month the year prior, a AAA study last year found. A similar trend affected drivers in many countries across the globe. As worldwide demand fell, the price of oil dropped and producers cut output, De Haan said.
But by March of this year, oil demand had fully recovered to pre-COVID levels, Peter McNally, the global sector lead for industrials and energy at research firm Third Bridge, told ABC News. Crude oil supply, however, has only recovered to 97% of pre-COVID levels, leaving a sizable shortfall, he added.
“Three percent doesn’t sound like a lot but inventories are very low,” McNally said.
The pandemic-induced lag in oil supply has coincided with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24. Since then, oil companies and traders exited Russia, taking millions of barrels of oil off the market.
Without their usual supply of crude, refineries can’t produce enough gasoline, Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston, told ABC News.
“One of the most obvious ways the feedstock for refineries has changed has been through the Ukraine-Russia war, where some crude that comes through Russia is no longer coming in,” Krishnamoorti said.
In March, the U.S. and its allies announced the collective release of 60 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves over the following months, which sought to alleviate some of the supply shortage and blunt price increases.
But the disruption from the invasion has come at a particularly vulnerable time for the gasoline market, as demand is set to increase over the summer, experts said.
Over the first three months of the year, the U.S. consumed about 8.4 million barrels of gas per day; but over the summer months, that consumption will rise to 9.2 million barrels per day, an increase of nearly 10%, according to the US Energy Information Administration, or IEA. The convergence between the shortage of supply and the increase in demand has sent gasoline prices skyrocketing, McNally, the global lead for energy, said.
“It’s the wrong time of year to have something like this happen as you go into the peak demand months,” he said.
The coming months likely do not bode well for gas prices, the experts said.
Two of the experts, De Haan and Krishnamoorti, said the average national price could reach as high as $5 per gallon, and would rise even further if a hurricane damages oil refinery infrastructure and further limits supply.
McNally did not predict an exact price increase but cautioned: “It could be rough on consumers.”
A price increase would do damage to people’s pockets this year. Anticipating a price increase over the summer, the EIA predicts that the average U.S. household will spend about $2,945 on gasoline this year, which when adjusted for inflation, is $455 or 18% more than the average household spent last year.
“Every mile traveled gets amplified by the cost of gasoline,” said Krishnamoorti, the professor of petroleum engineering.
(NEW YORK) — The kickoff for the summer travel season is in full swing, as millions of travelers take to the roads and the skies for Memorial Day weekend.
Over the holiday, 2.1 million passengers per day are expected to go through security checkpoints at airports nationwide, according to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The volume could exceed pre-pandemic levels, TSA said.
“Passengers should expect airports to be extremely busy,” Robert Spinden, the federal security director at TSA, said in an interview with ABC News. “But we’re prepared.”
To meet the demand, Spinden said his agency has increased the use of overtime and is allowing officers that are in part-time status to convert to full-time. The agency is also “aggressively” recruiting new officers in preparation for the summer travel rush, he said.
Airlines are also gearing up for the busy travel weekend. United Airlines expects an average of 4,000 flights a day over the weekend, American Airlines says it will average 5,700 flights a day and Delta Air Lines is planning on 4,500 daily flights per day.
“We’ve been waiting on this moment in this weekend for two years,” Allison Ausband, chief customer experience officer and executive vice president at Delta, said in an interview with ABC News. “It kicks off the summer season, but for Delta people, it really kicks back that we are back to normal.”
The airline expects to fly approximately 2.5 million customers between Thursday and Monday — up 25% from last year. Ausband said domestic leisure travel has fully recovered from pandemic lows, and transatlantic travel continues to improve. The airline will service 275 destinations over the holiday weekend.
“In many ways, this is just sort of like a dry run for the summer because you’re expecting even more passengers after this?” asked ABC News transportation correspondent Gio Benitez.
“It is a dry run, but we want the dry run to go great this weekend because that will tell us, right, how the rest of the summer is going to go,” Ausband said.
As demand continues to increase from pandemic lows, airlines have had to adjust their schedules. Bad weather in April compounded the issue by forcing airlines to cancel thousands of flights amid the boom.
The ongoing pilot shortage has also had an impact on operations. Bad weather in April compounded the issue by forcing airlines to cancel thousands of flights amid the boom.
“We never like to cancel a flight. I hope our customers know that it is the last resort that we take. Honestly, it’s bad for our customers and it’s bad for our people. It’s bad for the operation,” Ausband said. “We have built so much trust and confidence being number one from a reliability perspective. And so even one cancel. It doesn’t it doesn’t feel good.”
The airline said it would notify customers of the changes “as far in advance as possible.”
To prevent travel disruptions, Delta announced Thursday it plans to cut 100 flights a day from its schedule between July 1 and August 7. The airline said the move will “build additional resilience in [its] system and improve operational reliability for [its] customers and employees; we’ll continue to proactively adjust select flights in the coming weeks.”
New technology put to the test over the holiday weekend
Throughout the pandemic, airlines implemented new technology aimed at making the travel experience faster and hands-free.
Last year, Delta launched a digital identity feature — a first-of-its-kind pilot program that will implement facial recognition technology at certain airports across the country. Ausband said the program will “continue to grow throughout [their] network.”
“We want it to be effortless for the customer – touch free, hands free,” Ausband said.
And in the security lane — TSA has over the past few years begun deploying computed tomography x-ray systems at airports nationwide. The scanners use “sophisticated algorithms” to detect weapons, explosives and other prohibited items by creating 3-D images of carry-on items.
“This not only enhances our security effectiveness, but provides an efficiency for the passengers by allowing them to maintain more items inside their property than what they could prior,” Spinden said.
“[The pandemic] gave us the opportunity at Delta to say, let’s take a blank sheet of paper and reimagine the customer experience on board,” Ausband said.
Masks no longer required for travel
With the federal mask mandate lifted, airlines are no longer requiring passengers to wear a face covering on flights. Most airports across the country have also done away with the requirement, though some have kept it in place in accordance with local laws.
For those who may be concerned, Ausband said, “It is going to be busy getting through, but know that it’s absolutely safe. If you want to wear your mask on board, you can absolutely wear your mask on board.”
Airlines have touted enhanced cleaning protocols since the beginning of the pandemic. Ausband said things like cleaning between flights and hand sanitizer on planes are here to stay at Delta.
“The pandemic gave us an opportunity to rethink how we clean our airplanes. So those care standards that we implemented are still there,” Ausband said.
Preparing for the travel rush
For those who are planning to fly this weekend, experts recommend getting to the airport early and making sure your carry-on luggage is properly packed with no prohibited items on board.
“There are going to be a lot of travelers, so expect there to be long lines, and expect it to take a while to check your bag or to get through security,” Scott Keyes, founder of the flight deal subscription service Scott’s Cheap Flights, said. “If you have TSA PreCheck or clear or something like that, certainly make use of it this weekend because otherwise it could be a long wait to get to your flight.”
The busiest airports this weekend will be Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, according to Hopper, an online travel booking platform.
“We’ve got two years of pent-up vacations that we haven’t had to take,” Jenn McNeely, a flight attendant at Delta Air Lines told ABC. “But we’re ready. We’re excited and let’s get going.”
Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Described by its inventors as a “social live-streaming platform” that allows its mostly teenage users to make friends worldwide, join communities and even find a date, Yubo has emerged as part of the investigation into the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, because the suspect sent messages through the app, investigators and users told ABC News.
Launched in 2015 by a French company, Yubo has quickly become known as a go-to site for mostly “Gen Z” users to meet, make new friends and join online communities. In 2019, Seventeen magazine also listed the site as among the seven best dating apps for teenagers.
“Yubo is a social app for Gen Z that allows them to connect and interact with people all over the world through live streaming,” a spokesperson for the platform said in a statement to ABC News. “Yubo gives this generation a space to socialize through one-to-few audio and video conversations, games and chat, and empowers its 60 million users to connect safely and without the pressure of likes or follows.”
Yubo even has separate areas of its app reserved for teenagers. Users who join and say they are between the ages of 13 to 17 are put into different “communities” and supposedly can’t interact with other users who say they are over 18, according to the platform.
Yubo appears to work like a blend of livestreaming social apps like Clubhouse and Twitch, mixed with adult social media and dating apps like Tinder that allow users to swipe through individual profiles. The app lets users make friends, send direct messages, swipe between users, and join livestreams, either video or audio.
But multiple users told ABC News that they believe accused Uvalde mass shooter Salvador Ramos had a more sinister use for the platform.
Two users claimed Ramos allegedly committed animal abuse and displayed videos of the cruelty on Yubo.
An individual who claimed to have known the accused gunman through the social media platform told ABC News that Ramos turned on his video last week on the platform and showed himself with guns and allegedly made statements, including “wait till tomorrow.”
“No one took him seriously,” another user told ABC News.
A law enforcement source said detectives probing the Uvalde mass shooting are aware of a Yubo account believed to have belonged to the accused gunman but can’t definitively confirm the account belongs to the suspect. ABC News has not independently verified that the alleged account belonged to the accused shooter.
“Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with the families of the victims of the tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas,” the Yubo spokesperson said. “Due to privacy regulations, we are not able to release specific user information outside of direct requests from law enforcement.”
Just days after his 18th birthday, Ramos allegedly killed 19 students, most just 10 years old, and two faculty members Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in the small rural town west of San Antonio. The suspect was fatally shot by law enforcement officers.
Moments before carrying out the deadly attack, the accused gunman allegedly sent a string of messages to a young girl he met on Yubo, detailing that he had shot his grandmother and was heading to the school for his next target, according to messages reviewed by ABC News.
The messages allegedly show the accused gunman texted with a 15-year-old girl in Germany. He allegedly described an argument he had with his grandmother over a phone bill.
“She’s on the phone with AT&T,” Ramos allegedly wrote at 11:06 a.m. on Tuesday, about a half-hour before the attack at the school, apparently referring to his grandmother with a derogatory term. In another message, he allegedly said, “Ima do something to her rn (right now).”
Moments later, he allegedly wrote, “I shot my grandmother in the head.” He then allegedly wrote, “ima go shoot up a elementary school rn.”
The young girl who allegedly received messages from the Texas gunman moments before his rampage told ABC News Thursday that she has been asking herself “what if I could change the outcome” since seeing the news that her friend had committed the school massacre.
The girl, who asked to be referred to as “Cece,” said, “Ever since May 24th I have been guilt tripping myself, what if I could change the outcome, what if I could change his mind to not do this. I was too dumb to realize why he bought two rifles on his birthday, May 16th, and ordered a package full with ammunition, not knowing what he was going to do with it.”
Cece said she met Ramos on May 9 on Yubo, where they would “join each others live” streams.
While in a previous interview with the New York Times Cece said she read the messages from the gunman “as soon as he sent them,” which would have been minutes before the shooting, she now tells ABC News she “misspoke” and that she only saw them “hours later.”
Cece, who said she and Ramos exchanged cellphone numbers and spoke regularly, claimed there were other warning signs in hindsight, including that the suspected gunman would ask others on Yubo “if they would want to be famous on the news.”
At a news conference on Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott referenced similar messages the gunman sent just prior to the school rampage, but misrepresented them as “Facebook posts” when they were instead private “one-to-one text messages,” according to a spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump and two of his adult children must sit for a deposition as part of the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into how the family real estate business valued its holdings, an appellate court ruled Thursday.
Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump must also testify in the case.
The judges rejected the Trump argument that the subpoena was part of a politically motivated investigation and precluded by a corresponding criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
“The political campaign and other public statements made by OAG about appellants do not support the claim that OAG initiated, or is using, the subpoenas in this civil investigation to obtain testimony solely for use in a criminal proceeding or in a manner that would otherwise improperly undermine appellants’ privilege against self-incrimination,” the decision said.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has argued her office has found “significant evidence” of fraud in the investigation into how Trump and the Trump Organization valued real estate holdings in the state. The investigation is reviewing whether the Trump Organization used fraudulent or misleading valuations of its holdings in different ways to obtain a host of economic benefits, including loans, insurance coverage and tax deductions.
“Once again, the courts have ruled that Donald Trump must comply with our lawful investigation into his financial dealings,” James said in a statement Thursday. “We will continue to follow the facts of this case and ensure that no one can evade the law.”
The Trumps have repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
The former president, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have all ignored subpoenas issued in the case.
The parallel investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has already resulted in charges of tax fraud against the company and Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Donald Trump called those charges a “disgrace” and “shameful” and said Weisselberg, who has worked for the Trump Organization for 48 years, a “tremendous man.”
ABC News’ John Santucci and Mark Osborne contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Zola, the online wedding planning and registry site, was hacked over the weekend, the company said in a statement Monday evening.
“Over the weekend, our site & apps came under a cybersecurity attack known as credential stuffing,” the statement read.
Credential stuffing, the company said, is a kind of cyberattack in which hackers “take advantage of people who use the same email and passwords on multiple websites,” using stolen login information to submit widescale login attempts in several different places.
Less than 0.1% of accounts were impacted in the breach, according to Zola.
Bank and credit card information was not exposed in the hack, and officials said the company immediately corrected the problem.
Users first began flagging irregularities with their Zola accounts over the weekend. Some couples said they had money stolen out of their honeymoon registries before they were able to transfer it over to their bank accounts.
Ariel Carpenter, a Louisville, Kentucky doctor, said she was one of those impacted by the hack, describing the experience as a “rollercoaster.”
“It just feels very violating because planning a wedding is a very personal enterprise. At the end of the day, you’re planning a party for your closest family and friends,” said Carpenter, who is slated to get married at the end of June. “And so my initial thought, unfortunately, was that whoever hacked us had access to our family and friends’ contact information.”
Carpenter said she had lost $350 from her honeymoon account on the website, but had not yet received a refund.
Zola said no guest information was compromised in the cyberattack.
The company also stated that it had blocked all attempted unauthorized cash transfers and would restore all funds to couples’ accounts as soon as possible.
“Couples who did experience irregular activity on their accounts can rest assured that any outstanding issues will be resolved and addressed,” Zola said Monday, stating that it would be reaching out to couples “proactively.”
Experts recommend against recycling passwords across different sites as it leaves users vulnerable to cyberattacks like the one this past weekend. Some have suggested using a combination of three random words to create stronger passwords, as the letter combinations make them much more difficult for hacking software to crack.
Tech experts also recommend wiping your phone completely and resetting it to factory defaults before getting rid of it, as hackers may be able to request a password reset on various accounts and apps otherwise.
(NEW YORK) — Everyone deserves a shoe that’s functional, fashionable and inclusive. Reebok’s latest release embodies all three.
The athletic brand has partnered with online shoe retailer Zappos to release brand new adaptive shoes for individuals with disabilities.
In an Instagram post introducing the line, the company shared that the goal of its latest Fit to Fit collection was to provide functional products that don’t compromise style or performance.
“Each model within the collection offers enhanced features to help anybody with any body gain more independence in whatever they do,” the company wrote.
The collection includes the Club MEMT Parafit, a stylish pick that works for everyday wear. The shoe has a medial zip closure, a wider low-cut design for easy mobility and a removable sockliner.
There’s also the Nanoflex Parafit TR, which has a lightweight mesh upper, medial zip closure and a heel pull tab, making it easier to slip on.
Both shoes are available in a variety of colorways and a wide range of sizes.
In addition to the launch of the new Fit to Fit collection, Reebok and Zappos are also donating 750 pairs of adult shoes to athletes participating in the 2022 Special Olympic USA Games, which will be held June 5-12, to ensure they have what they need to succeed.
(NEW YORK) — The highest court in Massachusetts ruled Tuesday the state attorney general can pursue a civil lawsuit that accused Exxon Mobil of misleading investors about its products and their impact on the climate.
The unanimous opinion, written by Associate Justice Scott Kafker, rejected Exxon Mobil’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit on grounds it violated a state law that protects the company from lawsuits meant to silence Exxon Mobil’s public advocacy on energy policy.
The opinion said the so-called anti-SLAPP law in Massachusetts does not apply to the attorney general.
“Importantly, she is entrusted with the enforcement of the Commonwealth’s laws, in large part through bringing civil enforcement proceedings,” Kafker said. “Construing the anti-SLAPP statute to apply to the Attorney General would place significant roadblocks to the enforcement of the Commonwealth’s laws.”
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey accused Exxon Mobil in a 2019 lawsuit of failing to disclose to investors material facts about climate change and misleading consumers about the harm Exxon Mobil’s products cause to the environment.
“Exxon Mobil is misleading Massachusetts consumers through so-called “greenwashing” campaigns that wrongly imply that Exxon Mobil is taking steps to solve climate change and reduce carbon,” according to court records.
Exxon Mobil has denied wrongdoing. It cast the lawsuit as political and an unlawful attempt by the attorney general to quash energy policies with which she disagrees.
“The First Amendment reflects the principle that when the government objects to speech, ‘the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence,’” Exxon Mobil said.
Healey, who is now running for governor, lauded the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling.
“Once again, Exxon’s attacks on my office and our case have been rejected by the courts. Today’s ruling is a resounding victory in our work to stop Exxon from lying to investors and consumers in our state,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — New Coke bottles have started appearing in the U.K. as the popular soda brand continues on its path toward more sustainable packaging.
“As part of Coca-Cola’s journey towards a World Without Waste, we are transitioning to a new packaging system in Great Britain and other European markets,” a representative for the brand told “Good Morning America.” “The new packaging ensures the cap remains attached to the bottle — making it easier than ever for consumers to recycle the whole package, ensuring that no cap gets left behind.”
The attached caps debuted on select 1.5-liter bottles in the U.K., with more pack sizes to be introduced throughout the year.
The fresh design comes on the heels of a new regulation from the European Union intended to reduce waste and pollution. The regulation, which goes into effect in July 2024, states that caps on some non-returnable bottles holding up to three liters must have a cap that is firmly attached to the container.
According to The Coca-Cola Co., this new design is the result of “extensive research with our suppliers and consumer testing.”
The new cap allows someone drinking a Coke to retain the lid with the bottle, which ultimately prevents the cap from being littered, and offers “a positive drinking experience.”
All of the new caps remain 100% recyclable, along with the bottles, which have been 100% recyclable for several years.
In 2018, The Coca-Cola Co. announced its World Without Waste program to “reduce our global use of virgin plastic by 20% (the cumulative equivalent of 3 million metric tons) by 2025.” The company also pledged to “use at least 50% recycled material in our packaging by 2030.”
There are currently no immediate plans to bring the new attached-cap innovation to the U.S., a representative for the brand confirmed to “GMA.”
“By the end of 2024, we aim to have transitioned our entire production to attached caps as we progress to more sustainable packaging,” the company stated.
