(NEW YORK) — Todd English is the latest celebrity chef to embrace cooking with cannabis.
The James Beard award-winning chef and restaurateur recently rolled out his cannabis-infused line of gourmet mac and cheese, the first product launch from his new packaged food brand, LastLeaf.
“We’re getting a great response,” English told ABC News Live.
The mac and cheese currently comes in two flavors, white cheddar with shells, and a classic cheddar with elbow macaroni.
Cannabis-infused food and beverages have exploded onto the culinary scene as more states legalize marijuana. Already, 18 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the sale of recreational marijuana for adults over the age of 21.
English’s twist on traditional mac and cheese is currently only available in California, but later this year he hopes to expand the line to more cities that have legalized marijuana for recreational use.
Cooking with cannabis is not a new concept for English. He began preparing dishes with the ingredient more than a decade ago when his sister Wendy was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.
“I saw my sister and a number of my relatives go through horrible cancer,” English said.
“My sister passed away, unfortunately, but during the time she was in remission, I would prepare things with cannabis and it seemed to really help her get through the struggles of how she felt after chemo,” he said.
Together with his business partner, Keith Burkard, English set out to develop healthy food products that contain THC and CBD.
“Consumers are ready for it, but it’s going to take a little bit of time to get embedded into the marketplace,” Burkard said.
“The cannabis industry started out with a lot of secondary food groups like drinks, chips, snacks, chocolates, candies,” he added. “We’re introducing primary food group edibles.”
There is some scientific evidence that marijuana may benefit those with cancer, easing chronic pain and chemotherapy-induced nausea.
Medical experts, however, have cautioned against using cannabis to treat mental health conditions, as it may be ineffective or worsen symptoms in some people.
The cheesy packaged pasta is far from the last of English’s ventures. LastLeaf says it plans to launch cannabis-infused pasta sauces, rubs and olive oil in the coming months.
You won’t find the cannabis concoctions on his restaurant menus just yet — the chef currently owns a number of eateries in places like Las Vegas, Boston and New York City, as well as a handful of international hotspots. For the moment, he’s busy opening up new establishments, including The English Hotel in Las Vegas.
Located off the Vegas strip in the Arts District, English says his namesake hotel is a “very artisanal, little boutique hotel” with a “funky vibe.” It is also home to his new restaurant, The Pepper Club, a reflection of English’s two favorite cuisines, Mediterranean and Japanese.
While the global pandemic has hit the hospitality industry particularly hard, English said business at some of his restaurants, including in Alabama, Connecticut, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels.
“Weekends are jamming and people are out,” he said. “It’s just a question of us being able to handle the business because we don’t have all the pieces in place yet — staffing, supply chain — but it’s getting there.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden was headed to Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day to take part in the traditional wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, along with first lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
He was then set to speak at the Arlington’s amphitheater as the nation observes the 154th Memorial Day.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley were scheduled to speak as well.
Monday’s observance comes after the Bidens spent an emotional day Sunday mourning the victims of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
After arriving from Delaware Monday morning, Biden and the first lady held what has become another Memorial Day tradition: a White House breakfast for Gold Star families.
When they return to the White House from Arlington, the Bidens will be joined by families of the fallen in a tree-planting ceremony on the White House South Lawn.
They’ll plant a magnolia tree in honor of those who lost their lives in service to the nation.
Memorial Day was originally know as Decoration Day, designated in 1868 after the Civil War to decorate the graves of soldiers.
It became a federal holiday in 1971.
According to the cemetery’s website, members of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment — known as “The Old Guard” — decorate the graves with small American flags on the Thursday before Memorial Day, known as the “Flags in” ceremony.
In the space of a few hours, Old Guard service members plant flags in front of approximately 280,000 headstones and the bottom of about 7,000 niche (for cremated remains) rows — a tradition since 1948.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated in 1921 after four unknown Americans were exhumed from cemeteries in France following World War I.
The remains of Americans killed in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam war were added in the years after.
Soldiers from the regiment — known as Sentinels — keep solemn watch at the Tomb all day and night, 365 days a year, in any weather.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
May 30, 10:56 am
French journalist killed in Ukraine
A French journalist working for cable channel BFM TV has been killed in the Luhansk region of Ukraine, according to Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration.
French President Emmanuel Macron identified the journalist as Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff.
“On board a humanitarian bus, alongside civilians forced to flee to escape Russian bombs, he was fatally shot,” Macron tweeted. “I share the pain of the family, relatives and colleagues of Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, to whom I send my condolences. To those who carry out the difficult mission of informing in theaters of operations, I would like to reiterate France’s unconditional support.”
May 29, 1:38 pm
31% of Kharkiv region occupied by Russian forces, Ukrainian officials say
A significant portion of Kharkiv, a town in northwest Ukraine near the Russian border, is occupied by Russian forces, Oleg Synegubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration, told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his visit on Sunday.
Just 5% of the region has been liberated by Ukrainian forces, Synegubov said.
“We are not yet able to fully inspect some of the liberated settlements, conduct full-fledged de-mining and begin rebuilding critical infrastructure, as shelling continues,” Synegubov said, according to a statement from Zelenskyy’s office. “Where we can do it remotely – we do it.”
During the trip to Kharkiv, Zelenskyy inspected destroyed residential buildings in the Saltivka district. The northern and eastern districts of the city suffered the most destruction, with more than 30% of total housing damaged.
Zelenskyy noted that there will be an opportunity to modernize new constructions and that new housing will have to include bomb shelters.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
May 27, 1:32 pm
Zelenskyy calls for Russia to unblock Ukraine’s seaports amid ‘food crisis’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for Russia to unblock Ukraine’s seaports to end a global “food crisis” while speaking at the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia think tank Friday, according to his office.
“Russia has blocked access to our ports in the Black Sea and occupied our part of the Sea of Azov. As a result of this military blockade, most traditional Ukrainian trade routes have been closed,” said Zelenskyy, noting that 22 million tons of grain are currently in storage facilities in Ukraine. “We cannot direct them to the world market, where they are needed right now, at this time.”
According to the president, this block has already affected the prices for grain and soon will affect the prices for other food products. He predicted that many countries will run out of last year’s harvest stockpiles in July.
“The sooner our ports are unblocked, the sooner the food crisis will stop, because we will be able to send our stocks and new crops to the world market,” Zelenskyy said.
May 27, 7:08 am
Bucha resident who lost husband, unborn son tries to rebuild her life
Anna Polonska had struggled to get pregnant. So when she did, it was a moment of sheer joy; a happy family life lay ahead.
But days after Russia invaded Ukraine, her unborn son and husband were killed in shelling as they tried to flee Ukraine, she told ABC News.
She was also gravely injured in the attack, and doctors did not think she would survive.
Adding to her loss, soldiers stole almost all of her possessions and destroyed her apartment, she recalled.
But in a remarkable interview, Anna said she is now focusing on picking up the pieces — showing incredible courage and determination to live and walk again.
At least 3,998 civilians have been killed and 4,693 others have been injured in Ukraine since Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, according to the latest figures from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
At least 260 children were among the dead and 404 among the injured, according to the OHCHR.
“Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes,” the agency said in a statement Thursday. “OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.”
Those areas include Mariupol in the Donetsk Oblast, Izium in the Kharkiv Oblast and Popasna in the Luhansk Oblast, where the OHCHR said “there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties.” Casualty numbers from those locations “are being further corroborated” and thus are not included in the latest statistics, according to the agency.
May 26, 6:06 am
Russia’s airborne forces suffer ‘heavy casualties’ after ‘tactical failures,’ UK says
The Russian military’s airborne forces, known as the VDV, “have been heavily involved in several notable tactical failures since the start of Russia’s invasion” of neighboring Ukraine, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defense.
“This includes the attempted advance on Kyiv via Hostomel Airfield in March, the stalled progress on the Izium axis since April, and the recent failed and costly crossings of the Siverskyi Donets River,” the ministry said Thursday in an intelligence update.
“Russian doctrine anticipates assigning the VDV to some of the most demanding operations,” the ministry added. “The 45,000-strong VDV is mostly comprised of professional contract soldiers. Its members enjoy elite status and attract additional pay. The VDV has been employed on missions better suited to heavier armoured infantry and has sustained heavy casualties during the campaign.”
The VDV’s “mixed performance likely reflects a strategic mismanagement of this capability and Russia’s failure to secure air superiority,” according to the ministry.
“The misemployment of the VDV in Ukraine highlights how Putin’s significant investment in the armed forces over the last 15 years has resulted in an unbalanced overall force,” the ministry said. “The failure to anticipate Ukrainian resistance and the subsequent complacency of Russian commanders has led to significant losses across many of Russia’s more elite units.”
May 24, 4:47 pm
Drone footage shows devastation inside Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol
Drone footage released by Russian media shows the devastation inside the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, where Ukrainian forces fended off Russian troops for weeks amid intense fighting before surrendering.
The drone footage released by the Russian news outlet MIC Izvestia showed the collapsed walls of the plant and twisted metal and debris strewn about the entire facility.
The Russian Defense ministry on Friday said the last Ukrainian fighters defending Azovstal had surrendered, giving Russia full control of the port city of Mariupol.
The seizure of Mariupol, gives Russia command of a land route linking the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized in 2014, with mainland Russia and parts of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Russian separatists.
After holding off the Miami Heat in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals Sunday night, the Boston Celtics advanced to the championship series.
Celtics small forward Jayson Tatum, shooting guard Jaylen Brown and point guard Marcus Smart were the top scorers for Boston, helping them top the Heat 100-96.
The Celtics will now face off against the Golden State Warriors for the championship. The Warriors advanced to the finals after defeating the Dallas Mavericks in five games.
Game 1 of the NBA Finals will tip off Thursday, June 2, in San Francisco at 9 p.m. ET.
(UVALDE, Texas) — When gunfire rang out at Robb Elementary School Tuesday, 9-year-old Daniel Garza said his teacher, Elsa Avila, ran to the door to lock their classroom, which was near the rooms where 19 students and two teachers were killed.
Avila was shot through the glass and dropped to the floor, Daniel told ABC News, but she still told her students to stay quiet and said she was playing dead. A student in the class was also injured when the gunman shot through the door.
Daniel said he hid under a table next to a wall with some classmates. Daniel and his terrified peers stayed quiet, listening to the gunshots and the gunman banging on the neighboring door.
“I personally can’t thank my son’s teacher enough,” Daniel’s mother, Briana Ruiz, told ABC News. “I think what she did saved all of their lives.”
Though Daniel survived, he lost his beloved cousin, Ellie Garcia, who was in a neighboring classroom and among the 19 children slain in the massacre.
“I was worried a lot for her because I didn’t hear any screaming from the class,” he said.
Although her son is enduring mental trauma from the massacre, Ruiz said the 9-year-old insisted on speaking to journalists to take the focus off the gunman and shine it on the victims.
“That’s why I agreed to let him do this. If he feels like it’s going to help him, I’m OK with it, because I do want him to recover,” she said.
Since the shooting, Ruiz said her son hasn’t wanted to go into his bedroom and has stopped playing video games.
“When I ask him why he doesn’t want to play, he says, ‘I don’t want to hear gun shots.’ We’re not watching cable — any mention of shooting does trigger him,” she said. “That’s something they’re gonna have to live with forever and it’s going to be hard.”
Ruiz said the gunman was a former student of hers, when she was a teaching assistant.
As for Daniel’s feelings about the gunman: “I feel mad at him. I play football with a lot of those guys and they didn’t make it out.”
ABC News’ Marcus Moore contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — The burqa mandate is back in Afghanistan, and, with it, a wave of disappointment and distress taking over the lives of millions of people in the country who do not believe in hijab.
Earlier this month, on May 7, the Vice and Virtue Ministry of the Taliban issued a decree saying all women in the country have to cover themselves head to toe. The decree says it is to protect the women’s “dignity” and called for those women who do not follow the hijab in government agencies to be dismissed.
“For all dignified Afghan women, wearing hijab is necessary and the best hijab is chadori (the head-to-toe burqa) which is part of our tradition and is respectful,” said Shir Mohammad, an official from the Vice and Virtue Ministry, in the statement.
The ministry updated the mandate on Sunday, May 22, requiring all TV presenters in Afghanistan to keep their faces covered while on-camera.
These announcements led to reactions among the international community and human rights groups. Many male TV presenters stood by their female colleagues by covering their faces with masks during their time on-camera.
The solidarity moved to social media, where the hashtag #FreeHerFace became popular.
Khpalwak Safi, broadcaster of Afghanistan’s leading Tolo TV, was among the figures who covered his face to show solidarity with female journalists. The move was welcomed by his colleagues.
On Wednesday, the official Twitter account of TOLO News called for the related officials and institutions to hear their message.
“It’s time for foreign governments to do much more to raise their concerns. Diplomats meeting with the Taliban should signal support for the #FreeHerFace campaign and speak out publicly against the Taliban’s intensifying violations of the rights of women and girls,” the Human Rights Watch wrote on May 23.
“This latest order is part of steady flow of Taliban actions that have blocked girls’ secondary education, pushed women out of most employment, curtailed women’s freedom of movement, obstructed women’s access to health care, and abolished the system designed to protect women and girls from violence,” the rights organization said.
Among those who showed solidarity was Ziauddin Yousafzai, the father of Malala Yousafzai’s father, the Peace Nobel laureate who has been advocating for girls’ education.
“Faces are windows to our souls and personalities. Our faces are our identities. It is our basic human right to show our identities. Also when girls are enrolled in schools they get an identity,” he tweeted with the hashtag #FreeHerFace.
“It is always a surprise to me to see this kind of restriction and focus on women when we have about a 95% poverty rate in the country,” Payvand Seyedali, an American health and human rights activist who has lived in Afghanistan for the past decade consulting with NGOs, told ABC News.
According to the mandate, if women reject covering head-to-toe, the first step would be to identify the house of the unveiled women. However, the mandate says, “their guardian should be advised and punished,” not the women themselves.
If the same woman is seen again without the Taliban’s standard dress code, their guardian will be summoned to the relevant department. The guardian then will be detained for three days and will finally be handed over to the courts to be sentenced to an appropriate punishment.
“The most important observation for me is how humiliating it is for women to not be able to be accountable for their own actions,” Seyedali said, addressing the consequences of prosecuting guardians rather than women themselves.
“On the other hand,” she added, “you also see that women are forced to make decisions that they don’t want to make for the benefit of their families. There is no girl and no woman in this country who wants to see her brother go to jail, who wants to see her father go to jail.”
The U.S. Amnesty International asked the international community to “hold the Taliban accountable.”
“Despite the Taliban’s continued assurances that they respect the rights of women and girls, millions of women and girls have been systematically discriminated against since the Taliban became the de-facto authorities,” the organization wrote in a tweet.
The burqa mandate comes after the restrictions on Afghanistan women’s freedom of movement as the Taliban had prohibited them from travelling out of their town without a male guardian. The other major restriction has been closing schools for girls after the sixth grade.
(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating an outbreak of hepatitis A that is possibly linked to two brands of organic strawberries that were sold at several retailers in the U.S. and Canada.
FreshKampo and HEB branded strawberries purchased by consumers between March 5 and April 25 should not be eaten, according to the FDA.
The affected strawberries, which are past their shelf life, were sold at retailers nationwide, including Aldi, HEB, Kroger, Safeway, Sprouts Farmers Market, Trader Joe’s, Walmart, Weis Market and WinCo Foods.
Cases of hepatitis A have been reported by consumers in California, Minnesota and Canada, all of whom purchased strawberries before falling ill. At least 17 illnesses and 12 hospitalizations have been recorded so far nationwide, according to the FDA.
Hepatitis A is a contagious virus that can ultimately cause liver disease, according to the FDA. Symptoms include fatigue, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, jaundice, dark urine and pale stools. Infections typically recover within one to two weeks, though in rare cases, it may become chronic.
Strawberries should be thrown away if you are unsure what brand was purchased, or when and where they were bought, the FDA recommended. Frozen strawberries should also be thrown away.
Anyone experiencing symptoms of hepatitis A after consuming strawberries should contact their health care provider.
Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Despite widespread vaccination and several available treatments, the U.S. is recording as many COVID-19 cases now at the tail end of the omicron peak as it was last summer during the delta surge.
On Wednesday, the latest date for which data is available, 181,000 new infections were reported, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Over the last seven days, the country has recorded a total of 766,949 cases of the virus, although the true caseload is likely much higher.
This is on par with late August 2021, when the U.S. was recording between 182,000 and 187,000 new infections every day.
However, mitigation measures in the U.S. looked very different at the time. Although there were no lockdowns, several indoor venues mandated masks, vaccine passports were in effect in many large cities and one state even required proof of vaccination or a negative test to enter.
After the omicron wave that swept the country this past winter, an estimated 60% of Americans has been left infected since the start of the pandemic, many with much milder cases — even though studies suggest omicron is more infectious than delta — so communities started loosening restrictions.
Although the latest omicron subvariants appear to be even more transmissible than the original variant, a combination of vaccination, boosters and effective and readily available therapeutics appear to have muted the impact of severe disease.
Masking indoors
“When we think about summer 2021, we were in a different place in many ways,” Dr. Stuart Ray, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News. “We’d had vaccines for only about six months … The delta variant became the predominant variant in the U.S. mid-summer.”
The delta variant was first identified in March 2021 and quickly took over as the dominant variant, accounting for most U.S. cases during the summer. Before that, the country had been seeing encouraging declines in infections.
By late July 2021, the CDC was urging all Americans in COVID hot spots regardless of vaccination status to wear masks indoors.
At the time, states with high transmissions were mostly in the Southeast, Midwest and Southwest, including Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri and Texas.
Through summer and fall 2021, some states were still imposing face coverings indoors including schools and even for the vaccinated; however, masks were also still required on public transportation, including in airports and on planes — a measure that has since been lifted.
Amid increasing COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, some school districts have reimposed mask mandates including in Philadelphia; Brookline, Massachusetts; and Providence, Rhode Island as well as universities such as the University of Delaware and the University of Hawaii, though the vast majority have not.
“Each district and each local health department is going to have to look at their own metrics and decide what the trigger is for bringing back mask mandates,” Dr. Michael Smith, a professor of pediatrics and medical director of the pediatric antimicrobial stewardship program at Duke University School of Medicine, told ABC News. “I wish we never had to do it, but they work.”
Vaccine passports
Starting in August 2021, New York City became the first city in the U.S. to require venues — including restaurants, gyms and movie theaters — to check for proof of vaccination.
Several cities followed suit including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and St. Paul, New Orleans, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
Currently, no cities have vaccine mandates in place restricting indoor activities and some states have banned requiring vaccination proof altogether.
Florida was the first state to do so in April 2021 and several GOP-led states followed including Arizona, Georgia, Montana and Wyoming.
Ray said even with COVID-19 cases rising, he doesn’t see vaccine passports making a return.
“I don’t think it’s likely that vaccine passports are going to become a widespread measure, in part because they’re hard to implement,” he said.
He added that people can get around the passport requirement by showing forged vaccination cards and that there is not standardized electronic system to prevent it from happening.
Ray continued, “You would think that we could, but we don’t have an electronic system where people could display a QR code on their phone that shows that they have a verifiable vaccine history. Without technology like that, the system is not really in place logistically.”
Hawaii’s COVID-19 travel restrictions
Long after states had dropped their COVID-19 measures for domestic travelers in 2020, Hawaii kept its restrictions in place.
American visitors to the islands needed to show either proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test taken one to three days before their departure.
Those who didn’t have either were subject to a mandatory 10-day quarantine.
Gov. David Ige announced the state would drop its so-called Safe Travels Program for domestic travelers on March 26 due to lower cases and hospitalizations but keep rules in place for international travelers.
Dr. Vandana Madhavan, clinical director of pediatric infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, said that even though increasing COVID infections may lead to the return of mask mandates, not all restrictions will need to return because the country has learned how to better treat and prevent the virus over the last two years.
“We’re at a very different point with other preventative measures,” she told ABC News. “More people are eligible to get vaccinated and a number of populations are eligible for boosters.”
She continued. “Also, we have a number of different options for therapeutics. We have oral and IV options, and options for both people who are at high risk before they get to the hospital and once, they get to the hospital.”
Madhavan added that COVID restrictions can be viewed as a “dimmer” that gets “dialed up” when cases rise and “dialed down” once cases fall.
“I view it not as an on and off switch at this point but a dimmer dial,” she said. “And so, we may have to dial up for a while, make sure that we’re not at the point where we’re stressing resources and then we can dial back.”
(PITTSBURGH) — A 1-year-old boy was shot and killed during a drive-by shooting in downtown Pittsburgh on Sunday, police say.
Authorities received 911 calls for a child shot on the 100 block of Fourth Avenue around 2:44 p.m. The infant was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
ABC News Pittsburgh affiliate WTAE reported that the infant was with a parent at the time of the shooting, according to police.
An investigation is ongoing and no other information was released at this time.
(TAFT, Okla.) — One person was killed and another seven were injured after a shooting broke out during a Memorial Day festival in Oklahoma.
About 1,500 people were in attendance at the festival at the Old City Square in Taft, Oklahoma, about 45 miles southeast of Tulsa, when the shooting took place early Sunday, according to a statement from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
Witnesses told investigators the gunfire erupted after an argument took place just after midnight, authorities said. One juvenile, a 9-year-old, was among the injured.
The deceased is a 39-year-old Black female, authorities said. The other seven injured range in age from 9 to 56 and sustained non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
The suspect, 26-year-old Skyler Buckner, turned himself in at the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office at 4:05 p.m. on Sunday,
The Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office was in attendance at the event and immediately rendered aid to the victims, authorities said.
Officials are asking anyone who may have a tip to contact the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
Additional information on the shooting was not immediately available.
ABC News’ Nicholas Kerr and Timmy Truong contributed to this report.
