Shakira revealed she was the victim of a mugging in Spain — but the culprit isn’t whom you might suspect.
On her Instagram Story this week, the singer said she was strolling through a Barcelona, Spain park with her eight-year-old son, Milan, when a couple of hungry wild boars stole her purse!
“Look at how two wild boar which attacked me in the park have left my bag,” she said in the video according to the BBC, showing off her ravaged belongings.
“They were taking my bag to the woods with my mobile phone in it,” she added. “They’ve destroyed everything.”
“Milan, tell the truth,” Shakira said to her son. “Say how your mummy stood up to the wild boar.”
Apparently, wild boars have become an increasing problem in Europe. According to the BBC, in 2016, Spanish police received 1,187 phone calls about wild boars attacking dogs and running into traffic.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of his founding of Lucasfilm, Hasbro has immortalized Star Wars creator George Lucas as part of its hyper-detailed Hasbro Black Series line of collectables.
The six-inch figure shows the legendary filmmaker “in disguise” in the iconic white armor of an Imperial Stormtrooper. His white hair and beard can be covered by a removable helmet, and he also comes with a standard-issue Imperial blaster to complete the ensemble.
Although the toy tribute to Lucas doesn’t come out until 2022, it’s already sold out.
This isn’t the first time The Maker was idolized in plastic. In 2002, he was envisioned as a Rebel X-Wing pilot named Jorg Sacul — the surname an anagram of Lucas — which was a limited-edition figure initially sold only at the second Star Wars Celebration expo in Anaheim, California. It now fetches a pretty penny on eBay. Eventually, the exclusive figure was mass-marketed, and the non-Celebration version can be bought at retailers like Walmart.
Lucas was previously turned into a Stormtrooper back in 2006, initially as part of a mail-away offer. That version, too, is prized by collectors.
On Friday at noon, MTV will premiere “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” the latest video from Lady Gaga‘s new album of duets with Tony Bennett, Love for Sale.
The video will be available on MTV, MTV Live and MTVU, and will also be shown on a video billboard in New York’s Times Square: fitting for two artists who both call New York their home.
Love for Sale, a collection of standards written by the legendary Cole Porter, arrives Friday. In the trailer for the album, Gaga jokes that she literally has Tony Bennett “under her skin” — because she has a tattoo of one of his sketches on her arm, with his signature tattooed underneath it.
Meanwhile, Lady Gaga’s new Love for Sale eye shadow palette is now available. It has 18 colors, all named after either the songs on the album or, as Gaga explains, “female jazz icons who I’ve always looked up to.”
Well, maybe not, but it might as well after the Red Hot Chili Peppers earned a whole bunch of new RIAA certifications this week.
Songs including “Dark Necessities,” “The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie” and “Tell Me Baby” are now all officially Platinum singles. Additionally, the tracks “Scar Tissue,” “Dani California,” “Californication,” “Snow (Hey Oh),” “Otherside” and “Can’t Stop” extend their multi-Platinum totals.
A few RHCP albums also got in on the fun: Californication and Stadium Arcadium are now seven and four-times Platinum, respectively, while the most recent Peppers record, 2016’s The Getaway, has been certified Gold.
The new RIAA distinctions come amid an eventful week for the Peppers. Last Friday, they announced plans for a 2022 world tour, marking their first full outing since longtime guitarist John Frusciante rejoined the band at the end of 2019. The news arrived on the 30th anniversary of RHCP’s hit 1991 album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik.
The Addams Family 2 opens on Friday, and this time, everyone’s favorite spooky family is taking it on the road.
The sequel to the 2019 CGI-animated comedy finds the clan on a road trip while dealing with teenage angst and young love. It’s a time-honored tradition, and Nick Kroll, who voices Fester, has fond memories of his.
“I don’t know if anyone else can relate to your dad putting his hand into the back seat to grab a knee when he’s heard me do annoying voices for hour number five,” he recalls. “Little did he know that I would figure out a way to monetize those annoying voices into a career…now I grab his leg very, very, very hard.”
It’s a familiar scenario but with a super-weird twist, which is one of the reasons, director Conrad Vernon tells ABC Audio, that The Addams Family has endured for decades.
“There is a relatability to them…they run into the same problems and the same internal conflicts that any family might have. But they handle it…in a really kind of creepy way. And I think people kind of like to be creeped out every once in a while.”
One familiar situation to which people can relate is the difficulty Wednesday Addams — voiced by Chloë Grace Moretz — has relating to her clan. However, Vernon says it gets a twist when viewed through the Addams Family lens.
“You realize that when you’re hanging out with a family and you’re so much like them, you want to separate yourself from that,” he suggests. “And that separation, it can get sticky. And I think that that’s something that, you know, every teenager can relate to. But…Wednesday Addams does it [in a] very interesting and creepy and funny way.
AC/DC‘s new “Through the Mists of Time” video certainly lives up to its name.
The clip opens up on an ancient Greek, Parthenon-type building filled with legendary paintings such as the Mona Lisa. Being that this is a rock video for one of the hardest rocking bands on the planet, the museum is filled with amps that shoot electricity through Leonardo da Vinci‘s masterpiece.
Towards the middle, the video transitions into a history of AC/DC themselves, showcasing all sorts of archival photos and videos. There’s a particular focus on late members Malcolm Young and Bon Scott, who passed away in 2017 and 1980, respectively.
The video ends with a Sistine Chapel-esque painting of AC/DC rocking out on the ceiling.
You can watch the “Through the Mists of Time” video streaming now on YouTube.
”Through the Mists of Time” appears on AC/DC’s comeback album Power Up, which was released last November. It reunites the surviving members of the band’s classic Back in Black lineup, and is dedicated to Malcolm.
Lars Niki/Getty Images for New York Women in Film & Television
Wendy Williams will not be returning to her purple chair on Monday, October 4 as planned.
In a statement posted on Instagram Thursday morning, The Wendy Williams Show announced that due to Wendy’s ongoing health issues, the season 13 premiere date has once again been pushed back.
“Wendy will not be returning with new shows on Oct. 4,” the message begins. “She has been and continues to be under a doctor’s care and is still not ready to return to work.”
The statement reveals that the new season will now premiere two weeks later on Monday, October 18.
The rescheduled premiere date comes less than two days after The Wendy Williams Show released a promotional video stating that “the wait is over” and new episodes would start on Monday. However, the premiere had already been pushed back from its September 20 premiere due to Williams’ numerous health issues, which included testing positive for a breakthrough case of COVID-19.
While the statement notes that Williams COVID-19 diagnosis “is no longer an issue” because she’s tested negative, it adds that Wendy is “still dealing with some ongoing medical issues.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate was set to vote Thursday on a deal party leaders reached late Wednesday to avert a government shutdown that would have affected hundreds of thousands of federal workers and slammed an economy still struggling to recover from the pandemic, all this with just hours left to stave off a crisis.
Under the deal, announced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, senators are expected to dispense with a handful of Republican amendments and then approve a temporary funding bill that not only averts a shutdown until Dec. 3, but also disaster aid for states ravaged by extreme weather and money to further assist Afghan refugees.
“The last thing the apparent American people need is for the government to grind to a halt,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday morning.
The stopgap measure does not include any provision to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, though, after Republicans steadfastly rejected any attempt to include it.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued to insist that his conference will not help raise the borrowing limit — or even expedite Democrats’ ability to do so alone – citing concerns about the majority party’s intention to pass trillions in new spending for social and climate policy. This, despite a debt ceiling increase paying for past, bipartisan debt.
“What Republicans laid out all along was a clean continuing resolution without the poison pill of a debt limit increase,” McConnell said. “That’s exactly what we’ll pass today.”
He said Democrats “accepted reality,” putting forward a “clean” continuing resolution to fund the government, and that “the same thing will need to happen on the debt limit.”
Schumer said Republicans realized a shutdown would be “catastrophic” and “they should realize that a default on the national debt would be even worse.”
He said the GOP have spent the week “solidifying themselves as the party of default.”
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noted the irony of Republicans refusing to raise the borrowing limit but then voting to approve billions in new spending.
“If there’s no money in the Treasury to pay for these items — what’s the point?” Leahy asked.
McConnell, for his part, condemned Democrats for not including $1 billion in funding for Israel’s anti-missile Iron Dome system. Democrats in the House balked at funding, and the measure was stripped out in that chamber. But a majority of Democrats in both chambers have said they intend to pass the funding for a key U.S. ally at a later date.
The stopgap funding measure, once passed in the Senate, heads back to the House where it is expected to be swiftly approved. Then it hits President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature, just hours before the government technically runs out of money at the end of the day Thursday.
These things always take much longer than is expected, and with just hours before the midnight deadline, it does remain possible that lawmakers will miss that time limit but not by any great length of time.
The Rolling Stones have released a second advance track from the upcoming expanded 40th anniversary reissue of the band’s hit 1981 album, Tattoo You: a cover of the 1970 Chi-Lites song “Troubles A’ Comin.”
The soulful tune is one of nine previously unreleased tracks that will appear on the Lost & Found: Rarities bonus disc of the deluxe collection, which is due out on October 22. The Stones’ rendition of “Troubles A’ Comin” was recorded in Paris in 1979.
The track is available now via digital formats, and a companion lyric video for the tune has debuted at The Rolling Stones’ official YouTube channel.
The clip features animated graphic elements from the Tattoo You cover and other associated artwork, as well as photos of the band members from that period.
The Rolling Stones performed “Troubles A’ Comin” at the private tour warmup show they played at Massachusetts’ Gillette Stadium on September 22, and the song likely will be included in some sets during the trek.
The first advance track released from the Tattoo You reissue was a previously unheard original sing called “Living in the Heart of Love” that also will be part of the Lost & Found: Rarities disc.
Meanwhile, after launching the 2021 U.S. leg of their No Filter Tour in St. Louis on Sunday, The Stones are scheduled to play the second show of the outing tonight in Charlotte, North Carolina.
(ATLANTA) — Pregnant people and people who were recently pregnant or are trying to get pregnant need to prioritize getting vaccinated against COVID-19, according to an “urgent health advisory” released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Currently, only 31% of pregnant people in the U.S. have been vaccinated against the virus, and that number drops down to 15% for Black pregnant people, according to the CDC.
At the same time, more and more pregnant people are being hospitalized due to COVID-19, which causes a two-fold risk of admission into intensive care and a 70% increased risk of death for pregnant people, the agency said.
Amid a COVID-19 surge in the U.S. brought on by the more contagious delta variant, nearly two dozen pregnant people died due to the virus in August alone, according to the CDC.
Since the start of the pandemic, the CDC reports there have been more than 125,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in pregnant people, including more than 22,000 hospitalizations and 161 deaths.
“Pregnancy can be both a special time and also a stressful time – and pregnancy during a pandemic is an added concern for families,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a statement. “I strongly encourage those who are pregnant or considering pregnancy to talk with their healthcare provider about the protective benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine to keep their babies and themselves safe.”
In August, the CDC strengthened its recommendation for COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy, citing new evidence of safety with the vaccines.
The nation’s two leading health organizations focused on the care of pregnant people — American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) — also issued new guidelines calling on all pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Here is what pregnant and breastfeeding people may want to know about the COVID-19 vaccines to help them make informed decisions.
1. When can pregnant people get a COVID-19 vaccine?
Everyone 12 years of age and older, including pregnant people, is now eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccination, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Pregnant people can get the COVID-19 vaccine at any point in their pregnancy, and the vaccine does not need to be spaced from other vaccines, like the flu shot or Tdap booster.
2. What is the science behind the COVID-19 vaccine?
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA technology, which does not enter the nucleus of the cells and doesn’t alter the human DNA. Instead, it sends a genetic instruction manual that prompts cells to create proteins that look like the virus a way for the body to learn and develop defenses against future infection.
They are the first mRNA vaccines, which are theoretically safe during pregnancy, because they do not contain a live virus.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses an inactivated adenovirus vector, Ad26, that cannot replicate. The Ad26 vector carries a piece of DNA with instructions to make the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that triggers an immune response.
This same type of vaccine has been authorized for Ebola, and has been studied extensively for other illnesses — and for how it affects women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.
The CDC has concluded that pregnant people can receive the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine after reviewing more than 200 pages of data provided by the company and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Vaccine experts interviewed by ABC News said although pregnant women are advised against getting live-attenuated virus vaccines, such as the one for measles, mumps and rubella, because they can pose a theoretical risk of infection to the fetus, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine doesn’t contain live virus and should be safe.
3. Are there studies on pregnant women and the COVID-19 vaccine?
In its new recommendation that all pregnant people get vaccinated, the CDC said in a statement, “A new analysis of current data from the v-safe pregnancy registry assessed vaccination early in pregnancy and did not find an increased risk for miscarriage among people who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy.”
“Miscarriage rates after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine were similar to the expected rate of miscarriage,” the statement continued. “Additionally, previous findings from three safety monitoring systems did not find any safety concerns for pregnant people who were vaccinated late in pregnancy or for their babies.”
In addition, two recent studies found Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines appear to be “completely safe” and effective for pregnant people, according to Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Collins wrote in a blog post that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which both use mRNA technology, were found to provide in pregnant people the levels of antibodies and immune cells needed to protect them against COVID-19.
The vaccines were also found to likely offer protection as well to infants born to a vaccinated person, according to Collins.
“Overall, both studies show that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are safe and effective in pregnancy, with the potential to benefit both mother and baby,” he wrote, later adding, “While pregnant women are urged to consult with their obstetrician about vaccination, growing evidence suggests that the best way for women during pregnancy or while breastfeeding to protect themselves and their families against COVID-19 is to roll up their sleeves and get either one of the mRNA vaccines now authorized for emergency use.”
One study cited by Collins in his blog post was led by researchers at Northwestern University studying people who had been fully vaccinated during pregnancy.
The study, published May 11 in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, is believed to be the first to examine the impact of the COVID-19 vaccines on the placenta, according to the university. Researchers found the vaccine had no impact on pregnancy and no impact on fertility, menstruation and puberty.
The second study cited by Collins, led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, looked at more than 100 women who chose to get either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Researchers found that the women’s antibodies against COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated were also present in infant cord blood and breast milk, “suggesting that they were passed on to afford some protection to infants early in life,” according to Collins.
An earlier study, a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology in March found the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are safe and effective in pregnant and lactating people and those people are able to pass protective antibodies to their newborns.
Researchers studied a group of 131 reproductive-age women who received the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, including 84 pregnant, 31 lactating and 16 non-pregnant women and found antibody levels were similar in all three groups. No significant difference in vaccine side effects were found between pregnant and non-pregnant study participants.
The study had some limitations. It was small and participants were primarily white health care workers from a single city. On the other hand, it’s the largest study of a group that was left out of initial vaccine trials.
4. What are health groups saying about the COVID-19 vaccine?
In their joint recommendation issued in July, ACOG and SMFM said pregnant people should “feel confident” in getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
“ACOG is recommending vaccination of pregnant individuals because we have evidence of the safe and effective use of the vaccine during pregnancy from many tens of thousands of reporting individuals, because we know that COVID-19 infection puts pregnant people at increased risk of severe complications, and because it is clear from the current vaccination rates that people need to feel confident in the safety and protective value of the COVID-19 vaccines,” ACOG president Dr. J. Martin Tucker said in a statement. “Pregnant individuals should feel confident that choosing COVID-19 vaccination not only protects them but also protects their families and communities.”
“COVID-19 vaccination is the best method to reduce maternal and fetal complications of COVID-19 infection among pregnant people,” Dr. William Grobman, president of SMFM, said in a statement announcing the new recommendation, also noting the vaccines are safe before, during and after pregnancy.
The World Health Organization (WHO) also says pregnant people can be vaccinated against COVID-19, adding, “in consultation with their healthcare provider.”
“Limited data are currently available to assess the safety of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnancy. However, based on what we know about the kinds of vaccines being used, there is no specific reason for concern,” WHO says on its website. “None of the COVID-19 vaccines authorized to date use live viruses, which are more likely to pose risks during pregnancy.”
5. What will clinical trials be like for pregnant people?
Pfizer’s phase 2/3 trial will enroll approximately 4,000 women within weeks 24-34 of their pregnancy, the company announced in a press release.
Half will get the vaccine, and half will get a placebo.
The study will include healthy, pregnant woman age 18 and older in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mozambique, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Spain.
Participants in the vaccine group will receive two doses at 21 days apart — and each woman will be followed for at least 7-10 months in order to continuously assess for safety in both participants and their infants.
Infants will also be assessed, up until 6 months of age, for transfer of protective antibodies from their vaccinated mother.
Women enrolled in the trial will be made aware of their vaccine status shortly after giving birth to allow those women who originally received placebo to be vaccinated while staying in the study.
6. Why weren’t pregnant people included in early clinical trials?
Not recruiting parents-to-be in clinical trials and medical research is nothing new, according to Dr. Ruth Faden, the founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and a bioethicist who studies the ethics of pregnancy and vaccines.
“For a very long time, pregnant women were not included in biomedical research evaluation efforts or clinical trials, both for concerns about fetal development and what would be the implications of giving a pregnant women an experimental drug or vaccine and also for legal liability worries from manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies,” Faden told “GMA” last month. “There’s a huge gap between what we know about the safety and effectiveness of a new drug or a new vaccine for the rest of the population and what we know about it specific to pregnancy.”
In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, health experts have only one of the three sources of evidence that are used to evaluate safety and efficacy during pregnancy: the data on non-pregnant people who were enrolled in the clinical trials, according to Faden.
From that, Faden said, health experts can try to glean what side effects may happen to people who are pregnant, but it is not an exact science.
However, it’s considered typical — and many argue ethically appropriate — to study an unknown substance first in healthy adults and then progressively in broader and broader populations. Pregnant people and children are often tested later down the line because of concerns about potential long-term harm.
Some of the volunteers in prior COVID-19 vaccine trials that didn’t include pregnant women directly may still become pregnant during the trial. This will also give researchers some insights about the vaccine’s safety among this group.
7. What risk factors should pregnant people consider?
A pregnant or breastfeeding person may consider a number of factors, including everything from the trimester, risk factors for COVID-19, ability to remain socially distanced in their lifestyle and occupation, guidance from federal and state officials and recommendations from a person’s own physicians, experts say.
Similar to the flu vaccine, which was not tested on pregnant people in clinical trials, health experts are relying on continuously incoming data to make decisions around how safe the COVID-19 vaccines are during pregnancy.
Officials are doing the same for the general population, considering the speed at which the COVID-19 vaccines were developed, according to Faden.
The COVID-19 vaccines can be taken during any trimester.
8. Is COVID-19 more dangerous for pregnant people?
The CDC has shared data showing that pregnant people infected with COVID-19 are at an increased risk for “intensive care unit admission, invasive ventilation, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and death,” compared to nonpregnant people.
Health experts say that with or without the vaccine, pregnant people need to continue to remain on high alert when it comes to COVID-19 by following safety protocols, including face mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing.
