2 Chainz is the new NFL hype man as the road to Super Bowl 56 begins this weekend when the first round of NFL playoffs kicks off on Saturday.
The “No Lie” rapper is featured in the new promo campaign, “Whose back you got?”
“It’s playoffs time America and it all comes down to this,” 2 Chainz says in the video, flipping a football in a stadium. “So I got just one question. Whose back you got?”
PatrickMahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs, Tom Brady from the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Green Bay Packer Aaron Rodgers, Kyler Murray from the Arizona Cardinals and Dallas Cowboy Dak Prescott are among the stars featured in the clip, along with numerous fans.
2 Chainz also dropped a new single last week, “Million Dollars Worth of Game” featuring 42 Dugg, from his upcoming seventh studio album, Drugs Don’t Sell Itself.
Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images — Karolina Wojtasik/HBO Max
Kaley Cuoco‘s Emmy-nominated series The Flight Attendant has added an Oscar nominee to its cast: Sharon Stone.
For the HBO Max show’s second season, Stone has been cast in a recurring role as Lisa Bowden, the estranged mom to Cuoco’s previously boozy title character, Cassie.
Season one started with Cassie waking up next to a dead man following a bender, and centered on her attempts to solve his murder and exonerate herself.
According to the streaming service, season two centers on Cassie “living her best sober life in Los Angeles while moonlighting as a CIA asset in her spare time. But when an overseas assignment leads her to inadvertently witness a murder, she becomes entangled in another international intrigue.”
The show’s cast also includes Zosia Mamet, Griffin Matthews, Deniz Akdeniz and Rosie Perez; recurring guest stars included T.R. Knight, Yasha Jackson and Audrey Grace Marshall, who will return.
Also joining Stone in season two will be new series regulars Mo McRae, Callie Hernandez and JJ Soria, while Alanna Ubach, Cheryl Hines, Jessie Ennis, Mae Martin, Margaret Cho, Santiago Cabrera and Shohreh Aghdashloo join the sophomore season as recurring characters.
Filming of the second season is underway in Los Angeles; Berlin, Germany; and Reykjavik, Iceland.
(NEW YORK) — Bank of America announced Tuesday that it will slash overdraft fees — the fines consumers pay when they make a purchase with their debit card but don’t have enough money in their account — from $35 to $10 starting this May.
The changes come in the wake of pressure from consumer advocacy groups that say these fees disproportionately impact vulnerable and low-income Americans.
A report released last month by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau found that overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees remain lucrative for banks, reaching an estimated $15.5 billion in 2019. The CFPB also said fewer than 9% of consumer accounts pay 10 or more overdrafts per year, accounting for close to 80% of all overdraft revenue.
Moreover, despite a drop in fees collected, the CFPB said “many of the fee harvesting practices persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In addition to reducing overdraft fees, Bank of America also announced Tuesday that it was entirely eliminating “non-sufficient funds fees,” or the charges for a rejected transaction or bounced check.
The bank, which has 66 million consumer and small business clients, said it will have reduced overdraft fees by 97% from 2009 levels with these new changes.
Other major financial institutions including JP Morgan Chase and Capital One have cut or eliminated these fees that can seemingly catch customers by surprise at times, when something they think they are purchasing for only a few dollars can end up being closer to $40.
“Rather than competing on quality service and attractive interest rates, many banks have become hooked on overdraft fees to feed their profit model” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement last month. “We will be taking action to restore meaningful competition to this market.”
Bank of America’s president of retail banking, Holly O’Neill, said the company has made significant changes to overdraft services over the last decade and now provides resources to help clients manage accounts.
“Throughout the process we have engaged our National Community Advisory Council (NCAC) for their guidance and feedback on our changes,” O’Neill said. “These latest steps will further support our clients and empower them to create long-term financial wellness.”
“We remain committed to taking actions that will further bring down overdraft fees in the future and continue to empower clients to drive positive changes to behavior pertaining to overdraft,” she added.
The late Maya Angelou was honored by the United States Mint Monday in a very special way.
Angelou became the first Black woman to have her image featured on a U.S. quarter.
“It is my honor to present our Nation’s first circulating coins dedicated to celebrating American women and their contributions to American history,” said Mint Deputy Director Ventris C. Gibson in a statement. “Each 2022 quarter is designed to reflect the breadth and depth of accomplishments being celebrated throughout this historic coin program. Maya Angelou, featured on the reverse of this first coin in the series, used words to inspire and uplift.”
Angelou is best known for her iconic 1969 autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Her many honors include the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Arts, three Grammys, and a postage stamp in her name in 2015. Angelou passed away in 2014. She was 86.
In other news, Deadline reports that Whoopi Goldberg will star in a new TV series produced by CBS Studios in partnership with the NAACP. The View co-host will reprise her role from the 1991 Soapdish film in a new show of the same name on Paramount+. Also as part of the CBS Studios-NAACP partnership, comedians D.L Hughley and Earthquake are set for autobiographical shows; Hughley for Fox, and Earthquake for CBS.
Another series will tell the story of the Little Rock 9 who broke the color barrier at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas in 1957. The nine Black students were barred from entering until President Eisenhower sent the National Guard to protect them.
Finally, Grammy, Emmy and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo will star in the sci-film film, Blink Speed. She is also featured with Tom Hanks in a remake of Pinocchio to be released later this year.
Students attending the University of Missouri’s School of Music will now be able to gather in Sheryl Crow Hall.
The university, which is Sheryl’s alma mater, has named a choral performance and rehearsal hall located inside the school’s Music Center after the Grammy winner, according to a Facebook post.
As the Columbia Missourian reports, Sheryl graduated from the University of Missouri in 1984 with a degree in music education, and later received an honorary doctorate from the school in 2011. The Hall was named in her honor because of her support for the building’s fundraising campaign, and the benefit concert she did for the cause in 2015.
Julia Gaines, the School of Music’s director, tells the publication that Sheryl Crow Hall will be used as a performance space, and also will host history lectures, and classes in conducting, chorus and more. It’s also the main space used by the public after performances and events, which is another reason they named the space after Sheryl.
The school had hoped to unveil the hall in September when Sheryl headlined the local Roots N Blues Festival, but COVID-19 policies prevented her from visiting.
Sheryl is one of many performers set to perform at Brandi Carlile‘s Girls Just Wanna Weekend destination festival in Mexico’s Riviera Maya early next month, and so far, the event appears to be proceeding as scheduled. On February 11, she’ll celebrate her 60th birthday.
Like many who grew up in the ’80s, Back to the Future was the film that made people very excited about the years ahead. For Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, he says the movie did way more than that — it’s the reason his band exists.
He appeared Tuesday on The Kelly Clarkson Showand said it was a life changing moment when he watched Michael J. Fox — who played Marty McFly in the franchise — jump on stage to perform a Chuck Berry song.
“That’s what made me want to be in a band, you know? That scene,” Chris revealed before poking fun at his seemingly old age. When gesturing to those in the audience, he noted a good handful of those watching are “probably too young to remember that bit.”
“I grew up in real farmland of England, before the internet,” the British singer explained, adding he would glom onto any movie or TV show that played a catchy tune. “The first thing I ever recorded was — there was a show called The A-Team — and I had a cassette recorder and held it against the TV to record the theme tune.”
The conversation was initially sparked by him and Kelly bonding over their love of covering other artists’ songs. He then revealed one of his favorite memories is playing a cover — because of who joined him on stage.
“Michael J. Fox came [on stage] and played two songs from Back to the Future with us in MetLife Stadium,” he grinned of the 2016 memory. “Him coming to play ‘Johnny B. Goode’ and stuff was wonderful.”
(ATLANTA) — With less than 10 months until the 2022 midterm elections, President Joe Biden headed to Georgia on Tuesday to make his biggest push yet for national voting rights bills and called for changes to the Senate filibuster rule in order to get them passed.
“We have no option but to change the Senate rules including getting rid of the filibuster for this,” Biden said.
Recalling the “violent mob” that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, Biden characterized the attack, for the first time publicly, as an “attempted coup.”
“That’s why we’re here today to stand against the forces in America that value power over principle, forces that attempted a coup — a coup against the legally expressed will of the American people by sowing doubt and vending charges of fraud, seeking to steal the 2020 election from the people,” he said.
“Hear me plainly,” Biden told the group gathered in Atlanta. “The battle for the soul of America is not over.”
“We must make sure Jan. 6 marks not the end of democracy but the renaissance for our democracy,” he continued.
The president called out congressional Republicans, he said, for turning the will of the voters into a “mere suggestion” in the case of the 2020 presidential election.
Biden spoke Tuesday alongside Vice President Kamala Harris from the grounds of Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse College.
“We will fight to secure our most fundamental freedom — the freedom to vote,” Harris said, opening for the president. “And that is why we have come to Atlanta today — to the cradle of the Civil Rights movement, to the district that was represented by the great Congressman John Lewis, on the eve of the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”
Harris blasted Senate Republicans over what she characterized as exploiting “acane” Senate rules — in an apparent nod to the filibuster — to block Democrats’ election reform bills.
“We will fight to safeguard our democracy,” she added.
To that end, Biden announced he supported changing the Senate rules surrounding the filibuster in “whichever way they need to be changed to prevent a minority of senators from blocking action on voting rights.”
Echoing his impassioned address on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection when he blamed former President Donald Trump and his supporters for holding a “dagger at the throat of democracy,” Biden’s remarks in Atlanta were expected to be a “forceful” call to action to protect voting rights.
“The president will forcefully advocate for protecting the most bedrock American rights: the right to vote and have your voice counted in a free, fair and secure election that is not tainted … by partisan manipulation,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki previewed in her press briefing Tuesday.
“He’ll make clear in the former district of the late Congressman John Lewis, that the only way to do that are (sic) for the Senate to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.”
In excerpts of the speech released Tuesday morning, the White House said Biden would pressure the Senate to act.
“The next few days, when these bills come to a vote, will mark a turning point in this nation. Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice?” he was expected to say. “I know where I stand. I will not yield. I will not flinch. I will defend your right to vote and our democracy against all enemies foreign and domestic. And so the question is where will the institution of United States Senate stand?”
As he left the White House Tuesday morning, Biden told reporters asking about the political risk he’s taking given the Senate uncertainty, “I risk not saying what I believe. That’s what I risk. This is one of those defining moments. It really is. People are gonna be judged – where were they before and where were they after the vote. History is going to judge us, it’s that consequential. And so the risk is making sure people understand just how important this is just so important.”
Georgia is one of 19 states that have passed new restrictive voting laws since the 2020 election. There have been 34 such new laws in total across the country, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, and most of them in states controlled by Republicans.
Many of the new laws, fueled by false claims of widespread election fraud by the former president, take aim at mail-in voting, implement stricter voter ID requirements, allow fewer early voting days and limit ballot drop boxes.
The Brennan Center calculates that 13 more restrictive laws are in the works, including one in Georgia that would ban the use of ballot boxes altogether.
But Tuesday’s trip has been met with criticism from some voting groups that warned in a statement to the Atlanta Constitution-Journal that “anything less” than a finalized plan to pass voting rights in the House and Senate is insufficient and unwelcome.”
On Monday afternoon, The Asian American Advocacy Fund, Atlanta North Georgia Labor Council, Black Voters Matter Fund, GALEO Impact Fund and New Georgia Project Action Fund all said they won’t be attending the event and asked Biden and Harris to stay in Washington.
“We don’t need another speech,” said Cliff Albright, executive director of the Black Voters Matter Fund. “What we need is action – what we need is a plan.”
Notably, also not attending Biden’s speech is Stacey Abrams, the Georgia voting rights activist.
Biden said he spoke with her Tuesday morning and blamed it on a scheduling issue.
“I spoke with Stacey this morning. We have a great relationship. We got our scheduling mixed up. I talked to her at length this morning. We’re all on the same page and everything is fine.”
Biden’s speech will be the third he has delivered focused on the issue of voting rights. It comes after the president signaled in an interview with ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir that he would be open to making a one-time Senate rule change to the filibuster that would allow a simple majority to pass new voting laws.
Psaki said the president would also directly address the issue of the filibuster.
“The president has spoken to this issue a number of times, as I’ve said before, including as recently as December where he said that, ‘if that is how we get this done, I’m open to that,'” Psaki said.
The president’s message, according to Psaki, will include a call to “ensure January 6 doesn’t mark the end of democracy, but the beginning of a renaissance for our democracy, where we stand up for the right to vote and have that vote counted fairly, not undermined by partisans.”
In her briefing, Psaki pushed back on criticism of the president, stressing that the speech Tuesday is focused on moving forward.
“We understand the frustration by many advocates that this is not passed into law yet. He would love to have signed this into law himself. But tomorrow’s an opportunity to speak about what the path forward looks like to advocate for – for this moving forward in the Senate.”
While Biden has signaled his openness to passing voting rights with a carveout to the filibuster, he would still need the support of all 50 Democratic senators to do so — which could prove challenging with holdout Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
“Look, I think that everyone is going to have to take a hard look at where they want to be at this moment in history as we’re looking at efforts across the country to to prevent people from being able to exercise their fundamental rights,” Psaki said when asked about Sinema’s opposition.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised a vote on voting rights legislation soon and warned that if Republicans filibuster the effort, he will force another vote by Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The White House has insisted Biden will “work in lockstep” with Schumer to move a vote forward but are taking it “day by day.”
Republicans, meanwhile, oppose the proposed federal voting laws as what they deem a government overreach. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said Democrats are promoting a “fake narrative,” “fake outrage” and “fake hysteria” on voting rights “ginned up by partisans.”
Harris was tasked in June by the president to lead the administration’s efforts on voting rights reforms. Psaki said the vice president has worked to “help build a groundswell of support” and has been meeting with a number of advocates on the issue.
ABC News’ Meg Cunningham contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A 57-year-old man who underwent a first-of-its-kind heart transplant involving a genetically-modified pig heart is in a “much happier place” after the transplant, according to his son.
David Bennett Sr., of Maryland, suffered from terminal heart disease and was deemed ineligible for a conventional heart transplant because of his severe condition, according to University of Maryland Medicine, where Bennett underwent the transplant.
On New Year’s Eve, University of Maryland Medicine doctors were granted emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration to try the pig heart transplantation with Bennett, who had been hospitalized and bedridden for several months.
Bennett said he saw the risky surgery as his last option.
“It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” he said the day before the surgery, according to University of Maryland Medicine. “I look forward to getting out of bed after I recover.”
Bennett was so sick before the transplant that he was on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine — which pumps and oxygenates a patient’s blood outside the body — and had also been deemed ineligible for an artificial heart pump, according to University of Maryland Medicine.
“His level of illness probably exceeded our standards for what would be safe for human heart transplantation,” said Dr. Bartley P. Griffith, a professor in transplant surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
It was Griffith who surgically transplanted the pig heart into Bennett. He and a team of researchers have spent the past five years studying and perfecting the transplantation of pig hearts, according to University of Maryland Medicine.
Pig hearts are similar in size to human hearts and have an anatomy that is similar, but not identical.
So far, Bennett’s body has not rejected the pig heart, which experts said is the biggest concern after a transplant.
Xenotransplantation, transplanting animal cells, tissues or organs into a human, carries the risk of triggering a dangerous immune response, which can cause a “potentially deadly outcome to the patient,” according to University of Maryland Medicine.
“It is a game-changer,” Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who oversaw the transplant procedure with Griffith, said. “We have modified 10 genes in this in this pig heart. Four genes were knocked out, three of them responsible for producing antibodies that causes rejection.”
Mohiuddin and Griffith said they are now closely monitoring Bennett to make sure his body continues to accept the new heart.
“He’s awake. He is recovering and speaking to his caregivers,” said Griffith. “And we hope that the recovery that he is having now will continue.”
Speaking of the possibility of rejection, Griffith added, “The pig heart will be attacked by different soldiers in our body, different immune players can take it out and we have designed a treatment plan, in addition to the humanized, genetically-edited heart, to try to account for that.”
Bennett’s son, David Bennett, Jr., told “Good Morning America” the transplant provided his father a “level of hope.”
“Hope that he could go home and hope that he could have the quality of life that he’s so much desired,” Bennett, Jr said. “He’s in a much better place and a much happier place right now following this transplant procedure. He is happy with where he is at. Happy with the potential to get out of the hospital.”
While the type of transplant Bennett received is groundbreaking, experts said it does not minimize the ongoing need for human organ donations.
Around 110,000 people in the United States are on the organ transplant waiting list, and more than 6,000 patients die each year before getting a transplant, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Whether it’s 3-D printing or growing organs in a lab setting or donations, we desperately need more organs,” said ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton, a board-certified OBGYN.
(CHICAGO) — More than 350,000 public school students in Chicago are expected to resume in-person learning on Wednesday after a tentative agreement was reached between the school district and the Chicago Teachers Union to bolster classroom safety amid a wave of COVID-19 infections.
A deal was struck Monday night to end nearly a week of in-classroom cancellations and remote learning. Tuesday marked the fifth day students have been out of classrooms after a long holiday break.
The more than 25,000 teachers and staff in the nation’s third-largest school district are to return to their schools on Tuesday to prepare for reopening classrooms.
Negotiations between the CTU and the district focused on demands to expand student testing for the virus and to create a set of metrics designed to trigger closing schools and returning remote learning if coronavirus infections continue to soar. The talks grew contentious at times as union leaders accused Mayor Lori Lightfoot of “bullying” teachers back to the classrooms and school district officials accused the union of staging an “illegal walkout.”
Both sides filed complaints to a state labor board.
“Some will ask who won and who lost,” Lightfoot said Monday night. “No one wins when our students are out of the place where they can learn the best and where they’re safest. After being out of school for four days in a row, I’m sure many students will be excited to get back in the classroom with their teachers and peers. And their parents and guardians can now breathe a much deserved sigh of relief.”
Pedro Martinez, CEO of Chicago Public Schools, said the district is committed to the safety of its students, teachers and staff, and said the negotiations forged “some really good things.”
CTU President Jesse Sharkey said Monday that the union fought to improve classroom safety for both students and teachers.
“I’m ultimately proud the Chicago Teachers Union took a stand,” Sharkey said at a news conference. “We’re going to keep doing what’s right as we navigate this. It’s not a perfect agreement but we’ll hold our heads up high, as it was hard to get.”
The agreement also includes new incentives to boost the number of substitute teachers in the district and establishes metrics that will prompt a return to remote learning, but for individual schools, not the districtwide protocols for which CTU had asked.
The district also offered to spend about $100 million to implement a safety plan that includes air purifiers for all classrooms. The district said it will provide KN95 masks for all teachers and students.
The union’s governing body, composed of 700 members, voted by nearly a 2-to-1 margin — 63% to 27% — to end remote teaching. Rank-and-file members have until later this week to vote on whether to ratify the agreement.
Like Chicago, school districts nationwide are reeling from a surge in COVID-19 cases sparked by the highly contagious omicron variant.
The Los Angeles Unified School District is planning to reopen schools for in-person learning on Tuesday, although some schools in the nation’s second-largest school district have opted to delay reopening due to an increase in reported COVID-19 cases.
LAUSD officials are requiring all students and staff to get tested for COVID-19 before the first day of classes. The district announced on Monday that at least 65,630 of those tests have come back positive.
The Philadelphia School District announced on Friday that 46 schools would switch to virtual learning as the omicron variant and a winter storm took a toll on staffing.
Paramount Pictures has dropped the final trailer to its upcoming fifth Scream film. As previously reported, the new film has Neve Campbell‘s Sidney Prescott, David Arquette‘s Dewey Riley, and Courteney Cox‘s Gale Weathers again facing somebody donning the mask of the Ghostface killer.
The series survivors are joined on the fifth film by some new blood, including The Boys‘ Jack Quaid, 13 Reasons Why‘s Dylan Minnette, Mikey Madison from Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, Yes Day‘s Jenna Ortega, Yellowjackets co-star Jasmin Savoy Brown, and In the Heights‘ Melissa Barrera.
“There’s certain rules for surviving,” Arquette’s character tells the new characters. “Believe me, I know.”
He explains, “They always come back: The killer is a part of something in the past.”
The final coming attraction is peppered with glowing blurbs from outlets that have gotten a sneak peek of the film.
“I’ve seen this movie before,” Sidney tells the killer over the phone, gun in hand. “Not this movie,” he hisses.
Later on, Cox urges, “You said we were gonna finish this! Go finish it, Sidney!”
The snippet ends with a callback. “I’ll be right back,” Quaid says, laughing as he catches himself uttering a phrase Scream taught fans is usually the last thing most victims in horror movies say.
