Taylor Swift fans know that the superstar singer loves to cook and bake, and now she’s paying tribute to the woman who taught her that doing so is a great way to relieve stress: Ina Garten.
For a Food Network magazine cover story on Garten, known as the “Barefoot Contessa,” various celebrities including Tina Fey, Julianna Marguiles, Nathan Lane and Jennifer Garner, wrote pieces praising the chef. In her own piece, Taylor notes that she first discovered Garten’s TV show when she was in her teens, and, she says, “my life revolved around touring.”
“On my rare days off at home, I barely ever cooked because it had always felt like a chore,” Taylor writes. “Watching Ina prepare a meal changed my perspective on cooking and reframed it as something relaxing. She made cooking feel like self-care. Ever since, cooking has been my escape from stress and one of the only ways I can truly calm myself on a rough day. I’ll always be grateful to her for giving me that.”
Since then, Taylor’s gotten to meet and cook with Ina, whom she calls a “magnificent woman.” She notes, “She’s one of those people who is even better, funnier, warmer than you’d hoped her to be.”
Ina is a huge fan of Taylor’s as well. In 2019, she wrote a birthday message to her on Instagram: “Happy birthday @taylorswift!! You’re a beacon of light for women of all generations, including me!”
Add Dame Judi Dench to the chorus of critics speaking out about how Netflix’s The Crown portrays the British royal family.
In a piece for The Timespublished Wednesday, the English actress — who’s portrayed two past British queens in three different films — criticized the hit drama, writing, “The closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism.”
Noting some of the suggested storylines for the show’s upcoming fifth season — “that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence” — Dench continued, “This is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.”
“No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged,” Dench added. “Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a ‘fictionalized drama’, the program makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.”
“The time has come for Netflix to reconsider — for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve their own reputation in the eyes of their British subscribers,” Dench concluded.
The Crown is based on the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, who died September 8 at age 96 after a U.K.-record 70-year reign. Netflix has received broader criticism for its decision to debut the drama’s fifth season on November 9, coming as it does just two months after the late monarch’s death.
Timberlake and Biel in 2012; Lars Niki/Corbis via Getty Images
Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel marked their 10th wedding anniversary on Wednesday, and Justin posted a sweet tribute to his wife on Instagram to mark the occasion.
“10 years ain’t enough! You make me a better husband and father every day!” Justin wrote. “I love you so much you beautiful human! Run it back!” The captioned accompanied a series of photos of the couple throughout the years: posting on red carpets, on a mountaintop, in a vineyard, chilling at home and eating pasta a la Lady and the Tramp.
Jessica posted her own series of photos with the caption, “Being married to you is the adventure of a lifetime! Run it back, baby. RUN IT BACK. I love you.”
The actress also revealed in her Instagram Story that the couple renewed their vows this past summer in Italy, where they were married in 2012. She noted that she was wearing Giambattista Valli for the renewal ceremony — the same designer who made her wedding dress.
After high-profile relationships with Britney Spears and Cameron Diaz, JT was first spotted with Jessica in 2007 at the Sundance Film Festival. In early 2011, they reportedly took a three-month break but reunited that fall; Justin proposed that December. The two welcomed their first son, Silas, in 2015 and a second son, Phineas, in 2020.
(LONDON) — U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation on Thursday.
Truss, who only became prime minister on Sept. 6, will be the shortest serving prime minister in modern political history.
“I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party,” Truss said.
Her resignation follows weeks of political and economic crisis, after the government introduced a new “mini-budget” which was roundly criticized.
The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, has called for a general election. The Conservative Party, then under the leadership of Boris Johnson, won a large majority in the last general election in 2019.
Whoever is chosen as Truss’ successor from the Conservative Party ranks will become the fifth prime minister since the U.K. voted to leave the EU in the Brexit referendum of 2016 in an unprecedented period of turbulence in British political history.
From outside the steps of Number 10 Downing Street, Truss said a leadership election would take place over the next seven days.
(NEW YORK) — Marcelo Candia spends all day teaching a classroom full of 4-year-old children in northern Virginia — then walks across the street to work in a grocery store bakery for four more hours.
It’s the reality faced by so many workers in the child care industry, where low pay and other factors have created a labor crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
“I love what I do,” Candia, a father who is also working toward an associate’s degree, told ABC News. “I come here with a lot of energy. I go out of the school when I’m finished my period here with a boost of energy.”
As the U.S. job market continues to bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic, the child care industry has lagged behind.
The sector has lost about 9.7% of its workforce compared to pre-pandemic levels, or about 102,400 employees between February 2020 and last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
‘This is unheard of’
Leslie Spina, who runs five early childhood education centers in Philadelphia, told ABC News she continues to face staffing shortages.”
“We’re about 22% short-staffed right now,” Spina, the executive director of Kinder Academy, said. “This is unheard of.”
At Candia’s center, ACCA Child Development Center in Annandale, Virginia, the shortage of workers has meant fewer kids can receive care.
“I have a couple of classrooms that are not staffed,” Isabel Ballivian, the executive director of ACCA Child Development Center, told ABC News. “Therefore, we don’t have children there.”
Low wages drive staffing shortage, experts say
The most significant factor driving the staffing crisis is low pay for child care workers, according to experts.
A child care worker in the United States made an average of just $13.31 per hour, or $27,680 per year, in 2021, according to the most recent available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“It’s physically mentally, emotionally hard work, and it’s one of the lowest paid jobs in every single state in the country,” said Lea Austin, the executive director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, at the University of California, Berkeley.
Many day care teachers want to stay in the industry but cannot afford to provide for their own families, educators and center directors told ABC News.
“If I wanted to have kids, if I wanted to get married and kind of go to that next part of my life, it’s just not really possible,” Nicole Lazarte, who leads an infant classroom at ACCA Child Development Center, said. “I could do it, and I’ve seen people do it, but I see them struggle.”
Instead, educators often turn to higher-paying, less stressful jobs in retail and restaurants.
“We’re not paying what Target pays,” Spina said. “We’re not paying what Chick-fil-A pays — because we can’t afford to.”
Many teachers are also drawn to publicly funded K-12 schools, which typically offer better wages, vacation time and other benefits. Center directors say that can lead to a brain drain at day cares as more experienced workers leave.
Reliance on tuition from parents prevents wage increases
Unlike public K-12 schools, which are funded by taxpayer dollars, early childhood centers primarily rely on tuition charged to parents to fund their budgets.
They do also often receive some public assistance, but the amount they get varies widely across states and jurisdictions.
But it’s not nearly enough for so many centers, many of which closed during the pandemic as enrollment lagged.
“We are not going to solve this problem without public intervention and public funding,” Austin said. “It really is the equivalent of trying to fund a public school system through parent fees.”
Ballivian, who runs ACCA Child Development Center, said that raising tuition simply is not an option, with many working-class parents struggling to make ends meet themselves.
“The large majority of the children that we serve come from families that have low income and that are relatively new to the community,” Ballivian told ABC News. “It is imperative that these kids have access to quality care and education, because it’s the one thing that is changing the trajectories of their lives.”
Some daycare centers have fought to retain workers by increasing pay and benefits, but limited financial resources makes doing so difficult.
The center receives some funding from the county and state — and got federal dollars during the pandemic — but, Ballivian said, is still facing an approximately $200,000 deficit for the current fiscal year “because we decided to increase the salaries.”
“There are times when you wake up and think, is it worth it? Should I continue to do this?” she said. “But I know that I am making a difference in the lives of others.”
DC tries supplementing teachers’ incomes
Some jurisdictions, like Washington, D.C., have tried to channel more money to early childhood centers — and teachers.
The D.C. government, which provides various grants to centers themselves, also launched an innovative program this year that supplements educators’ salaries — with payments totaling up to $14,000 per year.
Payments to teachers are part of an array of funding the city spends on early child care, according to Sara Mead, the city’s deputy superintendent of early learning. Residents benefit from free, universal pre-kindergarten; centers receive grants to raise their quality of care; and low-income families receive subsidies to cover child care costs.
Latoria Meyers, who teaches infants and toddlers at Kidspace Child and Family Development Center in Washington, said the additional money from the city has helped her “tremendously.”
“I’m a single mom, so it helped me kind of get back on a financial balance, as far as, like, paying some things off, actually taking my son on a trip finally — his first plane ride,” Meyers told ABC News.
The center where she works provides free child care to families who have experienced homelessness, trauma and abuse. It relies largely on private donations, as well as funding from the city.
Sandra Jackson, the president and CEO of House of Ruth, the organization that runs the center, told ABC News that paying relatively more has helped retain quality workers.
“It’s a no brainer,” Jackson said. “The child care workers, teachers, anyone that comes in contact with children is just as important as our doctors, our lawyers, our Supreme Court justices.”
Parents feel squeeze
Amid the staffing shortages, parents have felt the squeeze as options for care become more limited.
Courtney Tay, a pre-kindergarten teacher in Springfield, Missouri, has spent months searching for a day care space for a daughter she is expecting in December.
“For most of the centers, they don’t have any availability until summer or fall of 2023,” she said. “I’m looking for care when she is three months old, and they’re not going to have any available until she’s about eight or nine months old.”
Tay plans to rely on her mother for help until then.
“I’ve been really surprised by how difficult it is to find a place for her,” Tay said.
Federal reform needed to end crisis, experts say
Experts say reform is needed at the federal level to transform the early childhood education system, attracting workers and making care affordable and accessible.
“The reality is state and local governments can’t do this on our own,” Mead, of the D.C. government, told ABC News. “There are fiscal constraints that we operate under that are different from those of the federal government and so to get really large infusions of funds, it will be necessary to tap the power of federal funds.”
President Joe Biden pushed Congress to approve major investments in child care, including funding for free, universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-old children nationwide.
But after Republicans in Congress blocked that plan, Biden faced additional resistance from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, and dropped the investments from a later iteration of a domestic spending plan Congress did pass.
Without change, the industry will continue to face job shortages and high rates of staffing turnover, according to Austin, who has studied the U.S. early childhood care system’s workforce extensively.
“If we can’t figure out how to have reform of our early childhood education system that is driven by public dollars,” Austin said, “we’re not going to recover from this crisis.”
Deadline reports the Alec Baldwin western Rust will resume production in January, 15 months after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on set, but not in New Mexico.
No final decision has been made on the new location, but producers are reportedly set to scout locations in California, near Palm Springs and the Nevada border.
An insider tells the outlet, “It’s emotionally difficult for the crew and the cast to return to the same place” — that is, where Halyna was mortally wounded by Baldwin when a supposedly safe weapon he was pointing at her discharged a live round.
Halyna was shot on October 21, 2021; Rust‘s director Joel Souza was also injured by the same bullet.
The news comes two weeks after Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, settled his wrongful death lawsuit with Rust producers on October 5. Matthew has also come on board as an executive producer to finish the film, per the agreement.
A criminal investigation into the shooting is still ongoing.
(NEW YORK) — As Princeton University intensifies its search for Misrach Ewunetie, the undergraduate student who’s been missing for almost a week, her brother says that time is “of the essence.”
“We can take any help we can find. And we just want the law to be faster because time is of the essence,” Universe Ewunetie said on ABC News’ Good Morning America on Thursday.
Misrach Ewunetie, 20, was last seen at about 3 a.m. on Friday, the school said. She was last seen near Scully Hall on the school’s New Jersey campus, according to an alert sent to the Princeton community on Monday.
Universe said his sister’s phone last pinged a location near an off-campus residence about a 30-minute walk from her dorm after 3 a.m. on Friday. His sister being at a location like that so late was out of character, Universe said.
“It’s pretty far away,” he said. “And Princeton is a big campus and it’s very insular. Right. So it’s very odd that her phone would be off campus like everything is on campus.”
The university sent an email to students on Wednesday, urging anyone with info to come forward. There’s an increased police presence on campus, the school said.
HBO Max on Wednesday dropped the first trailer for season 2 of The Sex Lives of College Girls, the comedy from Mindy Kaling. The four roommates — Kimberly, Bela, Leighton and Whitney, played respectively by Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur, Renee Rapp and Alyah Chanelle Scott — return for another semester of living out their hormone-fueled lives featuring hot bods, strips shows and, of course, sex. The first two episodes of The Sex Lives of College Girls season 2 drop Thursday, Nov. 17 on HBO Max…(Trailer contains uncensored profanity.)
Natalie Morales, best known for her roles in shows such as Netflix’s Dead to Me and Santa Clarita Diet, has been tapped for a recurring role in season 3 of Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, according to Variety. She’ll play Kate Danton, the best friend from Stanford of Greta Lee‘s Stella. The pair were part of a start-up incubator run by Jon Hamm‘s Paul Marks, according to the streamer. Morales joins a rapidly expanding cast that includes Hamm, Nicole Beharie, Tig Notaro and Stephen Fry, as well as Julianna Marguiles, who will reprise as Laura. The series stars and is executive produced by Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon…
CBS announced on Wednesday that it has extended the orders for three of its rookie series: Fire Country, East New York and So Help Me Todd, following strong ratings by each — ranking #1, #2 and #3 respectively among all new shows on any network, according to Nielsen. The three CBS shows join NBC’s Quantum Leap sequel in earning a full season; the last of which had its run extended by six episodes…
Cardi B took the stand Wednesday to fight a $5 million lawsuit claiming the artwork from her first mixtape left a man “humiliated,”Billboard reports.
The artwork in question is from Cardi’s debut mixtape Gangsta B**** Music, Vol. 1 and features the rapper in the back of a vehicle, taking a sip of beer, staring into the camera with her legs spread wide as she hold’s a man’s head between them, appearing to perform oral sex on her.
The man in the artwork is a Black male model, however, the tattoo that appears on his back belonged to Kevin Michael Brophy Jr. and was photoshopped onto the model’s body after he discovered it during a Google search.
The mixtape was released in 2016 and Brophy sued in 2017 for millions, claiming he was “devastated, humiliated and embarrassed” by the cover and that his right to privacy was violated and painted him in a “false light,” the outlet adds.
While taking the stand, Cardi told Brophy’s attorney, A. Barry Cappello, “This is not about taking anything down. Y’all have been harassing me for $5 million.”
“It’s not Mr. Brophy’s back. It doesn’t look like Mr. Brophy at all,” she said. “There has been not one receipt he has provided in the court claiming, ‘Hey, that’s you on Cardi’s mixtape.'”
The “Up” singer also made note of Brophy’s claim that his image played a factor in her success over the years, stating that she works hard for her two kids and it’s “really insulting to me as a woman that a man is claiming responsibility.”
Testimony will continue Thursday with a verdict due on Friday or Monday.
(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pushing back on a claim made by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, who said on his show this week that a CDC decision was likely coming to force kids to get COVID-19 vaccines in order to attend school.
But that’s not actually within the CDC’s authority, as the CDC pointed out in a rare tweet on Wednesday correcting Carlson, who has a history of criticizing COVID vaccine policy or sharing incorrect information about the shots.
His segment was also fact-checked by Twitter, which threw a disclaimer below the video.
Carlson claimed that at an upcoming meeting of the CDC’s advisory committee, the agency was “expected to” update the list of routine childhood immunizations and include the COVID-19 vaccine, which would soon mean that kids “will not be able to attend school without taking the COVID shot.”
But the CDC clarified that its meeting, scheduled for Thursday, is an annual gathering to adjust and update the slate of vaccines doctors should recommend to their patients, from adults down to children, and that the list of vaccines does not dictate what requirements schools put into place.
“Thursday, CDC’s independent advisory committee (ACIP) will vote on an updated childhood immunization schedule. States establish vaccine requirements for school children, not [the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] or CDC,” the agency wrote in response to Carlson’s segment.
Ultimately, the decision of whether schools require the COVID vaccine cannot be decided at the federal level by the CDC. It’s made at the local level.
“State laws establish vaccination requirements for school children. These laws often apply not only to children attending public schools but also to those attending private schools and day care facilities,” the CDC writes on its website.
“All states provide medical exemptions, and some state laws also offer exemptions for religious and/or philosophical reasons,” the agency writes.
However, if the CDC does update its list of suggested vaccinations to include the COVID vaccine, which is available to anyone 6 months or older, that will open the door for states to begin making those calls, too.
And while there could be grace periods for when the vaccine requirements begin or an increase in exemptions, it’s likely that the COVID vaccine will be required in more schools during the upcoming 2023 school year.
A CDC advisory committee meeting on Wednesday separately decided to add the COVID vaccine to the Vaccines for Children program, a government-funded initiative that allows children to get a host of recommended inoculations for free if they aren’t insured or can’t afford to pay.
“Equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for all ages and populations remains critically important,” the CDC’s Dr. Sara Oliver said at the meeting. “This includes now, while the vaccines are being supplied by the federal government, and in the future, when we one day move to a commercial program.”
Federal government officials have said that the current vaccine campaign, to get updated booster shots this fall and winter, could be the last vaccine campaign the government funds. The private insurance market is expected to take on more and more of the process beginning in 2023, much in the way patients go through their health care providers for other vaccines and treatments.
Adding the COVID vaccines to the Vaccines for Children program will “allow children that don’t have insurance to gain access to this vaccine” even after the vaccines are absorbed by the commercial market, said Dr. José Romero, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases within the CDC.
