Shakira says she has no regrets about performing at the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show with Jennifer Lopez, which was mired in controversy after several high-profile acts declined the opportunity to perform.
Rihanna, Cardi B and others refused to perform at the Super Bowl, saying they stood in solidarity with former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who claims the NFL blacklisted him because he knelt during the national anthem in protest of police brutality.
But Shakira told Cosmopolitan that she and her halftime show partner saw the opportunity in performing on one of the nation’s biggest stages.
“J.Lo, as a Latina born in the U.S., and me, as a Latin American woman in the U.S., had a huge responsibility and opportunity to represent all different minorities through our performance,” she said. “In my case, I also wanted to pay homage to my Middle Eastern culture. I feel that we did it.”
The “Hips Don’t Lie” singer continued, “I really thought it was a great opportunity to make a strong statement about what an important part of the American fabric the Latino community is.”
“There was a lot of work behind it, a lot of stress,” Shakira admitted, adding, “But it was one of the highlights of my career.”
Lopez previously defended her decision to perform at the Super Bowl when speaking to Variety.
“I think it’s important in this day and age for two Latin women to be standing on that stage — when Latinos are being treated a certain way in this country, or looked at a certain way — to show that we have a really specific and beautiful culture and worth and value, and we bring something to this country that’s necessary,” Lopez said, noting that their performance was “a celebration.”
(NOTE LANGUAGE)Making a surprise appearance opposite fellow comic Dave Chappelle Sunday night in New York City, Chris Rock joked about his recent battle with COVID-19.
The pair popped up at musician Robert Glasper‘s “Robtober” residency at the legendary Blue Note Jazz Club, according to Page Six.
“I’m back from the dead!” Rock told the audience. “I had motherf***ing COVID. God****it.”
Rock tweeted last month that he’d tested positive for the virus, urging fans to get vaccinated. Onstage, he joked, “It wasn’t quite as hard as being black, but it was close….That’s why everyone’s trying to avoid it…”
Rock and Chappelle, who has also recovered from COVID-19, mentioned where the vaccinated Rock may have been infected. “I think I got it on this Civil Rights movie,” Rock noted, to which Chappelle riffed, “That’s a noble way to get COVID.”
The movie in question could be director David O. Russell‘s as-yet-untitled film in which Rock will appear with a number of A-List stars, including Robert De Niro, Christian Bale and John David Washington.
Page Six says the famous comics were also joined at the Blue Note by actors Jeffrey Wright and Hill Harper. Recording artist Talib Kweli, who was celebrating his birthday, also joined Rock and Chappelle on stage.
Later, the stars decamped to The Stand Comedy Club, to keep the birthday festivities going, along with SNL‘s Michael Che, Busta Rhymes and Kanye West, the latter of whom the publication noted showed up without any security.
Kweli posted a snap with West, Chappelle and Glasper, noting, “Birthday party was magical… legendary night… thank you.”
(NEW YORK) — From Texas to Tehran, women have been fighting to protect their right to have an abortion — some by taking over the streets and others by taking over social media.
While a Texas law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy sparked protests across the United States, a letter from an official judicial body in Iran has mandated that local laboratories report on women with positive pregnancy tests to prevent “criminal abortions.”
The letter, issued by the crime prevention deputy at the judiciary in Iran’s Mazandaran province, was leaked on Twitter by health and medical journalist Mahdiar Saeedian.
“One of the ways to prevent abortion is … by connecting laboratories and the clinical centres to introduce mothers with positive pregnancy test results,” the letter states.
On social media, women reacted to the letter by protesting what they say is an attempt to control their bodies.
“I think we are outpacing ‘The Handsmaid’s Tale.’ Protecting patients’ privacy is meaningless,” one Twitter user wrote.
In Iran, abortion is illegal unless there’s proof that giving birth would endanger the life of the mother or child, or pregnancy screening tests show the child will have serious physical or mental disabilities. This law only applies to pregnant women who are legally married. Women who get pregnant from extramarital affairs have no legal options for abortion in Iran. While some 9,000 legal abortions are performed annually in Iran, a country of 82 million people, more than 300,000 illegal abortions are also performed there each year, according to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency.
Now, conservatives in Iran are trying to restrict abortions even further by requiring a medical team’s diagnosis as well as the approval of two “faqihs” — or religious experts — and a judge. The controversial bill has yet to be ratified.
“Just imagine a woman who has got pregnant in an extramarital affair. They would never dare refer to a lab for a pregnancy test if they know their information is being reported,” an Iranian women’s rights activist told ABC News, under the condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Sima, who asked ABC News to use a pseudonym to protect her privacy and security, said she was a 29-year old engineer who had just started a new job when she got pregnant from an affair she had with her boss three years prior.
“I managed to illegally get some pills to terminate pregnancy,” Sima told ABC News. “I took them, and I started to bleed severely and could not abort. Despite my friends’ insistence, I was afraid to go to the hospital for the fear of arrest.”
Sima’s friend ultimately took her to an underground abortion center for help, which was unsupervised.
“I was even afraid of telling my boss about it. He might have fired me,” she said, explaining how helpless women can feel when they seek an abortion.
In response to the backlash on social media, the official Mazandaran IRIB News published an interview with the crime prevention deputy of the provincial judiciary, saying the command in the letter was just to prevent “unprofessional abortions.”
The Iranian women’s rights activist told ABC News that the letter shows the “perspective” of what officials plan.
“Our experience proves that denials are just to soothe the backlash,” she added. “Consider the internet restriction plan — they say it is not in practice, but we see every day that our VPNs stop working one after another. So, this official denying the letter cannot put our minds in peace. They have serious plans to have more control on pregnancies.”
She said such laws show the Islamic Republic’s desire to maintain control over women’s bodies, while enforcing policies aimed at increasing the population of the country.
According to data from the Statistical Center of Iran, the country’s population growth rate between 2011 and 2016 was 1.24%. That has since dropped to 1.15%, according to data collected by the World Population Review.
“The solution to overcome a low population rate is not policing people’s relations and affairs, or their access to safe abortion or contraceptives,” the activist said.
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 705,000 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 65.6% 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 06, 9:41 am
Nearly 200K rapid at-home antigen tests recalled
Ellume is recalling nearly 200,000 rapid at-home antigen tests out of concerns over an abnormally high rate of false positives.
Roughly 427,000 test kits, including thousands sent to retailers and some provided to the Department of Defense, were impacted. About 195,000 of these kits are still unused and subject to the recall, and about 202,000, have already been used. Of those, there were about 42,000 positive results, of which as many as a quarter, or perhaps fewer, of those positives could have been inaccurate, though it’s difficult to determine an exact ratio.
CEO Sean Parsons said in a statement, “I offer my sincere apologies — and the apologies of our entire company — for any stress or difficulties they may have experienced because of a false positive result,” Parsons said.
Ellume said it identified the root cause as an issue in variation with one of the kit’s components. The company said it has “implemented additional controls” and is “continuing to work on resolving the issue that led to this recall.”
Ellume is notifying affected customers and urging confirmatory tests.
Oct 06, 9:24 am
More Americans died of COVID this year than all of 2020
More Americans have died from COVID-19 this year than from the virus in all of 2020, according to newly updated data from Johns Hopkins University.
More than 353,000 COVID-19 deaths have been reported since Jan. 1, compared with 352,000 COVID-19 deaths in the first 10 months of the pandemic.
Over the last month, the U.S. has reported more than 47,000 deaths.
Oct 05, 8:06 pm
2,200 Kaiser Permanente employees on unpaid leave due to vaccine mandate
Over 2,000 Kaiser Permanente employees are on unpaid leave following the health care system’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate deadline, the company said Tuesday.
Kaiser Permanente’s 240,000 employees had until Sept. 30 to respond to the requirement. As of Monday, 2,200 people — about 1% of the company’s workforce — had been placed on unpaid leave for not complying, the company said.
That number has more than halved in the days since the deadline. On the morning of Oct. 1, roughly 5,000 employees were on unpaid leave.
Those on unpaid leave have until Dec. 1 to get the vaccine or secure a qualified medical or religious exemption, at which point they may return to work. If they do neither, they may be eligible for termination, Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Marc Brown told ABC News.
“We hope none of our employees will choose to leave their jobs rather than be vaccinated, but we won’t know with certainty until then,” Brown said. “We will continue to work with this group of employees to allay concerns and educate them about the vaccines, their benefits, and risks.”
Oct 05, 5:47 pm
FDA could authorize vaccine for young kids soon after Oct. 26 meeting, vaccine chief says
The Food and Drug Administration could issue an emergency use authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 soon after Oct. 26, when the agency’s advisory committee plans to discuss Pfizer’s data, the FDA’s vaccine chief said Tuesday.
Dr. Peter Marks couldn’t give an exact day, but said the FDA has “a track record of trying to move relatively swiftly” after these committee meetings and feels the weight of the world — and then some — to get this done.
“When we did the adult approval, we felt the weight of the world,” Marks told ABC News during the Q&A portion of a town hall hosted by the COVID-19 Vaccine Education and Equity Project. “Here, we feel like the weight of the world, plus the weight of Mars on top of us, or some other planet as well.”
“This is clearly one of the most important issues to get done so we’re not going to be wasting any time,” he added.
Marks said he’s confident that the FDA will would have all necessary data from Pfizer in time for the meeting.
Last month, Pfizer said data shows its vaccine is safe and effective for children ages 5 to 11.
Christopher Polk/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
We are officially one step closer to hearing The Weeknd‘s new album. The “Blinding Lights” singer confirmed that he’s finished recording his fifth studio album, which might be called The Dawn Is Coming.
Speaking on his Apple Music 1 show Memento Mori, the singer teased, “I hope you had a great summer. Some exciting features coming out in the fall — before the album drops.”
In the one-and-a-half-minute clip, the Canadian star explained, “A lot has been going down, a lot of moving pieces.”
Some of those “moving pieces” include “shooting videos” and “working on pre-productions,” among other things — like moving into a new house and “taking time to myself so I don’t completely lose my mind.”
However, the biggest reveal came at the end of his update, with the singer confirming, “Some Dawn updates — album is complete. Only thing that’s missing is a couple of characters who are key to the narrative.”
Those characters include “some people that are near and dear to me, some people who inspired my life as a child, and some who inspire me now.”
While not much else was said about the forthcoming album — like a release date — the singer promised that fans won’t be waiting in the dark for too long because he has “more to come in the following months.”
The Weeknd most recent album, After Hours, came out in March 2020, and spun off the smash hits “Save Your Tears,” “Heartless,” “In Your Eyes,” and “Blinding Lights.”
In support of his new album, The Weeknd released the promotional track “Take My Breath” on August 6.
Britney Spears is letting fans know exactly how she feels about her family amid her contentious battle to end her 13-year conservatorship.
Taking to Instagram on Tuesday, the singer seems to level even more accusations against her family, citing the conditions under which she was allegedly forced to live.
Britney wrote, “I suggest if you have a friend that’s been in a house that feels really small for four months … no car … no phone … no door for privacy and they have to work around 10 hours a day 7 days a week and give tons of blood weekly with never a day off … I strongly suggest you go pick up your friend and get them the hell outta there !!!!!”
Spears hinted that she may have asked her family members to help her escape those conditions, but they allegedly told her, “Sorry, you’re in a conservatorship.”
In a June court hearing, Britney made several damning claims about the conservatorship and her father, Jamie Spears. Last week, Judge Brenda Penny suspended Britney’s father from her conservatorship, citing a “toxic environment.”
The singer closed out her eye-opening Instagram post by declaring, “Thankfully I found an amazing attorney Mathew Rosengart who has helped change my life!”
As previously reported, Rosengart said the ruling to remove Jamie Spears from the conservatorship was “a great day for justice.” The next hearing, set for November 12, will focus on terminating the conservatorship itself.
Kristen Bell is getting real about parenting — especially about the battles she loses with her two young daughters: Lincoln, 8, and Delta, 6.
In her Wednesday episode of her video series Momsplaining with Kristen Bell, the actress confessed that her little ones sometimes outsmart even her.
“Parenting is a lot like sports…You’re either winning or losing every minute of the day,” Bell said, according to an advanced snippet obtained by E! Online. “Mostly losing, but that’s what makes the winning so sweet, and fleeting.”
The Good Place alum also noted, “And it helps to know you’re not alone. I suggest talking to someone — even if no one is there.”
Bell then shared her hilarious story about the time her six-year-old made a fool out of her. Speaking to Evan Kyle Berger and Kevin Laferriere of The Dumb Dads podcast, Bell, 41, admitted, “We have one [child] that is pretty funny. She feels like the perfect hybrid between Chris Farley and Shirley Temple, and so she gets away with everything.”
She explained that, one night, Delta was adamant about not putting away a certain toy before bedtime. After a brief back and forth, Bell’s husband, Dax Shepard, took a crack at it.
“He’s like, ‘Mommy, I got this,'” she recalled, adding that his resolution was to give their daughter 30 more seconds with the toy.
Delta agreed to the terms, which led to Shepard telling her “Don’t make a fool out of me!”
Bell admits she wasn’t expecting her little one to shoot back in a serious tone, “Daddy, I won’t make a fool out of you. I’m gonna make you a star!'”
The actress said she and Shepard first laughed but later became baffled that, maybe, their six-year-old might be “wittier than us.”
A judge has granted Charlie Sheen‘s request to stop paying his ex-wife Denise Richards child support for their two daughters, Sami, 17, and Lola, 16, according to court documents obtained by Entertainment Tonight.
A source tells the entertainment website that Richards did not file any opposing paperwork and “didn’t have a falling out with her daughters and she cares about them deeply.” While Sami lives with Sheen, Lola “goes back and forth.”
“Lola lives with Denise,” says the insider, unless Denise is filming, in which case “Lola stays with her dad and sister.”
“Denise wasn’t at court because she is working out of state, which Charlie was well aware of,” adds the source, explaining that Sheen filed the paperwork two years ago and “kept pushing the court date. Denise was never served this court date.”
The source alleges Sheen hasn’t paid Richards child support for at least four years.
Sami claimed in a TikTok video that she moved out of Richards’ “abusive household.” A source previously told ET that Richards’ “heart is broken” over the allegations.
Sheen and Richards were married from 2002 until 2006. The Anger Management star also shares twin sons, Bob and Max, 12, with ex-wife Brooke Mueller, and daughter Cassandra Estevez, 36, with Paula Profit.
John Legend is continuing his fight to uplift those in need with a program to assist communities disproportionately impacted by institutionalized racism called HumanLevel. This new initiative will work with government officials and community members in various cities to create projects that address immediate needs.
“Local governments have invited us to work on specific projects to make their communities stronger and more equitable,” says the EGOT winner in a statement
The Voice coach will place executive fellows in Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Birmingham, Alabama; Durham, North Carolina; Houston; Los Angeles; Milwaukee; New Orleans; Oakland, California; Pittsburgh; and Washington, D.C. — cities and counties that collectively represent over 20 million people. These fellows will work with local communities to improve employment, housing, education, health, and the criminal justice system.
“Many of the problems our country faces today are difficult to address at the federal level,” Legend notes. “Many issues are really at the doorstep of your mayor, your county council, and your community leaders coming together to answer questions about how we can support each other, keep each other safe, and rebuild our country in a way that truly includes everyone.”
HumanLevel follows Legend’s FreeAmerica organization, which aims to end mass incarceration.
“Our goal with this partnership is to take a deeper look at the issues from a human level, with a focus on actions city leaders can take to tackle systemic racism,” the “All of Me” singer adds. “No single solution will fix the racial and ethnic disparities we see across issues — from housing to education to the workforce — but we must approach this work with a sense of collaboration and urge
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will wrestle with the limits of the government state secrets privilege in a high-stakes case brought by the first al-Qaida suspect detained and harshly interrogated at a CIA “black site” after Sept. 11, 2001.
Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in 2002, was waterboarded 83 times, spent 11 days in a coffin-size confinement box and was subjected to “walling, attention grasps, slapping, facial holds, stress positions and sleep deprivation,” according to a declassified 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report.
He wants the U.S. government to publicly confirm that Poland was one of the locations of his interrogation and allow depositions of two CIA contractors involved with his treatment through the agency’s controversial rendition, detention and interrogation program, also known as the “torture program.”
Zubaydah and his legal team said the information is critical to a case they are pursuing overseas against Polish government officials for alleged complicity in his treatment.
The Biden administration said in court documents that revealing the information would “cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.”
“We have a confrontation in this case between openness and secrecy — major principles that have so corrosively confronted one another during this entire era of modern American history,” said University of Chicago law professor and legal historian Farah Peterson.
Zubaydah, 50, has been detained at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without charge since 2006. For years, the government asserted that he was a plotter in the 9/11 attacks, but officials later acknowledged that he was not tied to the operation, according to the 2014 report.
Today, the Biden administration calls Zubaydah “an associate and longtime terrorist ally of Osama bin Laden.” His attorneys insist “none of these allegations has support in any CIA record.”
While many details of Zubaydah’s treatment in U.S. custody have been public for years — published in declassified congressional documents, media reports and other outside investigations — the American government has never formally confirmed, nor denied, the existence of a black site in Poland or that Zubaydah was held there for five months between 2002 and 2003.
The European Court of Human Rights, independent investigations by international advocacy groups and several former top Polish officials have each pointed to the existence of a CIA site in Poland and alleged that Zubaydah was held there.
“It’s [about] protecting whether the [U.S.] government has any official confirmation of what foreign country does, or does not, cooperate with them,” said Beth Brinkmann, a former deputy assistant attorney general for the Obama administration, at a recent event at William & Mary Law School. “There’s an interesting government interest in the government saying something and confirming something.”
“It might have a chilling effect on other countries being willing to cooperate with us if they know it might come out,” added Andrew Pincus, a Yale Law School professor, at the same event.
Zubaydah’s attorneys argue that because so many details of the CIA program are widely known, the government’s blanket assertion of the state secrets privilege is too broad and illegal.
“The two former CIA contractors who devised and implemented the torture program … have twice testified under oath about what they saw, heard and did at various black sites, including what they did to Abu Zubaydah and some of what they observed at the black site at issue in this litigation,” they wrote in court documents. “It is undisputed that this testimony contains no state secrets.”
Lower courts have split over the subpoenas for evidence in Zubaydah’s case. A federal district court sided with the government, but the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the decision.
“The district court erred in quashing the subpoenas in toto rather than attempting to disentangle nonprivileged from privileged information,” the panel wrote.
The Supreme Court will now parse whether sensitive information already in the public domain can be still subject to the state secrets privilege and to what extent information from government contractors may be protected for national security concerns.
A decision in favor of Zubaydah could help him expose more information about the now-defunct, secretive CIA program and advance his case against Polish officials overseas. A decision siding with the U.S. government could bolster the power of the state secrets privilege and limit future attempts at exposure of classified information related to national security.
The CIA did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the case.
Several family members of 9/11 victims have weighed in on the case at the Supreme Court in support of Zubaydah.
“The arc of the moral universe has been twisted and bent over the last 20 years, with justice sadly eluding both the families of the 9/11 dead and the accused, who were, like Mr. Zubaydah, tortured at government black sites,” said Adele Welty, the mother of New York City firefighter Timothy Welty, who was killed in the attack. “In the interest of justice so long denied, we implore the government to separate properly classified information from unclassified and release all relevant documents.”
