Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, FILE
(BUFFALO, NY) — A federal grand jury returned an indictment Thursday charging the alleged Buffalo, New York, mass shooter with federal hate crimes.
Payton Gendron, 18, is accused of storming a Tops grocery store on May 14 and gunning down 10 people, all of whom were Black, in an alleged hate crime.
At one point, Gendron aimed his Bushmaster XM rifle at a white Tops employee, who was shot in the leg and injured, Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters last month. Gendron allegedly apologized to him before continuing the attack, Garland said.
The federal hate crime charges were announced last month.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — The Department of Health and Human Services announced it is investigating reports of women being denied vital medication for chronic medical conditions unrelated to abortion in states that have banned abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
It will also be issuing guidance to 60,000 retail pharmacies, reminding them of their obligations under federal civil rights laws, the agency said.
“We are committed to ensuring that everyone can access health care, free of discrimination,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement Wednesday. “This includes access to prescription medications for reproductive health and other types of care.”
One example of the fallout has been reports of several women diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in states with abortion bans that have reported not being able to obtain a medication called methotrexate from their pharmacies.
“I’m a 48-year-old woman without a uterus,” Jennifer Crow from Tennessee, where there is a six-week abortion ban in place, told ABC News. “I didn’t think the abortion ban would affect me.”
She said she has been taking methotrexate for her inflammatory arthritis since April. On July 1, for the first time since getting her prescription, her pharmacy required her to call her doctor to access a refill she was already prescribed, she said.
Crow said she was without medication for three days until she could speak to her doctor after the long July Fourth holiday weekend. She said, “During those three days, the inflammation returned. I was immediately put back into a flare.”
Crow said she’s spoken to many other people on Twitter with chronic diseases requiring methotrexate treatment with similar experiences to hers. She said that “many of them reached out to their doctor preemptively. Many doctors said that they had a blanket hold on all methotrexate until it gets worked out.”
Becky Schwartz, 28, who suffers from lupus, told Stat News her doctor in Virginia said he had to pause prescribing the medication by orders of the health system he worked for.
She told Stat News the medication was dramatically effective and she feared what would happen without it.
“Before I started taking it, I was not able to do much at all, I was pretty immobile,” she said. “Within a month, I was feeling great. Not perfect, but I could take a shower unassisted.”
“I have gotten some reports where children have been denied methotrexate for their juvenile arthritis until they’ve proven they’re not pregnant,” Dr. Cuoghi Edens, an assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at University of Chicago Medicine told the Los Angeles Times. That included an 8-year-old, Edens said.
The pharmacy’s reluctance to fill a standing prescription or a doctor’s reluctance to prescribe it may be due to fear of legal retaliation via felony charges on providers for aiding or abetting abortions.
“The concern that physicians and pharmacists are experiencing is, ‘Is there a legal implication based on the SCOTUS ruling for continuing to prescribe or fill prescriptions for methotrexate?'” Dr. Kenneth Saag, president of the American College of Rheumatology, told ABC News.
The American College of Rheumatology, the Arthritis Foundation, the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation and the advocacy group CreakyJoints have all issued statements since the recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opposing the restriction of methotrexate access and have developed educational materials, as well as offered avenues through helplines and email to help support those who are not able to obtain their treatment.
Methotrexate is no longer used for abortions.
Medication abortion is the use of a combination of hormonally-active drugs to evacuate the contents of the uterus. Before the FDA approval of mifepristone in 2016 for medication abortion, methotrexate was paired with misoprostol. The abortion process on this older regimen was less effective, more prone to causing adverse side effects and took a substantially longer time to complete.
Methotrexate is still used to treat ectopic pregnancies, which occur when the embryo implants outside of the uterus. These pregnancies are not viable in any circumstance and only pose a significant risk to the mother, including future infertility and death, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. A study found that deaths from ectopic pregnancy decreased from 1.15 to 0.50 per 100,000 from 1980 to 2007, presumably due to improved treatment options and guidelines.
The issue of methotrexate access in outpatient pharmacies makes some providers worried about the future of access in other health care settings.
“Methotrexate has been revolutionary in women’s health care for ectopic pregnancies, as most ectopic pregnancies don’t go to the OR anymore. My take-home is, what’s next? Let people die from a ruptured ectopic if methotrexate is restricted? Do women then have to wait until ectopic pregnancies rupture so that they can then get a lifesaving procedure in the OR?” said Dr. Jacques Moritz, a board-certified OB-GYN.
When women who can become pregnant are prescribed methotrexate, there are already safeguards to prevent adverse events related to pregnancy.
The American Academy of Family Physicians strongly recommends that women using this medication must use birth control in the form of hormonal contraceptives, condoms and/or abstinence. If a woman is ready to become pregnant, the American Academy of Rheumatology recommends that methotrexate be stopped at least three months before conception.
For those already using methotrexate, it’s not as simple as finding another medication.
Methotrexate is a drug that also works to suppress the immune system. This treatment can be essential for people diagnosed with cancer as part of a chemotherapy regimen, some autoimmune diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and Crohn’s disease, or for those who have received an organ transplant.
“These are chronically ill patients who spend oftentimes years from the first date of the onset of the illness through diagnosis through a trial-and-error period to get themselves onto a medication where they’re able to live their lives,” Steven Newmark, chief legal office and director of policy for CreakyJoints, told ABC News. “And to see any kind of impediment put in place is horrific to say the least.”
Without access to this treatment, disease flares are more likely, which can prevent people from maintaining their daily responsibilities and negatively impact their quality of life.
Restricting methotrexate from women could mean that the standard of care will not be met for those experiencing a range of diseases beyond reproductive care in states where abortion is banned.
“In arthritis, women are disproportionately impacted by the disease, so it’s more likely that you’re going to see a woman show up to the pharmacy counter for a methotrexate prescription than a man. So, it’s kind of like this double whammy in that there are a few layers to this particular issue,” Anna Hyde, the vice president of advocacy and access, and Alisa Vidulich, the policy director for the Arthritis Foundation, told ABC News.
Alternative medications are not necessarily the answer.
Newmark told ABC News, “There are concerns that alternative medications, which is not always a proper one-to-one substitute, but even if you look at other medications, they may not be covered in the same manner by insurance and may be more expensive.”
“It’s a shame that other diseases are being affected by this,” Moritz added. “The doctor-patient relationship is sacred and now it’s being desecrated.”
Dr. Jade Cobern contributed to this article and is a resident in preventive medicine and pediatrics in Baltimore, Maryland, and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
Dr. Erica Jalal is an internal medicine resident physician at George Washington University and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
Wiz Khalifa makes a triumphant solo music return with the new video for this latest single, “Bad A** B*****s“
The Edgar Esteves-directed visual sees Khalifa in a desert-like location surrounded and adorned by a group of women dressed in red ensembles with matching capes. Making a quick cameo in the video are a few jars of the rapper’s famous Khalifa Kush marijuana brand.
Earlier this week, Khalifa sat down with Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host Anthony Anderson to announce the release date of his forthcoming album, Multiverse, dueout July 29.
He then alerted fans of the album’s due date via social media and unveiled the project’s caricature-like cover art on Instagram this week.
Khalifa also talked with Anderson about a new film venture with his portrayal of George Clinton —a pioneer of funk music —in the upcoming biopic Spinning Gold. Khalifa said he was very familiar with Clinton prior to taking on the role.
“My parents listened to all types of music in the house and they made sure I grew up with the funk,” he said. “It was just fun to be a part of it. They really wanted me to be myself but as him.”
A busy man these days, the “Black and Yellow” rapper is gearing up to hit the road with his Vinyl Verse tour, co-headlined by fellow rapper Logic. Starting July 27 in Irvine, CA, the tour will hit 28 cities across the U.S. and wrap in September.
Tickets for the tour can be found on Wiz Khalifa’s official website.
Macklemore has finally finished his not-so-secret collaboration with “Dance Monkey” singer Tones and I and promised fans will hear it very soon.
Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, the Grammy winner shared a video of him jamming in a parking lot to a new song named “CHANT.” “Can you guess who’s singing on the hook?” he captioned the clip. A female voice is heard singing, “I’m on fire, fire/ You can’t take my voice from me/ I will rise up, rise up/ So what are you waiting for?”
It didn’t take fans long to guess it was Tones, whose real name is Toni Watson. The Australian singer has previously stated she’s a big fan of Macklemore.
Soon after, the “Glorious” rapper shared a follow-up video in which he sits on a couch and further teases the collab. “What’s up, guys? I’ve been working on some new music and I brought the homie,” Macklemore says. Tones then rises from behind the couch and flashes a rock-on sign.
“This song is SPECIAL,” she said of “CHANT” when re-sharing the video to her own Instagram page.
The official trailer for the recently announced four-part Rolling Stones docuseries My Life as a Rolling Stone has debuted on the EPIX network’s YouTube channel.
As previously reported, the series, which celebrates the British rock legends’ 60th anniversary, premieres August 7. Each hour-long episode will focus on one of the band’s four main members — singer Mick Jagger, guitarists Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood and late drummer Charlie Watts.
The trailer features a montage of film clips of The Stones playing live at different periods throughout their career, as well as a variety of archival footage capturing the band members behind the scenes and being interviewed. The promo also includes segments or voiceovers of Jagger, Richards and Wood discussing their bandmates.
At one point, Richards comments, “Mick Jagger is Mick Jagger, a very honorable man…under all that crap.”
We also hear Jagger say, “Keith’s got a reputation as a hell raiser. He’d play The Beatles all the time. [It’d] drive me batty!”
Wood then appears and says about himself, “Number one is learn how to laugh at yourself,” followed by Richards commenting about Watts, “Charlie was the best drummer England has ever produced.”
Near the end of the trailer, Richards declares, “Turning people on for 60 years, we must be doing something right.”
My Life as a Rolling Stone also will feature Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, Chrissie Hynde, Jon Bon Jovi, Joe Walsh, AC/DC‘s Brian Johnson, Metallica‘s Lars Ulrich, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Tom Waits, Dan Aykroyd and more. Actress Sienna Miller narrates the series.
The first episode will profile Jagger and will be available to watch for free via various cable and streaming services. The Richards, Wood and Watts episodes will debut on EPIX on August 14, August 21 and August 28, respectively.
Carson Pickett appears on “Good Morning America,” July 14, 2022. – ABC News
(NEW YORK) — Carson Pickett is still riding high after making history in late June for the U.S. women’s national soccer team.
The 28-year-old defender, who was born without a left forearm and hand and has been playing soccer since she was 5, became the first player with a limb difference to start a game for the women’s national team on the international stage, an achievement known as “earning a cap.”
Pickett, who also plays for the North Carolina Courage, helped the U.S. defeat Colombia 2-0 during a friendly match on June 29 at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah.
“It’s a moment I probably will never be able to fully describe,” Pickett told “Good Morning America” Thursday from WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, North Carolina. “My dad told me the night before, ‘When you go out there, take it all in.’ And I think that’s what I did when I first walked out on the field.”
“I saw the crowd and everyone chanting ‘USA’ and I just knew that my biggest dream just came true. I think it was so cool to see my parents in the stands and just all the little kids screaming your name and things like that. And honestly, it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had in my entire life,” she said.
It’s not the first time Pickett has been in the spotlight. Back in 2019, a photo of Pickett meeting with a young fan named Joseph Tidd, who also has a limb difference, went viral on social media. She and Tidd shared a fist bump at the edge of the field at Exploria Stadium in Orlando, Florida.
Pickett revealed in an April Instagram post that, in addition to inspiring young soccer fans, she hopes to be an advocate for others with limb differences.
“While I know that I am confident and comfortable with showing my arm, I know there are so many people in the world who aren’t. The feeling of being different and the anxiety of not fitting in is something that I have been through,” she wrote in part.
“I want to be an advocate for others like me, and for the longest time I didn’t use my platform well enough. Let’s all try to love ourselves no matter what we look like and let’s all be kind to each other above all else,” she added.
The rising soccer star said she plans to use social media to fulfill her advocacy mission and won’t shy away from talking about limb differences. It’s a conversation she said is long overdue.
“Before, it wasn’t like that. Growing up, I didn’t want to be different. In college, my freshman year in Florida, I would wear long sleeve shirts and things like that just to make sure people didn’t see that I was any different than them and they wouldn’t stare and now it’s just all changed,” Pickett said.
“Now that social media is so big, I think that it’s a really good platform to be able to reach people,” she added. “I’ve had people reach out from different countries, different states and it’s just so cool to meet people like me … I know sometimes it can be hard and uncomfortable. But I think the more that we talk about it, the better it’ll be for everyone.”
For young people following her journey, Pickett hopes to change the narrative, one that she didn’t always see in mainstream society.
“As time went on, I just realized that it actually is incredible to be different and honestly that everyone out there is different in some kind of way. We all have our own little quirks and things,” she said.
Pickett credits her parents for always supporting her and encouraging her to do anything those with two hands could do — and it’s a part of her message to others now as well.
“My dad always told me, ‘Never let anyone turn your sky into a ceiling’ and … just to follow your dreams. There’s no one out there who should ever tell you that your dreams are too big,” she said. “Continue to be yourself along the way and just enjoy the journey.”
“They also told me never to say the word ‘can’t’ and nothing was impossible for me and to never get discouraged and to continue to try every time,” she added. “You know, [if] I fell off the monkey bars and things like that, [I would] just get back up and try again.”
(BUCHANAN COUNTY, Va.) — Everyone has been accounted for in Buchanan County, Virginia, on Thursday after a severe storm struck the area, bringing heavy rain and flooding, officials said.
At the height of the flooding, 44 people were unaccounted for on Wednesday. Floodwaters are now receding, said authorities in Buchanan County, which sits at the borders of Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky.
There are no reports of deaths or injuries, the sheriff’s office said.
The flooding came after 4 to 6 inches of rain pounded the area within hours Tuesday night. Some spots reported 3 inches of rain in just 90 minutes. A frontal system stalled over the region, which can produce copious amounts of rain in a very short period of time.
The damage spreads across about 10 miles, officials said, adding that the worst impact was downstream of where several streams join together.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has declared a state of emergency.
“I want Virginians in Buchanan County to know that we are making every resource available to help those impacted by this storm. As we continue to assess the situation, I want to thank our first responders and the personnel on the ground for providing assistance with our ongoing operations,” he said in a statement.
L-R: Anthony, Joe Russo — Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Netflix
Joe and Anthony Russo directed four Marvel Studios films: fan-favorite Captain America: The Winter Soldier in 2014; Captain America: Civil War in 2016, Avengers: Infinity War in 2018 and 2019’s Endgame, which is the second highest-grossing film of all time.
After that high water mark, the pair went on to direct and produce their own films, including 2021’s Cherry with Tom Holland and the Netflix thriller The Grey Man starring Ryan Gosling and their Marvel star Chris Evans.
But would they come back to the MCU? The pair tells Deadline they would — for the multiverse-rending, world-ending epic Secret Wars.
“…Our love for Marvel is based on the books we read as kids and the books that we fell in love with,” Joeexplained on the red carpet premiere of The Grey Man. “The one series that we adored growing up was Secret Wars. It’s incredibly ambitious – it would be bigger than Infinity War and Endgame – it’s a massive undertaking and those two movies were really very hard to make. So trying to imagine making another two movies even bigger than those two, we’re gonna have to sleep on it.”
The 2015 comic series to which Joe referred saw the multiverse and our Earth destroyed and many of the comics’ biggest heroes forced to fight each other in a realm known as Battle World.
For fans of the MCU, of course, some of these elements are already in place, including the multiverse, and as introduced in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the dimensional-shredding danger known as an incursion.
Some suspect that the upcoming Disney+ show Secret Invasion could also set the scene for a Secret Wars movie.
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
A visibly frustrated Boosie Badazz exited the passenger seat of what looks to be a black Cadillac SUV Wednesday during a traffic stop in Georgia, which resulted in the rapper being handcuffed.
According to TMZ, Boosie and another man were pulled over for heavy window tint and concealed tags, before cops claimed they smelled marijuana, prompting a car search. The two were then placed in cuffs and asked to stand on the side.
“I can’t be going through this though, bro,” Boosie is heard saying to one of the officers in the body cam footage. “I can’t bro,” he repeats. “I do no wrong.”
Appearing to grow in his frustration, the rapper added, “It’s harassment, it’s every day.”
A native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Boosie, 39, born Torence Hatch, says in the body cam footage, he moved to Atlanta to “live,” seemingly referring to his decision to relocate due to past legal woes. He previously told Rolling Stone, ”Police in Atlanta don’t hate me.”
As heard in the footage, Boosie says he needs to consult with the “superiors” of the officers who made the stop and explains multiple reasons why he shouldn’t have been “targeted.”
“Car’s not stolen. Registration is right. The tag is right. I was pulled over ‘cus it’s Boosie’s car,” he says. He later adds that if he were a “white college player,” he would have not been in the situation.
TMZ reports cops found cash and marijuana in the car. The other man claimed ownership, was cited and they both were let go.
Mumford & Sons frontman Marcus Mumford has premiered the first single off his upcoming debut solo album, (self-titled).
The track is called “Cannibal” and is available now via digital outlets. You can watch its accompanying video streaming now on YouTube.
Mumford announced (self-titled) earlier this week. In a note detailing the project, he shared, “In January 2021, facing demons I danced with for a long time in isolation, I wrote a song called ‘Cannibal.'”
He added, “I took it to my friend [producer] Blake Mills, and we began the process of making this album, dear to my heart.”
(self-titled) will be released September 16. It also includes collaborations with Phoebe Bridgers, Clairo, Brandi Carlile and Monica Martin.
Mumford & Sons’ most recent album is 2018’s Delta.
Here’s the (self-titled) track list:
“Cannibal”
“Grace”
“Prior Warning”
“Better Off High”
“Only Child”
“Dangerous Game” feat. Clairo
“Better Angels”
“Go in Light” feat. Monica Martin
“Stonecatcher” feat. Phoebe Bridgers
“How” feat. Brandi Carlile
