ABC News has confirmed that Amanda Bynes was placed on a psychiatric hold early Sunday morning in Los Angeles.
TMZ initially reported that Bynes was spotted wandering naked through a rough neighborhood and later called 911 on herself. Now, a law enforcement source tells ABC News that around 6:40 Sunday morning, Bynes was in the parking lot of a Sizzler restaurant when the LAPD received a call about a female with mental illness. Responding officers found Bynes at that location.
The source further confirms Bynes was cleared by Los Angeles paramedics before a mental health team that was also dispatched transported her to a hospital and placed her on a psychiatric hold, known in California as a 5150 hold.
Bynes reportedly “made no threats” on the emergency call.
The 36-year-old actress’ struggle with mental health was at the center of a nine-year conservatorship that was placed on her affairs. It was terminated last year, nearly a year to the day of this recent incident.
Bynes’ mother, Lynn Bynes, was put temporarily in charge following a 2013 incident in which the Easy A actress reportedly started a fire in a neighbor’s driveway, which came on the heels of previous erratic behavior. After the driveway incident, the actress was placed on a temporary psychiatric hold.
The conservatorship was reinstated in 2014, the same year Bynes revealed she’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Emmy-winning Saturday Night Live alum Kate McKinnon has been tapped to star in the upcoming feature In The Blink of An Eye directed by Andrew Stanton, the Oscar-winning helmer of Finding Nemo and WALL-E, sources tell Deadline. The film, per the outlet, “follows three storylines, spanning thousands of years,“ that “intersect and reflect on hope, connection and the circle of life.” McKinnon will next be seen in Barbie, opposite Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, due out this summer…
Variety reports Get Out, Us and Nope filmmaker Jordan Peele is set to release a fourth as yet untitled film, slated for a December 25, 2024 debut. Details on the movie, including plot, genre or possible stars, are being kept under wraps…
The Shield alum Michael Chiklis has joined the cast of Hotel Cocaine, alongside Danny Pino, according to Deadline. The crime thriller follows a Cuban expatriate, played by Pino, who is the general manager of the Mutiny Hotel, the epicenter of the Miami cocaine scene of late 1970s and early ‘80s. Chiklis will play Agent Zulio “who will stop at nothing to shut down the drug trade, even if it means using innocent civilians to accomplish his ends,” per the outlet. Chiklis will next be seen in The Senior, a football drama from Rod Lurie…
Party of four now loading! Luke Combs and his wife Nicole are expecting their second child.
The couple, who are already parents to 9-month-old son Tex, announced the baby news in a joint post on Instagram Monday night. Alongside a slideshow of photos of the family, with Tex wearing a shirt that read “big brother” on the back.
“Joining the 2 under 2 club! Baby boy #2 coming this September!!” they captioned the post.
The post was set to Luke’s song “Take Me With You,” which is scheduled to be released Friday, March 24.
Nicole also shared the post to her Instagram Stories and wrote, “What a surprise.”
The country star, 33, and Nicole, tied the knot in August 2020 after getting engaged in 2018. They welcomed their first child last year on June 19, which was also Father’s Day.
(WASHINGTON) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plans to say during a speech on Tuesday that “the situation is stabilizing and the U.S. banking system remains sound,” according to excerpts of her prepared remarks provided by the Treasury Department.
“The Fed facility and discount window lending are working as intended to provide liquidity to the banking system,” she plans to say during a speech at the American Bankers Association’s summit in Washington. “Aggregate deposit outflows from regional banks have stabilized.”
She also plans to argue that the existence of smaller banks was important.
“Large banks play an important role in our economy, but so do small- and mid-sized banks,” she plans to say. “These banks are heavily engaged in traditional banking services that provide vital credit and financial support to families and small businesses. They also increase competition in the banking sector, and often have specialized knowledge and expertise in the communities they invest in.”
“Treasury is committed to ensuring the ongoing health and competitiveness of our vibrant community and regional banking institutions,” she’ll say.
(NEW YORK) — The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history, has thrust the financial system into distress, pulling attention away from a separate problem: sky-high inflation.
The twin economic challenges pose a dilemma for the Federal Reserve because its strongest tool, the benchmark interest rate, is a key cause of the financial emergency but the primary solution for high prices.
The central bank has aggressively raised interest rates over the past year, bringing inflation down significantly from a summer peak, though it remains more than triple the Fed’s target of 2%.
The rapid rise in interest rates, however, tanked the value of bonds held by Silicon Valley Bank, precipitating its failure.
A continuation of the rate hikes risks further intensifying the banking crisis, putting additional financial institutions at risk of collapse. However, a pause on rate increases could undermine the Federal Reserve’s fight against inflation, allowing high prices to persist and eat away at household budgets, economists said.
“It’s a very delicate balance,” Andrew Levin, an economics professor at Dartmouth College and a former Fed economist, told ABC News. “If we’re in a situation where the Fed can’t make sure prices are stable because it’s too worried about the stability of the banking system, that would be a very unfortunate situation.”
Still, the Fed could avoid facing a choice between the two objectives, since tighter lending practices taken up by private sector banks in response to the financial distress may cool the economy on its own accord, allowing the Fed to forego raising rates while still bringing down inflation, economists said.
“It does seem as though financial instability could take care of inflation anyway,” Julia Pollak, chief economist at Zip Recruiter, told ABC News.
Over the last year, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate 4.5%, the fastest pace since the 1980s.
The Fed has put forward a string of borrowing cost increases as it tries to slash price hikes by slowing the economy and choking off demand. The approach, however, risks tipping the U.S. economy into a recession and putting millions out of work.
So far, however, the economy has proven fairly resilient, Levin said, citing the robust job market.
“If the economy continues to be strong, inflation might well stay far above the Fed’s target,” Levin said. “Interest rates may need to go substantially higher to bring inflation down.”
In early March, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told Congress that inflation “has a long way to go and is likely to be bumpy,” saying the central bank expects “ongoing increases” to its benchmark interest rate.
But persistent rate hikes also threaten the stability of the banking system.
The rapid spike in interest rates over the past year dropped the value of Silicon Valley Bank’s treasury bonds and mortgage bonds, punching a hole in its balance sheet and scaring away some depositors, who triggered a devastating 48-hour bank run.
While Silicon Valley Bank faced uniquely acute exposure, it’s hardly the only vulnerable bank.
At the end of last year, U.S. banks were sitting on $620 billion in unrealized losses, or holdings that have fallen in price but have yet to be sold, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation found.
Swiss banking giant UBS bought ailing rival Credit Suisse on Monday for $3.2 billion, as Swiss banking regulators helped put together a rescue.
The largest financial institutions in the U.S. took action on Friday in an effort to stabilize the financial sector, placing $30 billion in First Republic bank, one of the embattled regional lenders.
Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs were among a slew of big banks that participated in the effort. The bank’s shares have continued to plummet, however, dropping 47% on Monday.
While troubling for many, such financial disarray is a possible outcome one can expect from rapid interest rate hikes, Pollak said. Rather than undermine the fight against inflation, the banking crisis is part and parcel of it, she added.
“Typically the Fed raises rates until something breaks,” Pollak said. “That break unleashes panic and brings tightening lending standards to banks.”
“The immediate effect of tighter credit is households buying fewer houses and businesses investing less, and that affects the demand for goods,” she added, bringing prices down. “That cycle perpetuates itself.”
In turn, some forecasters predict that the Fed will forego an additional rate hike at its meeting on Wednesday, citing the fragility of the financial system.
In a research note, Goldman Sachs told investors on Monday that it expects the Fed “to pause at its March meeting this week because of stress in the banking system.”
Levin, of Dartmouth, said he thinks the Fed should take that cautious approach on rates this week.
“It should try to reassure the market that it’s on top of this and monitoring carefully,” he said.
If the financial stress continues, prices could fall anyway, he added.
“People won’t go out and buy that refrigerator,” he said. “The upward pressure on inflation could subside really quickly.”
(WASHINGTON) — As Russian President Vladimir Putin confers with China’s President Xi Jinping in Moscow, the visit signifies more than a celebration of the so-called “no limits” partnership between the two powers.
It’s also a pivotal meeting poised to deepen the gap between the East and West, and just the latest in a series of stress tests on the relationship between Beijing and Washington — one already pushed to a near-breaking point.
Even though Biden administration officials anticipated Xi would journey to Moscow, they still describe the summit as a setback for the U.S.-China relationship and say they’ll be watching the visit closely to see if Beijing intends to supply Moscow with military aid — a potentially game-changing development for the war in Ukraine, and one that could bring the simmering tensions between the U.S. and China to a boil.
ABC News spoke with experts and officials about the challenges Russia and China’s alliance poses to the U.S., the Biden administration’s approach to Beijing, and how world leaders can avoid potentially catastrophic escalation.
Xi and Putin: Neighbors, partners, and ‘leaders for life’
While Xi’s three-day state visit is a welcome signal of support for Putin’s war effort, it also comes at a critical time for the Chinese leader as he tightens his authoritarian grip, formally locking down an unprecedented third term as China’s president.
The two men already have highlighted their personal bond, calling each other “dear friend” as they also touted their strategic partnership and increasingly ominous opposition to the West.
“China and Russia are more aligned than they’ve been since the 1950s,” said Brad Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Despite being a close ally of the Kremlin and echoing many of its talking points on Ukraine, Xi has sought to project his country’s involvement in the conflict as a peace mission, promoting his 12-point proposal for a cease-fire.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said the dovish motivations claimed by Beijing were merely a façade, calling it “a stalling tactic at best” or an attempt “to facilitate an unjust outcome.”
“It would enable Russia to further entrench positions in Ukraine. And a ceasefire now, without a durable solution, would allow President Putin to rest and refit his troops and then restart the war at a time more advantageous to Russia,” Blinken said. “The world should not be fooled by any tactical move by Russia, supported by China or any other country, to freeze the war on its own terms.”
Sources in the Biden administration have also said that China could still choose to supply Russia’s military with lethal aid, a possibility they’ve warned of since last month and a development the U.S. has said would prompt steep consequences for Beijing.
“We’ll see what they come out of this meeting talking about,” White House spokesperson John Kirby said Monday of Xi and Putin.
“China has not condemned the war but they haven’t provided lethal weapons. They haven’t participated in sanctions the way we obviously would have preferred them to do,” he added. “They have made their own sovereign decisions and largely, at least tacitly, many of those decisions have come down on the side of Russia here.”
Kirby said Xi Jinping should play a “constructive role” and reach out directly to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying, “China … we believe … should hear directly from the Ukrainians, and not just from the Russians.”
Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says that shared goal has emboldened China to expand its power on the global stage, seeking to edge out the U.S.
“What’s new lately is the greater willingness to directly name the U.S. as the source of tensions in the world and just be much more direct, suggesting that they are gradually moving in a direction which they don’t see the possibility of improving the relationship and that themselves may take more drastic actions,” he said.
A fine line between ‘competition’ and conflict
Publicly, the Biden administration streamlines its stance toward China into a single catchphrase: “Invest, align, compete.”
Invest refers to invigorating American institutions and align means drawing closer to allies and partners. But “compete” seems open to interpretation, and perhaps liable to escalation.
“When I look at the threat from China, it’s unprecedented in American history, I don’t think we’ve ever confronted a threat that combines a hostile ideology, an economy roughly the size of her own, in a military that is increasingly capable, and in some ways, more formidable than ours in key capabilities,” said Bowman.
Kennedy says that while Washington as a whole has shifted in response to Beijing’s increasingly bellicose stance, there’s not a consensus on how to move forward.
“Is the goal to sort of harden the West against China but assume that we’re going to be coexisting indefinitely? Or do you see this conflict is such an existential challenge that the U.S. goal has to be to fundamentally change the nature of the Chinese regime to make it more compatible with the international system?” he questioned.
In certain ways, the Biden administration is hedging its bets, straddling both approaches.
As one example, it has repeatedly stressed the need for open lines of communication with China but provided Beijing with little advance warning before announcing an agreement to provide Australia with nuclear subs, a maneuver aimed at countering China in the Indo-Pacific. Likewise, Beijing has used a similar double-edged strategy in many areas.
“The Chinese say that they believe in cooperation and mutual respect, but they’re doing a lot of things which are inconsistent with those principles,” said Kennedy. “We’re locked into now is a vicious cycle in which both sides actually have relatively mirrored views of the other’s motives and blame, and both have a relatively fatalistic view about the trajectory of their relationship.”
A new Cold War?
While the Biden administration has repeatedly denied the U.S. and China are entering a new Cold War, Bowman says Washington should acknowledge how strained their ties have become.
“It’s information warfare, it’s economic warfare. It’s basically every kind of warfare you can but we’re not quite yet to the point where we’re shooting at each other yet,” he said. “But I’m worried it’s not going to stay cold.”
Bowman says avoiding that depends on a number of factors, such as moving quickly to arm Taiwan in order to deter a potential invasion from mainland China and continuing to build and reinforce a strong coalition of Western allies.
Kennedy agrees with the administration’s stated goal that “guardrails” need to be installed to avoid the relationship from veering into a catastrophic war, but notes that China has been hesitant to adopt and use tools like direct hotlines between the countries.
Chances for direct diplomacy are also limited. After a Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted over the U.S., Biden said he intended to hold a call with his counterpart Xi, but that has yet to be scheduled. That same incident prompted the administration to indefinitely postpose Blinken’s trip to Beijing, dashing another chance for engagement.
“We have no good mechanisms in place to manage a crisis,” said Kennedy. “I’m worried that we are heading toward the possibility of an unintentional conflict that could spiral out of control very quickly.”
YOSHIKAZU TSUNO,LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
(TOKYO) — Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is en-route to the Ukrainian capital for face-to-face talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Kishida, who just wrapped a two-day state visit to India’s leader Narendra Modi, arrived by car at Poland’s Przemysl station just after 1 a.m. local time on Tuesday.
Broadcaster NHK showed images of the leader exiting a black car then boarding a Ukraine-bound train which departed minutes later. The leader was accompanied by two other high-ranking government officials.
Japan’s prime minister had been the only G7 leader who had not visited the war-torn country since the Russian invasion began. Zelenskyy extended an invitation to Kishida in January when the two leaders spoke by telephone.
Since World War II, no Japanese prime minister has visited a country or region with an active combat zone.
In Kyiv, Japan’s leader is expected to convey support for the embattled nation.
“Prime Minister Kishida will resolutely reject Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and unilateral changing of the status quo by force, and reconfirm his determination to uphold the international order based on the rule of law,” said a statement issued by Japan’s government soon after news of the trip broke.
The two leaders are expected to discuss humanitarian assistance and support for post-war reconstruction, including landmine removal. Japan has offered $1.5 billion to Ukraine and neighboring countries that have accepted evacuees displaced by the war.
Kishida recently warned that “Ukraine may be the East Asia of Tomorrow,” as fears mount over China possibly forcibly reunifying with democratic Taiwan. The Japanese leader has urged like-minded countries which share the same values to unite in order to prevent the invasion of Ukraine from being repeated.
Despite the nation’s pacificist past, Japanese officials have said they’re seeking to grow their military spending, aiming for a defense budget equal to 2% of GDP by 2027, putting the nation on par with NATO’s defense spending standard.
Following the face-to-face talk with Zelenskyy, Kishida will head to Poland for talks with President Andrej Duda.
“The leaders will confirm their commitment to strengthen the bilateral cooperation as well as that of the international fora, including response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, based on the strategic partnership with Poland, which is the frontline of military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine,” said Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Kishida is expected to arrive back in Japan’s capital, Tokyo, on Thursday.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden plans on Tuesday to announce the establishment of two new national monuments, protecting land totalling more than half a million acres, a White House official said.
Biden is expected to name Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada and Castner Range National Monument in Texas as the nation’s newest monuments during the White House’s Conservation in Action Summit at the Interior Department.
Biden will also direct the Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to consider creating a new National Marine Sanctuary designation to protect U.S. waters surrounding Pacific islands.
The day of conservation comes as Biden approved more drilling in Alaska for the Willow Project, a move environmental groups have slammed, and one day after the United Nations released a dire climate change report.
(NEW YORK) — With less than one month until a trial is set to begin in the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News, attorneys from both sides are expected to seek a summary judgment during a pretrial hearing Tuesday.
The Delaware judge overseeing the case will hear arguments from both Fox and Dominion attorneys on their respective motions for summary judgments, during which both parties will essentially ask the judge to rule on the case before it heads to trial.
Dominion filed its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News in March 2021, accusing the network of knowingly pushing false conspiracy theories about the voting machine company in the wake of the 2020 election, in order to combat “concerns” over ratings and viewer retention.
Dan Abrams, ABC News’ chief legal analyst, said it would be a long shot for either side to win its motions at this phase, given the overwhelming amount of evidence.
“A motion for summary judgment is a difficult motion to win. It’s basically asking a judge to intervene and say, ‘There’s no need to take this case to a jury,'” Abrams said. “I wouldn’t expect that either party is going to win this case in summary judgment.”
The trial is set to being on April 17.
In its filings, Dominion wrote that “Fox knew. From the top down, Fox knew ‘the Dominion stuff’ was ‘total BS.'”
“Yet despite knowing the truth — or at minimum, recklessly disregarding that truth — Fox spread and endorsed these ‘outlandish voter fraud claims’ about Dominion even as it internally recognized the lies as ‘crazy,’ ‘absurd,’ and ‘shockingly reckless,'” the filing said.
“Fox duped its audience. And Dominion paid the price,” Dominion wrote, while acknowledging the “heavy burden” it faces in proving its claims.
Ahead of the hearing, Dominion has submitted bombshell filings containing hundreds of emails, texts, testimony and other private communications from some of Fox’s biggest stars and executives privately bashing former President Donald Trump and his election fraud claims while continuing to broadcast them on air.
“I did not believe it for one second,” said Sean Hannity in regard to one of Trump’s attorney’s claims, according to one of Dominion’s filings.
In response, Fox has slammed Dominion’s lawsuit as an “an assault on the First Amendment and the free press,” and has defended its airing of Trump’s “undeniably newsworthy” voter fraud allegations and election challenges.
“As long as the press makes clear that the allegations are just allegations and not demonstrable facts, both constitutional and common-law principles protect the right of the press to allow the President’s lawyers to explain their factual allegations and legal theories, as well as the right of the press to express opinions about those claims,” Fox wrote in its own motion for summary judgment.
A Fox News attorney told ABC News that their plan Tuesday was to make the broad first amendment argument that there is no defamation — but that they would also go through many of the individual programs on Fox News, one by one, in hopes of showing that they were not making false statements of fact.
The judge, the Fox attorney said, has the ability to narrow the scope of what proceeds to trial.
At a hearing earlier this month, Judge Eric M. Davis appeared to be readying for trial. He indicated preparations for a jury were already underway, saying that 1,800 jury notices were sent out informing potential jurors that it would be a six-week trial.
(PARIS) — A team in northeastern France is busy rebuilding Notre Dame’s famous spire, with construction ramping up ahead of next year’s reopening.
With the cathedral’s grand reopening to the public set for Dec. 8, 2024 at 11:15 a.m., the first step in the restoration of the cathedral’s spire is underway in Briey, a city in northeastern France.
The collapse of this iconic part of the Paris landmark in a 2019 fire left an indelible mark on the minds of millions around the world.
The stakes are high as the reconstruction of the spire relies on the success of a very rare operation which has not been repeated since 1842.
The crux of this project is to build the stool, located on the lower bottom of the structure, on top of which the spire will stand at almost 100 meters high.
“This is a critical operation,” General Georgelin said, telling ABC News the reconstruction team is “now on track to have the spire finished in December 2024.”
Underway since last autumn, the rebuilding process has been years in the making, according to Rémi Fromont, chief architect of Historical Monuments, who coordinates the work and rescue of Notre Dame.
The first challenge was to understand how this technical achievement of its time was made possible in order “to rebuild as well as it was.”
Since last autumn, a team of 40 carpenters has been at work selecting and shaping the blocks of oak that made the final 110 pieces composing the stool.
Carpenter Paul Poulet, 27, who started his career at age 15, is one of them.
“For me, working on this project is really interesting,” he said, adding he is “really proud” to be part of the efforts to rebuild Notre Dame.
Finding the best oak and artisans with the know-how needed was another complex task.
“We are very lucky in France because we have excellent carpenters” who “are still able to work as the carpenters worked in the 19th century,” Fromont told ABC News.
Now, these artisans have the tough mission to fine tune the last details of this operation by making sure all the wood pieces fit perfectly, and then disassembling them without damage.
In mid-April, the stool will travel to Paris, where it will be reassembled again, with the help of an additional 20 carpenters.
“All these operations are very, very delicate,” and will take “more or less 3 or 4 weeks,” the architect said.
The wood and the structure will be the most vulnerable so “we have to be just perfect,” he said.
By the summer, onlookers will get a first glimpse of the scaffolding at the crossing of the cathedral’s transept, which will progressively grow to reach a height of 100 meters, as the progress on the restoration of the spire moves forward.
