Adam Levine once joked that he wanted “100 kids,” and now, he and wife Behati Prinsloo are once again on their way to reaching that goal.
The couple, already parents to daughters Dusty Rose, 5, and Gio Grace, 4, are expecting their third child, People has confirmed. On Monday, Behati’s baby bump could be seen as the couple went to lunch in Santa Barbara, CA.
In November, Behati told Entertainment Tonight that she wants “five kids” but said during the time when both Dusty and Gio were under the age of two, she didn’t want to think about expanding her family.
Behati also told ET that during COVID lockdown, “Seeing [Dusty and Gio] together, I’m like, ‘Maybe we should have a third just to have more kids,’ because it was so sweet to see [them together]. But then I don’t know. Never say never.”
No word yet on when the baby is due. Adam and Maroon 5 currently have some concert dates lined up in Southeast Asia in November and December.
Jennifer Hudson is addressing the rumors she’s dating Common.
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, the soon-to-be daytime talk show host, who was spotted with the rapper at a restaurant in Philadelphia last month, shared her thoughts on the romance rumors.
“People create their narratives of it and it’s like, OK, you know, how you feel,” she said.
“We shot a film together and he played my husband,” Hudson added, referencing the upcoming action thriller Breathe, which also stars Milla Jovovich, Quvenzhané Wallis and Sam Worthington. “We gotta eat in between those moments,” Hudson added.
The singer and Oscar-winning actress, who is gearing up for the premiere of her daytime talk show, The Jennifer Hudson Show, also shared that while she understands why fans are interested in her personal life, she’s more interested in their stories.
“If you have a moment where you wanna sit and talk about [me], I guess we can do that too sometimes,” she said.
TikTok star Charli D’Amelio and her mother Heidi D’Amelio have joined the cast of Dancing With the Stars season 31, Good Morning America announced on Wednesday.
Charli, 18, and Heidi, 50, will make DWTS history as the first family members to compete against each other.
The full cast of celebrities the mother-daughter duo will face off with will be revealed Thursday, exclusively on GMA.
Charli D’Amelio is the second-most followed person on TikTok after comedy creator Khaby Lame, boasting more than 146 million followers. She and Heidi D’Amelio welcomed fans into their lives with their own reality show, Hulu’s The D’Amelio Show, which returns for season 2 on Sept. 28.
Big changes are coming to DWTS this season, as the show moves to Disney+ after 30 seasons on ABC and becomes the streaming platform’s first live series.
Host Tyra Banks will also be joined by co-host Alfonso Ribeiro for season 31, while Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough are back at the judges’ table.
Dancing with the Stars season 31 premieres Sept. 19 on Disney+.
Katy Perry is heading to Japan in November for a special event.
The singer will be a special guest at True Colors Festival The Concert 2022, which will be performed in Tokyo twice, on November 19 and 20. Katy will be among 90 performers from 12 countries, all tied together under the theme of “One World, One Family.”
The True Colors Festival is a non-profit international festival of performing arts that celebrates diversity and inclusion via concerts, documentaries, videos, film, workshops, musicals and children’s programs. The concert will be performed with accessibility features including International Sign Language, audio description and real-time subtitles.
“What moved me to join True Colors Festival was the spirit and uniqueness of the festival’s message and the opportunity to share the stage with all these diverse artists,” says Katy in a statement. “I’m excited to be back in Tokyo to perform at this inspiring event.”
Among the other performers is singer Mandy Harvey, a deaf America’s Got Talent contestant who in 2017 earned a Golden Buzzer from Simon Cowell and came in fourth in season 12.
(NEW YORK) — The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a new warning they anticipate ransomware attacks could increase as the new school year begins.
“The FBI, CISA, and the MS-ISAC anticipate attacks may increase as the 2022/2023 school year begins and criminal ransomware groups perceive opportunities for successful attacks,” the joint bulletin released Tuesday said.
CISA is the cyber arm of the Department of Homeland Security.
The warning is timely — one of the nation’s largest school districts, the Los Angeles Unified School Department, fell victim to a ransomware attack over the weekend.
Law enforcement warns that smaller school districts are the most vulnerable because they have the least amount of resources to prevent an attack.
“School districts with limited cybersecurity capabilities and constrained resources are often the most vulnerable; however, the opportunistic targeting often seen with cyber criminals can still put school districts with robust cybersecurity programs at risk. K-12 institutions may be seen as particularly lucrative targets due to the amount of sensitive student data accessible through school systems or their managed service providers,” the bulletin says.
Specifically, the FBI and CISA said they are seeing activity against schools from one particular group called the Vice Society “disproportionately targeting the education sector with ransomware attacks.”
The tradecraft of Vice Society actors, officials said, has been identified “through FBI investigations as recently as September 2022.”
The LAUSD superintendent said on Monday the group is associated with the LAUSD ransomware attack.
Netflix on Tuesday debuted the trailer for Wendell & Wild, the new stop-motion animated comedy horror film from The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline director Henry Selick. The movie follows “a troubled teen — voiced by Lyric Ross — haunted by her past, who must confront her personal demons, Wendell & Wild — played respectively by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele — to start a new life in her old hometown.” Wendell & Wild, also starring Angela Bassett, James Hong, and Ving Rhames, is set to world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11 and will be released theatrically on October 21 before streaming on Netflix a week later on October 28…
Variety reports Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman, the latter the star of Apple TV+’s For all Mankind, will lead the cast of the psychological thriller Sympathy for the Devil. The movie follows Kinnaman as ‘The Driver,’ who “finds himself in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse after being forced to drive a mysterious man known as ‘The Passenger’ — played by Cage. That sets things up for a white-knuckle ride.” Sympathy for the Devil is currently filming in Las Vegas…
Amazon Freevee has picked up the Laverne Cox–George Wallace comedy series Clean Slate, from producer Norman Lear, according to Deadline. Clean Slate follows Wallace as Henry, “an old-school and outspoken car wash owner, who is thrilled his estranged child is finally returning home to Alabama after 17 years. However, Henry has a lot of soul-searching to do when the child he thought was a son returns as the determined, proud, trans woman, Desiree — played by Cox”…
The nominations for the 56th Annual CMA Awards are out now, with newcomer Lainey Wilson leading the pack, with six nods. Luke Bryan and Peyton Manning will host the show which airs live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, November 9 on ABC. Here’s a rundown of this year’s contenders:
Entertainer of the Year
Luke Combs
Miranda Lambert
Chris Stapleton
Carrie Underwood
Morgan Wallen
Single of the Year
“Buy Dirt” — Jordan Davis featuring Luke Bryan
“half of my hometown” — Kelsea Ballerini (featuring Kenny Chesney)
“Never Wanted to Be That Girl” — Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde
“‘Til You Can’t” — Cody Johnson
“You Should Probably Leave — Chris Stapleton
Album of the Year Growin’ Up — Luke Combs Humble Quest — Maren Morris Palomino — Miranda Lambert Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin’ — Lainey Wilson Time, Tequila & Therapy — Old Dominion
Song of the Year
“Buy Dirt” — Jacob Davis, Jordan Davis, Josh Jenkins, Matt Jenkins
“Never Wanted to Be That Girl” — Shane McAnally, Ashley McBryde, Carly Pearce
“Sand in My Boots” — Ashley Gorley, Michael Hardy, Josh Osborne
“Things a Man Oughta Know” — Jason Nix, Jonathan Singleton, Lainey Wilson
“You Should Probably Leave” — Chris DuBois, Ashley Gorley, Chris Stapleton
Female Vocalist of the Year
Miranda Lambert
Ashley McBryde
Carly Pearce
Carrie Underwood
Lainey Wilson
Male Vocalist of the Year
Eric Church
Luke Combs
Cody Johnson
Chris Stapleton
Morgan Wallen
Vocal Group of the Year
Lady A
Little Big Town
Midland
Old Dominion
Zac Brown Band
Vocal Duo of the Year
Brooks & Dunn
Brothers Osborne
Dan + Shay
LOCASH
Maddie & Tae
Musical Event of the Year
“Beers on Me” — Dierks Bentley with BRELAND & HARDY
“If I Didn’t Love You” — Jason Aldean & Carrie Underwood
“Longneck Way to Go” — Midland (featuring Jon Pardi)
“Never Say Never” — Cole Swindell (with Lainey Wilson)
“Never Wanted to Be That Girl” — Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde
Music Video of the Year
“I Bet You Think About Me” (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault) — Taylor Swift (featuring Chris Stapleton)
“Longneck Way to Go” — Midland (featuring Jon Pardi)
“Never Say Never” — Cole Swindell (with Lainey Wilson)
“Never Wanted to Be That Girl” — Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde
“‘Til You Can’t” — Cody Johnson
New Artist of the Year
HARDY
Walker Hayes
Cody Johnson
Parker McCollum
Lainey Wilson
The rapper is set to star The Vince Staples Show, a new Netflix comedy series from Kenya Barris, who will be an executive producer on the project, Varietyreports. The new show is set in Long Beach, California and is a comedy series based loosely on Staples’ life.
“I am excited to partner with Netflix and Kenya Barris on The Vince Staples Show,” the 29-year-old said in a statement. “This has been something I have been developing for some time and I am happy it’s coming to fruition.”
This isn’t Staples’ first rodeo when it comes to acting. He recently filmed the White Men Can’t Jump reboot and has been cast in the pilot for Showtime’s The Wood. The rapper has also appeared in the 2015 film Dope and had a guest appearance in HBO’s Insecure.
(NEW YORK) — With new COVID variant-specific booster shots set to roll out in the coming week, vaccine scientists argue that more research is needed to understand how a person’s early immune response — either through vaccination or infection itself — may impact future protection against a constantly evolving virus.
The body learns its best defensive moves during its first encounter with a virus, according to experts. However, once a virus evolves, the immune system is slower to respond.
That is a phenomenon called “original antigenic sin,” or “immune imprinting.”
Scientists say that despite nearly three years of living amid a pandemic there are unanswered questions. For example: What’s the best way to maximize protection through vaccination? What vaccine formula would deliver the broadest immune coverage? How often should people receive booster shots?
The answers would help public health authorities decide future vaccination strategies such as the vaccine’s formula and when doses are administered.
What is original antigenic sin or immunological imprinting?
“There’s a theory that our immunological response to the first exposure to a virus may sort of imprint your immune system,” said John Brownstein, an ABC News contributor and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital.
The human immune system’s best playbook is against an invader it already knows, experts say. But the COVID virus has continued to shape-shift, evolving into new variants that are still recognizable, but slightly different from predecessors.
“In other words, the first antigens that you’re exposed to [are] the ones your immune system is most trained to recognize and respond to more strongly the next time,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the center for virology and vaccine research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
What does this all mean in terms of COVID vaccines and boosters?
Some experts say they are concerned that frequent boosting with the original version of the vaccine may have inadvertently exacerbated immune imprinting. At this point in the pandemic, some adults have received four or more doses of the same vaccine.
Although still theoretical, some scientists worry about a potential backfire, with frequent boosting handcuffing the body’s natural immune system and leaving it exposed to radically different variants that might emerge in the future.
“Where this matters is if you keep giving booster doses with [original] strain, and continue to lock people into that original response. It makes it harder for them to respond then to essentially a completely different virus,” says Dr. Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Philadelphia.
Other scientists disagree, arguing the immune system is adaptable and dynamic. Boosters, they argue, will not freeze the immune system in place.
Meanwhile, updated boosters are slated to roll out this week. These boosters are specifically designed against new omicron sub variants BA.4 and BA.5.
“When we have an omicron-specific booster, it doesn’t make sense not to use that,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, director, center for immunization research Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The omicron spike protein is very, very different from the spike protein in the current vaccine.”
But even when facing new variants, studies show the original booster continued to reduce the risk of severe illness from COVID-19. Those fully vaccinated with at least the primary series were five times less likely to die from COVID in the summer of 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I think the worry is that if the virus keeps mutating, maybe the [original] vaccine is not going to continue to do well against that, but I suspect that we’re still going to do very well against severe disease and hospitalization,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, professor of medicine in the UAB Division of Infectious Diseases.
The timing of vaccines may also need to be taken into account, as the nation moves from original doses to updated boosters.
“It is true that the best boosts typically are the ones that are given infrequently, that immunologically, if you boost too much and too frequently, then you often have a lower immune response at the end,” said Barouch.
Does this affect the future of the pandemic?
“I don’t really think [immune imprinting] poses a threat,” said Durbin. “I don’t think it’s going to inhibit the ability of the immune system to recognize other variants or to induce immune responses to other variants, whether that’s through infection, or through vaccines.”
With the virus continuously evolving, experts note that continuous research is key to understanding how phenomena such as immune imprinting could affect the fight against COVID.
“I don’t see it as causing a problem but it’s an important line of research that needs to be investigated,” said Brownstein. “We don’t fully know whether this concept actually is harmful, or even a benefit for future, potential risks to infection.”
(NEW YORK) — Luxury car brand Porsche aims to go public in late September or early October in what could be one of the largest initial public offerings in Europe in decades, parent company Volkswagen announced late Monday.
The move arrives at a precarious economic moment in Europe, where a down year for markets owes to an energy shortage, sky-high inflation and growing concern over a possible recession.
If markets turn down even further, Volkswagen could nix the IPO plans. In its announcement, the Germany-based automaker acknowledged that the move is “subject to further capital market developments.”
But the move would help fund a massive electric vehicle, or EV, expansion underway at Volkswagen, auto analysts said. The Porsche IPO would generate a significant amount of capital for that transition, they added.
Here’s everything you need to know about the blockbuster IPO:
Why would Volkswagen take Porsche public?
The company has ambitious EV aspirations but they come at a price. Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess has vowed to overtake Tesla as the global leader in EV sales by 2025, and make EV sales more than a quarter of its revenue by 2026.
To that end, the company announced in December plans to spend $88.4 billion on EV investment over the next five years, which will make up more than half of the company’s spending over that period.
Volkswagen, however, needs to fund that investment. An IPO for Porsche is an appealing option for the company in part due to the brand’s strong profitability and in turn the potential for a high valuation, said Sam Abuelsamid a principle research analyst at Guidehouse Insight. Over the first six months of this year, Porsche’s operating profit grew nearly 25% compared to the first six months of 2021.
“Porsche for a long time has been one of the most profitable automakers in the world,” Abuelsamid said. “This is an opportunity for Volkswagen to sell off some of that stock and raise some important capital that they are going to need in the coming years to fund their electrification strategy.”
How big would the Porsche IPO be?
Investors anticipate a valuation for Porsche as high as $85 billion, according to reports.
But Volkswagen will only take in a fraction of the valuation as cash for capital investment in initiatives such as EV development, said Charles Coldicott, an auto analyst at the London-based equity research firm Redburn.
The company is putting 25% of the shares up for sale on the public market, and nearly half of the cash generated will be redistributed to shareholders in the form of a dividend, he added. The company would retain the rest.
“That would be a sizable amount of money,” Coldicott said, though he pointed out that Volkswagen already has tens of billions in cash available for capital investment. “The company is awash in cash,” he said. “But it doesn’t hurt to throw more cash at this problem.”
Why do this now?
As mentioned, Volkswagen needs to fund its EV aspirations. But the Russian invasion of Ukraine has placed even greater urgency on such plans, as Europe struggles with an energy crisis amid a sharp decline in the use of Russian oil and natural gas, said Abuelsamid.
“This would’ve happened regardless but I think there has been some acceleration of plans, especially in Europe,” Abuelsamid said.
However, Coldicott disagreed.
“I think it’s pretty unrelated,” he said, noting that Volkswagen announced a prospective Porsche IPO prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February.
What happens next?
Over the coming weeks, Volkswagen will likely move forward with a typical IPO “roadshow,” in which company representatives pitch investment banks on the viability of their public offering, Abuelsamid said. In turn, some investment banks will go to commercial and retail investors in an effort to raise money for Porsche ahead of its public filing.
Could Volkswagen still call off the IPO altogether?
Yes, the company has left itself wiggle room to call off the IPO. But it’s “almost certainly going to happen,” Abuelsamid said. Coldicott concurred, calling the IPO “highly likely.”
A plunge in markets could force Volkswagen to postpone it, however, the analysts said.
“You can never be certain if something happens in the next few weeks and the market takes another 10%, 20% or 30% dive,” Abuelsamid said. “They would not be getting the value from the Porsche brand that they think it’s worth.”
