Twenty years ago today, Harry Potter fans flocked to theaters to see their favorite boy wizard come to life for the first time on the big screen in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
The movie, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and a host of the U.K. and Ireland’s finest actors, was the highest-grossing film of 2001 and has gone on to earn over $1 billion at the box office.
More importantly, it was the first installment of a franchise that would eventually grow to encompass eight films and two prequels, so far, not to mention several theme-park attractions.
Here are some things you may not know about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone:
— Everywhere but in the U.S., the movie, like the book on which it’s based, was titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. That meant that every scene that mentioned the “stone” had to be shot twice: once with the actors saying “philosopher’s stone” and once with them saying “sorcerer’s stone.”
— Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was asked to play Harry’s mother Lily Potter in the scene where Lily appears to Harry in the mirror of Erised. She turned down the role because she was convinced she’d “mess it up somehow.”
— Robin Williams and Rosie O’Donnell both wanted to be in the film, but they were rejected because J.K. Rowling only wanted actors from Britain and Ireland in the cast. She hand-picked Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane and Dame Maggie Smith to play Snape, Hagrid and Prof. McGonagall, respectively.
— Richard Harris turned down the role of Dumbledore three times, until his granddaughter said she’d never speak to him again if he didn’t accept it.
— In the book, Harry had green eyes. But Daniel Radcliffe had a bad reaction to the green contacts he was supposed to wear, so in the film, he had blue eyes, but only after J.K. Rowling approved the change. Similarly, in the book, Hermione had buck teeth, but since Emma Watson couldn’t speak clearly through the fake teeth she was given, they were abandoned too.
Nike is pressing pause on the release of its collaboration with Travis Scott “out of respect” for the victims of Astroworld.
The footwear company sent out a statement via its official sneaker release app, “SNKRS,” notifying fans of the decision on Monday.
“Out of respect for everyone impacted by the tragic events at the Astroworld Festival, we are postponing the launch of the Air Max 1 × Cactus Jack,” the update reads. There was no mention of a new release date.
For this latest collab, Nike and Scott’s Cactus Jack Records united to create the “Air Max 1 x Cactus Jack,” a pair of brown and tan Air Max 1’s. They were scheduled to be released on December 16 with a $175 price tag.
“The Air Jordan I celebrates Travis Scott, hip-hop artist, record label founder and Houston, Texas native,” the description on Nike’s website explains. “Details on the shoe, including a reverse Swoosh and hidden pouch, help set this edition of the storied sneaker apart for the rapper and producer, and for Cactus Jack Records.”
The delay comes after 10 people died and hundreds were left injured after a crowd surge during Scott’s set at the Astroworld Music Festival in Houston, Texas on November 5. More than 100 lawsuits have since been filed against the rapper and its promoter, Live Nation, according to the New York Post.
(NEW YORK) — The rate of babies born premature in the United States has declined for the first time in six years, but experts warn it is not a cause for celebration, as a maternal and infant health crisis still exists.
Preterm birth rates in the U.S. decreased 0.1% from 10.2% in 2019 to 10.1% in 2020, according to a report published Monday by the March of Dimes, a nonprofit organization focused on improving the health of pregnant people and babies.
Even with the decrease, the U.S. — where 1 in 10 babies are born premature — maintained a “C-” grade for its preterm birth rate, according to the report.
And the report also found preterm births increased over the past year for Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native people, who are up to 60% more likely to give birth prematurely as compared to white women.
“I think it’s really important to understand that around the issue of premature birth, we still have significant issues around health and equity, and we still have far too many women who are more likely to give birth prematurely than others,” said Stacey D. Stewart, president and CEO of March of Dimes. “So we don’t see this report card as a reason to really celebrate.”
“It just means that we have a lot more work to do, especially in the communities that are most impacted,” she said.
In addition to increases this year, the the rate of preterm birth for Black people has increased by nearly 8% since 2014, and by 11% for American Indian/Alaskan Native people, according to March of Dimes.
Preterm, or premature birth, is any birth that happens before 37 weeks of pregnancy have been completed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Babies born premature have higher rates of death and disability including breathing problems, cerebral palsy, feeding difficulties, developmental delays and vision and hearing problems, according to the CDC.
What causes a pregnant woman to deliver early is not always known, but risk factors include everything from a history of preterm birth to stress and substance abuse to socio-economic factors like being over the age of 35, having a low income and being Black, according to the CDC.
An emerging area of research has grown in recent years to look at why a pregnant person’s race, especially Black and American Indian/Alaskan Native, plays a role, according to Mirella Mourad, MD, a maternal fetal medicine specialist and co-director of the Preterm Birth Prevention Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
“We are just starting to delve into understanding why women of color are at increased risk, where before it was just a risk factor,” she said. “Now we can with confidence say that discrepancies in socio-economic status or baseline health, education level, do not explain the entire picture.”
Mourad continued, “That’s kind of a good conclusion face to reach, so that we can focus on other factors and things that have recently become a big focus, like areas of racism-related stress and institutional systemic racism.”
In addition to race, March of Dimes’ report card also showed disparities in preterm birth rates based on where people live.
The rates of preterm births increased in 13 states, with Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, West Virginia and Puerto Rico earning an “F,” meaning they had a preterm birth rate of 11.5% or more.
Only the state of Vermont earned an “A” grade with a preterm birth rate of 7.7%.
Overall, the southern states, Appalachia and pockets of western states have higher levels of vulnerability, according to the March of Dimes.
Stewart said the report card looks at social vulnerability, like where a person lives, because they can contribute to maternal health, which also plays a role in preterm birth.
“We know that how any of us live, the social determinants of health, are primary determinants in our health overall,” she said. “So whether or not mothers have access to health care, whether or not they live in safe neighborhoods, have access to good nutrition, have access to health care, if those things are lacking, those issues can certainly increase the risk of a mother’s health declining and sometimes lead to premature birth.”
This year’s report card — released annually in November, National Premature Awareness Month — also looked for the first time at low-risk C-sections, defined by the March of Dimes as one that takes place when a pregnant person is at least 37 weeks pregnant and has not given birth before.
The low-risk C-section rate in 2020 in the U.S. was 25.6%, according to the report, around 10 points above the maximum of what the World Health Organization (WHO) considers the ideal rate for C-section births.
“We included information about low-risk C-sections as as a way of thinking about the overall state of maternal health,” said Stewart, noting that C-sections are associated with increased risk of maternal morbidity and increased rates of NICU admission.
“The fact that the U.S. is considered the most dangerous developed nation in the world in which to give birth is very shocking and surprising to a lot of people,” said Stewart. “One of the reasons we want to make sure that people have this information from the report card is to shine a brighter light on the fact that we have a lot of issues in this country, still even the wealthiest country in the world, with respect to maternal and infant health.”
“It requires a lot more attention and awareness and action to make sure that every mom and every baby is healthy,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — The United States on Monday condemned a Russian anti-satellite test against one of its own satellites that the U.S. said created a field of more than 1,500 pieces of debris that could remain in orbit for decades and pose a threat to other satellites.
Previous Russian tests have been of missiles or “killer satellites” capable of bringing down a satellite, but the new test marks the first time Russia has brought down a satellite with a missile.
The State Department criticized the Russian test as another example of what it said was Russia’s “dangerous and irresponsible behavior” in its space military operations.
“Earlier today the Russian Federation recklessly conducted a destructive test of a direct–ascent anti satellite missile against one of its own satellites,” Ned Price, the State Department spokesman told reporters Monday.
“This test has so far generated over fifteen hundred pieces of trackable orbital debris and hundreds of thousands of pieces of smaller orbital debris that now threatens the interests of all nations,” said Price.
“Russia’s dangerous and irresponsible behavior jeopardizes the long term sustainability of our space and clearly demonstrates that Russia’s claims of opposing the weapons and weaponization of space are disingenuous and hypocritical,” said Price in language not typically seen in diplomatic statements.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters that the Defense Department shared similar concerns about the new Russian test.
“We watch closely the kinds of capabilities that Russia seems to want to develop which could pose a threat not just to our national security interests, but the security instance of other spacefaring nations,” said Kirby.
The new test marked the first time Russia destroyed an orbiting satellite with a ground-based missile, but previous tests have also sparked strong U.S. criticism. Last year, Russia carried out two similar tests with ground-based missiles that either demonstrated the capability or missed their targets. A third test in July of last year involved a different anti-satellite technology when a “killer satellite” deployed a projectile in the direction of another satellite.
In 2007, China drew international condemnation after it destroyed an orbiting satellite that created a large debris field. The following year the United States brought down an American satellite for which the remaining fuel supply posed a threat to human populations upon reentry but also showed that the U.S. could target an orbiting satellite.
In 2019, India destroyed one of its satellites demonstrating that it, too, was capable of anti-satellite technology.
“Russia has demonstrated a complete disregard for the security, safety, stability, and long-term sustainability of the space domain for all nations,” Gen. James Dickinson, the commander of U.S. Space Command, said in a statement.
“The debris created by Russia’s DA-ASAT will continue to pose a threat to activities in outer space for years to come, putting satellites and space missions at risk, as well as forcing more collision avoidance maneuvers,” said Dickinson. “Space activities underpin our way of life and this kind of behavior is simply irresponsible.”
Price said the test would “significantly increase the risk to astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station, as well as to other human spaceflight activities.” That threat seems to have been borne out on Monday when the seven American and Russian crewmembers aboard the space station were ordered for a time to take refuge in their Dragon and Soyuz lifeboats as the space station repeatedly passed through an unspecified debris field.
Earlier on Monday, U.S. Space Command confirmed that it was “aware of a debris-generating event in outer space” and that it was “actively working to characterize the debris field and will continue to ensure all space-faring nations have the information necessary to maneuver satellites if impacted.”
(NEW YORK) — As abortion returns to the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket, majorities of Americans support maintaining Roe v. Wade, oppose states making it harder for abortion clinics to operate and see abortion primarily as a decision to be made by a woman and her doctor, not lawmakers.
Americans — 60-27% — say the high court should uphold Roe in this ABC News/Washington Post poll, including majorities of men and women, young adults and seniors, college graduates and those without degrees and whites and racial and ethnic minorities alike. It’s 62% among Catholics and steady across urban, suburban and rural residents.
A majority supports retaining Roe, the landmark 1973 ruling that established a woman’s right to an abortion, even in the 26 states where, according to the Guttmacher Institute, abortion bans or severe restrictions are anticipated if the ruling was overturned.
Roe v. Wade aside, the survey finds that 58% of Americans oppose state laws that make it harder for abortion clinics to operate vs. 36% who support them. Strong opposition far outstrips strong support, 45% vs. 26%.
The Texas law that empowers private citizens to sue those providing or assisting with abortions is even more unpopular: Two-thirds of Americans say the Supreme Court should reject it, including nearly a third of those who otherwise support additional state restrictions.
On a more personal level, 75% say the decision whether or not a woman can have an abortion should be left to her and her doctor, not regulated by law. It’s a sentiment held by majorities across the political spectrum, including by bare majorities of Republicans and conservatives and half of evangelical white Protestants.
What’s Next For Roe
While Roe v. Wade has faced challenges before, analysts suggest that it faces the strongest possibility in recent years of being overturned, citing the court’s hearing this term of a case challenging abortion restrictions in a Mississippi law.
While prospects for Roe in the high court have waxed and waned, public support for the ruling has been largely steady. Sixty percent support upholding it in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, which is consistent with 62% among registered voters last fall and 59 to 65% in results to a separate question asked from 2005 to 2010.
Support for retaining Roe runs especially high among liberals (87%), Democrats (82%), people with post-graduate degrees (73%), those under 30 and Black Americans (both 71%). It’s also 71% among women under 40 – compared with 54% among men that age. (Among all women, 64% support Roe; among all men, 56%.)
Opposition is more muted, reaching majorities in only a few groups, and mostly by smaller margins than in groups that back the ruling. Preference for Roe to be overturned peaks at 70% among people identifying themselves as strong conservatives, but drops to 38% among those who are somewhat conservative. It’s supported, by contrast, by nearly all strong liberals and 79% of those who are somewhat liberal.
In another leading opposition group, 58% of evangelical white Protestants support overturning Roe, while 30% favor upholding it.
In the 26 states where bans or severe restrictions on abortion are considered likely if Roe were overturned, 54% support upholding it.
State Laws
Like other abortion-related legal issues, views on state restrictions making it harder for abortion clinics to operate are highly partisan. Eighty-three percent of Democrats oppose these laws, with 71% strongly opposed, while Republicans support them by nearly 2-1, 62-32%. Independents fall closer to Democrats, with 61% opposed to such restrictions.
Even less popular than state restrictions in general is the Texas law, with the public saying by 65-29% that it should be rejected by the Supreme Court. This law gets majority backing only from evangelical white Protestants (60%), conservatives (56%) and Republicans (55%). Just 7% of liberals, 8% of Democrats, 16% of moderates and 26% of independents agree.
The Texas law was the subject of an expedited hearing in the Supreme Court earlier this month, with a ruling expected soon to determine whether the state can be sued by those challenging the statute. The court hears the Mississippi case Dec. 1.
Woman/Doctor
The most lopsided result in this survey comes in response to a question that poses the issue outside the legal context, asking if the decision whether or not a woman can have an abortion should be left to the woman and her doctor – preferred by 75% – or regulated by law, selected by 20%.
Among groups, 81% of women say the decision should be left to the woman and her doctor, compared with 69% of men. That reaches 86% among women under 40 as well as a similar 78% of older women. It’s higher still among Black people, 91%, compared with about seven in 10 whites and Hispanics alike.
Support for leaving the decision to the woman and her doctor ranges from 70% to 80% across age groups, encompasses three-quarters of Americans regardless of their education and income levels and crosses other customary attitudinal lines as well; for example, it’s 71 to 76% in rural, suburban and urban areas alike.
As noted, even narrow majorities of Republicans (53%) and conservatives (52%) say the decision should be between a woman and her doctor and evangelical white Protestants divide on the question, 49-47%.
Methodology
This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone Nov. 7-10, 2021, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,001 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions in the full sample are 27-26-37%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Md. See details on the survey’s methodology here.
(WASHINGTON) — In the aftermath of the 2020 election, some of Donald Trump’s closest allies embarked on an unprecedented effort to get the Department of Defense to chase down outlandish voter fraud conspiracy theories in hopes of helping Trump retain power, ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl writes in his new book.
In Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, scheduled to be released today, Karl reports that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump attorney Sidney Powell tried to enlist a Pentagon official to help overturn the election.
According to the book, Flynn — who had just received an unconditional pardon from President Trump after pleading guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI during the Russia probe — made a frantic phone call to a senior Trump intelligence official named Ezra Cohen (sometimes referred to as Ezra Cohen-Watnick), who previously worked under Flynn at both the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Security Council.
“Where are you?” Flynn asked the DoD official, who said he was traveling in the Middle East.
“Flynn told him to cut his trip short and get back to the United States immediately because there were big things about to happen,” according to the book. Karl writes that Flynn told Cohen, “We need you,” and told the DoD official that “there was going to be an epic showdown over the election results.”
Flynn, according to the book, urged Cohen that “he needed to get orders signed, that ballots needed to be seized, and that extraordinary measures needed to be taken to stop Democrats from stealing the election.”
“As Flynn ranted about the election fight, [Cohen] felt his old boss sounded manic,” Karl writes in the book. “He didn’t sound like the same guy he had worked for.”
“Sir, the election is over,” Cohen told Flynn, according to the book. “It’s time to move on.”
Flynn, according to Karl, fired back: “You’re a quitter! This is not over! Don’t be a quitter!”
Karl writes that after a heated few minutes, Flynn hung up the phone — and that was the last time the two men talked.
“Betrayal” also reports that Sydney Powell, Flynn’s former lawyer who was then advising President Trump, called Cohen shortly after the Flynn conversation and tried to enlist his help with one the most far-fetched claims about the election, involving then-CIA Director Gina Haspel.
“Gina Haspel has been hurt and taken into custody in Germany,” Powell told Cohen, pushing a false conspiracy theory that had been gaining steam among QAnon followers, according to the book. “You need to launch a special operations mission to get her,” Powell said.
Powell, according to the book, was pushing the outlandish claim that Haspel had been injured while on a secret CIA operation to seize an election-related computer server that belonged to a company named Scytl — none of which was true.
“The server, Powell claimed, contained evidence that hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of votes had been switched using rigged voting machines. Powell believed Haspel had embarked on this secret mission to get the server and destroy the evidence — in other words, the CIA director was part of the conspiracy,” Karl writes.
Powell wanted the Defense Department to send a special operations team over to Germany immediately: “They needed to get the server and force Haspel to confess,” Karl writes.
Cohen thought Powell sounded out of her mind, according to the book, and he quickly reported the call to the acting defense secretary.
A CIA spokesperson subsequently debunked the claim, telling news outlets that “I’m happy to tell you that Director Haspel is alive and well and at the office.”
Neither Powell nor Flynn responded to repeated requests for comment.
Tinashe enjoyed success and failure with a major label before going independent, and as she reflects on her career, she remembers that recording for a corporation made her lose her sense of identity.
“When you’re working with a company and there’s so many people that you have to please, you start to make these little tiny compromises here and there,” the “Throw a Fit” singer said in the Facebook show Face to Face with Becky G, according to People. “And before you know it, it’s too much and you’ve lost this sense of really who you are and what you want to do. I felt that in order to get that back, I needed to just do it on my own.”
In 2019, the singer launched her own label, Tinashe Music, and released her fourth studio album, Songs for You. Her latest album, 333, which dropped in August, is also on the label.
She says earlier in her career she was frustrated because, “I didn’t feel supported in my art and that’s when I really felt that I started to lose that confidence myself as a creative, because I felt that I had to make compromises to work in this business model.”
Tinashe recently wrapped up her 333 tour, and in addition to music, she’s expanding her brand. In October, the “2 On” singer launched her first shoe collection, in partnership with ShoeDazzle.
Face to Face with Becky G, featuring Tinashe, premieres on Facebook Watch on Tuesday at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Monday’s sports events:
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Sacramento 129, Detroit 107
Boston 98, Cleveland 92
Washington 105, New Orleans 100
New York 92, Indiana 84
Atlanta 129, Orlando 111
Memphis 136, Houston 102
Miami 103, Oklahoma City 90
Dallas 111, Denver 101
Phoenix 99, Minnesota 96
Portland 118, Toronto 113
Chicago 121, L.A. Lakers 103
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Columbus 5, Detroit 3
Tampa Bay 4, NY Islanders 1
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
San Francisco 31, LA Rams 10
TOP-25 COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Gonzaga 84, Alcorn St. 57
UCLA 100, Long Beach St. 79
Baylor 89, Nicholls 60
Marquette 67, Illinois 66
Ohio St. 89, Bowling Green 58
LILHUDDY has announced a new streaming concert dubbed The Teenage Heartbreak Experience.
The virtual event will feature a performance of the “21st Century Vampire” rocker’s new album, Teenage Heartbreak, in its entirety for the first time since it was dropped in September. You can tune in to watch starting December 5 at 9 p.m. ET via the streaming platform Moment House.
While you’re waiting, you can also watch LILHUDDY starring in Downfalls High, the musical film based on Machine Gun Kelly‘s Tickets to My Downfall album.
While many artists ended up making albums during the COVID-19 lockdown just to have something to do, Rod Stewart says his new album, The Tears of Hercules was something he’d planned to do anyway, and the events of the past year and a half didn’t impact it at all.
“I was always going to [make the album]. I actually started before the pandemic, but it did give me a lot more time,” he tells ABC Audio. “I must admit, it gave me a lot more time to do everything! It didn’t in any way…what’s the word?…send the album in any particular direction.”
“I had a few tears, but I had my kids here to cheer me up,” Rod adds. “Otherwise, I sailed through it pretty easily. I’m lucky: I have a lovely big house and swimming pool and football pitch…I’ve got everything here, so we didn’t go out much. The pubs were closed. That made me sad!”
The Tears of Hercules is Rod’s fourth album of original songs in eight years, but it does include a few covers: the 1967 Soul Brothers Six classic “Some Kind of Wonderful,” which he says he’s “always wanted to do;” a Johnny Cash song, “These Are My People,” which he’s “turned into a tribute to the Scottish nation,” and the title track.
It was written by Marc Jacobs, who wrote Rod’s smash “Rhythm of My Heart,” and Rod says of the unusual title, “It grabs your attention straightaway.”
“I can mean so many things, but to me, it simply means — especially in this day and age — [that] a grown man can and should be able to cry if you wish to,” he explains. “You know, the pandemic, or illness, or whatever it is, you’ve got to let those tears flow. It’s healthy!”
