(WASHINGTON) — Ivanka Trump, the eldest daughter and former senior adviser to former President Donald Trump, will meet today with the House Jan. 6 committee investigating the Capitol attack, sources tell ABC News.
She will meet with committee members remotely, sources said.
Her meeting comes after months of negotiations with the panel, according to sources.
She was one of a small handful of aides who was with President Trump inside the White House’s West Wing as the Capitol was under attack following his speech to supporters on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, ABC News has previously reported.
Her husband, former White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, met with the committee last week.
He the best! Super producer DJ Khaled is the latest artist that will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The unveiling and dedication ceremony will take place on April 11, with the star placed on the 6200 block of Hollywood Boulevard, next to the famous record store, Amoeba Music.
“DJ Khaled is one of the most popular and ever-present impresarios of the rap industry and we are thrilled to honor him with his own star on the Walk of Fame.” said Walk of Fame Producer Ana Martinez.
Khaled, born Khaled Mohammed Khaled,is one of the most sought-out producers in music today. His catch phrases “we the best,” “anotha one” and “major key” can be heard on some of the hottest hip hop and pop tracks, like “Wild Thoughts” with Rihanna and Bryson Tiller, “I’m the One” with Justin Bieber, Chance the Rapper, Lil Wayne and Quavo, and “Popstar,” with Drake.
Khaled’s innovative influence in music garnered him numerous accolades including multiple Platinum and Gold RIAA certifications, dozens of Billboard chart-topping songs, and a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Performance, for “Higher,” featuring John Legend and the late rapper Nipsey Hussle. Khaled was also recently nominated for a Grammy as a producer on H.E.R.’s Back of My Mind.
As he would put it, Khaled’s definitely “got the keys” and now, a star on the Walk of Fame.
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A second suspect has been arrested in connection with a shooting that killed six people in a popular nightlife area in Sacramento, California, Sunday.
Smiley Martin, 27, was taken into custody Tuesday, Sacramento police said in a statement.
Martin has been receiving medical treatment for “serious injuries” from gunfire and is under police supervision in a hospital, police said. He will be booked once his care is complete and is being charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun.
Smiley Martin’s brother, Dandrae Martin, 26, was identified as a “related suspect” in the shooting, which broke out on K Street in downtown Sacramento early Sunday morning just after a fight took place, the Sacramento Police Department said. Martin was arrested on assault and illegal firearm possession charges on Monday, police said.
More than 100 shell casings were recovered from the scene, according to police. Investigators believe multiple gunmen are responsible for the shooting and are sifting through hundreds of pieces of evidence, Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester said during a press conference Sunday afternoon.
Video posted on Twitter on Sunday showed people running through the street as the apparent sound of rapid gunfire could be heard in the background.
The victims were identified by the Sacramento County Coroner’s office on Monday as Johntaya Alexander, 21; Melinda Davis, 57; Sergio Harris, 38; Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32; Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21; and Devazia Turner, 29.
At least a dozen people were injured in the shooting, Lester said. The conditions of the injured victims were not immediately known, police said.
It is not known whether the alleged gunmen knew each other, Lester said. A large crowd was present at the time of the shooting, she added.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg condemned the shooting during a news conference Sunday afternoon, describing it as “a senseless and unacceptable tragedy.”
“And I emphasize the word unacceptable,” Steinberg said. “Thoughts and prayers are not nearly enough. We must do more as a city as a state and as a nation.”
The Chainsmokers are one of four-time Super Bowl champion Rob Gronkowski’s favorite artists, so it’s no surprise that they’re headlining Gronk Beach, the football star’s Draft Weekend Las Vegas event, later this month.
Gronk Beach, taking place April 29 at Wynn’s Encore Beach Club, is described as a “high-end pool party environment” that includes food, drinks, and entertainment personally curated by Gronk. In addition to The Chainsmokers, guests will enjoy music by DJ Five, Kim Lee and Deux Twins.
You can get tickets and VIP Tables now at GronkBeach.com.
Gronk Beach, last held in Miami in 2020, featured Rick Ross, Flo Rida, Diplo and Kaskade.
“Prepare for a fun day in the sun at Encore Beach Club, incredible musical performances, unmatched Gronk family energy, and a celebration of all the new rookies entering the league!” Gronk says in a statement.
Variety reports that Sunday’s Grammy Awards telecast saw a modest 1.4% gain over last year’s ceremony, which marked a record low for the event. The 64th Annual Grammy Awards, hosted by The Daily Show‘s Trevor Noah and carried live from Las Vegas on CBS, drew 8.93 million total viewers across multiple platforms, according to time-zone adjusted fast national data from Nielsen. The network estimates that total viewership for Sunday’s show will be closer to 9.6 million total viewers when Live + Same Day data comes in Tuesday…
Jennifer Lopez‘ most recent movie Marry Me may have premiered on Peacock, but her next nuptials-related film will be debuting on Amazon Prime. The streaming service has snatched up Shotgun Wedding, a rom com that once was to star Armie Hammer and Lopez, as a couple whose family-filled destination wedding turns into a hostage situation. However, Hammer stepped away from the role last year as his sexting scandal began to crest, and Josh Duhamel stepped up to the altar…
Laurence Fishburne has been tapped to star as Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers in the upcoming FX limited series The Sterling Affairs, chronicling the downfall of Clippers owner Donald Sterling amid the team’s drive to win a championship under Rivers. Jacki Weaver has also signed on to play Sterling’s wife, Shelly. Fishburne is currently starring in a revival of David Mamet‘s American Buffalo at New York’s Circle in the Square Theatre…
The Fox dance competition series So You Think You Can Dance returns for its 17th season May 18 following the season finale of The Masked Singer, the network announced on Monday. The upcoming season will also feature a new judging panel that includes Stephen “tWitch” Boss, Emmy, Tony and Golden Globe-nominated artist Matthew Morrison and YouTube star JoJo Siwa. Cat Deeley will return as host. The latest version will feature dancers between the ages of 18 and 30, who will compete in a variety of styles, with brand-new twists and turns introduced into the competition…
Aquaman‘s Jason Momoa is set to write, executive-produce and star in the drama series Chief of War for Apple TV+, according to Variety. The streaming service has given an eight-episode order to the series, which “follows the story of the unification and colonization of Hawaii from an indigenous point of view.” Momoa currently stars in the post-apocalyptic Apple TV+ series See, which aired its second season in 2021 has been picked up for a third…
The official trailer for season two of the HBO Max thriller The Flight Attendant dropped on Monday. The new season and finds a newly sober Cassie Bowden — played by Kaley Cuoco — seeing multiple versions of herself while moonlighting as a CIA asset in her spare time, and becomes entangled in more international intrigue. Also returning for season two are Zosia Mamet, Griffin Matthews, Deniz Akdeniz and Rosie Perez, along with T.R. Knight, Yasha Jackson and Audrey Grace Marshall. The season will also introduce new series regulars Mo McRae, Callie Hernandez and JJ Soria, as well as recurring cast members Alanna Ubach, Cheryl Hines, Jessie Ennis, Mae Martin, Margaret Cho, Santiago Cabrera, Sharon Stone and Shohreh Aghdashloo. The Flight Attendant returns with two episodes April 21…
(NEW YORK) — In the seven months since Texas enacted a law that bans nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, its northern neighbor, Oklahoma, has felt the impact.
“We are essentially having to turn the vast majority of people away from getting abortions because we just cannot keep up with the volume,” said Dr. Christina Bourne, the medical director of Trust Women, which operates an abortion care clinic in Oklahoma City and one in Wichita, Kansas. “We could be doing abortions 24 hours a day and not keep up with the volume that is demanded of us.”
Now, Oklahoma appears close to enacting its own abortion ban, which providers like Bourne and others in surrounding states say could lead to a whole region of the country lacking adequate abortion access.
In late March, the Oklahoma House passed a measure, House Bill 4327, that would ban abortion at any point in the pregnancy unless it is “to save the life” of the pregnant person or if the pregnancy is the result of “rape, sexual assault or incest that has been reported to law enforcement.”
Like Texas’ law, HB 4327 also allows for citizens to sue for up to $10,000 anyone who performs or “aids and abets” an abortion.
Earlier last month, the Oklahoma Senate passed a similar bill, SB 1503.
“We know that patients who need abortion are not going to stop seeking it, it’s just going to get harder and harder for them to access,” said Emily Wales, the interim CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which covers Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and parts of Missouri. “Right now, patients may be traveling a few hundred miles from home, five or six hours, they’re going to add another five or six hours to get to the Kansas City area or to Wichita, and for some patients, that won’t be feasible.”
So far in 2022, the two Planned Parenthood clinics in Oklahoma that offer abortion services have seen more patients from Texas than from Oklahoma, according to Wales.
If the anti-abortion bills in Oklahoma are signed into law as expected, experts say women who have the means will have to travel further for abortion care, while those who don’t will not get care.
“We expect that the facilities that remain open in other states will be overwhelmed, as we have already seen with Senate Bill 8, with residents from other states coming in to get care,” said Dr. Kari White, an associate professor and faculty research associate at the University of Texas at Austin. “And there are some people for whom these longer distances are are just going to be impossible, and they will consider either other ways to try to end their pregnancies by ordering medications online or potentially doing something unsafe, and other people will be forced to continue their pregnancies.”
White, who is also the lead investigator of the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, has studied the impact of Texas’ six-week abortion ban. According to her research, around 1,400 Texans have gone to another state for abortion care each month since SB8 went into effect in September, with 45% traveling to Oklahoma.
“We’ve certainly heard from some of the people we’ve interviewed in our study that they were willing to wait a little bit longer to get an abortion in Oklahoma because they could travel to Oklahoma, but it was too far for them to go to a state like New Mexico,” she said. “They just couldn’t make it work in terms of the additional cost, the time away from work or their child care responsibilities.”
New Mexico and Colorado, which have less stringent abortion restrictions, are likely to become hotspots for women in the region who have the means to travel for abortion care.
Those states have also felt the impact from SB8, according to Planned Parenthood, which reported a more than 1,000% increase in abortion patients with Texas zip codes at Planned Parenthood health centers in Colorado and a more than 100% increase at Planned Parenthood health centers in New Mexico compared to the previous year.
Other states that surround Oklahoma — Kansas, Missouri and Arkansas — face their own restrictions on abortion access and are dealing with already overwhelmed systems, experts say.
The two Planned Parenthood clinics that provided abortion care in Missouri have been closed in the last few years due to state restrictions, according to Wales, who added, “Missourians for a long time have been living the Texas crisis, where the majority of them are forced to flee their home state for care already.”
Arkansas has around three abortion clinics statewide currently, while Kansas has four, according to Sandy Brown, president of the Kansas Abortion Fund, a volunteer-run, nonprofit organization that helps fund Kansan women seeking abortion care.
“Our clinics here have been swamped,” Brown said. “They just can’t absorb the volume of people coming in from other states. Now, if Oklahoma happens, it’s really, really going to be bad, because we already can’t almost handle the patients that are coming in now.”
In May or June, the Supreme Court will announce its ruling on a 15-week ban in Mississippi and whether or not it is constitutional. If the Supreme Court determines the ban is constitutional, it could mean Roe v. Wade is either overturned or fundamentally weakened.
More than half of the nation’s 50 states are prepared to ban abortion if Roe is overturned, according to a report from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights organization.
If that happens, another factor to watch will be whether states that have banned abortion make it increasingly difficult for their residents to obtain abortions in other states, Mary Ziegler, visiting professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and author of Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present, told ABC News earlier this year.
In the meantime, abortion rights advocates and providers say they worry that the far distances people are having to travel to seek abortion care means the most vulnerable people, such as those without the financial resources to travel, are being left behind.
“Traveling is an option and has always been an option for affluent white people,” Bourne said. “Through abortion restrictions, we are legislating people who experience intersecting identities, poverty, people of color, queer folks, people with many children, people with busy lives who are going to be left out of that and forced to carry a pregnancy to term that perhaps otherwise wouldn’t have.”
Wales, of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said that as clinics in Oklahoma and Kansas have seen increased demand for abortion services, that has resulted in a delay in services for the type of general reproductive health care, like contraception and cancer screening, that makes up the majority of the clinics’ work.
“The increased need in abortion and the restrictions from the states … those things have pushed family planning patients and other types of care back,” Wales said. “It also means our family planning patients are coming in more concerned, more confused about what is available to them, because they just understand that rights are being restricted.”
“It has created a great deal of fear, I think, among the people we see,” she said.
(NEW ORLEANS) — Kansas stayed in the fight and came from behind to beat North Carolina during Monday night’s men’s national championship game.
After trailing 15 points at the end of the first half, the Jayhawks turned up the heat in the second half to top North Carolina 72-69 and win the 2022 NCAA tournament.
Kansas forwards Jalen Wilson and David McCormack led the team with 15 points apiece, with McCormack sinking two buckets near the end of regulation that put the Jayhawks on top and solidified the win.
The championship marks Kansas’ fourth national title overall and their first since 2008.
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Democrats are calling on a government watchdog to investigate McKinsey & Company over claims that the consulting giant skirted federal conflict-of-interest rules, a sign of growing concern on Capitol Hill that lucrative government contracts are being doled out to firms with dual loyalties.
In a letter to the Department of Health and Human Service inspector general, who has jurisdiction over the Food and Drug Administration, lawmakers encouraged investigators to probe McKinsey’s alleged “failure … to disclose potential conflicts of interest when [it] entered into contracts with the FDA on issues related to opioids, while simultaneously working for numerous opioid companies.”
Representatives for McKinsey have denied any wrongdoing.
“It is heartbreaking how many Granite Staters and Americans experience substance use issues that began with an OxyContin prescription from their doctor,” Sen. Maggie Hassan, one of the Senate Democrats calling for the investigation into McKinsey’s alleged potential conflict-of-interest issues, told ABC News in a statement.
Other senators joining the effort include Sens. Patty Murray, Joe Manchin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin.
“We know that McKinsey worked with Purdue Pharma to ‘turbocharge’ sales of OxyContin, and it is deeply troubling that McKinsey was getting paid by opioid manufacturers such as Purdue Pharma at the same time it was working for the FDA,” Hassan wrote. “We must get to the bottom of these reports and understand the full scope of McKinsey’s involvement in fueling this crisis, as well as discover what more the FDA needs to do to avoid future conflicts of interest.”
McKinsey, one of the world’s most influential consulting companies, maintained that its past work was lawful and denied allegations to the contrary as last year it settled with nearly 50 states, territories and the District of Columbia for nearly $600 million after investigations into its role in helping fuel the nation’s opioid pandemic.
“We deeply regret that we did not adequately acknowledge the tragic consequences of the epidemic in our communities,” Kevin Sneader, the firm’s global managing partner, said in a statement. “With this agreement, we hope to be part of the solution to the opioid crisis in the U.S.”
McKinsey has faced scrutiny in recent years for allegedly accepting work from U.S. government agencies without disclosing potential conflicts of interest from the private sector or foreign governments.
Over the past decade, McKinsey has worked closely with the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, the FDA’s principal division for approving new drugs — including opioids — on a wide range of projects, from overhauling drug-approval processes to implementing new tools for monitoring the pharmaceutical industry, federal contracting records and past media reports show. At the same time, the firm has been allegedly advising numerous major corporate pharmaceutical clients, including helping opioid makers fend off and water down FDA regulations, multiple news outlets have reported.
According to a ProPublica report, McKinsey allegedly failed to disclose to the FDA its list of corporate pharmaceutical clients and potential conflicts of interest even though it was obligated to do so under its contracts with the agency.
McKinsey spokesperson Neil Grace told ABC News that the company’s consulting work for pharmaceutical firms “did not create a conflict of interest” regarding its work with the FDA, because it “has not advised the FDA on regulatory policy or on specific pharmaceutical products.”
Instead, said Grace, McKinsey’s work with the FDA “focused on administrative and operational topics, including improvements to organizational structures, business processes and technology.”
“Given the absence of a conflict of interest, there was no requirement for any McKinsey disclosure,” Grace said. “That said, McKinsey’s proposals to the FDA frequently mentioned the company’s and personnel’s experience with the pharmaceutical industry, making the FDA aware of this aspect of McKinsey’s work in the field.”
McKinsey has faced similar scrutiny over its work for the Defense Department, for allegedly not disclosing its potential conflicts of interest while advising Chinese state companies at the same time, NBC News has reported. Grace told NBC News at the time that the firm follows strict rules and internal firewalls to avoid conflicts of interest and to comply with federal requirements. The spokesperson also said that the firm does not serve any clients in China on topics connected to defense, intelligence, justice or police issues.
In their letter to the HHS inspector general on Tuesday, lawmakers also called into question the FDA’s vetting process, at one point implying that the FDA continued awarding McKinsey contracts even after news reports called attention to its work on behalf of Purdue Pharma and other opioid manufacturers.
“Despite these reports,” the senators wrote, “FDA did not conduct any additional contract reviews or discuss with McKinsey conflicts of interest and the firm’s failure to disclose them in earlier contract applications.”
From early 2019, when the first media reports emerged, until early 2021, McKinsey earned more than $20 million in new contracts from the FDA, including additional work for the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research as well as COVID-19 coordination support work for the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund, according to government contracting databases.
The FDA, in response to earlier congressional inquiries regarding McKinsey’s potential conflicts of interest, wrote that it did not conduct additional review over its contracts with the firm even after learning of McKinsey’s work for opioid manufacturers because the firm’s work for the agency was not specifically related to opioids.
On Capitol Hill, members of Congress have increasingly trained their sights on McKinsey and other contractors for allegedly accepting government contracts while pursuing outside business opportunities that may present a conflict of interest.
Last week, a bipartisan coalition of senators introduced legislation meant to improve transparency in the federal contracting process.
The bill, called the Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act, would seek to mitigate conflict-of-interest concerns by forcing contractors to “disclose other parts of their business that conflict with the work they are bidding to perform for the government,” according to Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., one of the bill’s cosponsors.
In a press release announcing the legislation, Hassan invoked McKinsey’s handling of its work with the FDA, claiming that it demonstrates “the danger that conflicts of interest can pose in government contracting.”
(WASHINGTON) — For the first time since leaving office, former President Barack Obama is scheduled to return to the White House on Tuesday to join his former vice president in promoting the Affordable Health Care Act, which he signed into law.
Obama will join President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in delivering remarks “celebrating the success of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid in extending affordable health insurance to millions of Americans as a part of the President’s agenda to cut costs for American families,” according to the White House.
The White House added that Biden “will take additional action to further strengthen the ACA and save families hundreds of dollars a month on their health care.” Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and other members of Biden’s Cabinet will also attend.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden and Obama will tout the ACA, which she said they view as “a shining example of how government can work for the American people.”
“Not only did it ensure that millions of people had access to affordable health care, but it has been an opportunity to build on that and make changes and make improvements over the course of time, which of course is what they will talk about tomorrow,” Psaki said at Monday’s press briefing.
She said Obama and Biden will also have lunch at the White House Tuesday — “as they used to do on a weekly basis” — and added, “They continue to talk regularly.”
“They are real friends, not just Washington friends, and so I’m sure they will talk about events in the world as well as their families and personal lives,” Psaki said.
The visit from the popular former president comes as Biden struggles in the polls over his handling of 40-year-high inflation and soaring gas prices he’s pinned to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Psaki said it’s “exactly the right time to have the former president come here — given this is one of the proudest accomplishments that they worked on together, they shared together.”
“And it is emblematic of their shared view and belief that government can work for people and it can work for the American people. And this is an example of building on a success from more than 10 years ago and making it better over time,” she added.
Psaki also said to expect Obama to return to the White House again soon for his presidential portrait unveiling “and perhaps other engagements here in the future.”
Since Biden took office, the administration helped to lower health care premiums for nine million Americans through the American Rescue Plan, Psaki noted Monday, “the biggest expansion of affordable health care since the ACA.”
“We’ve made affordable health coverage more accessible during the pandemic through the opening of the special enrollment period, which enabled nearly 3 million Americans to have access to newly sign up for coverage under the ACA,” she said. “And President Biden has overseen the most successful open enrollment in history last year with the historic 14.5 million Americans signing up for ACA coverage and another million people signing up for the basic health care program.”
Tuesday will mark Biden and Obama’s first joint appearance since attending the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks last fall in New York and their first joint event in Washington since Biden’s inauguration in January 2021.
Back in 2010, when the pair celebrated the ACA’s passage, Biden was caught on hot mic applauding Obama at the White House for what he called “a big [expletive] deal.”
As of last year, about 31 million Americans had health care coverage through the ACA, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday will announce new steps his administration is taking to build on the Affordable Care Act, including a new executive order and a proposed rule from the Treasury Department to fix the ACA’s so-called “family glitch.”
“Under Treasury’s new proposed rule, family members who have to pay more than 10% of income for coverage can be able to receive financial help under the ACA,” a senior administration official said on a call with reporters Monday night. “As a result, 200,000 uninsured people are expected to gain coverage and nearly a million more are expected to see lower premiums every day.”
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that more than 5.1 million people fall in the ACA family glitch, but senior administration officials said they don’t believe everyone will choose to leave their current coverage plans, which is why they gave the above estimate of 200,000 newly insured and roughly one million switching plans.
The rule would begin to take effect beginning Jan. 1, 2023, if enacted, and Americans will be able to sign up to get financial assistance during the next open enrollment period.
Paraphrasing Biden’s memorable “this is a big f***** deal” quote on the day then-President Barack Obama signed the ACA, senior administration officials said, “to borrow a phrase, this rule is a – is a big deal.”
“We think it’s the most significant administrative action to improve implementation of the ACA that we’ve taken since the law was first implemented,” the officials said.
The executive order Biden will sign will highlight ways to make it easier for people to enroll in and keep their coverage, help people better understand their coverage options, strengthen and improve benefits, and improve access to health care providers. It will also take steps to reduce medical debt, officials said.
Biden will highlight these steps during a Tuesday afternoon event in the Rose Garden alongside Obama.
