Demi Lovato is apologizing to their Illinois fans for canceling Wednesday’s show the day of. The hitmaker had lost their voice and was unable to go on with the performance.
Demi alerted fans, via their Instagram Story, that the show at Rosemont Theatre was postponed. “Rosemont,” the black and white statement began, “Today I woke up and had absolutely no voice.”
Continued Demi, “I’m so so sorry but it breaks my heart to tell you I have to reschedule the show. Tickets will be honored for a new date as soon as it’s announced.”
“This is the absolute last thing I want to do,” the singer explained. “I’m having so much fun with you all and I can’t wait to see you again.” Demi closed by expressing their gratitude to the fans who’ll understand the unfortunate situation.
The singer’s official tour page shared the statement to its Instagram and added in the caption, “If you have tickets, hang on to them – they will be honored for the new date as soon as its announced. Hope to see you all soon.”
It is unknown what caused Demi to lose their voice at this time and whether this will affect future performances. At this time, the singer is slated to perform this Friday, October 7 at the Fox Theater in Detroit.
Demi is touring in support of their newly released album, Holy Fvck.
(NEW YORK) — Sexual violence survivors may often face overwhelming medical bills when seeking emergency care, a factor that could discourage many people from seeking treatment, experts say.
Survivors of sexual violence are charged nearly $4,000 in medical bills, on average, after seeking emergency care following an assault, according to a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Only one in five victims of sexual violence seek medical care in the United States. The study’s authors conclude that medical bills may deter victims from seeking treatment.
People without health insurance pay an average of $3,673 out of pocket while those with insurance still pay around 14% of total costs billed, an average of $497.
Pregnant women that experience sexual assault and seek emergency medical care experience the highest charges at $4,553 on average, for their visit.
These bills may particularly burden low-income women and girls, disproportionately victims of sexual assault.
“We’re discouraging people from seeking medical care when we charge them a huge amount of money for that care,” study author Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, MD, a distinguished professor of public health at CUNY’s Hunter College, and a lecturer of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told ABC News.
“I saw a rape victim who told me that she hadn’t gone to the emergency room because she knew she wouldn’t be able to afford it,” said study author Dr. Samuel Dickman, healthcare policy researcher and primary care physician at Planned Parenthood of Montana.
Dickman tells ABC News, “the patients I’ve seen and who’ve described to me the feeling that they are completely unsupported by the healthcare system. They know they can’t access affordable care after being assaulted. For many survivors, that feels like adding an additional layer of trauma.”
Woolhandler says that people should ask for financial assistance when seeking treatment in the emergency department.
“Depending on your income, you may be eligible for financial assistance, and you often have to ask for it,” she said. Another tip from Woolhandler is “for people who are veterans to check and see if they’re eligible for care at the Veterans Administration hospitals because that care comes with very minimal copayments and deductibles.”
In this post-Roe era, women are even less protected by the healthcare system when they experience sexual assault. As of September 2022, 11 states have banned abortions, including abortions of pregnancies that resulted from rape.
“Under laws that say that rape survivors need to prove that they got medical care to qualify for an exemption to get an abortion. That means you’re asking the survivors to go to the emergency room, potentially incurring thousands of medical debt to access abortion. It’s totally inhumane,” said Dickman.
“We need to reform the Violence Against Women Act to cover medical care, comprehensively, not just for the forensic exam,” Dickman said.
The Violence Against Women Act is a federal law that pays for evidence gathering but leaves people responsible for additional bills associated with emergency care following an assault. Broadening provisions of the Violence Against Women Act to include payment for other services, not just evidence collection, could help survivors avoid financial hardship and further trauma.
“Tragically, our political system continues to fail survivors of rape and sexual assault,” said Dickman.
Fleetwood Mac‘s Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood have cleared out their closets and are putting some of their most iconic memorabilia on the auction block.
Julien’s Auctions is handling the sale, which will take place live over two days — December 3 and December 4 — in Beverly Hills, as well as online at juliensauctions.com. A portion of the proceeds will benefit MusiCares, the charitable arm of the Recording Academy, which named Fleetwood Mac its Person of the Year in 2018.
Among the goodies up for grabs:
The “hanging balls” that Mick Fleetwood wore on the cover of Rumours, along with a signed art print. Estimated to bring between $100 and $200,000, the wooden balls are attached to leather cords and come with a cloth drawstring case. The balls were originally pull chains from a toilet in a club where Fleetwood Mac played back in the day.
Among Fleetwood’s other items are various drums and percussion instruments, the suit he wore in the ad campaign for Harry Styles‘ Pleasing lifestyle brand and a drumhead signed by President Bill Clinton from a private performance the band did before he left office. That’s expected to fetch between 80 and 100 grand.
Christine McVie’s items include the dress she wore on the back cover of Rumours, the baby grand piano which she used onstage to perform “Songbird,” additional keyboards and a variety of stage-worn clothes, including the boots she wore to the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
John McVie is selling a number of his bass guitars, including the one he used to record “The Chain,” and a surfboard that Stevie Nicks gave him when he moved to Hawaii, despite the fact that he doesn’t surf.
Taylor Swift‘s #MidnightsMayhemwithMe TikTok series continues — she’s just revealed the title of yet another track on her upcoming album Midnights, due out October 21.
Taylor revealed that the name of the 11th track on the album is “Karma.” Out of the 13 tracks on the album, she’s now revealed a total of eight. However, she’s evidently making fans wait for the all-important fifth track, which as every Swiftie knows is the most emotional, important track on Taylor’s albums.
(NEW YORK) — A surge of women in the manufacturing industry in recent years has punctured the stereotypes of who is working in American factories, data shows.
During the 2010s, the share of women in the manufacturing industry grew among all age groups, according to a Census Bureau analysis released on Monday. The representation of women dipped during the early months of the pandemic but rose back up toward pre-pandemic levels last year, the analysis showed.
Despite their progress, women make up only about 30% of manufacturing workers, according to Census Data.
The surge of women in the field has coincided with a revival for the industry overall. As of August, the manufacturing sector had added 461,000 jobs in 2022, putting the industry hundreds of thousands of jobs above where it stood before the pandemic-induced recession.
The inroads for women in the industry can partly be attributed to the attractive pay and benefits in manufacturing as well as the industry’s shift toward automation, which has generated jobs that require more education and less heavy lifting, experts told ABC News. But the industry’s male-dominated culture remains a barrier to women, they said.
Here are two reasons why the share of women in the manufacturing industry has grown, according to experts:
Manufacturing jobs pay well
A key reason for the growth of women in manufacturing stems from strong compensation in the industry, especially when compared with sectors typically associated with women, such as care and service work, said Tameshia Bridges-Manfield, vice president of Workforce Innovation at Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit organization focused on equitable economic advancement.
“Wages are significantly higher,” Bridges-Manfield told ABC News. “Women are looking at their options and what’s available.”
The average annual wage in production occupations, which range from auto manufacturing to oil and gas extraction, stands at $43,070, according to Bureau of Labor statistics data. By comparison, the average yearly wage for waiters and waitresses is $29,010, the data showed.
Jessica Deming, an organizer with The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a labor union, spent seven years working at a Boeing plant in Portland, Oregon before leaving in June.
Prior to joining Boeing, Deming worked as both a bartender and a front desk manager at a hotel, earning a total of roughly $40,000 a year, she said. Within a year of working at Boeing, Deming made $30 per hour, which amounts to about $62,000 per year, she said. At the end of her tenure at Boeing, she made $47 per hour or nearly $100,000 per year, she said.
“As women in manufacturing, we were told a lie and a truth,” Deming told ABC News. “We were told being a machinist is really, really hard and women can’t do it. The truth is it’s really hard and the lie is women can’t do it.”
“As women are being more empowered, they realize they are being sold a bill of goods,” she added. “They realize the opportunities that lay before them.”
Shift to skilled manufacturing
Another reason behind the growth of women in manufacturing is the growth of automation in the industry, which has given rise to some jobs that require higher education and incur less physical strain, experts said.
“Too many Americans think of manufacturing as something of yesteryear,” Carolyn Lee, the president and executive director of the Manufacturing Institute, told ABC News. “It’s not dingy, dark and dangerous. It’s full of technology and opportunities for collaboration.”
Perception of the manufacturing industry is catching up to the changes, studies show. Sixty-four percent of consumers view manufacturing as innovative, an increase from 39% of respondents five years ago, according to a study released by Deloitte in March.
A further revival of the manufacturing sector could add $1.5 million jobs to the economy, with most of those jobs concentrated at the middle-skill level, a McKinsey study in August found
“Manufacturing jobs look different – it’s not the dirty, dark shop floor,” Bridges-Manfield said. “The exposure to manufacturing and what it is in 2022 may make it more appealing to women and girls in the long term.”
(NEW YORK) — Students at more than 60 high schools and universities across at least 29 states are holding student strikes and events on Thursday to fight for reproductive justice.
The self-dubbed “Day of Student Action” is organized by the Graduate Student Action Network, a group formed in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade ending federal protections for abortion rights, and the Young Democratic Socialists of America.
Students plan to demand that their school step in and defend their reproductive rights and freedom of gender expression in the absence of action from elected leaders, CalTech graduate student and founder of GSAN, Rachael Kuintzle told ABC News in an interview.
GSAN was born over the summer when Kuintzle started emailing student leaders including grad student government leaders, union reps and advocacy club officers.
“Right after the Supreme Court decision in June, I felt really helpless and I started reaching out to grad students across the country … emailing them, and asking if they wanted to meet together and figure out what we can do to get health into the hands of our students as soon as possible. And so what came out of that was this day of action,” Kuintzle said in an interview with ABC News.
Another student group, the Young Democratic Socialists of America, was also separately running a reproductive justice group looking into how they could make a difference and so the two groups teamed up, organizing protests and events jointly, Kuintzle said.
GSAN plans to send letters to Congress and President Joe Biden on Thursday listing their demands.
In the group’s letter to Congress, they are demanding safe, legal and accessible abortion; gender-affirming healthcare; free contraception of all varieties; and federally mandated sex education, including standardized curriculum on sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy prevention and consent.
GSAN is asking Biden to declare a public health emergency over abortion to ensure that abortion pills can be provided by mail for free in all states and implement a program to mail free at-home pregnancy tests on demand to U.S. households to enable early detection of pregnancies.
The letters will be sent from the group of student leaders, but students at some campuses are also gathering signatures for petitions listing demands specific to their school.
Some of the campuses organizing protests or events Thursday include the University of Arkansas, the University of South Dakota, multiple CUNY system campuses, University of Texas at Austin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Law School.
Nikole Schneider and Danielle Galvin, students at at the University of South Dakota, told ABC News they will also be fighting for health insurance, which they do not currently have. They plan to set up several booths on Thursday for voter registration, the student health center, the school’s mental health services, Planned Parenthood and a fundraising booth for a student-run group that offers free healthcare services for those without insurance.
Schneider and Galvin said being in contact with students from around the country has allowed them to feel like they are making a difference, despite initially feeling lonely and helpless after Roe was overturned.
“It’s definitely changed how I think that I can affect what’s happening in the country, especially now, just like being a part of something bigger,” Schneider said.
Galvin said it has been eye-opening to hear the support other students around the country are getting from their schools, with those students giving them advice on how to advocate for themselves with their university’s administration.
A trigger ban in South Dakota prohibits abortions entirely, “unless there is appropriate and reasonable medical judgment that performance of an abortion is necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female,” according to the law.
The law, which went into effect when Roe was overturned, makes it a class 6 felony to provide abortion care in the state.
Students at the University of Arkansas have already had a few protests since Roe was overturned, but they are hoping this day of action would give them momentum going into the midterms, specifically because of the tight restrictions on abortion in the state and attacks on transgender individuals, organizer and graduate student Katy Dupree told ABC News.
A state law in Arkansas bans all abortions except to save the life of the mother, making it a felony for anyone to perform a non-approved abortion, punishable with up to 10 years in prison.
Dupree said they are organizing a comprehensive resource fair with a voter registration booth and speakers along with their student walkout and protest.
“This organization kind of fell into my lap. And it has been a very serendipitous and beneficial kind of happenstance for me, I struggled a lot through the pandemic with figuring out if graduate school is something that I really wanted to continue to pursue. And if I was happy with what I was studying, and really found that advocating for others helped me pull myself kind of up and out,” Dupree said.
The student leaders all agreed that the Oct. 6 protest is just a starting point. What started out as Kuintzle emailing students around the country has since grown into a more organized graduate student group.
“We have a structure, we voted on a name together, we meet regularly, we have rules of operation, we’re over 50 grad leaders in over 30 states,” Kuintzle said.
Only 59 campuses opted to publicly list their name on the GSAN website, saying they will participate in the protests, but Kuintzle said there will be events at seven other schools.
The group plans to continue organizing events and advocating for students in the future.
“We’re committed to fighting for our students rights, not just in reproductive justice, but beyond. We’re looking for future actions and climate justice and indigenous sovereignty, we’re going to be taking some action to fight for higher stipends and better health care coverage for graduate students in the near future as well,” Kuintzle said.
(UVALDE, Texas) — ABC News has confirmed that a former Texas state trooper now under investigation for her conduct in responding to the May 24 Uvalde school shooting rampage is among the new officers hired for the Uvalde school district police department — the same force that has come under fire for the bungled response to the massacre.
The news was first reported by CNN.
CNN reported Wednesday night that the former trooper is Crimson Elizondo, the first member of the Texas Department of Public Safety to enter the hallway at Robb Elementary School after the shooter gained entry. A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation confirmed CNN’s report.
The trooper did not bring her rifle or vest into the school, according to the results of an internal review by DPS that was detailed to ABC News. As a result of potential failure to follow standard procedures, the trooper was among five DPS personnel whose conduct is now being investigated by the agency’s inspector general. The five have been suspended; the trooper in question resigned from DPS and went to work for the Uvalde schools.
Elizondo is the second officer listed on the district’s police webpage.
The official said DPS was not contacted by Uvalde’s school personnel prior to hiring the former trooper.
DPS declined to comment. The Uvalde school district has not responded to a request for comment. The trooper declined to comment to CNN.
Nineteen students and two teachers were killed during the massacre in May. Some families of the dead have joined to form a group called Lives Robbed.
In a statement Wednesday night, the group said: “We are disgusted and angry at Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s (UCISD) decision to hire Officer Crimson Elizondo. Her hiring puts into question the credibility and thoroughness of UCISD’s HR and vetting practices. And it confirms what we have been saying all along: UCISD has not and is not in the business of ensuring the safety of our children at school.”
The statement continues: “We cannot trust the decisions that have been made in regard to the safety of our schools. Therefore, we are calling for all UCISD officers to be suspended, pending the conclusion of the investigation by JPPI Investigations LLC. The results of this investigation must be released to the families of the victims of the Robb Elementary shooting, as well as to the public. Our families have been calling for accountability, and we deserve transparency and justice at the state, local and federal levels. Our children have been taken from us. We will not stop fighting until we have answers and we ensure the safety of the children in our community is the top priority.”
Questions were also raised about the district’s pre-hiring vetting of Pete Arredondo, the former district police chief who has been blamed for much of the bungled shooting response and has been fired because of it. He had been demoted in a previous job, and critics contend that work history was not taken into account when the district hired him to run its police force.
The practice of police officers switching jobs and jurisdictions despite concerns raised in prior posts has become a concern nationally. Some have called for the creation of national standards and databases that would enable prospective employers to learn quickly whether a cop has anything potentially disqualifying in their employment history.
(NOTE LANGUAGE) Jamie Lee Curtis has been the face of the franchise since 1978’s Halloween — but apparently, that doesn’t mean that Universal Pictures trusts her.
In a cheeky chat with the BBC America’s The Graham Norton Show, Curtis explained the studio hooked her up with her own screening of her final chapter, Halloween Ends, except she had an unwanted date.
“I watched it in an empty theater,” the actress explained on the chat show. “But I swear to God, they insisted on having a guard in the room so that I wouldn’t pirate my own f****** movie!” she said to laughs.
“I was like, ‘Wait, what?!’ she recalled.
The actress explained she turned away from the screen for most of the movie, which she watched with the volume down — perhaps to spare herself from the scares — but she knew what it was delivering.
“My entire movie, I turned my head, but I heard him, and he was going ‘Oh! Oh! Oh no! Oh no!” Curtis recalled.
Halloween Ends debuts both in theaters and on Peacock on October 14.
(NEW YORK) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones declined to take the stand in his own defense Wednesday in the Infowars host’s second defamation trial over his Sandy Hook comments, as jurors are slated to begin deliberating the damages this week.
Standing outside the Connecticut courthouse on Tuesday, Jones called the trial a “fraud” and told reporters he was likely not going to testify again because he could be held in contempt if he says he is “innocent.”
“I’m being ordered to perjure myself when they ask me questions, or I’ll be arrested if I tell the truth,” he said.
His attorney, Norm Pattis, told the court Wednesday that Jones is “boycotting” the trial because he would commit perjury if he testifies under the court’s orders.
Pattis did not call any witnesses for the defense, which is aiming to limit the amount of damages Jones must pay for calling the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School a hoax.
The six-member jury is expected to begin deliberating on Thursday after hearing closing arguments.
The judge last year found Jones and Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, liable in the defamation lawsuit, whose plaintiffs include an FBI agent who responded to the scene and eight families of victims that Jones called actors.
Parents of some of the 20 children killed in the massacre have testified during the weeks-long trial, detailing how they have faced years of death threats, rape threats and confrontations outside their homes from people who believed Jones’ lies.
Jones did testify last month after called to the stand by the plaintiff’s attorney. During the tempestuous testimony, Jones suggested the families who sued him have a political agenda because they are advocates for gun safety.
After the plaintiffs’ attorney, Chris Mattei, at one point told Jones to “show a little respect” to the families of victims in the courtroom, Jones responded, “I’ve already said I’m sorry hundreds of times and I’m done saying I’m sorry.”
During the trial, Mattei accused Jones of putting a target on the backs of families through his repeated lies about the massacre being a government-staged hoax and the families of victims being crisis actors.
Prior to testifying, Jones has spoken out amid the trial outside the Waterbury courthouse, calling the judge a “tyrant” and the trial a “political hit job.”
The Connecticut trial is the latest legal battle for Jones involving his comments on the Sandy Hook shooting, in which 20 children and six adults were killed.
In August, a Texas jury ordered Jones to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the parents of one of the victims — including $4.1 million in compensatory damages for the suffering he put them through and $45.2 million in punitive damages.
The judge in the case has yet to rule on whether to apply state caps for punitive damages to the amount awarded to the plaintiffs — Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose son Jesse was killed.
In both the Texas and Connecticut cases, the judges issued default judgments against Jones because he failed to turn over court-ordered documents.
A similar decision was issued in a second Texas defamation case last year involving Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa, whose son Noah was killed in the shooting. A trial to determine those damages has not yet started.
Amid the lawsuits, Infowar’s parent company, Free Speech Systems, filed for bankruptcy protection.
That long-awaited Frasier revival is officially returning to TV in a reboot for Paramount+, ABC Audio has confirmed. Aside from Kelsey Grammer, who played the titular psychologist and radio show host on the Cheers spin-off NBC sitcom that ran from 1993-2004, no other casting has been announced. Plot details have also yet to be revealed. In the announcement, Grammer noted, “Having spent over 20 years of my creative life on the Paramount lot, both producing shows and performing in several, I’d like to congratulate Paramount+ on its entry into the streaming world. I gleefully anticipate sharing the next chapter in the continuing journey of Dr. Frasier Crane.”…
Variety reports horror production company Blumhouse is developing a film adaptation of the popular video game series Five Nights at Freddy’s. The game is set in a Chuck E. Cheese-like children’s restaurant called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, where the animatronic creatures within go on a killing rampage after closing time. The Wind helmer Emma Tammi is set to direct, and Jim Henson‘s Creature Shop will handle the creation of the scary mascots. Filming is scheduled to begin in February 2023…
Former first lady Michelle Obama on Wednesday announced a star-studded list of guest moderators who will join her on her upcoming book tour in support of The Light we Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times. The tour kicks off in Washington, D.C. on November 15-17 with Ellen Degeneres moderating the first two nights. Other moderators include David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey. Guest speakers will include Gayle King, Hoda Kotb, Tyler Perry, Conan O’Brien and Tracee Ellis Ross. Tickets and a full list of tour dates are available at michelleobamabooks.com…
