(NEW YORK) — After dumping 70 inches of snow in parts of California, a winter storm is now pushing east, bringing heavy snow, ice and blizzard conditions to the north and a tornado threat to the south.
Here’s the forecast for the week:
Tuesday
A blizzard warning is in effect in Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Kansas and Colorado.
One to two feet of snow is expected through Thursday. Coupled with winds near 55 mph, residents could see dangerous whiteout conditions.
Meanwhile, tornadoes are touching down in the south.
One tornado was confirmed in Wayne, Oklahoma, Tuesday morning while another was confirmed near Fort Worth, Texas.
Tuesday afternoon and evening, the tornado threat will extend from Lufkin, Texas, to Shreveport, Louisiana, to Alexandria, Louisiana, to Jackson, Mississippi. A few of the tornadoes could be life-threatening.
Wednesday
The tornado threat moves into the central Gulf Coast on Wednesday with New Orleans and Mobile in the bullseye for potentially strong tornadoes.
Thursday
By Thursday afternoon, the storm will move into the Northeast, dropping snow inland. A winter storm watch has already been issued from Virginia to Pennsylvania.
Residents along the Interstate 95 corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston will see heavy rain and strong winds.
(NEW YORK) — After 50 years, serving seven presidents, spearheading a response to HIV/AIDS, Zika, Ebola and a novel coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci is stepping down from his role in the federal government at the end of December.
Despite being 81 years old, Fauci said he has the energy to still contribute and plans to announce his next career chapter in 2023.
“I would say I feel about 40, and maybe the most, 45,” he told ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Jennifer Ashton in a power walk around his neighborhood.
Fauci credits his passion for his work as one reason he’s been able to stay active in the federal government years past someone else may have gracefully bowed out.
“A purpose of what you’re doing, where you feel like you’re doing something that has an impact and you get very energetic about it, and that kind of sustains you,” he said. “I don’t get bored. I don’t ever get bored.”
But passion alone can’t keep someone active into their 80s. Fauci also has good genetics to thank for his mental sharpness, he said.
“My father was very, very much like me. He died when he was 97,” Fauci said. “And he had all his smarts at the time he died.”
He’s also stayed active. Fauci has been an athlete all his life — he played basketball in high school, and intramural sports through college and medical school. Then, in his late 30s, he started to run.
“I started to train and then I got really interested and I ran four marathons,” Fauci said.
He loves 10k races as well.
“I’m more of a sprinter,” he said.
Now, he walks every day.
Fauci also tries to stick to good nutritional habits. He said he gives himself a “B minus” on his diet.
“The one good thing about it is I don’t do anything in excess,” he said. “I don’t drink a lot, a glass of wine or a beer in the evening at the most.”
He loves sweets, but tries to keep those cravings under control.
“I could eat 20 chocolate chip cookies if I had to. And I love New York cheesecakes, but again, I try to control it. I would think among all the health things of exercise, moderation, things like that, my diet is the only one that I’m mediocre on and not really good,” he said.
Despite his commitment to a healthy lifestyle, Fauci said the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic took a toll.
In January and February 2020, he was only sleeping three-and-a-half or four hours each night. He lost weight, and wasn’t feeling well. That’s when his wife, Christine — who’s the chief of the department of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health — stepped in.
“One evening when I just could barely stay awake when I came home, she went, ‘All right, that’s it. We’re going to stop this now. You’re going to eat, you’re going to drink water, you’re going to stay hydrated, and you’re going to sleep.’ And since then I’ve been okay,” he said.
The pandemic was an emotional challenge, too. Fauci tested positive for COVID-19 two days before his daughter’s wedding, which was devastating. Luckily, he was still able to FaceTime into the wedding.
“It wasn’t the real thing, but it was not bad,” he said.
After all the decades in public service, Fauci said he’s looking forward to the next stage. He’s about to be a grandfather for the first time. He’s excited to spend more time with his children. And he’s taking everything day by day.
“You’re very cognizant of each day is sort of like a blessing,” Fauci said. “Each day, take each day and don’t say jump ahead by a month ’cause jump ahead by a month — you do the math — it’s a certain fraction of what you have left.”
American Idol season two finalists Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard will mark the 20th anniversary of their appearance on the show with a 2023 joint tour throughout the U.S. and Canada, titled Twenty The Tour.
“@clayaiken & I are hitting the road this Spring, twenty years after our debuts on American Idol. Join us for the first leg of Twenty | The Tour,” Studdard shared on Instagram, along with the official tour poster and dates for the first leg of the trek.
Twenty The Tour, kicking off April 12 in Troy, New York, will include stops in Philadelphia, Chicago and Atlanta, before wrapping up May 16 in Wausau, Wisconsin. Tickets can be purchased through the tour’s official website, rubenandclay.com.
The pair discussed the tour during a Monday appearance on The View, noting, “We were here five years ago to announce our Broadway Christmas special, which was exciting for us… we are about to celebrate our 20th anniversary from the year we were on Idol, and so Ruben and I are are hitting the road together with a 20th anniversary tour all across the country through the year.”
“We’re starting out this spring and we’re going to be celebrating the last 20 years since we did Idol and the music we’ve gotten to make and the friendships we made along the way,” he continued
Aiken and Studdard also revealed they’ll be returning to American Idol in the upcoming season for the finale. The duo faced off against each other in the American Idol season two finale in 2003, which Studdard ultimately won.
(NEW YORK) — Mississippi State head football coach Mike Leach has died following a heart attack on Sunday. Leach was 61 years old.
The school announced Leach’s death Tuesday morning.
“Mike was a giving and attentive husband, father and grandfather,” the Leach family said in a statement. “He was able to participate in organ donation at UMMC as a final act of charity. We are supported and uplifted by the outpouring of love and prayers from family, friends, Mississippi State University, the hospital staff, and football fans around the world. Thank you for sharing in the joy of our beloved husband and father’s life.”
Leach was beloved by fans and the media for his folksy attitude and blunt interviews. Social media was filled with video clips of Leach on Sunday and Monday after it was announced he’d suffered a heart attack over the weekend.
Leach took over as coach at Mississippi State in 2020 and led the team to a 19-17 record over three seasons. The team, currently ranked No. 22 in the country, finished 8-4 this season and is slated to face Illinois in the ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa on Jan. 2.
The mother of Diddy‘s seventh child, a girl named Love Sean Combs, has been revealed.
Dana Tran, a 28-year-old cyber security specialist, gave birth to baby Love on October 15 in Newport, California, according to a copy of the newborn’s birth certificate obtained by TMZ.
Diddy, 53, announced his daughter’s arrival on social media on Saturday, writing, “I’m so blessed to welcome my baby girl Love Sean Combs to the world. Mama Combs, Quincy, JustinChristian, D’Lila, Jessie and myself all love you so much! God is the Greatest!”
Tran has yet to comment on the baby news.
Diddy, 53, shares four children with the late Kim Porter: adopted son Quincy, 31; Christian, 24; and 15-year-old twin daughters Jessie and D’Lila. He also has a son Justin, 28, with Misa Hylton, and a daughter Chance, 16, with Sarah Chapman.
Diddy had been dating City Girls‘ Yung Miami since 2021, but they had both indicated they were in an open relationship.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday charged Sam Bankman-Fried, the embattled former CEO of cryptocurrency giant FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, with defrauding investors.
“FTX’s collapse highlights the very real risks that unregistered crypto asset trading platforms can pose for investors and customers alike,” Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a statement.
Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday in the Bahamas after federal prosecutors in New York filed criminal charges contained in a sealed indictment, according to the Royal Bahamas Police Force. He is expected to appear in court in the Bahamas on Tuesday.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Dec 13, 8:51 AM EST
‘It’s serious’: Former prosecutor says public statements could hurt FTX founder
While the full criminal charges have yet to be released, the Securities and Exchange Commission released it’s complaint against Sam Bankman-Fried early Tuesday.
“It’s serious,” said Brendan Quigley, a former federal securities fraud prosecutor in New York who is now a partner at Baker Botta. “Assuming they can show promises were made to counterparties, investors or clients about where money was going to go, and that it didn’t go there, that’s a serious offense, probably wire fraud at least.”
Bankman-Fried’s public statements could come back to haunt him, including an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
“The big thing will be if SDNY can shows conflicts either between his public statements or between his current public statement and something that was said or promised to investors,” Quigley said.
Dec 13, 8:32 AM EST
Bankman-Fried built ‘house of cards’: SEC
Though cryptocurrency can seem a mystical world, the civil complaint from the Securities and Exchange Commission reads like a standard case of securities fraud, accusing Sam Bankman-Fried of building a “house of cards.”
Bankman-Fried raised $1.8 billion for FTX while “orchestrating a massive, years-long fraud, diverting billions of dollars of the trading platform’s customer funds for his own personal benefit and to help grow his crypto empire,” the complaint said.
Customers sent billions of dollars to FTX believing their assets were secure but, from the start, the SEC said Bankman-Fried “improperly diverted customer assets to his privately-held crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research LLC, and then used those customer funds to make undisclosed venture investments, lavish real estate purchases, and large political donations.”
Federal prosecutors in New York said they would unseal related criminal charges later Tuesday.
“We allege that Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
The civil complaint seeks penalties and fines, but also to prohibit Bankman-Fried from “participating in the offer or sale of securities including crypto asset securities” in the future, a move that would complete his fall as the poster child for the emerging cryptocurrency marketplace.
Dec 13, 8:32 AM EST
Bankman-Fried refused request for Senate testimony
While Sam Bankman-Fried was set to give testimony to a House committee Tuesday, later canceled after his arrest late Monday, he continues to reject requests from the Senate for a hearing of its own.
In a joint statement Monday afternoon, prior to his arrest, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Banking Committee called Bankman-Fried’s refusal to appear “an unprecedented abdication of responsibility.”
“Virtually every CEO, financial regulator, and administration official for Republicans and Democrats has agreed to testify in front of both the Senate and House when called upon — that is how congressional oversight works,” Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said in a statement. “We have offered Sam Bankman-Fried two different dates for providing testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and are willing to accommodate virtual testimony. He has declined in an unprecedented abdication of accountability.”
The committee will continue efforting an appearance from Bankman-Fried because he is “unwilling to accept service of a subpoena.”
Dec 13, 8:32 AM EST
What to know about former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried?
Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of FTX, quickly ascended to the top of the cryptocurrency sector, garnering goodwill in recent years as a philanthropist and leading proponent of industry regulation.
The cover of Fortune Magazine in August asked readers whether Bankman-Fried, known by some as “SBF,” was “the next Warren Buffett.”
After the sudden bankruptcy of FTX, however, he faced withering questions over the mismanagement of billions in customer funds.
Meanwhile, his net worth plummeted from $16 billion to $0 in less than a week, according to an estimate from Bloomberg.
A new year marks a chance to focus on new goals, and for country stars, those goals often have to do with their music.
For example, Thomas Rhett says he wants to improve his vocal stamina so that his voice can still shine at the end of those three-day touring weekends.
“I think I want to learn, in the same way you would want to, like, get ripped in the gym, how to get your voice there, too,” he explains in an interview with his record label. “Thursdays and Fridays are always really easy for me, but Saturdays I tend to wake up kinda struggling.”
He adds, “I just started doing vocal lessons a couple years ago, so I think I’ve got a lot of stuff left to learn.”
Meanwhile, Carly Pearce has never been shy about her fandom for the classic women of country — but in 2023, she wants to expand her brand the way artists like Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire have.
“I want to be the women that I love, the Dollys, the Rebas. They’re household names,” Carly points out. “So I want to figure out what is my version of that.”
She’s already got a head start: Carly hosted ABC’s CMA Country Christmas special to close out this year.
“You know, is that doing something outside of music? Is that just expanding and kind of stretching? I know I can do music, but what else can I do within that umbrella of just challenging myself?” the singer wonders.
Of course, she’s keeping her classic country sound heavily in the mix. Carly teased a snippet of audio from the studio this week, and from the sounds of it, her new material is twangier and more full of fiddle than anything she’s put out yet.
Is there a fourth baby in Kate Hudson‘s future? Even she can’t say for sure.
Hudson, 43, tells Byrdie in a story published on Monday that she’s “been having children [her] entire adult life” and hasn’t ruled out shooting for a fifth.
“I’ve got my 4-year-old, and I’ve got a kid in college,” notes Hudson, referring to her daughter Rani and 18-year-old son Ryder.
“I don’t even know if I’m done yet,” the Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery actress, who is also the mother of 11-year-old son Bingham, tells the beauty and wellness outlet. “You know, I don’t have that answer yet.”
Hudson says she’s always evolving and recalibrating, asking herself, “Where am I at? And do I feel good? And do I feel healthy? And how are my kids? How’s my relationship?…Where do I need to spend some time refocusing?”
Hudson and musician Danny Fujikawa welcomed Rami in 2018 and announced their engagement this past September.
The Almost Famous star shares Ryder with ex-husband Chris Robinson, the frontman for The Black Crowes, and Bingham with ex Matt Bellamy, the frontman for Muse.
(WASHINGTON) — Consumer prices rose 7.1% in November, continuing a months-long decline from a 40-year record reached over the summer.
Economists had predicted a CPI increase of 7.2%.
Monthly inflation also fell significantly. Prices rose 0.1% in November, cooling down from a 0.4% increase in October.
The top contributor to the monthly price increase came from shelter costs, which rose 0.6% in November. Food prices also jumped over the month, rising 0.5%.
But prices fell for a host of goods, including gasoline, used cars and trucks and medical services.
The decline in inflation follows a string of aggressive rate hikes from the Federal Reserve aimed at bringing prices down to normal levels.
The inflation data arrives a day before the Fed is expected to impose another borrowing cost increase. Economists project the Fed will raise rates by 0.5% on Wednesday, a slowdown from three consecutive jumbo-sized rate hikes of 0.75% but still a significant intensification of its fight against price increases.
By raising borrowing costs, the Fed has tried to slash inflation 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.
So far, however, the labor market has proven resilient, bolstering the hopes of policymakers seeking to avert a shutdown but also raising fears of a prolonged bout of inflation driven by wage gains.
Hiring last month exceeded expectations and wages grew a blistering 5.1% compared to a year earlier, offering welcome relief for workers strained by price hikes.
But rising wages often push companies to hike prices to make up for the added costs, which can worsen inflation and make it more difficult to reverse.
Despite the robust job market, growing evidence suggests the Fed’s rate hikes have put the brakes on some economic activity.
Home sales fell for the ninth month in a row in October, the most recent month on record. Sales of existing homes, such as single-family homes and condominiums, were down about 28% from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the personal savings rate fell to 2.3% last month, the lowest rate in nearly two decades, according to data from the Commerce Department. The failure to stash extra funds suggests that savings stockpiled during the pandemic have strained under the weight of high prices.
With a selfie to his Instagram, Timothée Chalamet announced on Monday that Dune: Part Two has finished principal photography. The photo shows the star shirtless, smiling with his father, Marc, with both holding up two fingers to the camera, and it generated more than 1.8 million likes in a matter of hours. “DUNE 2 WRAPPED,” Chalamet captioned simply, adding “with desert dad!!!” The photo was snapped in the sands of Abu Dhabi, UAE, subbing for the desert planet Arrakis. Dune: Part Two, the follow-up to the Oscar-winning 2021 film, will again star Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya and Josh Brolin; Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Christopher Walken and Javier Bardem will also star when the movie opens November 3, 2023…
HBO has reversed course and canceled the 1970s-set Minx as the series was about to finish shooting its second season. According to Variety, producer Lionsgate will look for a new home for the well-reviewed show, which starred Jake Johnson and Ophelia Lovibond as a pair trying to get an erotic magazine for women off the ground…
HBO has released the trailer to its upcoming series White House Plumbers, about the bungled burglary that led to the Watergate scandal that ended Richard Nixon‘s presidency. The series, from Veep executive producer David Mandel, has Woody Harrelson playing E. Howard Hunt and Justin Theroux as G. Gordon Liddy, and in the trailer we see the “men of action” being recruited to surveil Nixon’s Democrat opponents at the Watergate hotel, and the burglars’ eventual arrest… (Video contains uncensored profanity)
Angelo Badalamenti, the composer who worked with director David Lynch for his films Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, as well as his series Twin Peaks, has died. Badalamenti’s great nephew noted the passing with a black-and-white photo of the Brooklyn-born, Grammy-winning composer, noting, “My great uncle Angelo Badalamenti has crossed the barrier onto another plane of existence,” calling him, “A true musical and artistic inspiration for me and countless others,” who worked with musical acts from Michael Jackson to Anthrax. Badalamenti was 85…
Stuart Margolin, the Emmy-winning character actor best known for playing con man Evelyn “Angel” Martin opposite James Garner on The Rockford Files, died Monday, his stepson and The Unit actor Max Martini announced on Instagram. Margolin was 82. His other credits include the Blake Edwards films S.O.B. and A Fine Mess, The Stone Killer, Death Wish alongside Charles Bronson and The Gambler, with James Caan. On TV, Margolin directed and/or appeared in shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Wonder Woman, Touched by an Angel, The Love Boat, Magnum, P.I., Northern Exposure, Quantum Leap and The Rockford Files…
