Maitreyi Ramakrishnan says she’s still navigating the “pressures” and success of her hit coming-of-age series Never Have I Ever even in its second season.
“It’s funny when people say, ‘Oh, you’re a pro now. Season two you’re a pro,” Ramakrishnan tells ABC Audio. “But reality is… I still only have done a season… So there’s still a huge part of me that’s learning. Every day is a new day on set and I’m learning something that I didn’t know before. Whether it’s behind the camera or in front.”
While the series — which follows Ramakrishnan as Devi, a 15-year-old Indian-American girl looking to improve her social status — is still new for Maitreyi, some of her co-stars see the show as a rare opportunity to “embrace” their culture.
“[It’s] the character that I brought most of myself to,” says Poorna Jagannathan, who portrays Devi’s mom Dr. Nalini Vishwakumar. “There’s a sense of a continuous self. So who I am outside of the set is also who I am on set. And that’s the first time that I’ve experienced that fluidity, even though I’m not Nilini at all in real life.”
Richa Moorjani, who plays Devi’s cousin Kamala Nandiwadal agrees, noting that she too has been able to bring “most” of herself to Kamala without “feel[ing] like [Richa has] to change.”
“I didn’t have to hide away from my Indian-ness,” Moorjani explains. “That was just so rare and such a blessing for me as a South Asian actor. It’s just been an incredible experience.”
Jagannathan concurs, calling it a “privilege” to “immerse” herself into her character.
“I’ve never felt that before,” she says. “Now that I have it, I’m not going back.”
(NEW YORK) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 775 points — or 2.25% — early Monday, as renewed fears over the delta coronavirus variant cast a shadow on the economy’s post-pandemic recovery.
The S&P 500 was down some 1.9% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was down 1.6% shortly after markets opened. Monday’s sell-off comes on the heels of a record high for the S&P 500 approximately a week ago.
Some of the hardest-hit stocks include companies that would be impacted the most by new virus restrictions, including hotels, airlines and travel firms. Cruise liner Carnival Corp was down 7% in early trading and Boeing shed more than 5%.
The bloodbath also comes as the more-transmissible delta variant has become the dominant variant in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the delta variant has caused over half of all recent COVID-19 cases in the U.S.
Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions between China and the U.S. were also linked to stoking new anxieties among investors. On Monday, the U.S. and several allies joined forces to “expose and criticize” China for a “pattern of malicious cyber activities,” announcing that China is profiting off some of the cyberattacks it’s supported and accusing China of being behind the Microsoft Exchange server breach in March.
Finally, in another worrisome sign for equity markets, the yield on 10-year Treasury notes fell to its lowest levels in five months in a possible sign investors were seeking safe havens.
For the past week or so, there’s been an ongoing online debate about the opening lyric of Bruce Springsteen‘s 1975 classic, “Thunder Road.” But now, it appears that Bruce’s manager, Jon Landau, has solved the mystery.
It started when New York Times writer Maggie Haberman went to see Bruce’s Broadway show and tweeted, “A screen door slams, Mary’s dress sways.” Fans pounced, insisting that Haberman had it wrong: It’s “Mary’s dress waves.”
But fans who believe that the Boss sing “sways” jumped to Haberman’s defense, sparking a back-and-forth between the two camps, and even a Los Angeles Times article examining the issue and presenting evidence for both sides. For example, the lyric database on Springsteen’s official website, as well as the original lyrics printed on the album, say “waves,” but in handwritten lyric sheets from that period, and in Bruce’s autobiography Born to Run, the lyric is “sways.”
Reps for Springsteen wouldn’t comment, but Landau, who co-produced the Born to Run album in addition to managing the Boss for decades, has written a letter to The New Yorker, clarifying the issue.
“The word is ‘sways,’” Landau wrote. “That’s the way he wrote it in his original notebooks, that’s the way he sang it on Born to Run, in 1975, that’s the way he has always sung it at thousands of shows, and that’s the way he sings it right now on Broadway. Any typos in official Bruce material will be corrected.”
Landau added, “And, by the way, ‘dresses’ do not know how to ‘wave.’”
Poetry experts might argue that the best evidence for “sways” is the fact that it precedes the line, “Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.” “Sways” rhymes with “plays,” while “waves” does not.
Courtney Stodden clearly doesn’t have much sympathy for Chrissy Teigen‘s latest social media post about the consequences for her former penchant for cyberbullying.
The now non-binary Stodden posted a TikTok video of themself giggling, superimposed over screenshots of Teigen’s latest online post, in which she admits to being depressed for having been “cancelled” for her behavior.
“Just be nice,” is Stodden’s captioned reply.
As previously reported, Stodden was one of Teigen’s targets; the model and former reality show star revealed months ago that when they were 16, Teigen urged Stodden to kill themselves. Teigen has since apologized.
Last week, Teigen posted a lengthy message to her fans, which read in part, “I feel lost and need to find my place again, I need to snap out of this. I desperately wanna communicate with you guys instead of pretending everything is okay.”
Teigen also mentioned, “Going outside sucks and doesn’t feel right, being at home alone with my mind makes my depressed head race” — without noting that she’d just returned from a picturesque Italian vacation with her husband, John Legend, and their two children.
The controversy has cost Teigen endorsements and at least one acting role: a voice-over gig on Netlfix’s popular teen comedy Never Have I Ever.
(TOKYO) — A replacement athlete on the U.S. women’s artistic gymnastics team has tested positive for COVID-19, according to USA Gymnastics.
The gymnast tested positive on Sunday, USA Gymnastics said. She hasn’t been named but is a teenager, according to the Japanese city of Inzai, where the American women’s gymnastics team was training.
The infected gymnast and one other replacement athlete are following additional quarantine restrictions, USA Gymnastics said.
The Olympians moved Monday to different sleeping and training facilities as previously planned to continue their preparations, according to USA Gymnastics.
“The entire delegation continues to be vigilant and will maintain strict protocols while they are in Tokyo,” USA Gymnastics added.
ABC News’ Kate Hodgson contributed to this report.
(HOUSTON) — A 2-year-old child has been killed and their entire family has been left hanging on to life in critical condition after their car was struck by a driver going the wrong way on a freeway.
The incident occurred at approximately 3 a.m. on Sunday morning on the Eastex Freeway at North Loop 610 in Houston, Texas, when police say that a woman was driving south in the northbound lanes of the freeway when she collided with another vehicle containing a family of five, according to ABC News’ Houston station KTRK.
A 2-year-old child was killed in the accident and the mother, father and two other young children, whose ages and identities are not currently known, were immediately transported to a local area hospital where all of them remain in critical condition.
The wrong-way driver was also killed in the crash and police say it is unclear how long the woman had been driving in the wrong lane for or if there were any signs that she had been under the influence.
“A very tragic, a very dangerous scene,” a spokesperson from the Houston Police Department told KTRK in an interview following the accident. “We don’t know how long the person was traveling on the wrong side of the freeway. We will try to figure that out if we find any cameras or anything.”
Authorities also told KTRK that a police officer who just happened to be on the other side of the freeway at that time actually saw the driver headed the wrong way just before the crash happened but were unable to get to them in time to prevent the accident.
Sunday’s early morning crash was the second fatal wrong-way accident in just nine days, according to KTRK, after three people, including a 2-year-old boy as well as both drivers, were killed on the Westpark Tollway in an eerily similar collision involving a wrong-way driver in the early hours of the morning on July 9.
The investigation into the circumstances surrounding Sunday’s tragic accident is ongoing.
(TOKYO) — U.S. tennis star Cori “Coco” Gauff has been sidelined from the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for COVID-19, leaving the women’s singles squad to just three first-time Olympians for the red, white and blue.
Alison Riske, Jen Brady and Jessica Pegula spoke with “Good Morning America” moments after learning they would represent Team USA without Gauff before heading to the Summer games.
“Obviously she’s going to be disappointed. She’ll be sad. But, you know, she has so much potential to do great things in this sport. And I know she will,” Brady said. “Hopefully she recovers well and we’ll see her back out on the court soon. Back here in the States.”
Just days ahead of opening ceremonies and before traveling to Japan, the 17-year-old phenom who was meant to lead a 12-member squad tweeted, “It has always been a dream of mine to represent the USA at the Olympics, and I hope there will be many more chances for me to make this come true in the future.”
Riske, 31, added to her teammate’s sentiment saying she wants Guaff to know “she’ll be missed” and to “keep her head up. Focus on your health and make sure you’re feeling OK — We’ll see you on the court soon.”
The United States Tennis Association tweeted a statement in response to her announcement.
“We were saddened to learn that Coco Gauff has tested positive for COVID-19 and will therefore be unable to participate in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games,” USTA’s statement read. “The entire USA Tennis Olympic contingent is heartbroken for Coco. We wish her the best as she deals with this unfortunate situation and hope to see her back on the courts very soon.”
It is unclear if Gauff was fully vaccinated before testing positive for COVID.
All three Tokyo-bound singles competitors expect “nothing but good vibes,” Brady said. And Riske said she is “most excited about Opening Ceremonies.”
“We all earned our way onto the team. We all deserve to be here in the end. We’re just going to embrace I think,” Pegula said.
Brady added: “It’s going to be something that I’m going to remember the rest of my life. Proud of each and every one of us … let’s go represent the U.S.”
For the first time in 25 years, the tennis roster for the U.S. will be missing another set of marquee names with both Serena and Venus Williams sitting out.
“These are the girls we compete against every single week of the year — and doing it against exact same people we are doing it against at the Olympics. And I think that’s an advantage for us,” Riske said.
While Americans have racked up 24 Olympic medals in tennis since 1988, Riske said “just to bring medals back would be amazing.”
While Guaff is the highest-profile athlete to test positive from Team USA, others from around the world including two South African soccer players, as well as a rugby coach have also come into contact with COVID-19. A group of eight British gymnasts are isolating after a case was detected on their flight.
The threat of coming into contact with or testing positive for the virus has loomed large over the Olympic athletes.
If a test is confirmed, the athlete faces immediate quarantine for up to 14 days and forfeit any chance of competing in the games.
To ensure Team USA gymnastics has enough replacements, the athletes have all been separated for safety reasons.
(VAN HORN, Texas) — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is set to launch to the edge of space on Tuesday, fulfilling a lifelong dream and ushering in a new era of space tourism via the first crewed flight from his private space-faring firm Blue Origin.
The billionaire, who stepped down as Amazon CEO earlier this month, opened up about the historic spaceflight in an interview with ABC News’ “Good Morning America” on Monday.
“I have just been dreaming of this really my whole life, but I don’t know what it’s going to mean for me,” Bezos told ABC News’ Michael Strahan. “I don’t know, I’m very curious about what tomorrow is actually going to bring. Everybody who’s been to space says it changes them in some way. And I’m just really excited to figure out how it’s going to change me.”
“People say they see the thin limb of the Earth’s atmosphere, it teaches them how fragile and precious the planet is, how there are there no boundaries,” Bezos added. “I don’t know what it’s going to do but I’m excited to find out.”
Bezos will be joined on the historic journey by his brother, Mark Bezos. The other members of the crew include 82-year old Wally Funk, a pioneering female pilot whose dreams of being an astronaut in the 60s were deferred, and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen, a student from the Netherlands. Funk and Daemen are set to become the oldest and youngest people ever to go to space.
Funk told “GMA” that she trained not only in the U.S., but also with Russian cosmonauts during the original U.S.-Soviet Space Race era.
“About about two or three weeks after my training … I was told that I did better than the men,” she said. At the time, however, women were not being sent into space.
Bezos quipped that she is still “doing better than the men” when it comes to astronaut training. “She can outrun all of us, she’s 82-years-old and she can outrun all of us,” he said.
Daemon, meanwhile, said he hopes to set an example for other young people curious about space travel, but admitted it still feels surreal.
“I don’t think I’ve realized yet how special it is to become the youngest person ever, and it’s such an opportunity for me to do that,” he told Strahan. “And also to be an example for other kids.”
“It’s so amazing for me to go, I still can’t believe it,” the teen added.
With the launch less than one day away, Bezos said he is excited but not nervous, citing the successful test flights. He chose the date because it is the 52nd anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s moon landing on July 20, 1969.
The inaugural crewed flight for Blue Origin is set to launch Tuesday morning from west Texas. In total, the flight is only about 11 minutes, and approximately four minutes will be spent above the so-called Karman line that is defined by some as the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
Bezos said the goal is ultimately to pave the way for future astronauts and make visits to space as commonplace as flying on a commercial jetliner.
“What we’re hoping to do is to build the road to space for the future generations,” Bezos said, adding that Blue Origin’s goal has been to make reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft that make space less costly and more accessible for all.
“If we can get to that stage, then the things that the next generations will figure out how to do in space, how to benefit Earth with all those things in space … that’ll be amazing to see, so that’s the real goal,” he said.
Bezos’ flight comes on the heels of a brief, successful spaceflight from Sir Richard Branson’s firm Virgin Galactic earlier this month. The back-to-back missions are seen as ushering in a new era of space tourism that has been propelled by an emerging, billionaire-backed commercial space industry.
The modern space race from the ultra-wealthy comes at a time, however, when the pandemic has only deepened the divide between the haves and have-nots — meaning not everyone is rooting for the billionaires heading to space the way Americans got behind astronauts in the Apollo era. A Change.org petition calling for Bezos to stay in space has garnered headlines and more than 150,000 signatures.
(WASHINGTON) — The United States, several allies and partners and NATO are joining forces to “expose and criticize” China for a “pattern of malicious cyber activities,” announcing on Monday that China is profiting off some of the cyberattacks it’s supported, and officially saying it was behind the Microsoft Exchange server breach in March.
“We will show how the PRC [People’s Republic of China] MSS, Ministry of State Security, uses criminal contract hackers to conduct unsanctioned cyber operations globally, including for their own personal profit,” senior administration officials said on a call with reporters Sunday night. “Their operations include criminal activities such as cyber-enabled extortion, cryptojacking and theft of victims around the world for financial gain.
Officials said they also know of some “government-affiliated cyber operators conducting ransomware operations against private companies that have included ransom demands of millions of dollars.”
Senior officials said they found the MSS-affiliated ransomware attacks to be “surprising” and gave them “new insights” into how the MSS operates and the “aggressive behavior” coming out of China.
Asked how the tactics from the Chinese differ from similar attacks they see coming out of Russia, senior officials said they sometimes see “some connection” between Russian intelligence services and individuals, but “the MSS use of criminal contract hackers to conduct unsanctioned cyber operations globally is distinct.”
Joining the U.S. in this public announcement is the European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and NATO. It’s the first time NATO has condemned Chinese cyber activities.
The FBI, NSA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released a list Monday of tactics, procedures and techniques used by Chinese state-sponsored cyber actors.
Among the trends, officials say these actors are “using a revolving series of virtual private servers (VPSs) and common open-source or commercial penetration tools.” They are also accused of looking for ways to exploit vulnerabilities in major applications, like “Pulse Secure, Apache, F5 Big-IP, and Microsoft products.”
The advisory also states that they are using a “full array of tactics and techniques to exploit computer networks of interest worldwide and to acquire sensitive intellectual property, economic, political, and military information.”
“Countries around the world are making it clear that concerns regarding the PRC malicious cyber activity is bringing them together to call out those activities, promote network defense in cybersecurity, and act to disrupt threat to our economies and national security,” a senior administration official said.
The group will also formally attribute the Microsoft Exchange server cyberattack in March to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) “with high confidence.”
Asked what caused the delay for the U.S. to officially point to China for that attack, a senior administration official said they wanted to work with allies and partners because victims of this attack were not just in the U.S.
Officials said they have raised these incidents with senior Chinese government officials and “are not ruling out further actions to hold the PRC accountable,” adding that their actions “threaten security, confidence and stability in cyberspace.”
(TULSA, Oklahoma) — A woman who was on the run for allegedly being an accessory to a murder in March has been arrested after commenting on the police department’s Facebook post asking about her reward money.
The strange ordeal began last Wednesday when the Tulsa Police Department in Oklahoma posted a couple of images of Lorraine Graves on Facebook as part of their “Weekly Most Wanted” campaign.
“The Tulsa Police Department is looking for information about the whereabouts of Lorraine Graves,” the post read. “Lorraine Graves is charged with Accessory to Murder. Detectives say she was involved in the city’s 10th homicide of 2021 where Eric Graves was shot and killed at the St. Thomas Square Apartments.”
Not long after the post went up, authorities saw a familiar name in the comments section: Lorraine Graves.
“Where’s the reward money at,” Lorraine Graves can be seen posting after she saw that she was on the “Weekly Most Wanted” list, on a screen shot shared by the Tulsa Police Department.
Her comment, perhaps unsurprisingly, sparked a lot of reaction on social media.
“Giiiiirl you better stay off social media they can track you !!” one person commented.
“Aint gonna be as funny when you get processed,” said another in an image shared by the Tulsa Police Department.
Graves was subsequently arrested the next day at approximately 4:30 p.m. after detectives with the Tulsa Police Department’s Fugitive Warrant’s unit were able to track her down in a home in north Tulsa.
The two other suspects allegedly involved in the murder of Eric Graves — Jayden and Gabriel Hopson — have been charged with murder and are already being held in police custody.
Authorities did not disclose the relationship between Eric and Lorraine Graves but did confirm that she has now been charged with Accessory to Murder and her bond has been set at $500,000.
