At its heart, The Last Duel, out in theaters today, is a story about believing women. It’s based on a true story of a high-ranking French official accused of rape in the 14th century, told from three different perspectives: the accused, the accuser, and the accuser’s husband.
The film was written by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener, and Affleck tells ABC News it’s a story he thinks most in the United States don’t know.
“We were totally like blown away by the story. We had no idea,” the Academy award winner recalls. “I know it’s a fairly well-known story still in France, because at the time it was the sort of, I don’t know what the equivalent would be, the O.J. Simpson case or something, a very famous person accused of a horrible crime,” he adds. “It was very sensational. And so, it even lingers to this day in the consciousness in France. But I’m pretty confident that it’s a story that is very unfamiliar to audiences here.”
Even though the story wasn’t necessarily a well-known one in the U.S., Jodie Comer, who plays the woman at its center, shares that she was “fascinated” at the idea of the film having three perspectives “but ultimately one truth,” which made the gig pretty easy to say “yes” to.
As if the film wasn’t already star-studded enough, Adam Driver appears and gets in a few scuffles with Damon, who says he enjoyed the bumps and bruises.
“It was really fun. It was really physical. And you know, and I had to try to keep up with Adam Driver. He’s a good deal younger than I am, and he’s very physically fit,” Damon admits. “So, there was that.”
Lance Bass and husband Michael Turchin are officially a family of four. On Thursday, the *NSYNC member happily revealed that their twins have finally arrived.
“The baby dragons have arrived!! I can not express how much love I feel right now,” Lance, 42, celebrated on Instagram, posting photos of the birth certificates. “Thank you for all the kind wishes. It meant a lot.”
And while the singer may have walked into fatherhood feeling confident, he hilariously revealed that he still has a lot to learn and frantically asked his followers, “Now, how do you change a diaper??! Ahhhhhhhh!”
And when sharing the delightful news to his personal Instagram, Michael, 34, may have given away why his husband is asking strangers on the internet about diaper duty.
“They’re pure perfection and yes that includes the dozens of poops we’ve already dealt with,” the visual artist laughed. “Our hearts our full!!!”
The couple, who wed in 2014, also revealed the names of their two bundles of joy: daughter Violet Betty and son Alexander James. Their birth certificates state the infants arrived just one minute apart on Wednesday, October 13.
Lance and Michael first revealed that they were going to become parents in June in an interview with People, where they shared the years of hardships they faced during their journey, which included IVF and a heartbreaking miscarriage in 2020.
Lance explained why he and Michael wanted to share their story, even the painful moments, telling People, “A lot of times I would believe that couples feel very alone in that situation. But to know that other people are going through the same exact thing, it’s really comforting.”
It’s safe to say that William Shatner and Prince William don’t see eye to eye when it comes to space exploration.
Just one day after Shatner traveled to space with Jeff Bezo‘s company Blue Origin, the royal criticized space travel, and while he didn’t name the Amazon founder he told BBC, “We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live.”
When asked to respond to the Prince’s comments, the Star Trek alum told Entertainment Tonight, “He’s a lovely Englishman. He’s going to be king of England one day. He’s a lovely, gentle, educated man, but he’s got the wrong idea.”
“The idea here is not to go, ‘Yeah, look at me. I’m in space.’ The landing that consumed all that…energy and people to take a look and go, ‘Oh, look at that.’ No,” Shatner clarified. “I would tell the prince, and I hope the prince gets the message, this is a baby step into the idea of getting industry up there, so that all those polluting industries, especially, for example, the industries that make electricity…off of Earth.”
“We’ve got all the technology, the rockets, to send the things up there…You can build a base 250, 280 miles above the Earth and send that power down here, and they catch it, and they then use it, and it’s there,” Shatner continued. “All it needs is…somebody as rich as Jeff Bezos [to say], ‘Let’s go up there.'”
“The prince is missing the point,” Shatner repeated. “The point is these are the baby steps to show people [that] it’s very practical. You can send somebody like me up into space.”
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 721,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.8 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 66.2% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Oct 15, 9:54 am
Vaccine requirement for foreign travelers to begin Nov. 8
Beginning Nov. 8, foreign nationals traveling to the U.S. by air and nonessential travelers crossing land borders must show proof of full vaccination to enter the U.S., the White House announced Friday.
Essential workers crossing via land, like those who come for work or school, have until January to become fully vaccinated.
Air travelers will still be required to show proof of a negative test within 72 hours of departure, in addition to their vaccination status.
Oct 15, 9:12 am
FDA panel hours away from vote on J&J boosters
The independent FDA advisory panel is meeting Friday and will hold a nonbinding vote on whether the Johnson & Johnson booster shot should be used.
Officials with the National Institutes of Health will also present data Friday on whether it’s safe and effective to mix-and-match vaccine booster doses.
Oct 14, 7:18 pm
CDC advising states to preorder Pfizer’s vaccine for young children
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising states to order Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine doses for children ages 5 to 11 ahead of a vote on its authorization.
An independent Food and Drug Administration advisory panel is scheduled to discuss the vaccine on Oct. 26, and a vote is expected soon after. In planning documents posted by the CDC, the agency is advising states to order their doses in advance of the meeting, with preorders starting Oct. 20.
This is meant to “ensure that vaccine can be placed in many locations nationwide, making it easier for children to get vaccinated” and “allow for a manageable and equitable launch,” the CDC said.
A decision from the CDC on recommending the vaccine is not likely until early November; the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is scheduled to meet on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3.
Oct 14, 3:17 pm
FDA panel votes in support of authorizing Moderna booster
The independent FDA advisory panel on Thursday voted unanimously to authorize Moderna vaccine boosters for Americans 65 and older, anyone 18 and older with underlying conditions and those frequently exposed to the virus through work or home life.
The recommendation is in line with what the FDA and CDC authorized for Pfizer booster shots last month.
The FDA panel will meet on Friday on J&J boosters. Following next week’s meetings from the CDC’s independent advisory group, Moderna and J&J boosters could be authorized and recommended for specific populations as soon as Oct. 22.
For those who’ve been wondering how Megan Thee Stallion puts the spice in her more-sensual tracks, wonder no more.
The “Savage” rapper was the latest guest on First We Feast’s Hot Ones and, while chowing down on a buffet of super-spicy wings, broke down how to make a good freak anthem. “First of all, you need to have that good bassline, that good drum pattern, so you can be on rhythm,” the Grammy winner explained. “You got to match the strokes to the drums. If you cannot match the stroke to the beat, it ain’t heat.”
“Then you just gotta have somebody that can really sang, Megan went on. “Not sing but SANG, because when somebody can sang, you really feel it in your soul,” she added and made a few gestures when demonstrating how a good vocal riff can set the mood.
Elsewhere, the 26-year-old opened up about working with snakes when filming the “WAP” music video with Cardi B — revealing that it was the “Up” rapper’s idea and she was dead-set on using real live serpents.
“I was like, ‘Okay, if Cardi B saying she wanted me to lay down with some snakes, I guess I got to lay down with the snakes with her a**,'” Megan laughed, adding that she met the snakes and bonded with one green serpent in particular and joked, “We was killing it the whole time.”
But, she admits while she and Cardi were “trying to be all sexy” in the snake pit, “we were scared as hell.”
Unsurprisingly, Meg can handle her hot sauce and didn’t even break a sweat after trying one with an ominous “TBA” Scoville rating.
(WASHINGTON) — The most restrictive abortion law in the country will remain in effect, after a federal appeals court sided with Texas on Thursday in an ongoing legal battle with the Department of Justice.
The law, known as SB8, bans physicians from providing abortions once they detect a so-called fetal heartbeat — which can be seen on an ultrasound as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
The law, which went into effect on Sept. 1, was briefly paused after a federal judge issued a temporary injunction last week barring its enforcement. Days later, the law was reinstated after a panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary administrative stay.
In the latest development of the high-profile case, the court rejected the Justice Department’s request to again halt Texas’ ability to enforce the law. In a 2-1 order Thursday night, a panel of judges granted Texas’s request to continue to stay the preliminary injunction while it pursues its appeal.
The court’s order did not detail its reasoning behind the ruling, which is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Next stop, #SCOTUS,” University of Texas constitutional law professor Steve Vladeck said in a post on Twitter following the ruling.
Under the law, private citizens can sue a person they “reasonably believe” provided an illegal abortion or assisted someone in getting it in the state, and is crafted to prevent any state official, other than judges, from being responsible for enforcement.
In a 113-page ruling initially granting the preliminary injunction, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman was scathing in targeting the state in how he says it schemed to evade judicial review.
“A person’s right under the Constitution to choose to obtain an abortion prior to fetal viability is well established,” Pitman wrote. “Fully aware that depriving its citizens of this right by direct state action would be flagrantly unconstitutional, the State contrived an unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme to do just that.”
After the injunction was issued, some abortion providers in Texas briefly resumed providing abortions after cardiac activity was detected, only to have the ban back in effect within 48 hours.
Since the law went into effect, women have had to travel hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion out-of-state, inundating neighboring states’ abortion clinics. Abortion providers in Texas have that some clinics may have to close down for good due to the law.
(ORANGE, Calif.) — Former President Bill Clinton was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday for an infection, according to a spokesperson, but is recovering and is expected to be released from the hospital soon.
“On Tuesday, President Clinton was admitted to UCI Medical Center to receive treatment for a non-COVID-related infection,” Angel Ureña, spokesperson for Clinton, said in a statement Thursday. “He is on the mend, in good spirits and is incredibly thankful to the doctors, nurses, and staff providing him with excellent care.”
Dr. Imran Ali, a physician fellow at Mt. Sinai Health, told ABC’s World News Now his sources said Clinton “was feeling rather fatigued at a private event in California, and he went to the hospital and they did a routine checkup in the emergency department and they identified an infection of his blood.”
That is usually done through a blood culture, he said, adding that Clinton “probably likely had a urinary tract infection that caused the infection to go to the blood, and it’s something that we call sepsis, is when an infection reaches the bloodstream.”
In some cases, Ali said sepsis can be serious, but in other cases it can be easily controlled with IV antibiotics. He said it can be more serious for older adults, especially people with a history of heart disease.
“And I’ve treated patients who have had heart disease and sepsis and we’re concerned about a decrease in blood pressure, and we also need to monitor the heart because the heart can be infected by the infection as well,” Ali said. “But since President Clinton is about to be transitioned to oral antibiotics, it is less likely that the infection has affected his heart, because in that case you would be on antibiotics for six weeks, through the IV line.”
Clinton has had a number of health issues over the past two decades, though most related to heart problems. He had a quadruple bypass surgery in September 2004 and two coronary stents placed in his heart in February 2010. He also underwent surgery for a collapsed lung in 2005.
Ali said the former president suffered a mild case of sepsis and didn’t have any issues with his blood pressure.
“He is in the ICU for further monitoring, like I said, if his blood pressure water drops, they can easily intervene,” he said. “From what I’m hearing my sources is that all he needed was some IV fluids to help with his blood pressure, but his blood pressure was not dangerously low to be of any serious concern.”
Ali said that since Clinton is supposed to transition to antibiotics, he will likely be discharged soon.
Clinton’s doctors at UCI Medical Center in Orange, California, further elaborated on the former president’s health in a statement.
“President Clinton was taken to UC Irvine Medical Center and diagnosed with an infection. He was admitted to the hospital for close monitoring and administered IV antibiotics and fluids,” Drs. Alpesh Amin and Lisa Bardack said in the statement. “He remains at the hospital for continuous monitoring. After two days of treatment, his white blood cell count is trending down and he is responding to antibiotics well.”
“The California-based medical team has been in constant communication with the President’s New York-based medical team, including his cardiologist,” the statement continued. “We hope to have him go home soon.”
Clinton, 75, served as president from January 1993 to January 2001.
He won the race for governor of Arkansas in 1978 at just 32 years old, though he lost in his bid for a second term. He then served again as governor from 1983 to 1992, when he rallied to earn the Democratic nomination for president. He faced off against incumbent George H.W. Bush, defeating him comfortably to become the first Democrat in office since Jimmy Carter.
He cruised to the White House again in 1996, defeating Bob Dole and third-party candidate Ross Perot.
Much of his second term, however, was dominated by the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The salacious details of the president’s affair with the intern led to his impeachment in December 1998, but he was acquitted in the Senate.
Before President Donald Trump was impeached twice, Clinton was the last president to be impeached and only other president outside of Andrew Jackson to earn the ignominious vote.
(WASHINGTON) — First lady Jill Biden is hitting the campaign trail Friday, hoping to help deliver victories for Democrats in two gubernatorial elections.
Biden will travel to Virginia and New Jersey to campaign with former Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Gov. Phil Murphy in their respective states.
An incumbent Democratic governor hasn’t won reelection in New Jersey since the 1970s, but public polling indicates Murphy is better positioned heading into November than McAuliffe. Polls conducted in mid-September from Stockton University and Monmouth University showed Murphy with a nine-point and 13-point lead, respectively, over Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman.
While Virginians rejected former President Donald Trump at the ballot box twice and Democrats made significant gains in the commonwealth, including securing a trifecta government when he was in office, McAuliffe only has a slim 2.5-point lead over GOP nominee Glenn Youngkin, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average.
Despite the race tightening over the last few weeks, McAuliffe is confident Virginians will back his record and he’ll once again break the so-called “Virginia curse” of candidates losing Virginia’s off-year gubernatorial race if they have the same party affiliation as the current occupant of the White House.
“We’re gonna win this again and make history again with this,” McAuliffe told reporters Thursday. “I am the first candidate for office of either party in 80 years to win every single city and county (in the primary). … Why? I think a.) people were happy with my job as governor before and b.) because I have a real agenda.”
The first lady is not the only high-profile surrogate hitting the road for the two candidates — former President Barack Obama will also stump for both men next week.
Obama will hold back-to-back events in the states on Oct. 23, 10 days before Election Day and coinciding with the first day of in-person early voting in New Jersey’s history.
Georgia heavy-hitters Stacey Abrams and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who were both on the president’s shortlist for vice president, are also headed to Virginia on Sunday to campaign for McAuliffe.
After McAuliffe said during the last debate that he doesn’t “think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” the Youngkin campaign rallied around education as his closing message. Having the first lady, an educator who began her career in 1976, join McAuliffe on the trail could serve as an opportunity to speak to the issue and reassure parents who may be wary of his stance.
Biden, who currently works as an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College, has made education one of the top priorities in her role as first lady.
The first lady is not the first Biden to campaign for McAuliffe in the state — President Joe Biden also made a campaign stop on behalf of his longtime friend in July — though recent polling has shown Biden’s approval ratings in the state fall, leading McAuliffe to distance himself from the president.
“We are facing a lot of headwinds from Washington, as you know. The president is unpopular today unfortunately here in Virginia, so we have got to plow through,” McAuliffe said during a virtual rally last week. He’s also said he’s frustrated that Congress still hasn’t passed the infrastructure package, saying the “inaction on Capitol Hill … is so damaging.”
Despite the comments, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that she expected the president would continue to advocate for McAuliffe’s candidacy.
“I think the president of course wants former Governor McAuliffe to be the future governor of Virginia. There is alignment on a lot of their agenda, whether it is the need to invest in rebuilding our roads, rails and bridges or making it easier for women to rejoin the workforce,” Psaki told reporters.
“We’re going to do everything we can to help former Governor McAuliffe and we believe in the agenda he’s representing,” she added
And McAuliffe has since made clear that Biden is still welcome in Virginia, telling reporters Tuesday, “He’ll be coming back. You bet he will.”
More than four years after the arrival of his first EP, Ryan Hurd‘s first full-length album finally arrives today.
Though he’s previously written number-ones for Lady A, Luke Bryan, and Blake Shelton, the record features Ryan’s biggest hit as an artist so far, his nearly-top-five duet with his wife Maren Morris, “Chasing After You.”
And it’s titled… Pelago.
“It was called RH LP1 Sony Music Nashville for about three months,” Ryan laughs, perhaps hinting at some difficulty or delay in finding a name.
“Well, first of all, you have to ask me about it, so that’s a good thing,” he explains. “Second of all, I needed a word that rhymed with Chicago for my song ‘Coast,’ and I kind of used that as a placeholder thinking I made it up, and turns out, it’s actually a word in Italian and Latin that is actually what it sounds like.”
So Ryan’s unusual album title is actually a teaching moment.
“It’s a word that means ‘open sea,’ and it’s a word that means ‘overwhelming passion,'” he reveals. “So I thought that was just a really cool umbrella for all of these songs in this project.”
Physical copies and downloads of Pelago offer eleven new songs, all co-written by Ryan, save for “Chasing After You.” Streaming versions of the album also add four favorites, including “To a T” and “Diamonds or Twine.”
(NEW YORK) — A New York City police officer has been charged with murder and attempted murder Thursday for allegedly shooting two women, killing one, at a home in Brooklyn.
The officer, identified by police as Yvonne Wu, 31, who was off-duty at the time, is believed to have shot both women — one of whom she was dating — when they returned to the home where the officer’s girlfriend lived.
Police said the off-duty officer shot a 24-year-old woman in her chest, “possibly more than one time,” at the Bensonhurst home. The victim, identified as Jamie Liang, was taken to Maimonides Medical Center and was pronounced dead, police said.
The other woman, a 23-year-old, who was in the romantic relationship with the officer, was shot in the torso and is expected to survive, police said.
Wu is a police officer in the 72nd District, which encompasses the Park Slope and Sunset Park areas of Brooklyn.
She had worked for the NYPD for 5 1/2 years. Police said she was at a local hospital for evaluation.
“We believe it is domestic in nature. We believe all three parties knew each other,” Assistant Chief Michael Kemper, commanding officer of Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, said at a press conference Wednesday evening.
“We believe they had an intimate relationship,” he said of the officer and the 23-year-old woman.
Wu remained at the scene and told police she had shot the two women, according to police.
Police said they were still investigating, but recovered a gun on the scene and “there’s a very good chance it is her service weapon,” Kemper said.
“The whole incident is horrible, but these cops performed great, just heroically, and this is what NYPD cops come upon every single day,” Kemper said. “Is this an incident they would want to come upon? No. But unfortunately throughout their careers they come upon this.”
