(NOTE LANGUAGE) When the Real Housewives of Potomac taped their season six reunion special on Thursday, a superstar housewife from New York City was a surprise guest: Nicki Minaj!
In May, Pink Barbie had requested to host the show. and executive producer/host Andy Cohen responded at the time, “I want to see this.”
“GUESS WHO B***S?!!!!! #Andiconda #RHOP REUNION COMING SOON ON @BRAVOTV @bravoandy #Moment4Life yall better binge watch this season chile,” Nicki captioned three Instagram photos of her on the set with Cohen.
Andy commented, “It’s the Reunion I could never get away with! At the end of ours, tonight @nickiminaj surprised the #RHOP and did her own thing! #AndyConda.”
RHOP cast members were thrilled to see the “Motorsport’ rapper in da house.”Yesssssss!!!!!” Gizelle Bryant wrote, while Karen Huger added “All right now” and Robyn Dixon shared a series of emojis. Wendy Osefo commented, “Yessssss Queen.”
Nicki Minaj just celebrated the first birthday of her baby boy she calls Papa Bear with a huge party, and she was amazed by the gifts from her mentor, LilWayne, as well as presents from Diddy.
Last week, Wayne celebrated his 39th birthday in Miami, and surprisingly, Nicki wasn’t invited. Young Money Entertainment president Mack Maine quickly apologized for what he said was an oversight.
Minaj is also excited about her hew collabo with former Little Mix member, Jesy Nelson. She is featured on Nelson’s debut solo single, “Boyz,” which dropped Friday and includes a sample of Diddy’s “Bad Boy 4 Life.”
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that provides financial assistance and better health care to victims of “Havana syndrome,” the mysterious health incidents affecting dozens of U.S. personnel first identified in Cuba and now including several countries.
After a closed-door signing ceremony, Biden said in a statement that his administration is marshalling the U.S. government’s “full resources” to care for victims and “to get to the bottom of these incidents, including to determine the cause and who is responsible” — a mystery that has confounded U.S. officials for nearly five years now.
The HAVANA Act authorizes the CIA director and the secretary of state to provide affected employees with financial support for brain injuries under detailed criteria. It also requires both agencies to report to Congress on how those payments are being made and whether additional action is needed to aid victims.
Several affected personnel have complained privately, and in some cases publicly, that they have not been able to access proper medical care — in some cases questioning whether the U.S. government believes they are injured.
“For far too long, U.S. public servants and their loved ones who’ve suffered from directed energy attacks have been denied the care they need and deserve. That’s unacceptable,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., one of the law’s co-authors who has advocated for victims for years. Its enactment will help “by removing barriers to critical medical attention and paving the way for personnel with brain injuries to recover,” she added.
American diplomats, spies and other officials have reported strange experiences and debilitating symptoms in several countries now. Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, cognitive difficulties, tinnitus, vertigo and trouble with seeing, hearing, or balancing. Many officials have suffered symptoms years after reporting an incident while some have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries.
In some cases, especially those first reported in Cuba in late 2016 and throughout 2017, U.S. officials described intense feelings of pressure or vibration and, at times, a screeching or chirping sound.
It’s unclear how many U.S. officials have confirmed medical symptoms, but new cases have been allegedly reported in several more countries in recent weeks, including India, Serbia and Germany. One reported incident in Vietnam delayed Vice President Kamala Harris’s trip there in August. Beyond more than 40 affected staffers in Cuba, the U.S. government has officially acknowledged reported incidents in China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Austria and the United States, although the White House said the vast majority have been reported overseas.
“Addressing these incidents has been a top priority for my Administration. We are bringing to bear the full resources of the U.S. Government to make available first-class medical care to those affected and to get to the bottom of these incidents, including to determine the cause and who is responsible,” Biden said in his statement Friday.
His National Security Council is leading a government-wide probe, while both the CIA and the State Department have their own internal task forces to coordinate their responses, too.
Many victims of “Havana syndrome,” which the U.S. government now refers to as “anomalous health incidents,” have struggled for years to get the health care they seek. Many others, including State Department officials who haven’t been affected, have been frustrated by the Trump and Biden administrations’ lack of information about reported cases — instead often learning about reported incidents in the press.
In his first note to all staff about the issue in August, Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged the administration “can and will do a better job keeping you informed of our efforts to get answers, support those affected, and protect our people,” according to the note, obtained first by ABC News.
But the lack of information stems in part from how little the U.S. government knows about what was once referred to as “health attacks,” including what is causing them.
Last December, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine issued a report that concluded that “directed, pulsed radio frequency energy appears to be the most plausible mechanism in explaining these cases, especially in individuals with the distinct early symptoms.”
CIA Director Bill Burns, who has met with his agency’s affected personnel and escalated efforts to solve this mystery, has boosted that finding as well — telling NPR in July there’s “certainly a very strong possibility” that some actor is behind the incidents.
But last week, the State Department declassified a secret 2018 report that cast doubt on that theory in some corners. Conducted by JASON, an independent scientific advisory group created during the Cold War to consult the U.S. government on defense science and technology, it concluded that radio or microwave energy could not produce the sound recorded by some U.S. diplomats in Cuba and their reported medical symptoms.
Instead, it said, the sounds were “mechanical or biological in origin, rather than electronic. The most likely source is the Indies short-tailed cricket, Anurogryllis celerinictus.”
But a senior administration official told BuzzFeed News, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the JASON report and first reported on it, that its findings are “not aligned with the Biden-Harris administration’s understanding of AHI (anomalous health incidents) and it has not informed our response.”
Either way, the report — written before incidents were reported in several other countries — determined that the sounds themselves were not injuring diplomats and could instead have been “introduced by an adversary as deception so as to mask an entirely unrelated mode of causing illness in diplomatic personnel.”
ABC News’s Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 710,000 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 65.8% 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 08, 1:50 pm
CDC committee to meet on Moderna, J&J boosters
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent advisory committee plans to meet on Oct. 20 and Oct. 21 to discuss the Moderna and Johnson &Johnson vaccine boosters. This will follow the Food and Drug Administration’s independent advisers who are set to meet and vote on boosters on Oct. 14 and Oct. 15.
That means Moderna and J&J boosters could be authorized, recommended and available as soon as Oct. 22.
The CDC committee is also set to meet on Nov. 2 and Nov. 3 to discuss pediatric vaccinations.
-ABC News’ Eric M. Strauss
Oct 08, 12:32 pm
LSU ends COVID protocols for football games
Louisiana State University said Friday that fans at its football games will no longer need to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test beginning with the Oct. 16 game.
LSU said the change is due to a “consistent and significant decline in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations across the state of Louisiana and in the Baton Rouge area.”
Masks will still be required for all attendees.
Oct 08, 8:13 am
Former CDC head ‘cautiously optimistic’ about vaccines for kids
Dr. Richard Besser, a pediatrician and former acting director of the CDC, told “Good Morning America” Friday that he’s “cautiously optimistic” about vaccine approval for young children, adding that he’ll be closely watching the reviews by the FDA and CDC.
“Thankfully children have been impacted by COVID less severely than adults and I want to make sure, as a pediatrician, before I recommend this to my patients, I’m convinced that it’s safe and it’s effective,” Besser said. “The information I’ve seen so far gives me a lot of hope.”
The Florida Board of Education has authorized the state’s education commissioner to sanction the board members of eight school districts that have continued to require masks for students in defiance of state rules.
In the latest development in the state’s battle over mask mandates, board members in Florida’s largest districts — Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward — as well as Alachua, Brevard, Duval, Leon and Orange will have their salaries withheld following Thursday’s vote, officials said.
“For nearly two months now, these school districts have barred from the school house doors thousands of children, many of whom have significant disabilities or health-related reasons that prevent them from learning with a face mask on,” Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran said in a statement.
Corcoran also slammed the Broward and Alachua districts, which were previously sanctioned in August and September, for accepting funds from the Biden administration to make up for lost paychecks, calling it “political bailouts from federal co-conspirators.”
(CAPITOL HEIGHTS, Md.) — Two victims are dead following a shooting at a senior living facility in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Friday morning, police said.
The suspect has been taken into custody without incident, Prince George’s County police said.
The scene at National Church Residences – Gateway Village has been secured, police said, adding that there’s no ongoing threat to community.
“We heard a ‘pow’ … I looked and I saw his hand go up and he shot twice. And I just ran,” one woman told ABC Washington, D.C., affiliate WJLA. “I’m nervous now ’cause my mother-in-law is still in the building on lockdown.”
One victim was found in a corridor and the other was recovered in an office, police said.
The suspect and victims have not been identified.
As of Thursday night, Prince George’s County surpassed 100 homicides for the year.
(ELLICOTT CITY, Md.) — A Maryland man has been charged with allegedly killing his brother, a pharmacist, after going to confront him about “the government poisoning people with COVID vaccines,” according to court documents.
Jeffrey Burnham allegedly killed his sister-in-law, another woman and his brother, who administered vaccines, saying he was “killing people,” according to charging documents filed in Howard County, Maryland.
Burnham went to the Ellicott City, Maryland, home of his brother, Brian Robinette, and sister-in-law, Kelly Robinette, who were later found dead of apparent gunshot wounds on Sept. 30, authorities allege.
Burnham wanted to confront his brother about the vaccine and said that “Brian knows something!,” according to investigators.
He took off in his brother’s Corvette, authorities said, and was pursued when the vehicle’s EZ Pass was used and a tipster alerted authorities of seeing him. Burham was arrested in West Virginia and extradited back to Maryland on Tuesday.
Police also believe that Burham may have killed one elderly woman, Rebecca Reynolds, in Cumberland, Maryland, before taking her car and traveling to the home of his brother. Reynolds was found with a deep laceration to her throat inside her home, according to ABC News affiliate WMAR.
Burham has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and use of a handgun in Howard County, Maryland. He was also charged with first degree murder and car theft in Allegany County, Maryland.
Burnham has not pleaded to the charges. His attorney did not not immediately respond to request for comment.
Primus has postponed a trio of dates on the band’s ongoing A Tribute to Kings Rush tribute tour due to a “confirmed COVID-19 case within the Primus touring party.”
Affected dates include tonight, October 8, in Milwaukee, October 9 in Kansas City, Missouri, and October 10 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
“The safety of our fans, crew, venue staff and band are our top priority so out of an abundance of caution, we are postponing our shows in Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Cedar Rapids this weekend,” Primus says. “We are working to reschedule the dates and your tickets will be valid at the new dates.”
The tour is expected to pick back up October 13 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Primus first scheduled the A Tribute to Kings tour for 2020 before it was postponed due to the pandemic. The outing features the “My Name Is Mud” rockers performing Rush’s 1977 album A Farewell to Kings in full.
(NEW YORK) — Google is cracking down on ads that deny climate change science after advertisers and digital creators complained about them running alongside their own content.
The company also said it’s no longer going to allow content with false claims about climate change to be monetized, and that the new policy also applies to YouTube, likely part of a larger effort to curb the spread of misinformation.
The move, announced in a company blogpost late Thursday, comes amid mounting public pressure on the private sector to take action on climate change.
It also comes in the wake of a recent report from a United Nations panel — U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called it a “code red for humanity” — that warned of dire consequences should immediate action not be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content,” the blogpost stated. “And publishers and creators don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos.”
The new monetization policy for advertisers, publishers and YouTube creators will “prohibit ads for, and monetization of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change,” the blogpost added.
This includes content that refers to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims that deny that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims that deny that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change, according to the company.
“When evaluating content against this new policy, we’ll look carefully at the context in which claims are made, differentiating between content that states a false claim as fact, versus content that reports on or discusses that claim,” the blogpost added. “We will also continue to allow ads and monetization on other climate-related topics, including public debates on climate policy, the varying impacts of climate change, new research and more.”
Google said it consulted experts who have contributed to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports when creating the new policy.
Consumers and shareholders have been putting more pressure on firms to address climate change as scientists and activists ring alarm bells. “Industry” accounted for a whopping 23% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, behind only transportation (29%) and electricity production (25%) — data many advocates have said highlights the need for large-scale industry changes rather than the onus to tackle climate change falling on individuals.
Climate activist organizations welcomed Google’s new policy, but highlighted that there’s still much more to do.
“Good news but nowhere near good enough,” Greenpeace said in Tweet responding to the Google news. “It’s time to take the microphone away from big polluters and their slick propaganda, and get on with the real climate action that we so desperately need.”
If you’re a LEGO fan, the Danish company has just dropped the gauntlet: a 9,090-piece, four-and-a-half-foot long, 1:200 scale model of the HMS Titanic.
Available in November, it’s the largest set the company has ever assembled, and for $630, you get your money’s worth.
The massive ship is hyper-detailed: once assembled, it can be separated into segments safely — not like that iceberg did — so that its inner workings, and Titanic‘s famous features like its grand staircase, can be revealed.
Once built, the ship splits into three parts, giving builders a cross-section view of the ship, including the various travel class compartments, Titanic‘s massive boiler room, and more. The model features working cargo cranes and piston-driven engines, as well as tensioners that tighten the lines between its massive masts.
Other features include lifeboats — gonna need those — as well as swimming pools, a working anchor, and a stand and nameplate to display in front of your magnum opus.
Not included, however, are any LEGO Minifigures of Jack and Rose from James Cameron‘s Titanic — or any figures, for that matter, as the scale of the traditional LEGO people wouldn’t sync with the size of the ship.
By the numbers, the 9,090-piece HMS Titanic model edges out LEGO’s previous record holder, its 9,036-piece Roman Coliseum set.
(MONTREAL) — A mom who went viral while sharing her battle with ovarian cancer on social media has died.
Dr. Nadia Chaudhri, 43, died on Oct. 5, according to Concordia University, where she worked as a neuroscientist and professor.
“Nadia was a force of nature,” Concordia president Graham Carr said in a statement. “She was an incredibly talented researcher with a passion for teaching and student success matched only by her commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Chaudhri, of Montreal, Canada, battled stage 3 ovarian cancer for the past year, undergoing a hysterectomy and several rounds of chemotherapy.
She gained more than 148,000 followers on Twitter during her cancer battle, which she bravely shared publicly.
@DrNadiaChaudhri passed away yesterday evening, having reached the end of her road with ovarian cancer. She leaves behind her Sun and Moon, a loving extended family, colleagues and students, friends around the world, and so many others who have been touched by her & her story 1/n pic.twitter.com/qf1q0Bfbj1
In May, when Chaudhri learned the cancer had returned, she shared on social media what it was like to tell her 6-year-old son that she was dying. On social media, she called her husband and son her Moon and Sun.
“My husband and I made the decision that we needed to tell our son what is going on because all the treatments are failing me,” she told “Good Morning America” at the time. “He already knew that I had cancer. He knew that I was still taking chemotherapy medication and trying to get better, but I don’t think he had a sense of how bad it is.”
Our hearts broke. We cried a lot. And then the healing began. My son is brave. He is bright. He will be okay. And I will watch him grow from wherever I am. Today was the hardest day of my life. Thank you for all for your love. pic.twitter.com/sCZFW9d8T5
— Dr. Nadia Chaudhri (@DrNadiaChaudhri) May 11, 2021
Several months later, in September, Chaudhri went viral again with a series of tweets detailing the many months it took for her to get a diagnosis of ovarian cancer and what she wanted other women to know.
“Know your bodies,” Chaudhri urged women. “Pay attention to fatigue and changes in bowel/urinary tract movements. Make sure you understand all the words on a medical report. Do not dismiss your pain or malaise. Find the expert doctors.”
As Chaudhri gained followers on social media, she used her platform to educate people on ovarian cancer and the work and causes near to her heart.
Chaudhri, who moved from Pakistan to the U.S. at age 17 to attend college, raised money to allow young scientists to be able to continue the research she was doing on drug addiction.
She also turned her frustration with not being able to work into an opportunity to raise money for underrepresented scholars in her field.
Her efforts raised more than $600,000 and became the Nadia Chaudhri Wingspan Award at Concordia University, an annual scholarship to “support the training of neuroscientists from underrepresented backgrounds and honor Nadia Chaudhri’s legacy of academic achievement and mentorship,” according to the university.
In one of the songs on his Born Here Live Here Die Here album, Luke Bryan pays homage to world-renowned angler and TV show host Bill Dance.
Now, in honor of the legendary fisherman’s 81st birthday, Luke has dropped a music video to further share Bill’s influence on his life and love of fishing.
The clip for “Bill Dance,” which was shot on Luke’s own Tennessee farm, makes clear that fishing is a family affair. The singer’s sons Bo and Tate even make an appearance. At the beginning of the clip, the two boys are sitting on a couch watching Bill fish on TV when Bill himself walks through the door and takes them out on the water for a real fishing trip.
The video marks Luke’s first time co-directing one of his music videos. Also sitting in the director’s chair was Michael Monaco, who directed and executive produced the singer’s new docuseries, Luke Bryan: My Dirt Road Diary.