(WASHINGTON) — Nearly uniform Republican opposition in the Senate on Sunday stripped a proposed cap on insulin prices in private insurance from Democrats’ party-line climate, health and tax bill.
Democrats had sought to overrule a decision from the Senate rules official, the parliamentarian, that a $35-per-month limit on insulin costs under private insurances did not comply with the budget reconciliation process, which allowed Democrats to pass their bill with a bare majority.
The cap, which was proposed by Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., needed 60 votes to pass and remain in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It ultimately failed by a 57-43 vote.
Republicans Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, John Kennedy of Louisiana and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan voted for the measure with Democrats. All 43 “no” votes came from Republicans.
The cap’s scrapping was quickly seized on by Democrats and stirred controversy beyond them, with critics of the GOP citing the sometimes startling cost of needed insulin for diabetics.
Republicans, in turn, accused Democrats of being misleading about a vote that they said amounted to a technicality rather than a policy difference.
“Lying Dems and their friends in corporate media are at it again, distorting a Democrat ‘gotcha’ vote. In reality, the Dems wanted to break Senate rules to pass insulin pricing cap instead of going through regular order,” Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson tweeted afterward, noting that he previously “voted for an amendment, that Dems blocked, to provide insulin at cost to low-income Americans.”
While the proposed cap was not expected to get the 10 Republicans needed to have the measure preserved as part of the Democrats’ sprawling reconciliation deal — the 60-vote threshold would have overcome the parliamentarian’s objections about using the 51-vote reconciliation — the process allowed the party to put GOP senators on the record on a popular policy.
Republicans used a similar tactic in voting on Biden’s immigration policy as part of possible amendments to the IRA.
The parliamentarian had said the insulin cap would violate the Byrd Rule, which requires that a measure have an effect on the federal budget that is not “merely incidental” in order to qualify to pass through reconciliation.
The parliamentarian, meanwhile, did allow Warnock’s $35 insulin cap to apply to those covered under Medicare.
The Brad Pitt action-comedy Bullet Train topped the weekend box office, opening on the low end of expectations with an estimated $30.1 million. The film opened to an estimated $32.4 million overseas, for a global total of $62.5 million.
DC League of Super Pets dropped to second place, grabbing an estimated $11.2 million in its second week of release. Its global total currently stands at $83.4 million.
The sci-fi horror flick Nope also slid a notch to third place, earning an estimated $8.5 million. That brings its three-week domestic tally to $97.9. Nope opens worldwide next week.
Landing in fourth place was Thor: Love and Thunder, delivering an estimated $7.6 million in its fifth week of release. Its $315.1 million total makes it the top-grossing Thor film domestically. Worldwide, Love and Thunder has earned $699 million.
Minions: The Rise of Gru rounded out the top five, collecting an estimated $7.1 million for a total of $336 million after six weeks.
The Joe Koy-starring comedy Easter Sunday sputtered out of the gate, with an estimated $5.25 million for an eighth-place finish.
Elsewhere, Top Gun: Maverick finished in seventh place with an estimated $7 million. That brings its 11-week tally to $659 million, pushing it passed Titanic as the seventh all-time highest-grossing domestic film.
(NEW YORK) — Wild swings in the share price of a largely unknown Hong Kong-based fintech company in recent days have reminded some analysts and traders of the “meme stock” craze, which grabbed headlines and stoked controversy early last year.
On Tuesday, the stock price of online financial services company AMTD Digital was more than 21,000% above the price at its initial public offering last month.
The price fell in recent days to end the week well below the earlier peak but still, as of market close Friday, the stock price stood at $721, which amounts to a 127% jump for the week and a 9,143% increase since its IPO. The stock debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on July 15 at $7.80 per share.
At the height of AMTD Digital’s stock rise on Tuesday, the company reached a valuation of $310 billion, making it larger than Coca-Cola and Bank of America, according to FactSet. The nearly 3-year-old company brought in just $25 million in revenue last year, according to a regulatory filing.
The dramatic rise in the company’s stock price owes to a targeted surge in online retail trading akin to that which sent shares skyrocketing in companies like GameStop and AMC early last year, Dan Ives, an equities analyst at Wedbush Securities, told ABC News.
Some observers, however, questioned the designation of AMTD Digital as a meme stock.
The phenomenon of a meme stock trade describes a trend in which retail investors see shares rise steeply as others back a firm, then more jump into the fray, pushing the stock price further upward and enticing another wave of investors. A surge of such trades last year prompted a congressional hearing and investigation.
AMTD Digital did not respond to a request for comment. But a statement released by the company on Tuesday expressed gratitude to investors for the support, while acknowledging the stock is “still undergoing our initial stabilization period.”
“During the period since our initial public offering, the Company noted significant volatility in our ADS price and also observed some very active trading volume,” AMTD Digital said.
“To our knowledge, there are no material circumstances, events nor other matters relating to our Company’s business and operating activities since the IPO date,” the company added.
Citron Research, an equity research firm, rebuked the designation of AMTD Digital as a meme stock, citing the relatively low trading volume of shares in the fintech company compared with the run-up last year of GameStop, which trades under the symbol GME.
“$HKD is NOT a meme stock,” Citron Research tweeted on Wednesday, referring to AMTD Digital by its stock ticker HKD. “Has not captured the imagination of retail traders like $GME.”
Citron Research said in the tweet that 339,000 shares of AMTD Digital were traded on Tuesday.
Almost 900,000 individual accounts traded shares of GameStop each day at the height of the trading frenzy last January, a dramatic rise from less than 10,000 accounts each day earlier that month, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation found.
Still, the volatility in the price of AMTD Digital renewed a debate among some over meme stock trading.
“So we’re all just going to ignore the $400B meme stock in the room?” prominent short-seller Jim Chanos tweeted of AMTD Digital on Tuesday. “We literally had Congressional hearings over the $30B runs of $GME and $AMC, but just [crickets] today.”
Ives, of Wedbush, said the volatility of AMTD Digital in recent days shows that the emergence of a meme stock remains possible, even if it has become less common.
“This is more the rarity than the norm,” he said. “Most of that is in the rearview mirror.”
“But the situation brought to light that the meme era still has oxygen,” he added.
(WASHINGTON) — Basketball star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan should hopefully be released from Russia as part of a “two-for-two” prisoner swap, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Bill Richardson said Sunday.
“My view is optimistic, I think she’s gonna be free. There’s gonna be a prisoner swap — I think it’s gonna be two-for-two. Can’t forget about Paul Whelan,” Richardson, who is an outside adviser involved in Griner’s case, said in an exclusive interview with ABC This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos.
Griner has been detained since February and was sentenced last week to nine years in prison after she was found guilty of drug charges in a Moscow-area court; she has said she accidentally traveled with vape cartridges containing hashish oil.
Whelan, who worked in corporate security after the Marines, was convicted of espionage — which he and the U.S. deny.
Late last month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed the administration had made a “substantial proposal” to release Griner and Whelan, which sources told ABC News included freeing notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year prison sentence in the U.S.
Richardson said Sunday that he didn’t fully agree with the Biden administration’s messaging strategy. “I wouldn’t have gone public as much as they did,” he said.
But, he said, sometimes comments about prisoner negotiations are made strategically when talks stall: “You want to throw a little bit of a bomb, and I think that’s what they did.”
Richardson described himself as a “catalyst” working on Griner’s case, along with other detainees. “I’ve been talking to the Russians. I talked to the White House,” he said, though he would not detail specifics of his communications.
The founder of the Richardson Center for Global Engagement — which “promotes global peace and dialogue,” according to the center’s website — Richardson recently helped free U.S. journalist Danny Fenster in Myanmar, he said. He was also involved in helping free ex-Marine Trevor Reed, who was released by Russia in April in another prisoner exchange.
Stephanopoulos questioned Richardson about why, in its comments on Griner and Whelan, the White House has publicly omitted Marc Fogel, an American educator held in Russia since August 2021.
“He’s facing a prison sentence right now. His infraction was similar to Brittney Griner’s. Shouldn’t he be included in this?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“All of these that are wrongfully detained need to come home. And our objective should be, despite prisoner exchanges that are not popular, to bring American hostages home,” Richardson said. “Some of these prisoner exchanges are not good. They don’t — the optics are not good. But we have to do it sometimes.”
Stephanopoulos followed up to ask if such trades “will encourage America’s adversaries to actually detain more Americans”?
“There’s no data that supports that,” Richardson said. He cited the case of Fenster: “All they wanted was a photo-op. So data doesn’t support that prisoner exchanges are always the case. Yes, they’re increasing, especially with countries like Iran, Venezuela, Russia. But as unpleasant as they are, we have to bring American hostages home.”
Blinken said in late July he had spoken with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, to try and push forward on negotiations.
Richardson on Sunday complimented Lavrov’s role in the issue.
“Lavrov, he and I were U.N. ambassadors together at the same time,” Richardson said. “And I’m pleased that he’s pragmatic, that he’s sort of in charge and sent a good signal. I think the negotiations are going to be undertaken.”
(BOULDER CITY, Nev.) — Human remains were again found in Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir that continues to shrink amid a decades-long drought, officials announced Sunday.
According to the National Park Service, someone made the discovery at the park’s Swim Beach in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, on the Nevada side, around 11:15 a.m. Saturday. This marks the fourth time since May that human remains were found in Lake Mead, where water levels continue to recede at historic levels.
With the help of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s dive team, park rangers responded and set up a perimeter to retrieve the remains, the NPS said.
Officials have said the reservoir’s water levels are so low they could hit “dead pool” status, which means that the water is too low to flow downstream.
The minimum water surface level needed to generate power at the Hoover Dam is 1,050 feet, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Anything below that is considered an “inactive pool,” and a “dead pool” exists when the water level hits 895 feet, according to the federal agency.
Satellite images released last month by NASA show side-by-side comparisons of Lake Mead, one taken on July 6, 2000, and the other more than two decades later on July 6 of this year.
A result of the diminishing water level is that bodies and human parts have been emerging.
On May 7, human skeletal remains were found near the lake’s Callville Bay, according to the National Park Service. The discovery came a week after the decayed body of a man was found stuffed in a steel barrel near the reservoir’s Hemenway Fishing Pier, more than 20 miles from Callville Bay, according to the LVMPD.
On July 25, human remains were also found at Swim Beach.
Officials launched an investigation into the most recent discovery on Saturday, and the Clark County Medical Examiner has been contacted to determine the cause of death.
ABC News’ Julia Jacobo contributed to this report.
(NAIROBI, Kenya) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is scheduled to meet with officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda this week, arriving in the middle of an ongoing conflict between militias and officials in the region.
His trip coincides with a recent surge of deadly violence along the borders between Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. Local officials will expect Blinken to play the part of mediator between the three countries.
The Department of State said Blinken will send the message that “African countries are geostrategic players and critical partners on the most pressing issues of our day, from promoting an open and stable international system, to tackling the effects of climate change, food insecurity and global pandemics to shaping our technological and economic futures.”
The long-simmering disputes between the three countries and various militias have complex histories, but some of the most recent violence has stemmed from the fallout of a series of official contracts issued in 2020 for access or rights to lucrative mines in Congo. Since then, militia groups have taken up arms in hopes of expelling rivals and controlling disputed areas.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi signed a deal in 2020 with Uganda’s Dott Services Company. The agreement was to construct a road that would give Uganda access to Congo’s tin-rich mining province of Maniema.
But the following year, Felix also signed a mining agreement with Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Dither Ltd., a company alleged to be under the management of Rwanda’s army. That deal is alleged by Uganda to have given Rwanda control over the entire mining supply chain.
After the Rwanda agreement, the Ugandan army immediately moved in to protect Dott Services assets and staff from crashes instigated by the March 23 Movement, a rebel militia. Uganda accused the Rwandan government of funding M23, which Rwanda vehemently denies.
In June 2022, the Congolese government suspended all agreements with Rwanda.
M23 has been behind the string of violence against civilians in Bunagana, an open cross-border trade area located between Uganda, Rwanda and Congo that has served as a hub for the militia since March. Members of the group have been accused by officials and international observers of raping women, killing residents, destroying property and stealing civilian livestock.
Thomas Fessy, a senior Congo researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that “since the M23 took control of several towns and villages in North Kivu in June, they’ve committed the same kind of horrific abuses against civilians that we’ve documented in the past. The government’s failure to hold M23 commanders accountable for war crimes committed years ago is enabling them and their new recruits to commit abuses today.”
According to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, thousands of people have fled to neighboring Uganda.
The M23 movement formed in 2012 when former members of National Congress for the Defense of the People, another militia, turned against the Congolese government by taking control of Goma, a city of over a million people and the capital of the eastern North Kivu province.
The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Congo had been working to quell the conflict until July, when U.N. peacekeepers allegedly shot and killed two civilians and injured others. The killings sparked a civilian protest where 36 people died, including four U.N. peacekeepers, officials said.
The Congolese government expelled U.N. spokesperson Mathias Gillman on Aug. 3, blaming him for the deadly protest. Congolese Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula also said state officials were reassessing the U.N. mission’s scope after the deadly protests.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement that he was “outraged” by the incident, adding that he welcomed Congo’s decision to detain U.N. “personnel involved in the incident and to immediately open an investigation.”
As Blinken lands in Congo on Tuesday, local officials are expecting him to discuss the advancement of peace in the Congo and the broader Great Lakes region and ensuring free, inclusive and fair general elections of 2023.
Blinken is also expected to use his visit to Rwanda on Thursday to discuss Paul Rusesabagina’s trial and conviction.
The 67-year-old permanent U.S. resident has been detained in Kigali since August 2020. He was convicted in September of multiple terrorism-related charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of State determined that Rusesabagina has been “wrongfully detained.” State Department spokesperson Ned Price has said that U.S. officials were “concerned” about whether Rusesabagina was given a fair trial.
Rwanda released a statement saying, “We look forward to further strengthen the bilateral relationship between Rwanda and United States, and discussing our partnership in areas including peacekeeping, global health (notably the upcoming Global Fund replenishment) global food and energy security, trade and investment, counterterrorism and climate action.”
(BRUNSWICK, Ga.) — The three men convicted of hate crimes in the death of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery will be sentenced Monday.
Gregory McMichael; his son, Travis McMichael; and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan each face life sentences after being convicted by a federal jury in February. The jury decided that the three white men followed and killed Arbery because he was Black.
The U.S. District Court jury reached its decision just one day before the second anniversary of Arbery’s Feb. 23, 2020, murder near Brunswick, Georgia.
After deliberating for less than four hours, the jury convicted all three men of being motivated by racial hate in interference of Arbery’s civil rights, and attempted kidnapping. Travis McMichael, 36, and his 64-year-old father were also convicted of carrying and brandishing a weapon during the commission of a crime of violence.
Travis McMichael, who fired the fatal shot, was also found guilty of discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.
The McMichaels chased Arbery in their pickup truck after they saw him jogging in their neighborhood, falsely believing he had been responsible for several break-ins in the Satilla Shores neighborhood. Bryan joined the chase in his own truck, blocking Arbery from escaping and recorded cellphone footage of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery with a shotgun after a brief struggle.
During the trial, prosecutors released text messages and social media posts in which Travis McMichael and Bryan repeatedly used racist slurs. Witnesses also testified to hearing both McMichaels make racist comments.
All three defendants are already serving life in prison for the killing after being found guilty of murder in a Georgia state court last fall.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Sunday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Pittsburgh 8, Baltimore 1
St. Louis 12, NY Yankees 9
San Francisco 6, Oakland 4
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Cleveland 1, Houston 0
Tampa Bay 7, Detroit 0
Kansas City 13, Boston 5
Toronto 3, Minnesota 2
Chi White Sox 8, Texas 2
Seattle 6, LA Angels 3
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Philadelphia 13, Washington 1
Miami 3, Chi Cubs 0
Cincinnati 4, Milwaukee 2
NY Mets 5, Atlanta 2
Arizona 6, Colorado 4
LA Dodgers 4, San Diego 0
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Chicago 94, Connecticut 91
Las Vegas 89, Seattle 81
Los Angeles 79, Washington 76
Minnesota 81, Atlanta 71
If you’ve ever wondered what goes in to making a music video for a big country single, you’re in luck: Carrie Underwood is giving fans the inside scoop on filming the video for her new single, “Ghost Story.”
The behind-the-scenes clip introduces fans to the ornate, historic Los Angeles theater where it was filmed, with the singer describing how it’s the perfect setting to capture all the drama of the song.
“The vibe of the ‘Ghost Story’ video is just very cinematic, and the stage is just absolutely incredible. The backdrop, it’s like you’re in a dream,” Carrie says. “It’s just very beautiful, and a lot of stuff that we’re doing is being shot at super high speed and then we’ll slow it down, so it’ll be all wispy-looking and dreamlike.”
Carrie introduces fans to her video director and shares a glimpse into how some of the shots were created, such as one scene where she’s walking up a staircase wearing a flowing, textured red cape.
“My favorite part of filming the ‘Ghost Story’ video was probably just getting to try new things,” she continues. “I want things to look different, to feel different, to be different than anything I’ve ever done before.”
“Ghost Story” is the lead single off Carrie’s latest album, Denim & Rhinestones. This fall, she’ll take her new batch of music out on the road for the Denim & Rhinestones Tour.
Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson have split up after nine months of dating, sources tell E! Online.
The Kardashians star, 41 and the 28-year-old Saturday Night Live alum still have “a lot of love and respect for each other,” say insiders, adding that the combination of living on opposite coasts, combined with their demanding schedules “made it really difficult to maintain a relationship.”
The split reportedly occurred sometime last week.
Pete has been in Australia working on the movie Wizards!, while Kim continues to raise four kids — North, Psalm, Chicago and Saint — with her estranged husband, Kanye West.
“The divorce is moving ahead with Kanye,” another source tells the outlet. “They are happily co-parenting.”
Kim and Pete met when she hosted SNL back in October, before going Instagram official in March.
