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Kanye West has responded to news of Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson‘s reported break-up as, well, one might expect him to.
The recording artist posted to Instagram a realistic-looking mock-up of TheNew York Times with the headline “Skete Davidson Dead At 28.”
A subheadline reads, “Kid Cudi meant to play funeral, but fearful of bottle throwers,” a reference to the artist who replaced Ye at the Rolling Loud festival two weeks ago. Fans tossing water bottles at Cudi led him to walk off the stage.
The post generated more than 1.4 million likes in a matter of hours — and more than a few disapproving comments.
“God step in,” one follower pleaded.
“Petty,” noted another.
That said, Ye had his share of supporters: “Skete is a clown,” one opined, adding the clown face emoji for good measure.
The Offspring is “doing OK” after being involved in a fiery car accident over the weekend while touring in Canada.
According to a tweet from the “Self Esteem” rockers, they were on the road when “something flew off the vehicle in front of us and became wedged underneath one of our SUVs and it caught fire.”
The band notes that “everyone got out safely,” however, “pretty much everything else was destroyed,” including luggage, passports and laptops.
Ever the professionals, The Offspring still made it to their scheduled gig Saturday in Quebec.
The Offspring is touring in continued support of the band’s new album, Let the Bad Times Roll, which was released in 2021.
Baby number two has arrived for Khloé Kardashian and her ex, Tristan Thompson.
The pair, who split in January, welcomed their second child, a baby boy, via surrogate, a rep for Kardashian confirms to E! Online. The two are already parents to 4-year-old True Thompson.
The baby’s name has not been revealed.
Khloé’s new arrival comes a month after it was confirmed that she and the NBA player were expecting a second child. At the time a rep shared that True’s brother “was conceived in November.”
The second child does not mean a reconciliation for the 38-year-old reality star and 31-year old baller. The two split after it was revealed that Thompson was having a baby with Maralee Nichols, a fitness model he slept with in Houston in March 2021.
This is the second child for Khloé, and Tristan’s fourth. He also has a seven-month-old son with Nichols and a five-year-old son with his ex, Jordan Craig.
(NEW YORK) — With the midterm elections three months away, Americans maintain a sour view on the state of the economy and are pessimistic about its future course, with President Joe Biden’s approval rating across a range of issue areas continuing to suffer, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.
More than two-thirds (69%) of Americans think the nation’s economy is getting worse — the highest that measure has reached since 2008, when it was 82% in an ABC News/Washington Post poll. Currently, only 12% think the economy is getting better and 18% think it is essentially staying the same.
Americans’ views of Biden’s handling of the economic recovery remain overwhelmingly negative — and are virtually unchanged from the same poll in early June, with only 37% of Americans approving of the job the president is doing and 62% disapproving in the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll, which was conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.
The president’s rating on inflation is even worse, with 29% of Americans saying they approve, while 69% disapprove. This number is also unchanged since June.
The only area where Biden sees some improvement in this poll is on his handling of gas prices. Just over one in three Americans (34%) approve of the president’s handling of gas prices — up seven points since June.
This comes as the country has seen the average cost for a gallon of gas come down — price drops celebrated by the White House.
The low confidence in Biden’s handling of the economy and inflation comes on the heels of Friday’s jobs report, which showed that 528,000 jobs were added in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Americans also saw the unemployment rate go down to 3.5%.
In a statement released Friday, Biden touted the July jobs report, saying that it shows that his administration is “making significant progress for working families.”
When asked how enthusiastic they were about voting in November, the poll found that 75% of Republicans are either very or somewhat enthusiastic about voting, compared to 68% of Democrats and 49% of independents. In ABC News/Ipsos polls conducted in April and June this year, Republicans were more likely to report that they were very enthusiastic about voting than Democrats. That gap has narrowed to five points in this August poll.
There are other glimmers of hope for the Democrats in the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll when it comes to the potential impact abortion could have on how voters cast their ballots this November.
The poll asked voters which candidate they would support if one favored keeping abortion legal and available and the other candidate supported limiting abortion except to protect the mother’s life. About half of Americans (49%) would be more likely to support the candidate who would keep access to abortion legal compared to the 27% of Americans who would be more likely to support the candidate who favors limiting abortion. Meanwhile, 22% of Americans say that abortion would not have an impact on how they would vote.
This comes after voters in the deep red state of Kansas voted to preserve the right to an abortion in the state’s constitution, shocking the country in the first state-level test since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
In a statement from Biden on the defeat of Kansas’s abortion amendment, he called on Congress to “listen to the will of the American people and restore the protections of Roe as federal law.”
This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using Ipsos Public Affairs‘ KnowledgePanel® August 5-6, 2022, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 665 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.2 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 29-25-40 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.
ABC News’ Ken Goldstein and Dan Merkle contributed to this report.
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Britney Spears has responded to Kevin Federline’s claims about their kids.
In an upcoming interview with ITV News, the pop star’s ex-husband said that their sons, 16-year-old Sean Preston and 15-year-old Jayden James, “have decided they are not seeing her right now,” the Daily Mail reported on Saturday. It’s reportedly due to their mother’s social media posts, which sometimes includes censored nudity.
Britney fired back on Instagram, writing in her Stories, “It saddens me to hear that my ex-husband has decided to discuss the relationship between me and my children.”
“Raising teenage boys is never easy for anyone…It concerns me the fact that the reason is based on my Instagram…it was LONG before Instagram,” she continued.
“I gave them everything,” the pop star went on. “Only one word: HURTFUL…I’ll say it…My mother told me ‘You should GIVE them to their dad’…I’m sharing this because I can…Have a good day folks !!!”
In another Instagram post, Britney added, “The conservatorship has only been over for 8 months…I’m only human and I’ve done my best…I honestly would like to share my TWO CENTS!!!!…Other artists have made much worse when their children were extremely young.”
“During my conservatorship I was controlled and monitored for nearly 15 years…I should embark on doing WAAAY more than going topless on the beach like a baby,” she continued, adding that she’s not surprised by Kevin’s actions.
“I’m not surprised that just as my family did their share of interviews, they will too,” Britney wrote. “I’m not surprised at all with their behavior and their approach to what I’ve had to deal with !!!”
(NEW YORK) — As more states enact near-total bans and restrictions on abortion, providers say many patients are experiencing delayed care which can force them into later stages of pregnancy.
Abortion care options are becoming more limited and complex in some cases, which often means higher costs for patients. For example, medication abortion, which is less costly than other options, is only an option up to 10 weeks into pregnancy.
The most recent data available, from 2017, shows the average cost of an abortion in the first trimester nationwide was about $550, whether it was medication or procedural, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which researches reproductive rights.
Any abortion care for pregnancies further along than 12 weeks costs more than that. The median cost of abortion care for pregnancies at 20 weeks in 2017 was $1,670, Dr. Rachel Jones, a principal research scientist at Guttmacher, told ABC News.
Jones said that access to abortion care for patients in their second trimester has always been limited, and those patients have always had to travel further.
Almost every clinic offers abortions up to nine and 10 weeks into pregnancy and 75% offer abortions until the second trimester, Jones said.
“After that, the percentage of clinics that offer abortion at each week of gestation starts dropping off. And so people are going to have to travel further to get to a facility that can provide care at those gestations. And of course this is all going to be incredibly exacerbated given the overturning of Roe,” Jones said.
Dr. Bhavik Kumar, a provider in Texas and the national medical spokesperson for Planned Parenthood, told ABC News that how far along a pregnancy has to be before costs go up varies between clinics and across states.
Whether a patient has insurance coverage is also a main factor in determining cost. In some states, patients may not have to pay anything because abortion is covered by insurance, Kumar said.
Abortions for pregnancies that are further along can cost more because of fewer healthcare professionals that can provide that care and their limited availability, abortion procedures becoming more complicated and requiring medications or abortions needing to happen over two days, Jones said.
Second trimester abortions could also require more surgical preparations like medications or dilators, sometimes an extra procedure to insert dilators, all of which requires more time in the clinic and is factored into higher costs, Kumar said.
When the pandemic first hit, Texas said abortions were not essential health care, forcing patients to travel across state lines or not get care. When abortion care resumed, a study documented that there were more patients coming in at later stages of pregnancy, Jones said.
Other abortion restrictions, like having to make in-person visits or having to return to a clinic before getting care can also delay care by several days and push patients from one trimester into another, Jones said, citing Guttmacher research.
When Texas was one of the only states implementing a ban, wait times were around one to three days. As time progressed, within one to two months, providers saw wait times jump to one to three weeks depending on which clinic you look at, Kumar said.
Kumar said he is seeing a lot of patients who are looking to get care in another state seeing delays of several days or several weeks and some clinics are so overwhelmed, they are not even making appointments.
States with the least restrictions, that do not have mandatory wait times are where Kumar says he is hearing about longer wait times.
“It seems like there’s sort of hotspots that are forming for abortion access and the states that come to mind are Illinois, Kansas, Colorado [and] California because of the lack of most restrictions and the ability to get care,” Kumar said.
Experts said waiting longer into pregnancy increases costs.
Dr. Katie McHugh, an abortion provider who works at three clinics in Indiana, told ABC News that abortions for pregnancies that are less than 14 weeks cost around $800.
These patients are getting medication abortions or simple procedures, McHugh said.
The cost of abortion for pregnancies further along than 14 weeks range from $900 to $1,200, depending on the stage of pregnancy and need for anesthesia or if the abortion is done over multiple days, McHugh said.
Some states like Indiana had mandated that abortion care be done in a hospital after a certain number of weeks, which costs “many thousands of dollars,” McHugh said. The cutoff for when care is required to be in a hospital is regulated by states and varies around the country.
It costs less to get care at a clinic than a hospital because clinics have less overhead costs. Abortions at later gestations cost more largely because they need to be done in a surgical or hospital setting, McHugh said.
Asked whether her clinic has received patients further into pregnancy because of bans or restrictions in their states, McHugh said “absolutely.”
“Most of the people that we’re seeing from out of state, had to be referred here because of the restrictions in their own states. And then some of them, they tried to be referred to here, but they can’t get here in time. And so then we are having to refer them to Illinois,” she said.
On Friday, Indiana became the first state to enact near-total abortion ban since the U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe.
Kumar said that for patients with medically complex pregnancies who need abortion care for health reasons, delaying their care complicates risks.
People likely to have complications like preeclampsia, gestational hypertension, high blood pressure, gestational diabetes or who have had past hemorrhages are also likely to be people who experience other barriers to access. Those people are often uninsured people, people of color and low-income people, Kumar said.
Patients who have to travel to get care also face other costs that vary from patient to patient.
“So much of that depends on where people are traveling from, how much work they have to miss, how much they have to pay in childcare, not to mention gas and lodging and all of those costs,” McHugh said.
Roger E. Mosley, the actor best known for his role as the helicopter pilot Theodore “T.C.” Calvin in the original Magnum P.I. TV series alongside Tom Selleck, died early Sunday morning, his daughter shared on Facebook. He was 83. The cause of death was not revealed. In addition to Magnum, P.I., Mosley also appeared on Love Boat, Sanford and Son, Kung Fu, Kojak, Starsky and Hutch, Night Court and Walker, Texas Ranger. He also had a major role in the 1979 TV film The Jericho Mile. On the big screen, Mosley appeared in films such as The Mack, Hit Man, Sweet Jesus, Preacherman, Darktown Strutters and The River Niger…
ABC’s Abbott Elementary took home four trophies at the 38th annual Television Critics Association Awards, including Individual Achievement in Comedy for series creator, producer, writer and star, Quinta Brunson, as well as Outstanding Achievement in Comedy, Outstanding New Program, and the Program of the Year Award. Other winners included This Is Us star Mandy Moore, who earned the award for Individual Achievement; Disney+’s The Beatles: Get Back, for Outstanding Achievement in News and Information; Hulu’s Dopesick, for Outstanding Movie, Miniseries or Specials; and HBO’s Succession, for Outstanding Achievement in Drama honors. View the complete list of winners at TVCritics.org…
Clu Gulager, the real-life cowboy best known for his roles in the 1960s TV series The Tall Man and The Virginian, died Friday of natural causes at the Los Angeles home of his son, John, and daughter-in-law Diane, they tell The Hollywood Reporter. He was 93. Gulager’s film credits include The Last Picture Show, Winning, opposite Paul Newman and McQ, alongside John Wayne and horror movies such as The Return of the Living Dead, and A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge. Most recently, he showed up in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…
(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.
