Vertical Entertainment dropped the first official trailer for their new multi-generational rom-com Maybe I Do, starring Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Emma Roberts, Luke Bracey, and William H. Macy on Monday. The movie follows Michelle and Allen — played by Roberts and Bracey, respectfully — who need to decide if their relationship is heading towards wedding bells and decide to introduce their parents to each other. However, their parents already know each other well — intimately well. The film is slated to hit theaters January 27…
The milestone season 15 of RuPaul’s Drag Race will include a blast from the past, having contestants recreate the very first challenge from season 1, which saw the contestants pose for photos while being sprayed in the face with water. The 15th season will also have the biggest prize in the show’s history, standing at $200,000 and will include guest judges like Ariana Grande, Marin Morris, Ross Mathews, Ali Wong, Janelle Monáe, Julia Garner, and more. RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 debuts Friday, January 6 on MTV…
On Monday, Disney’s Onyx Collective announced the film Bruiser, starring Trevante Rhodes and Jayln Hall, will premiere February 24 on Hulu. The short film, which debuted in theaters December 2, is a story “about fathers, families and the effects of toxic masculinity,” per the announcement. It tells the story of 14-year-old Darious — played by Hall — who “explores the boundaries of his manhood through tumultuous interactions with Malcolm, his strict but loving father, and Porter (Rhodes), a charismatic drifter. When Darious learns Porter’s true identity, he is thrust into a conflict between the two men that may rip his family apart and threaten his safety”…Disney is the parent company of ABC News…
Preliminary data placed the center of the quake along the Pacific coast about 7.5 miles away from Ferndale, California, USGS said. The quake was recorded at about 2:34 local time.
A tsunami wasn’t expected, according to the U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center, which reported the quake at a preliminary magnitude of 6.1.
More than 59,000 customers — about 60% of those in Humboldt County — had lost power as of about 3:30 a.m. local time, according to tracking website PowerOutage.us.
Power is out across the county,” officials said on Twitter, adding in all-caps: “Do not call 911 unless you are experiencing an emergency.”
The quake was large enough to trigger a “ShakeAlert” that was sent to cell phones by FEMA’s Wireless Emergency Alert System, USGS said.
“We hope everyone is safe and if you felt shaking or got an alert you took a protective action like Drop, Cover, and Hold On,” the agency said.
(NEW YORK) — Cryptocurrency has always been volatile, says one economics expert who spoke with ABC News. But 2022 was a stomach-churning, roller-coaster ride for investors and major players in the market.
The prices of popular cryptocurrencies plummeted throughout 2022. Moreover, some cryptocurrency companies and their founders are facing bankruptcy and even the threat of imprisonment.
Here are some of the events that shook the cryptocurrency world to its core in 2022:
Bitcoin, other currencies plunge
Some experts, including David Yermack, a professor of finance at the New York University Stern School of Business, say crypto’s free fall started after investors began selling off digital assets in response to the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes. The market took a nosedive after Celsius Network — a former cryptocurrency lending company — announced it was pausing all withdrawals and transfers between accounts in order to “honor, over time, withdrawal obligations.”
A drop in the crypto market in the first half of a year is not unusual, Yermack told ABC News.
“Cryptocurrency has been volatile throughout its history and has experienced a large number of sharp rises and falls,” Yermack told ABC News.
What really affected the market, he said, was the collapse of TerraUSD, a payment platform for so-called stablecoins.
‘Stablecoins’ take a hit
Stablecoins are a form of digital currency backed by another form of currency like the U.S. dollar or a commodity like gold, according to experts who spoke with ABC News. They are designed to be less volatile than other forms of cryptocurrency. But some of the heaviest-traded stablecoins saw a massive drop in value in 2022.
The most notable hit was the collapse of the Luna token and its associated TerraUSD stablecoin, said Yermack.
TerraUSD’s price “fell from $116 in April to a fraction of a penny” and the company had a market cap of over $40 billion, according to an analysis by CNET.
Yermack summed up why this particular collapse contributed to the crypto market’s crash.
The “Luna token and the TerraUSD stablecoin [were] two assets that were promoted by the same issuer and were linked to one another by a trading algorithm. Many people on the Terra platform had taken out loans in the stablecoin and posted the Luna tokens as collateral. When Luna’s value began to drop in the context of the overall market decline, it impaired the collateral for many of the stablecoin loans. Many of the borrowers, in turn, couldn’t repay these loans because they had used the stablecoins to purchase other investments that had themselves dropped in value. The interconnections among all of these transactions amounted to a ‘death spiral’ that dragged down Luna and TerraUSD simultaneously and had negative effects on many investors’ portfolios,” he said.
Bill Starkov, an NFT and crypto entrepreneur and founder of Apocalyptic Apes, LLC, who is known online as Fity.eth, said Luna’s demise was inevitable.
“If you looked at Luna and you watched it and you understood what it does, it was very inflated. It was very high,” he told ABC News.
Layoffs, bankruptcies plagued some of the most successful crypto companies
This past year saw the downfall of FTX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms.
After raising multibillion dollars from investors, according to a complaint filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, FTX is in bankruptcy, and its 30-year-old founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, stands accused of defrauding investors and has since been arrested. Bankman-Fried faces numerous charges leveled by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which says FTX customer losses total $8 billion.
But FTX was not the only crypto company to crumble in 2022. BlockFi, a cryptocurrency lender, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November.
Kraken, another previously high-valued cryptocurrency exchange and bank, recently announced it was reducing its workforce by 30% to “adapt to current market conditions.”
Crypto outlook for 2023
Cryptocurrency has always been a risky investment, according to economist and stockbroker Peter Schiff.
“I don’t think they have any underlying value,” Schiff, who also hosts The Peter Schiff Show Podcast, said about digital currency.
“There’s no real wealth that’s being created out of crypto,” he said. “Money is just transferring from the people who buy it to the people who sell it. And it’s not even a zero-sum game. It’s a negative game, because there’s so much cost, you know, that’s involved in the process. But it’s unfortunate that so much capital has been wasted and so many companies have been formed around crypto and blockchain. It’s all a complete waste.”
According to Yermack, one shouldn’t confuse crypto for what happened to FTX.
“FTX is an offshore operation run by very inexperienced people who seem to have behaved very badly,” he explained. “The fact that they were trading crypto is a little bit beside the point. They could have been trading real estate or stocks and bonds, or whatever. They had no accounting, no internal controls, they were very irresponsible with the money that was entrusted to them by their customers. But that’s not to say that everyone behaves that way in the crypto universe.”
Starkov said FTX’s crisis is “unfortunate because a lot of people got hurt.” But despite a tumultuous year for cryptocurrency, he says people have made money with crypto and that will keep attracting investors.
“If you look at where people bought [cryptocurrency] in from, they’re still on profit,” he said. “If you bought ETH at $80, $90 or if you bought Bitcoin at $1,000 $2,000, you’re still sitting at $17,000.”
Volatility and uncertainty, he said, is not endemic to cryptocurrency.
“We have the same thing with the stock market. We have the same thing with the real estate market,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — With a new year comes a host of new laws and regulations in states and cities across the country.
Residents and business leaders will have to abide by some major changes to their current policies following laws passed by state legislatures and ballot measures approved by voters. These laws deal with issues like raising the minimum wage, improving workplace pay transparency and legalizing marijuana.
Here are some of the notable new laws to hit the books next year:
Minimum wage
Twenty-six states will see their minimum wages rise starting Jan. 1.
The new salary floor comes following calls from workers’ rights groups, elected officials and others to increase wages for low-income workers.
Of the states that increased their minimum wages in 2023, Montana is the state with the lowest rate at $9.95 an hour, while Washington state is the highest at $15.74 an hour.
New York City, and its surrounding counties, will have a $15.00 minimum wage, which is 80 cents higher than the new minimum wage for the rest of the state, according to New York’s minimum wage laws.
Pay transparency
Two states are joining Oregon and New York City as locations that will require employees to post information about their salaries to prospective employees starting Jan. 1.
Under California and Washington state’s pay transparency laws, businesses and organizations with more than 15 employees must include a pay scale for any external job postings for non-employee applicants, including postings published by third parties.
The California law also requires employers who have over 100 employees to submit an annual report to the California Civil Rights Department that includes their organization’s pay data, the number of employees by race, ethnicity and sex for 10 specified job categories, and the mean hourly rates and summaries of earnings.
New legalized drug laws
Maryland and Missouri are slated to roll out their rules and regulations for legalized recreational marijuana for adults over 21.
Voters in both states, which currently offer medical marijuana to adults, passed ballot measures in November that approved the change.
As of Jan. 1, 21 states and the District of Columbia offer adult residents legalized recreational and medicinal marijuana.
In 2020, Oregon voters approved a ballot measure that made the state the first in the nation to legalize recreational psychedelic mushrooms, specifically Psilocybin. However, adult residents will only be allowed to use the drug in a supervised, state-approved center.
Starting Jan. 4, 2023, the Oregon Health Authority will begin accepting applications for Psilocybin manufacturers and the agency is expected to begin opening Psilocybin centers for residents later in the year.
Colorado voters also passed a ballot measure in the last election to legalize psychedelic mushrooms. While the substance won’t be available for some time as the state works out the specifics of its regulations, the state will decriminalize those substances by Jan 4. 2023, according to the Colorado Sec. of State’s office.
Criminal justice reform
Several states will implement changes to their criminal justice policies beginning Jan. 1.
Illinois is slated to become the first state in the union to end cash bail. Under the “SAFE-T Act,” courts will use “a more equitable system where pre-trial detention is based on community risk rather than financial means,” according to Gov. JB Pritzker’s office.
California will become the first state to restrict the use of rap lyrics in criminal investigations in 2023. Under the law, a judge will have to determine the admissibility of the lyrics in question as evidence, and whether they are directly linked to an alleged crime.
Several states will have new regulations that will expunge the records of former felons who don’t commit any crimes after they are released from prison.
Under Michigan’s new rules, up to two felony convictions will automatically be expunged 10 years after a person’s sentence is complete if they don’t commit another crime.
There are several exceptions, including felonies that involve sex crimes, and a felony conviction for domestic violence.
California will allow people with violent felony records to petition to have their records sealed if they completed their sentence and have not had a new felony offense in four years.
(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — Law enforcement officials investigating the disappearance of Madelina Cojocari, an 11-year-old girl who was reported missing on Dec. 15, searched a lake in her North Carolina town on Monday, the FBI and local police said.
“As part of the normal investigative process, we are expanding our search to include Lake Cornelius as a precautionary measure,” the FBI’s Charlotte bureau said on Twitter. “There’s nothing we won’t do to #FindMadalina.”
Cojocari has been missing since Nov. 23, but her disappearance wasn’t reported to her school’s resource officer until Dec. 15, according to the Cornelius Police Department.
The girl’s mother, Diana Cojocari, 37, and stepfather, Christopher Palmiter, 60, were arrested on Saturday on the charge of failure to report the disappearance of a child to law enforcement, police said in two statements.
Police said in a statement on Monday that the expansion of their search to the lake was “part of the normal investigative process,” which includes adding search locations outside Cojocari’s home.
“While the public will not see the majority of our investigative work, today you may see our lake patrol units and partners at the Cornelius Fire Department,” the department said on Facebook.
The department also said it was working with the FBI and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation to speak with “every person” who may have info about Cojocari’s disappearance.
Police said they’re seeking to make an “exact timeline of when she was last seen.”
(UVALDE, Texas) — An undercover inspector posing as an intruder was able to access a school cafeteria during a December security audit in Uvalde, Texas, the school district’s superintendent revealed Monday evening.
Student safety wasn’t jeopardized, interim superintendent Gary Patterson told a surprised school board during its meeting. But the news served as a shocking reminder of what occurred at Robb Elementary School on May 24, when a shooter entered through a door that was supposed to be locked and killed 19 students and two teachers.
The auditors tested three schools in Uvalde, one of which was accessed through an exterior door with a faulty latch near the school’s loading dock, Patterson said. The specific school was not identified.
The inspector noticed that the door did not latch closed unless the door was slammed, according to the audit. A delivery was in progress during the audit, and they were able to slip in the faulty door as it was left ajar. The fake intruder made it to the cafeteria, which was empty, before being stopped and questioned by school staff members.
“That is 100% my responsibility to see that that doesn’t happen,” Patterson said. “The delivery of goods and to loading docks was quite frankly something I overlooked, but I won’t overlook it next time.”
The other two schools that were part of the audit passed, with 100% of their exterior doors locked, according to Patterson. The interim superintendent said they plan to have an additional security training day for teachers and staff the day before school restarts in January.
The audit was part of a program started in October by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to randomly test Texas schools’ fortitude against outside threats, something prompted by the Robb shooting. The tests are being conducted statewide by the Texas School Safety Center at Texas State University, with hundreds already completed.
In the more than six months since the Uvalde massacre, the school district has spent millions of dollars adding additional security measures. They have spent or plan to spend almost $5 million combined on stronger fencing, auto-locking doors, security cameras and additional patrols.
Patterson also detailed his plans to increase security at Uvalde schools, including rebuilding the school police department. All of the department’s officers were put on suspension in October. Josh Gutierrez was hired in late November as the new school police chief, replacing Pete Arredondo, the chief on the day of the shooting who was fired in August amid criticism of his response during the shooting.
Gutierrez spoke Monday for the first time about his plans to rebuild the force. He told San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT-TV that he’s in the process of vetting officer applicants, conducting interviews and doing deep background checks.
“I have the ability to come out here and help the community heal, help our community heal, and the ability to reestablish a good foundation for our police department,” Gutierrez told KSAT.
Going into this school year, parents expressed concerns over the safety of the Uvalde schools during summer school board meetings. Some families elected to switch to private school, home school or remote learning as an alternative.
At Monday’s meeting, Patterson said that efforts to install new, upgraded doors and security gates have been hampered by supply chain issues and a lack of materials. The high school and junior high school are still waiting to get auto-locking doors. They have already been installed at the elementary schools.
“All the supply chain, equipment shortages, personnel shortages are working against us,” Patterson said. “But we are making good progress.”
(ROANOKE, Va.) — A bronze statue honoring Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose “immortal” cells have resulted in countless medical breakthroughs, will be built in her birthplace of Roanoke, Virginia.
Artist Bryce Cobbs unveiled a life-sized preliminary drawing of Lacks in a ceremony announcing the statue on Monday.
“The fact that I’m involved in this project means the world,” Cobbs said at a press conference. “I’m humbled to be a part of history in this way and just to be trusted with the task of making sure that I just captured Mrs. Henrietta Lacks the best way I could.”
Sculptor Larry Bechtel said he will reference the drawing in his design, which is set to be unveiled in October 2023.
Roanoke Hidden Histories, an initiative of the Harrison Museum of African American Culture, and Roanoke Vice-Mayor Trish White-Boyd are working to “surface the hidden histories of the African American experience in Roanoke.” They commissioned the project, which recently surpassed its $160,000 goal.
The statue will stand in downtown Roanoke’s Henrietta Lacks Plaza, previously named Lee Plaza after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
A statue of Lee was removed from the site after being toppled over in 2020 in the wake of the Black Live Matter movement following George Floyd’s murder.
Lacks’ grandson, Ron Lacks, said he was excited about the project.
“This is an honor and a privilege to be here in Roanoke with my father, Lawrence Lacks, Henrietta’s oldest and only living child,” he said at the ceremony on Monday. “This historical moment, occasion, has been a long time coming.”
The family was joined by attorney Ben Crump, who said the statue will serve as a reminder that Henrietta Lacks lives on through her legacy and great, though unwitting, contribution to science and medicine.
“I just think it’s so fitting in the state of Virginia … where in the past we commemorated a lot of men with statues that divided us. Now here in Roanoke, Virginia, we will have a statue of a Black woman who brings us all together,” he said.
In 1951, Lacks received treatment for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital, one of the only medical centers accepting Black patients at the time. There, a gynecologist took a sample of her cells, sending it to a lab for research without her knowledge or consent, her family says.
Though Lacks died just months later, her cells, later named “HeLa” cells, were discovered to be remarkably “immortal,” lasting longer than any other samples scientists had seen, even multiplying every 24 hours, according to Johns Hopkins.
Scientists say HeLa cells are estimated to have saved millions of lives through medical advancements, including the polio vaccine, coronavirus vaccines, cancer treatments, AIDS treatments, Parkinson’s treatments, and human survival in zero gravity.
Crump is also heading a lawsuit against biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific filed by Lacks’ family last year that his firm says will “lay the foundation for genetic justice.” Lacks’ family claims the corporation has unjustly made money off Lacks’ cells without permission from the family.
“When you consider issues of genetic justice, reproductive rights, and stem cell research, there are a lot of historical figures who we like to suggest that their contributions changed the world,” Crump said on Monday. “Well, in the case of Henrietta Lacks, we have objective evidence. If I was in the court of law, I would say we have empirical evidence that Henrietta Lacks’ immortal cells literally changed the world.”
Thermo Fisher told ABC News it does not comment on pending litigation.
“Although these were the first cells that could be easily shared and multiplied in a lab setting, Johns Hopkins has never sold or profited from the discovery or distribution of HeLa cells and does not own the rights to the HeLa cell line,” Johns Hopkins said in a statement. “Rather, Johns Hopkins offered HeLa cells freely and widely for scientific research.”
“Having reviewed our interactions with Henrietta Lacks and with the Lacks family over more than 50 years, we found that Johns Hopkins could have – and should have – done more to inform and work with members of Henrietta Lacks’ family out of respect for them, their privacy and their personal interests. Though the collection and use of Henrietta Lacks’ cells in research was an acceptable and legal practice in the 1950s, such a practice would not happen today without the patient’s consent,” the statement said.
(NOTE LANGUAGE) Matt Damon missed out on a cool $250 million dollar payday when he turned down the starring role in Avatar and director James Cameron can’t help but to laugh.
Cameron originally pitched Damon to star in the 2009 film and even offered him a 10% cut of box office profits, Damon revealed in 2021 while at Cannes Film Festival. Given that the film went on to gross over $2.9 billion, that would have equaled a payday of over $250 million.
“I will go down in history… you will never meet an actor who turned down more money,” Damon said at the time, according to Deadline.
In a recent BBC interview, Cameron was asked about the actor, and he immediately erupted in laughter.
“He’s beating himself up over this and I really think you know, ‘Matt you’re kind of like one of the biggest movie stars in the world, get over it,'” Cameron said before explaining why Damon had to turn the film down. “He had to do another ‘Bourne’ film which was on his runway and there was nothing we could do about that. So he had to regretfully decline.”
Although Damon missed out on a chance to be in the first movie, Cameron is open to him appearing in a future Avatar sequel but he doesn’t plan on giving him the same deal.
“Must do it. We have to do it so the world is in equilibrium again. But he doesn’t get 10%, f*** that,” Cameron said.
Members of 98 Degrees, O-Town and All-4-One,as well as Ryan Cabrera, are about to wrap A Boy Band Christmas tour, but they gave fans an everlasting gift: a song they recorded together.
The group released “O Holy Night” ahead of launching their new tour. 98’s Jeff Timmons, who was credited with pitching the idea of making a holiday song,told ABC Audio the group loved his idea but struggled to pick a favorite.
“There’s so many great holiday classics … so it’s hard to choose one,” he said. As for how they eventually settled on the famous Christmas carol, Timmons revealed a friend of theirs who works in radio suggested a couple of contenders and one of them was “O Holy Night.”
“If a radio guy that programs radio stations is suggesting something he would like to hear, perhaps he would play it,” the singer recalled of his thought process.
As for whether fans will see more songs or even a tour-themed album from the group, said 98’s Drew Lachey, “We’ll see!”
He teased, “It won’t be hard to start laying out vocals out on the road while we’re out together. We enjoy performing together. We enjoy making music. So that wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.”
A Boy Band Christmas Tour, also featuring 98’s Justin Jeffre, O-Town’s Erik-Michael Estrada and All-4-One’s Jamie Jones, ends December 23 at Vancouver’s PNE Winter Fair at Pacific Coliseum.
Mariah Carey‘s holiday special, Merry Christmas to All!, airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET. But People has a special preview of the show, which was recorded December 13 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, so you’ll know what to expect.
During the special, Mariah descended from the rafters on a snowflake throne and sang many traditional holiday hits, such as “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night.” Of course, she also performed her number-one hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” and none other than Billy Porter presented her with a plaque marking the song’s 12-times Platinum certification from the RIAA.
Porter isn’t the only guest you’ll see on Tuesday night, though: Mariah also welcomed Drew Barrymore, Jermaine Dupri, rap legend Slick Rick and the Radio City Rockettes to the stage.
Mariah’s 11-year-old twins, Monroe and Moroccan, were also part of the show, and Monroe even joined her mom for a duet on the song “Away In a Manger.”
And because this is Mariah we’re talking about, throughout the show she had assistants come out onstage to bring her bedazzled glasses of water and tea, and called her glam squad to come out and touch up her makeup.
But one surprising thing you’ll see Tuesday night is that Mariah doesn’t stick to the holiday hits: You’ll also see her perform classics like “Fantasy,” “Hero,” “Emotions,” “Heartbreaker,” “Make It Happen” and “Honey.”
In other Mariah news, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has now been number one for 10 weeks overall, making her the first female artist with three songs that have spent 10 weeks or more on top. The others were “One Sweet Day,” her collab with Boyz II Men that topped the chart for 16 weeks, and “We Belong Together,” which ruled for 14 weeks.
The only other artists to achieve this? Boyz II Men and Drake.
