After a week of teasing, Cardi B’s new song “Hot S***” arrived on Friday!
Cardi teamed up with Kanye West and Lil Durk for the record, which the female rapper previously described as “masculine” and “great for the clubs.”
In typical Cardi fashion, the track oozes confidence as she raps the chorus, “Oof (Oof), checks comin’ fast, I’m like swoosh (Swoosh) / Ooh (Ooh), give ’em to them straight, hundred proof (Proof) / I thought I killed you hoes before, it must be déjà vu /It’s either that or I’m catchin’ body, number two.”
Cardi first teased “Hot S***” on Sunday, June 26, then, the next day, she revealed that Ye and Lil Durk would be joining her on the record.
“Hot S***” is Cardi’s first single of 2022, however, it almost didn’t arrive as planned. In an Instagram Live on June 28, she expressed that she wanted to cancel the song release because the music video to assist the track wasn’t ready and added that “a lot of people have been dropping the ball for the past two months.” Ultimately, she decided to “push” and put the song out for her fans anyway.
“Hot S***” is expected to appear on Cardi’s long-awaited sophomore album, the follow up to 2018’s Invasion of Privacy.
Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor is pictured with Chicago youth attending the 20th ward’s annual youth forum. – Courtesy Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor
(CHICAGO) — As a 19-year-old, Jeanette Taylor was a single mother raising three children inside a one-bedroom apartment she shared with her mother, brother, sister and her niece. She knew they needed their own space, and fast, so she turned to the Chicago Housing Authority for housing assistance.
She was left on the waiting list for 29 years.
Taylor, now a Chicago alderwoman, said her story is indicative of the housing crisis people continue to face, so she’s taking legislative action to address the housing crisis and the system that keeps change from happening.
“I paid taxes, I worked, I volunteered at the kids’ school,” Taylor told ABC News. “I was doing what they say you’re supposed to do and when I reached out to the institutions, and my city that was supposed to help me, I didn’t get the help that I needed.”
Accessibility to affordable housing for low-income households is an issue plaguing the nation, Taylor said.
In Chicago, before the COVID-19 outbreak, the Chicago Coalition for Homelessness reported that “an estimated 58,273 people” were experiencing homelessness in 2019. In one night alone, over 326,000 people experienced sheltered homelessness in the United States, according to the 2021 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress.
Having struggled with navigating the housing system in her own city, she made it her priority to reach out to the Chicago Housing Authority upon taking office in 2019 to address the city’s high rates of homelessness.
With decadeslong waitlists and the livelihoods of thousands of families hanging in the balance of housing voucher rotations, Taylor knew the city lacked a substantial commitment to change.
“We know sending them into shelters, and transitional housing is horrible,” Taylor said. “We got a real opportunity to talk about how do we help the homeless population in the city.”
The director of public affairs of the Chicago Department of housing, Eugenia Orr, told ABC News the city is taking steps to combat the issue.
Orr said the City Lots for Working Families (CL4WF) program is an effort to promote the development of affordable housing on vacant lots throughout the Chicago area. In addition, the program works to “incentivize home builders” and provide vacant lots to affordable housing developers.
“Homes must be made available to qualified buyers with incomes up to 140% of area median income,” Orr said.
Although the program repurposes the land, the link between the vacant buildings and accessibility for low-income households is part of Taylor’s proposed Accountable Housing and Transparency ordinance.
Taylor introduced the ordinance in April this year to centralize efforts in housing the homeless and those in need. Other key features of the ordinance include prioritizing the displaced and disabled, centralizing leasing, a single waitlist, “interagency coordination” among all Chicago-based public health and housing institutions, and a requirement for each affordable housing unit to “achieve and maintain 97% occupancy rate.”
By consolidating the separate platforms of applying to affordable housing created by different agencies, Taylor said the ordinance aims to simplify the process so that more people and families can obtain safe housing in a reasonable amount of time.
Taylor, who shared her story last month about finally being added to the top of the housing waitlist, said she did so to open a larger discussion on the national issue of accessibility to affordable housing.
“The system should be ashamed, not me,” Taylor said.
Soon after Taylor’s post went viral, the CHA released a statement addressing news reports highlighting their long wait times.
“CHA’s public housing and project-based voucher waitlists are always open and have wait times that range from as little as six months, to as much as 25 years,” the CHA said in a statement going on to explain its system of recycling the 47,000 vouchers that the federal government grants to the CHA.
“The number allotted has not increased in years,” the CHA said. “A voucher only becomes available to a new family on the waitlist after it is no longer being used by an existing voucher holder.”
Taylor said she knows of the wait pains families go through. When she finally got a call saying they had found her an apartment, they said her son could not live there because he had just graduated and turned 18.
“After completing my application, the young lady told me that I wasn’t gonna be able to put him on my lease,” Taylor said. “She was like, ‘if we find him in your unit, you will lose your CHA housing.'”
Taylor had to either rejoin the waitlist, or move without her son.
“I’ll be homeless before I put my 18-year-old son out,” Taylor said.
As years passed, Taylor said she’d received a letter assuring her that her number was getting closer to the point of selection. Finally, after meeting with the head of the Chicago Housing Authority 2019 Taylor said she received a letter on May 20 notifying her that she made it to the top of the waitlist and could begin the application process.
“I just sat on the bed,” Taylor said. “The kid that handed me the mail, is the kid that I just had when I applied for this, who will be 29.”
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports that there are over 970,000 households residing in public housing units across the nation, a number that fluctuates daily.
For many families like Taylor’s, she said many feel like “there’s no choice” except just to continue fighting.
According to a 2021 point-in-time count conducted by HUD, 122,849 African Americans experienced sheltered homelessness compared to 3,055 Asians, 6,460 American Indian/Alaska Natives, 3,785 Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islanders, and 113,294 white people.
By taking the opportunity to fix a persistent housing issue in her ward, she hopes the housing crisis and racial housing disparities can be transparently addressed by the federal government.
“Black women, you figure it out, and I had to,” Taylor said.
(KEATON BEACH, Fla.) — A teenage girl was seriously injured in a shark attack at a Florida beach on Thursday, authorities said.
The attack happened at Keaton Beach in northwestern Florida’s Taylor County. The unidentified girl was scalloping in water approximately 5 feet deep near Grassy Island, just of Keaton Beach, when she was bitten by a shark, according to the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office.
“A family member reportedly jumped in the water and beat the shark until the juvenile was free,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
The girl suffered “serious injuries” and had to be airlifted to a hospital in Tallahassee, about 80 miles northwest of Keaton Beach, according to the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office said the type of shark that attacked was unclear but it was described as approximately 9 feet long.
“Swimmers and scallopers are cautioned to be alert, vigilant, and practice shark safety,” the sheriff’s office added. “Some rules to follow are: never swim alone, do not enter the water near fishermen, avoid areas such as sandbars (where sharks like to congregate), do not swim near large schools of fish, and avoid erratic movements while in the water.”
Shark attacks increased worldwide in 2021 after three consecutive years of decline, though the previous year’s significantly low numbers were attributed to lockdowns and restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to yearly research conducted by the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File.
Florida has topped the global charts in the number of shark bites for decades, and the trend continued in 2021, researchers said. Out of 73 unprovoked incidents recorded around the world last year, 28 were in Florida, representing 60% of the total cases in the United States and 38% of cases worldwide. That number was consistent with Florida’s most recent five-year annual average of 25 shark attacks, according to researchers.
(UVALDE, Texas) — More than one month since the massacre at Robb Elementary School that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, families of victims demanded answers from city leaders during a special council meeting on Thursday.
Frustrated by the lack of information from the ongoing state investigation, families turned to the council for answers — but they got none.
“We’re not trying to hide anything from you,” said Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin on Thursday. “We don’t have anything.”
After returning from discussing the shooting behind closed doors, McLaughlin told the assembled family members and media that they had no more information to share than they did two hours earlier when they went behind closed doors.
But families pressed the mayor for details and complained about the lack of transparency.
“We’re looking for some answers that nobody seems to be getting and it’s just making Uvalde PD and everybody else look even more guilty,” said Berlinda Arreola, grandmother of Amerie Jo Garza, one of the students who died.
“Look at this as a dad, as a parent,” said Garza’s dad who was also at the meeting. “What if it was your kid?”
“You’re in charge of this city,” one parent yelled.
During the meeting, the sister of Irma Garcia, one of the fourth-grade teachers who died, demanded answers from the mayor and blamed the Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell Busbee for how the investigation has been handled.
The families complained the district attorney has dodged their questions and has refused to release evidence including 911 calls and surveillance footage.
“No one should have much power,” Irma Garcia’s sister, Velma Lisa Duran, said of the district attorney.
“My sister was obliterated,” Duran added before breaking down in tears. “I couldn’t hug her. I couldn’t say my last goodbye.”
In response to the family’s complains and demands for more information, McLaughlin showed the room two letters he says he received in response to his requests for information. One, from Busbee, said, “any release of records to that incident at this time would interfere with said ongoing investigation” referring to the school shooting.
The other letter McLaughlin showed during the meeting was from the Texas Department of Public Safety saying, “release of records related to that incident at this time would interfere with the ongoing investigation.”
The anger in the room was met with frustration from the mayor as well. He told the parents that the issue was beyond his reach, and that he has tried to get answers.
McLaughlin added that if they didn’t have confidence in him, he would step down.
Notably, embattled Police Chief Pete Arredondo was a no-show — his third absence at a meeting since he was sworn in as councilman last month.
Last week, Arredondo was placed on administrative leave by the school district.
Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.
(NEW YORK) — The Fourth of July rings in the peak of summer quite literally as fireworks fly into the sky from cities to backyards alike.
While the celebration is often colorful and exciting, it is also a time that can be very loud and frightening for dogs around the country, causing it to be the weekend more pets go missing than any other time of the year, according to the American Kennel Club.
It is common for dogs to suffer from noise phobia and fireworks are usually a big trigger. The noise of fireworks causes dogs to enter survival mode, according to Kitty Block, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States. This can leave dogs feeling panicked, and can even cause “dogs considered to be very laid-back” to bolt from their owners and destruct their home.
“It is a logical response if you think of it from the dog’s perspective,” Block explains. “They hear extremely loud noises that often make the ground vibrate and see bright flashing lights. They don’t know it’s a holiday or a celebration, often they don’t even know where the sound is coming from, so their desire to get away or hide is understandable.”
There are some overt signs that your dog could be getting anxious, such as whining, pacing, and running away. However, dogs can also show more subtle signs of anxiousness, which can look like presenting “a general restlessness when the fireworks are happening,” explains Nick Hof, chair of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers.
The anxiety dogs have from fireworks can also be acquired over time or after a traumatic incident, which Hof’s dog, Lanie, experienced after losing her canine brother.
“One of my dogs a few years ago lost her brother and actually gained an anxiety for the Fourth of July when we no longer had her brother here as well,” Hof shares. “It took me by surprise because she had previously been totally fine.”
“When the Fourth of July came the year after, she became very panicked, would cry and whine, completely unable to settle down or relax,” Hof added.
Hof said he did everything he could to try and help her in that difficult situation, such as “turning on relaxing music to mitigate the sounds of fireworks” and “offering tasty, high-value treats” in an effort to make the experience less scary for her, which are a few of the many useful ways to ease your dog’s anxiety.
However, something unique and hopeful about this time of the year is that there is always a definite day these particular fireworks are planned to go off, which means we can prepare for it. Experts believe we have improved over time as a society with how we handle our dogs with care on the Fourth of July.
From anti-anxiety sweaters known as “Thunder Shirts” to desensitization CDs that help utilize the sound of thunderstorms, there are many different ways of dealing with anxiety in animals, said Dr. Klein, chief veterinary officer at the American Kennel Club.
There has also been an improvement in veterinary medicine with the types of medications that are offered for dogs with anxiety and noise phobia.
“We are moving away from medications that were just purely sedative and moving more towards ones that have anti-anxiety components that can help reduce the actual anxiety that the dogs are feeling,” said Hof.
Here are 6 ways to treat your dog with care on July 4 to lessen anxiety and panicking:
1. Create a sense of calmness and compete with the noise by turning on a radio or television.
2. Place a cotton ball in their ears while the fireworks go on (just remember to take them out!)
3. Stay with your pet or have a family member or friend dog-sit for the day to give them a sense of security.
4. Take your dog out on a leash when they need to use the bathroom so they are not alone and cannot run away at the noise of fireworks.
5. Play fetch with them, put on some relaxing music, and reward them with treats.
6. Most importantly, keep them far away from the fireworks show!
Miranda Lambert’s new line of home goods takes cues from the two women who taught her everything she knows about hospitality: Her mom, Beverly June Lambert, and grandma, Wanda Louise Coker.
Hence the name — Wanda June — of the collection that the singer hopes will reflect the personalities of the women in her family.
“You can walk in any of our places, kick off your shoes and make a drink. I get that from my mom and grandma,” Miranda tells People. “‘Y’all come in and sit awhile — here’s a Crown and Coke at 1 in the afternoon.’ I feel like that’s what we’re doing with Wanda June.”
The new line — which features items like casserole dishes, kitchen goods and rugs — is all about making memories, she continues.
“A lot of my most fond memories have been around the table and in cozy spaces,” she explains. “We wanted the whole thing to be a little bit collectible, something you could pass down — because my mom and I both have pieces of my grandmother’s china, tablecloths and tablewares and things that really mean something that our grandmothers had.”
Miranda’s Wanda June line is available for purchase at Walmart.
The Doobie Brothers‘ breakthrough second album, Toulouse Street, was released 50 years ago today.
The 10-track collection features the band’s first two top-40 hits, “Listen to the Music” and a cover of the 1966 gospel tune “Jesus Is Just Alright,” which reached #11 and #35, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100. The record, which also includes the classic-rock staple “Rockin’ Down the Highway,” peaked at #21 on the Billboard 200 and has sold over 1 million copies in the U.S.
The album saw the Doobie Brothers lineup expand from a quartet to a quintet, as founding singer/guitarists Tom Johnston and Pat Simmons and drummer John Hartman were joined by a second drummer, Mike Hossack, and original bassist Dave Shogren was replaced by Tiran Porter.
Johnston wrote five of the album’s 10 songs, including “Listen to the Music” and “Rockin’ Down the Highway,” while Simmons composed two tunes, and the remaining tracks were covers — the aforementioned “Jesus Is Just Alright,” Seals and Crofts‘ “Cottonmouth” and blues great Sonny Boy Williamson‘s “Don’t Start Me to Talkin’.”
Little Feat keyboardist Bill Payne is featured on “Rockin’ Down the Highway,” “Don’t Start Me to Talkin’,” “Cotton Mouth” and “Jesus Is Just Alright.”
On Toulouse Street, The Doobie Brothers’ deep Americana roots are on full display. As Johnston explains to ABC Audio, “Everybody came from different musical backgrounds, and that all got thrown together and it worked. Me coming from blues and R&B, soul music, plus rock ‘n’ roll, of course. Pat coming from rock ‘n’ roll, but also folk blues, a lot of fingerpicking…[T]hose two elements basically guided where the band was gonna go early on.”
Johnston adds, “[W]e’re what you might call a quintessential American band.”
Here the full track list of Toulouse Street:
“Listen to the Music”
“Rockin’ Down the Highway”
“Mamaloi”
“Toulouse Street”
“Cotton Mouth”
“Don’t Start Me to Talkin'”
“Jesus Is Just Alright”
“White Sun”
“Disciple”
“Snake Man”
The new Chris Pratt drama The Terminal List, debuting Friday on Prime Video, is intense — a drama about a Navy SEAL who loses his unit, his family is being threatened, and he’s not sure who he can trust.
Not only is the series intense, so was making it, with Pratt telling ABC Audio, “It was intense. It’s a surprise. Hopefully it’ll be unlike anything anyone has ever seen me do.”
Those intense moments were punctuated with moments of levity, though, because that’s what Navy SEALS do.
“They’re cracking jokes. They’re saying inappropriate [things] in the middle of combat…surrounded by destruction and death and uncertainty,” Pratt explains. “They’re still checking in with each other by being funny.”
The Terminal List is based on the bestselling book from Jack Carr. Carr, a former Navy SEAL himself, says he wrote it with Pratt in mind and “he crushed it.”
“I got to see that transformation in Parks and Rec to playing a steel operator in Zero Dark 30. So that’s what initially kind of cued me off,” Carr shares, adding that this was before Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World, and Avengers. “I thought Chris Pratt is the only person to bring this to life.”
As for what to expect — expect the unexpected.
“I think Chris called it early on tradecraft set against paranoia, and it was that tone that makes it very different than other conspiracy thrillers or military thrillers that you’ve seen before,” showrunner Dave DiGilio teases. “There’s a lot more layers to this show.”
And, if you thought the show might not seem relatable, the themes certainly are, according to director Antoine Fuqua.
“Empathy, love, revenge, justice. There’s certain things that don’t change,” Fuqua says. “That’s the thing that we all relate to.”
(WASHINGTON) — A former White House aide’s stunning testimony before the House panel investigating the Capitol attack indicated that the U.S. Secret Service may have had advanced warning of the potential for violence at the Capitol, raising new questions about the agency’s planning ahead of the riot and actions taken by agents on Jan. 6.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a top deputy to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, told lawmakers on Tuesday that the security team guarding then-President Donald Trump and senior White House officials were aware there was a serious threat posed by some descending on Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, when Trump was planning to address a rally to support his baseless accusations that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
In Hutchinson’s telling, the agency famous for its teams of bodyguards, sharpshooters and hyper-skilled drivers was aware that among the throngs headed to Washington were some who were planning to carry a variety of weapons and military gear, and were seeking to target members of Congress and breach the Capitol building.
If so, the Secret Service apparently failed to coordinate effectively with law enforcement partners, the public, or congressional leaders to strengthen the security posture — and instead ferried a number of people under their protection to the Capitol complex with little more than their personal security details.
The Secret Service declined to answer questions from ABC News.
If true, the lapse in security — laid out on national television during a committee session Tuesday — represents perhaps the most glaring evidence to date that the Secret Service, responsible for guarding key political figures and their families, failed at its most basic responsibilities in how it dealt with Trump’s rally and the meetings of the House and Senate on Jan. 6, according to John Cohen, a former ranking Department of Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor.
“It appears that senior officials at the White House were not only aware of plans to march on the U.S. Capitol, but also appeared to be planning for the president to join,” Cohen said, citing another of Hutchinson’s allegations. “This testimony raises highly disconcerting questions about what the Secret Service knew about this event and why more wasn’t done to prepare.”
Notoriously tight-lipped about their job and how they do it, the Secret Service is under renewed focus this week after Hutchison, 26, alleged shocking new details about the president’s interactions with his security agents on Jan. 6 and how they were so concerned about possible violence at the Capitol that they refused Trump’s directive to drive him there.
“The president said something to the effect of, ‘I’m the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now’ — to which Bobby [Engel, the head of Trump’s security detail], responded, ‘Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing,'” Hutchinson testified she was told by Tony Ornato, a senior Secret Service official who was at the time White House deputy chief of staff for operations.
Trump, responding to Hutchinson’s testimony, said, “I hardly know who this person, Cassidy Hutchinson, is, other than I heard very negative things about her (a total phony and ‘leaker’).”
Hutchinson also testified that in the days leading up to Jan. 6, Meadows at one point said, “Things might get real, real bad on Jan. 6.”
And on the morning of Trump’s planned speech at the Ellipse, just south of the White House grounds, Hutchinson said, Trump was made aware of individuals with weapons seeking to attend his rally and that many of them declined to pass through security checkpoints because they would have needed to surrender their weapons. Frustrated that those requirements were suppressing the size of the crowd, Trump suggested that the metal detectors be removed, Hutchinson testified.
Cohen said that, as concerned as he was about those developments, he was most troubled by the picture Hutchinson’s testimony painted of possible failures on the part of the Secret Service, an agency Cohen has worked closely with since it was folded in to DHS after the 9/11 terror attacks.
“Hutchinson’s testimony raises serious questions regarding security planning by the Secret Service on Jan 6. that will need to be answered,” Cohen said. “Did the Service leadership have advanced notice of the planned march on the Capitol? Did they have advanced notice of the president’s intent to join the crowd?”
Hutchinson said that Ornato, whom she described as “the conduit for security protocol between White House staff and the United States Secret Service,” was aware of possible violence planned for Jan. 6 in the preceding days — and alerted Meadows and Trump on the morning of Jan. 6.
Even with this information allegedly circulating among senior White House staff, the Secret Service ferried at least three of its protectees to travel to the Capitol — Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence, and incoming Vice President Kamala Harris, who was still a senator from California — without supplementing their details with additional agents or coordinating with other agencies to shore up protection.
Ornato, a longtime Secret Service employee, currently serves as a senior official in the agency’s training branch. The Jan. 6 committee has expressed interest in interviewing him, and the Secret Service has said he is available to testify under oath, but did not provide further details.
Law enforcement officials have broadly characterized Jan. 6 as an intelligence failure, claiming that Washington’s myriad of law enforcement agencies did not fully grasp the threat landscape — despite warnings that appeared on social media in the weeks leading up the rally.
Secret Service officials have also said that local officials did not ask DHS to establish a special national security designation for the Jan. 6 sessions of Congress, so their hands were tied — though Cohen said DHS and the Secret Service don’t have to wait for local officials to reach out if they are aware of active threats.
Hutchinson’s testimony indicated that the Secret Service either had advanced warning of the threats and failed to notify others and formulate an appropriate response plan — or they were misled by White House officials who had a clearer understanding of the potential for violence and neglected to alert the appropriate agencies, Cohen said.
“These security lapses may not have been a result of incompetence, but instead due to deliberate actions taken by senior White House officials,” Cohen said. “If this information was not provided to the Secret Service, or if it was and the Secret Service failed to expand security operations, that would be highly disconcerting.”
Don Mihalek, a former senior Secret Service agent who is now an ABC News contributor, said the “interplay of information” among senior White House staff and protective agents about possible threats happens regularly — but that agents are limited in how they can implement plans if senior officials fail to heed warnings or cooperate with them.
Mihalek said he believes the breakdown in communication between agencies handicapped the Secret Service’s planning and response as protesters marched on the Capitol building. He defended agents’ decision to allow Pence, his wife, and Harris travel freely to the Capitol, despite possibly knowing the risk in advance.
“Nobody has a crystal ball,” Mihalek said. “There’s always a threat environment, and the Secret Service’s job is to mitigate threats as much as possible — and they don’t have the authority to override a protectee’s movement, outside of citing a credible and specific threat.”
In the wake of her appearance on Capitol Hill, Hutchinson has faced a deluge of criticism from Trump associates and supporters who have questioned her credibility. Republican Rep. Liz Cheney told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl in an exclusive interview that she has full faith and confidence in Hutchinson’s word.
“I am absolutely confident in her testimony,” Cheney told Karl in a wide-ranging interview set to air in full on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” this Sunday. “The Committee is not going to stand by and watch her character be assassinated by anonymous sources, and by men who are claiming executive privilege.”
