Metallica frontman James Hetfield and his wife, Francesca, have split after 25 years of marriage, TMZ reports.
According to the gossip site, James filed for divorce earlier this year in Colorado, his current state of residence. TMZ notes that “the filing was never reported” and that the now-former couple “kept it out of the spotlight.”
James and Francesca married in 1997. They have three children together, including son Castor, who plays in a band called Bastardane.
Metallica played a pair of stadium headlining shows in Buffalo, New York, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, over the last few days. The group’s next scheduled show is at New York City’s Global Citizen Festival in September.
Now that Adele has rescheduled her Las Vegas residency, she wants to be sure she “nails it.”
Speaking to the September 2022 Global edition of ELLE magazine, Adele says canceling her residency at the last minute was “the worst moment in my career, by far,” but explains that the show just wasn’t right.
“There was just no soul in it. The stage setup wasn’t right,” she says. “It was very disconnected from me and my band, and it lacked intimacy.”
But with the new show, Adele says, “I want to tell the story of the beginning of my career to now … the show grows. It’s all about the music, and it’s really, really nostalgic. It’s gonna be really beautiful.”
And the star says she’s staying focused on her goal, even though her romance with boyfriend Rich Paul is also a huge part of her life.
“I’ve never been in love like this. I’m obsessed with him,” she gushes about Paul. And while she won’t confirm whether or not they’re engaged, she says she’d “absolutely” like to get married again.
She adds, “I definitely want more kids. I’m a homemaker and I’m a matriarch, and a stable life helps me with my music. But right now, all I got in my brain is Vegas. I wanna f***ing nail it.”
“I haven’t really witnessed [30] out in the world yet,” Adele says. “It’s gonna be so emotional. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with myself,” she says of performing the Vegas shows.
Adele notes, “It’s been really emotional putting the set list and the visuals together, because so much has happened. Fifteen years is a long time. But one thing I feel so lucky with how big my life is now, is that I really lived a normal life. You know?”
(NEW YORK) — Lower-than-expected inflation rates last week sent the S&P 500 soaring to its highest level in three months, reflecting optimism that price increases have peaked as businesses and consumers seek relief from budget-busting costs.
While still elevated, price hikes last month waned from the near-historic pace reached in June, according to a release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday. The consumer price index, or CPI, rose 8.5% over the past year as of July, a marked slowdown from a 9.1% year-over-year rate measured in June, the bureau said.
Moreover, the inflation rate saw a 0% rise on a monthly basis in July, after rising 1.3% on that measure in the month prior.
Previous optimism about inflation, however, has proven misguided. Before last month, the problem that most Americans consider their top economic priority had reached its most dire level.
Still, progress on the supply-demand imbalance that sits at the root of price increases suggests that the U.S. has reached peak inflation, economists told ABC News. An easing of supply chain bottlenecks has coincided with an aggressive series of borrowing cost increases from the Federal Reserve, which could very well have slowed the economy and slashed demand, they said.
“We’re getting relief on the global supply stage,” David Rosenberg, founder of Rosenberg Research and former chief economist for North America at Merrill Lynch, told ABC News. “On top of that, we’re seeing disruption of demand.”
“Why on earth would you think inflation will go up?” he added, citing the firm commitment to raise interest rates expressed by Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
But economists differed sharply in their assessment of how much the supply-demand imbalance has been resolved, and in their expectations for how much inflation will fall. And even as price hikes slow down, some costs for consumers, like rent, and for businesses, like wages, will persist at elevated levels, economists cautioned.
They also warned that inflation could take a turn for the worst if the global economy suffers a shock, such as a significant escalation of the war between Russia and Ukraine or a more infectious strain of COVID-19.
“The pandemic is kind of like Lucy with the football,” Martha Olney, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, told ABC News. “We keep pretending that this time we’ll kick the football. We keep pretending that this time the pandemic is over.”
Like many economic problems, inflation largely owes to an imbalance between supply and demand.
As the pandemic eased, a surge in demand for goods and services followed a pandemic-induced flood of economic stimulus. Moreover, that stimulus brought about a speedy economic recovery from the March 2020 downturn, triggering a hiring blitz.
But the surge in demand far outpaced supply, as COVID-related bottlenecks slowed delivery times and infection fears kept workers on the sidelines. In turn, prices and wages skyrocketed, prompting sky-high inflation.
Signs point to an easing of these fundamental forces behind price increases, however, Jeffrey Roach, the chief economist at LPL Financial, told ABC News. Import prices fell in July for the first time in seven months, suggesting that supply chain bottlenecks are loosening up, according to data released by the Labor Department on Friday.
Meanwhile, the economy has seen a decline in demand for some key products like gasoline, which on Thursday fell below $4 per gallon on average nationwide for the first time since March. Many economists expect that overall demand will fall in the coming months, as the Fed pursues rate hikes aimed at slowing down the economy.
“Aggregate demand is slowing down, and supply chains are improving,” Roach said. “The market is pretty happy we’re at that inflection point.”
But it remains to be seen just how much supply and demand have balanced out, Olney, of the University of California, Berkeley, said. She questioned whether Fed rate hikes have reduced consumer demand, with the exception of a slowdown in construction that shows appetite in the housing market has waned. “I think the jury is out,” she said.
Beyond supply and demand, inflation expectations among consumers and businesses can also impact the trajectory of price hikes, Olney added. Perception helps drive the prices that companies will put forward and consumers will tolerate.
Data on consumer price expectations has shown improvement over the last couple of months. A widely observed measure of consumer sentiment, published by the University of Michigan, markedly increased last month, indicating that inflation fears have eased somewhat, according to a report released on Friday.
Nevertheless, even as inflation declines, price increases for some goods will likely remain elevated or even speed up, Roach, of LPL Financial, said. One such expenditure, rental costs, will stay sky-high over the near term in part because customers sign leases that lock them in at prices for a year or longer. “Folks don’t reset rental costs as frequently as the store can reset milk prices,” Roach said.
High labor costs for businesses will also likely endure, Michael Pugliese, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities, told ABC News. The economy showed unusually strong hiring last month, along with elevated wage increases that saw hourly earnings go up 5.2% on a yearly basis. Those wage hikes are “still well above what prevailed before the pandemic,” Pugliese said.
The economists, including Pugliese, described the inflation data released this week as a welcome development but said more evidence will be necessary to show that a sustained, significant decline in inflation has begun.
In a report he wrote about the new inflation data, Pugliese used the subtitle, “A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step.”
As recently reported, CREEM magazine is returning after 33 years out of print, with its first new issue arriving September 15. Now, ABC Audio can exclusively reveal that a separate special David Bowie-themed edition of the mag will be included with every copy of the relaunched CREEM‘s Issue #1 for those who subscribe to the magazine by Wednesday, August 17.
Timed for release one day before the September 16 global premiere of filmmaker Brett Morgen‘s new Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream, the special issue will feature archival articles from CREEM‘s original run and new content focusing on the late rock legend.
The archival pieces include a 1976 article penned by Cameron Crowe title “Space Face Changes the Station,” a Bowie-themed installment of the magazine’s “Star Cars” feature, a “David Bowie Lookalike Contest,” and album reviews from famed rock writers Lester Bangs and Dave Marsh.
The new content includes an interview with Morgen by veteran CREEM journalist and editor Jaan Uhelszki, and acclaimed rock author and former Guitar World editor-in-chief Brad Tolinski‘s reflections on Moonage Daydream. The cover of the issue features a 1973 photo of David wearing the unique flared body suit created by Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto.
As previously reported, the new CREEM will be available as an oversized subscription-only premium quarterly publication, while digital-only subscriptions also are available.
CREEM Issue #1 will include features on Slash, The Who and new artists like punk act Special Interest, and will boast a cover by legendary artist Raymond Pettibon, whose work includes the covers of albums by Sonic Youth and Black Flag.
Moonage Daydream, which is the first Bowie documentary officially sanctioned by his estate, is described as “a sublime kaleidoscopic experiential cinematic odyssey that explores Bowie’s creative, spiritual, and philosophical journey.”
A fourth Kung FuPanda movie is set for a March 8, 2024 release, Universal Pictures announced on Friday, according to Variety. No further information was revealed. The three previous animated films, which centered on Po — an excitable panda voiced by Jack Black — collectively grossed $1.8 billion and spawned several animated TV specials and three series, including Netflix’s The Dragon Knight, which premiered in July…
Robyn Griggs, best known for her roles as Maggie Cory in the daytime drama Another World and Stephanie Hobart on One Life to Live in the early 1990s, has died at age 49, per her Facebook page. The actress had previously revealed her diagnosis with cervical cancer, saying last month she had four new tumors, according to Deadline. Griggs got her first break on the Nickelodeon show Rated K, which featured youngsters reviewing films. She later appeared in the films Severe Injuries, Dead Clowns, The Absence of Light and Hellweek…
Ahead the A League of Their Own spinoff’s premiere this past Friday, the producers behind the Amazon series revealed they’ve already started planning a season two. “Our hope is to shoot in like, mid-spring. And we’ll see how that works out with everything coming to this a lot,” co-creator and executive producer Will Graham shared during the show’s TCA panel, according to Variety. Amazon has yet to announce plans for a season two renewal…
Actor Troy Kotsur was being honored by his hometown of Mesa, Arizona, when a thief reportedly drove off in the CODA star’s Jeep — along with Kotsur’s Oscar, which he’d brought with him for the event. In a since deleted Twitter post, Kotsur wrote that “a little kid” was the person behind the crime. The city police managed to track down the Jeep with the award still inside, according to Deadline. The tweets were apparently removed on Sunday. No further details on the incident are available…
A Chicago toddler who was born with a one-in-a-million condition that left him without part of his right leg is now walking thanks to a prosthetic leg.
Dakari Miranda, who will turn 2 this fall, took his first steps this month, less than eight months after undergoing an hours-long surgery to have most of his right leg amputated.
Dakari was born without a tibia, or shinbone, in his right leg, a rare condition known as tibial hemimelia.
His mom, Dawn Miranda, said she learned her son had the condition while she was 20 weeks pregnant, and that from the start, doctors spoke with her about possibly needing to amputate her son’s leg.
“Once we found that out, I was distraught,” Miranda told Good Morning America. “That was like the scariest thing I’d ever heard.”
Miranda said she initially worried about what kind of future Dakari would have, and whether he would be able to run and play with his siblings and friends.
As she began research the condition and later joined a Facebook group of parents and people with tibial hemimelia, she said she grew optimistic about her son’s future.
“I just started to realize that Dakari is going to be great,” said Miranda, adding that she was also encouraged by Dakari’s orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Romie Gibly, who told her that one day Dakari could be a field goal kicker for the Chicago Bears. “He made me feel like don’t think because Dakari not going to have the rest of his leg, that his life is over.”
After Dakari was born, Gibly, a board-certified pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, presented Miranda and her husband with two options.
They could either try to preserve the foot and build a leg for Dakari through multiple reconstructive surgeries and lots of rehabilitation work, or they could perform an amputation and fit Dakari with a prosthetic leg that would allow him to start walking immediately, and on schedule for him developmentally.
Both Miranda and Gibly say the decision to amputate Dakari’s leg became clearer after they saw the difficulties he had in trying to crawl and walk with his foot the way it was.
“Over that first year of life, it became really apparent pretty quickly that the foot was really just getting in his way,” said Gibly. “It just kind of flopped around and he didn’t really have any control over it, and it really prevented him from getting moving.”
In December, Gibly oversaw the surgery to amputate Dakari’s leg from below the thighbone.
Soon after the surgery, once his surgical cast was removed, Dakari was able to crawl and move, according to both Gibly and Miranda.
“When we went to get the cast off, the kid shot down the hall like a sprinter,” said Miranda, adding that seeing Dakari’s joy was a relief after having to make the decision to amputate his leg. “He was on the move and it was almost like he wanted to say I appreciate it, like thank you so much.”
Over the next several months, the team at Lurie Children’s Hospital worked to design, fabricate and fit a prosthetic leg for Dakari.
“[Adults] say that losing a limb is like losing a family member and having to relearn to walk using a prosthesis at an older age is difficult,” said Breanna Baltrusch, a board-certified prosthetist and orthotist who treated Dakari. “For Dakari, he’s not going to know any different. His first steps are with a prosthesis.”
She continued, “Most pediatric patients become fantastic prosthetic users because they’ve learned to acclimate to the prosthetic from the start.”
Dakari will need to have his prosthesis adjusted over the years as he grows and may need future minor surgeries, but he is not expected to have any limitations due to the amputation, according to both Baltrusch and Gibly.
“He’s done with the hard work so he can just move on and learn to walk and make progress,” said Gibly. “And probably the biggest factor for him is [his] family, who are engaged and interested and enthusiastic and supportive.”
Deavinna Edwards, 16, Dakari’s older sister, said she can already play more with Dakari because it’s so much easier for him to move.
She said she has big dreams for her brother to achieve whatever he wants in life, and looks forward to cheering him on.
“In high school, he could probably be on the swim team and be like Michael Phelps or play basketball or he can follow in my footsteps and play volleyball,” she said. “I can see he’s really more comfortable and confident now.”
Miranda said that as Dakari continues to improve, she wants other parents of other kids with rare conditions to see him and know that they are not alone.
“The rareness of your child is one-in-a-million but it’s not one-in-a-million that you have people on your side,” she said. “We’re here. We can help you get through it, and it will just be better.”
(NEW YORK) — A new heat wave is building in the South and West as flash flooding targets several Western states.
Heat advisories are in effect across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The heat index — what a temperature feels like — is forecast Monday to jump to a sweltering 106 degrees in Jackson, Mississippi; 100 in New Orleans and Houston; 103 in Dallas; and 104 in Austin, Texas; Shreveport, Louisiana; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Oklahoma City.
An excessive heat watch has also been issued on the West Coast.
On Wednesday, temperatures in California are expected to climb to 108 in Bakersfield and Fresno, 105 in Sacramento and 110 in Redding. Temperatures are also forecast to reach the triple digits in Oregon and Washington.
Meanwhile, flash flooding targeted drought-stricken Texas over the weekend, dropping 5 to 10 inches of rain on extremely dry soil.
Corpus Christi saw a record rainfall of 2.29 inches on Sunday.
Flash flooding also covered roads in Arizona on Sunday; some areas saw up to 4 inches of rain this weekend.
Four states are under flood alerts Monday morning, from Texas to Colorado.
Arizona is now getting a break from the monsoon rain, but the same system that brought flooding to Corpus Christi will move into the Arizona by the end of the week with more heavy rain.
(NEW YORK) — A viral TikTok trend has sparked a rash of car thefts in cities across the U.S.
The TikTok videos demonstrate how a person can start a car without a key by using only a screwdriver and a USB phone charger to hot-wire automobiles, with some Kia and Hyundai models particularly vulnerable.
In Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, the state’s most populous city, local authorities say they’ve seen a 767% increase in Kia and Hyundai car thefts since 2021. Since July 1, the county has received 642 reported Kia and Hyndai vehicle thefts, a dramatic rise from last year’s 74 reported thefts.
“This is an extremely concerning trend and the public needs to know so they can be vigilant in protecting themselves,” Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart said in a statement.
The hack only works on cars with keys that don’t have engine immobilizers, a type of anti-theft technology that uses a computer chip to help an engine recognize a corresponding key.
Authorities are blaming a social media challenge for an alarming rise in car thefts.
Hyundai told Good Morning America the TikTok videos target Hyundai models that were made before November 2021 and the automaker plans to roll out security kits for those models starting in October.
In a statement, the company said it will work with police departments to “make steering wheel locks available for affected Hyundai owners.”
Police in Park Forest, Illinois, about 35 miles south of Chicago, said in a social media post that the cars most likely affected are select 2011-2021 Kia and 2015-2021 Hyundai models.
“Vehicles in those model years that are not equipped with a push-button start are more easily started without a key (hotwired) than cars from other manufacturers,” the department said in a July 30 Facebook post.
Some Kia and Hyundai owners have since filed a class-action lawsuit in Missouri and Kansas, as reported by ABC affiliate KMBC.
To prevent a car theft, the National Insurance Crime Bureau recommends using visible or audible devices, such as steering wheel locks, brake locks, wheel locks, steering column collars, audible alarms and theft deterrent decals as part of a multi-pronged approach to discourage would-be thieves. Law enforcement officials are also reminding drivers to park in well-lit areas and public locations.
On Monday night, we’ll say goodbye to Saul Goodman, aka Jimmy McGill, aka Gene Takavic, as AMC’s Better Call Saul airs its final episode. The show, which began as a Breaking Bad prequel but is now taking place in the post-Breaking Bad timeline, is going out in a shower of critical acclaim and Emmy nominations. But wrapping up a long-running show — especially one part of such a beloved franchise — isn’t easy, says co-creator and showrunner Peter Gould.
“It’s lot of pressure. It’s very scary. A lot of sweaty palms, a lot of sleepless nights,” Gould told reporters last week. “And those of us on the show are very happy with where it ended. I hope everybody else agrees.”
He adds, “I think the thing that I’m most proud of is, I think the show [is] true to itself, and we’re playing in the same court that we started with.”
Emmy nominee Rhea Seehorn, who plays Kim Wexler, agrees.
“I think the ending that they wrote, Peter insisted upon what they have always insisted upon, which is character must dictate plot, not plot dictate character,” she tells ABC Audio.
Seehorn adds, “I think that he honored the characters and what they would do and what would happen in a way that was so honoring of the fans — and all of the storylines from both of these franchises — and still honoring the intelligence of our fans at the same time.”
In the penultimate episode, Kim gave the court an affidavit revealing the true circumstances of Howard Hamlin’s death, while Jimmy/Saul/Gene went on the run after being ID’d by Carol Burnett‘s character, Marion. What the couple’s ultimate fate will be is anyone’s guess.
The Better Call Saul finale airs on AMC Monday at 9 p.m. ET.
(NEW YORK) — When Katie Quinonez, the executive director of an abortion clinic in West Virginia, saw the Supreme Court decision that overturned the federal guarantee of the right to an abortion, the first word she uttered was an obscenity.
The nonprofit Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, located in Charleston, faced the immediate risk of prosecution under a state abortion ban from 1882, so Quinonez and a coworker made 60 calls to patients canceling procedures scheduled for the ensuing three weeks, said Quinonez.
“That was definitely one of the worst days of my entire life so far,” she said. “Some of the staff were so upset that they couldn’t stop crying.”
Not only did the Supreme Court decision stop the clinic from providing abortions, but it delivered a crushing blow to the nonprofit health center’s financial stability, Quinonez said. This is a financial reality many abortion clinics — which often provide key care in communities and already face tight finances — are now contending with as they decide how, or if, they can move forward.
Abortions accounted for 40% of the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia revenue, Quinonez said, adding that there would be no easy way to replace such a large a chunk of the clinic’s $1.6 million annual budget. (At least for now, the clinic can again provide abortions, since a lawsuit brought by the clinic days after the Dobbs decision has paused enforcement of the ban.)
“Being unable to provide abortion care absolutely puts us in a precarious financial position,” Quinonez said. “Our ability to keep our doors open very much depends on revenue from the services we provide, as well as grants and donations.”
The loss of a community clinic dramatically curtails reproductive health care access for women, especially low-income women, according to research. One in three low-income women depend on clinics — such as a health center, Planned Parenthood or a publicly funded clinic — to get contraception, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study released in 2019. Another study, published in the Journal of Women’s Health in 2019, found that greater travel distance for an abortion is associated with higher out-of-pocket costs, delayed care and negative mental health effects.
Many abortion clinics now must choose between two costly options: stay open but stop providing abortions, or move to an abortion-friendly state, clinic officials and reproductive health organizations told ABC News.
Remaining open but stopping the service altogether denies many clinics a key source of revenue from insurers or patients paying for the procedure, clinic staff said. Meanwhile, the choice to close and move means losing revenue from patients while facing front-end moving costs such as buying or leasing a building, relocating employees and transporting equipment, among other expenses, the clinic staff added.
Within a month of the Dobbs decision, 43 clinics across 11 states in the Midwest and South had stopped providing abortions, either because they had closed or stayed open but no longer offered the procedure, according to a study released last month by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research organization that supports abortion rights.
Even before the onset of state-level abortion bans, clinics struggled to financially sustain themselves, Caitlin Myers, a professor of economics at Middlebury College who specializes in the financial dynamics behind abortion care, told ABC News.
The budgets at many clinics strain under the weight of compliance with onerous regulations, dependence on low-income patients who often lack insurance, and the absence of federal funding and in many cases Medicaid coverage for abortions, she said.
“A lot of abortion providers, from what we can see on the outside, are operating on fairly thin margins,” Myers said. “There are already a tremendous number of challenges facing the U.S. health-care industry, and for abortion providers, those challenges are generally even greater.”
Clinics also face significant legal costs navigating a maze of measures at the federal, state and local level, which became even more complicated after the court overturned Roe, said Erin Grant, the deputy director at the Abortion Care Network, a membership organization made up of more than 200 independent clinics nationwide.
“The legal and litigation costs are one of the No. 1 barriers,” Grant said. “That doesn’t just have to do with the abortion ban itself. This is about building regulations, Department of Health inspections and dealing with insurance companies.”
For clinics that have chosen to move since the Dobbs decision, a new set of costs has arisen.
Whole Woman’s Health, a health care company that manages nine clinics across five states, announced last month that it plans to close four Texas-based clinics after an abortion ban went into effect in the state. To continue to meet the needs of patients in Texas, the company hopes to open one or more locations in nearby abortion-friendly states, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, the founder and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health.
The typical annual budget for one of the for-profit clinics run by Whole Woman’s Health is $1.5 million, the company said.
The cost of closing clinics and reopening elsewhere is immense, Hagstrom Miller said. Due to the planned closures, Whole Woman’s Health has laid off roughly half its staff in Texas. Meanwhile, the company has sought to get out from under leases on two of its Texas facilities at the same time it has pursued a lease on a facility in New Mexico. On top of that, the company has looked for temporary storage for medical equipment and planned the relocation of remaining staff.
“All of that requires capital resources that we don’t have now because we’re not able to see patients, which of course is the major source of income in any medical practice, not just abortion clinics,” Hagstrom Miller said. “You don’t have income if you don’t have patients.”
“It is a big financial burden,” she added.
Melissa Fowler, the chief program officer at the National Abortion Federation, an umbrella organization that counts roughly 500 member clinics in the U.S. and abroad, put it bluntly: “It’s incredibly difficult to open a clinic, especially in a new state.”
It is unclear how many clinics have sought to move since the Dobbs decision, and the number may be relatively small. The financial impact of state-level abortion bans may also be less significant for clinics at which the procedure makes up a smaller proportion of its services.
For instance, Planned Parenthood told ABC News that none of its affiliates had closed or moved since the Dobbs decision. Further, abortion makes up about 3% of services delivered at its affiliates, according to the organization’s 2020 annual report, the most recent available.
Needing additional revenue, many abortion clinics have received a surge in donations since the Supreme Court overturned Roe. As of early August, a GoFundMe launched by Whole Woman’s Health had raised more than $285,000, though the figure falls short of its $750,000 goal.
Quinonez, the executive director of Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, said the organization has raised $225,000 from donations since the Dobbs decision. That makes up more than a third of the nearly $600,000 the organization raised from donations over the entirety of its most recent fiscal year, Quinonez said.
Still, in light of a strict abortion ban passed by the West Virginia Senate during a special session late last month, the organization has cut its anticipated revenue for the coming fiscal year, ending in June 2023, to just a little over half of what the organization brought in over the previous fiscal year.
Quinonez declined to comment on whether the clinic is considering moving to an abortion-friendly state. When asked whether the clinic could remain open if West Virginia imposed a full ban on abortion, Quinonez said, “It remains to be seen.”
“Right now, we’ve received a lot of support from our community,” she added. “We certainly aren’t going anywhere in the near future and we’re working to add more services regardless of what happens to our ability to provide abortion care.”
