Sorry Dolly Parton fans, it looks like the country star hasn’t joined TikTok after all.
On Monday, many rejoiced after it appeared that Dolly joined the growing social media platform, but as it turns out, the account was a hoax.
The inaugural post showed the “9 to 5” singer stepping into the frame and declaring, “Woohoo! Well hello, I guess I’m on TikTok!” before taking a seat on a piano bench and adding, “I just dropped in to say everything’s gonna be OK. You keep the faith.”
Many applauded her introduction to the platform, however, a rep for the 75-year-old icon confirmed on the Today show that the account was fake and encouraged fans to “take a closer look” at the “doctored” footage, which was actually a taken from an old video used to promote her Imagination Library website.
The account amassed over 700,000 followers and five million views before TikTok deleted it for violating community guidelines regarding impersonation.
(KABUL, Afghanistan) — Over one month into Taliban control of Afghanistan, fears for women’s and girl’s rights and education have only grown — fueled further Tuesday by a top Taliban official’s comments that “women will not be allowed to come to universities or work.”
The tweets from the Taliban-appointed chancellor of Kabul University set off a fresh firestorm, prompting a clarification and a complaint about media coverage, before the outspoken chancellor deleted his Twitter account.
It’s a strange episode that says as much about the Taliban’s acute awareness of international perceptions as it does about what the future of Taliban rule holds for half of Afghanistan’s nearly 40 million people — its women and girls.
While the U.S. and other Western countries have called on the Taliban to respect women’s and girls’ rights, especially access to education, the Taliban have already taken steps to restrict them, including announcing earlier this month that certain subjects may be off limits and female students would be barred from studying with males. That could mean they’ll be excluded entirely, given the limited resources at Afghanistan’s schools and universities.
Already, the militant group has named an all-male cabinet and prohibited women from returning to work, saying there were security concerns that temporarily prevented it. A handful of women-led protests against Taliban rules have faced violent crackdowns in Kabul and other cities.
When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they largely barred women and girls from public life without a male relative and excluded them from schools and universities entirely.
Kabul University chancellor Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat suggested a return to that policy Tuesday, tweeting, “As long as a real Islamic environment is not provided for all, women will not be allowed to come to universities or work. Islam first.”
After media outlets reported on his comments, he issued a second tweet, criticizing the New York Times in particular for what he called a “bad misunderstanding” of his comments.
“I haven’t said that we will never allow women to attend universities or go to work, I meant that until we create an Islamic environment, women will have to stay at home. We work hard to create safe Islamic environment soon,” wrote the 34-year old, who was named to his role earlier this month.
Hours later, his Twitter account was deleted entirely.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, spun Ghairat’s statement, seemingly keen to ease Western concerns about women’s education, even without denying it was true.
“It might be his own personal view,” Mujahid told the New York Times, according to the paper, which added that he would not give assurances about when the ban on women would be lifted. He only said the militant group was working on a “safer transportation system and an environment where female students are protected.”
Asked about Ghairat’s comments, a State Department spokesperson told ABC News, “Any government should demonstrate respect for and inclusion of women and girls, in all their diversity, including supporting their education. Equal access to higher education on the basis of merit for all individuals is one of the principles codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
But it’s unclear what steps the U.S. or other government would be willing to take to ensure that equal access. The spokesperson didn’t address that issue, saying instead in their statement the U.S. “will continue to support Afghan women and girls.”
The Taliban is already under heavy international sanctions, and the former Afghan government’s U.S. assets, worth billions of dollars, remain frozen by the U.S., while the World Bank and International Monetary Fund suspended funding.
There’s growing pressure from Taliban leaders as well as some Afghan civilians to release those funds as the country’s economy teeters on collapse and millions are desperate for international aid.
During the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, there were enormous gains for women and girls, especially in education. The female literacy rate nearly doubled in a decade to 30% in 2018, according to a UNESCO report this year, and the number of girls in school went from nearly zero in 2001 to 2.5 million in 2018, making up nearly half of all primary students.
(WASHINGTON) — While the concept of the debt ceiling might seem “in the weeds,” it actually poses a very real threat to millions of Americans in a precarious economic period.
If lawmakers on Capitol Hill remain deadlocked on raising the debt ceiling, the government could go into default — essentially, unable to pay bills. That would directly impact the wallets of millions of Americans, including those who invest in the stock market and those who benefit from government programs such as Social Security and Medicaid.
“It would be disastrous for the American economy, for global financial markets, and for millions of families and workers whose financial security would be jeopardized by delayed payments,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned lawmakers in a hearing Tuesday.
Raising the debt ceiling, she said, is “necessary to avert a catastrophic event for our economy.”
But if you’ve ever wondered what exactly the debt ceiling is, you’re not alone. Here’s what it is and some of the real-world impacts it can have.
What is the debt ceiling?
The debt ceiling is a cap on the amount of money the U.S. government can borrow to pay its debts.
Every year, Congress passes a budget that includes government spending on infrastructure, programs such as Social Security and salaries for federal workers. Congress also taxes people to pay for all that spending. But for years, the government has been spending more than it takes in from taxes and other revenue, increasing the federal deficit.
The government needs to borrow money to continue paying out what Congress has already OK’d. The debt ceiling puts a limit on how much money the U.S. government can borrow to pay its bills.
Why should I care about this?
If the government cannot borrow money to continue paying for programs, there will be real-world effects for millions of Americans.
Here are some of those potential effects, according to Yellen, the White House and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan organization.
15 million seniors could stop receiving Social Security payments, or see delays.
30 million families could stop receiving President Joe Biden’s expanded Child Tax Credit payments, or see delays.
U.S. military servicemembers could stop receiving paychecks.
Veterans’ benefits could stop or be delayed.
Postal workers and federal employees could stop receiving paychecks.
The United States’ credit worthiness could be downgraded, spiking interest rates, which would raise mortgage, car and credit card payments.
Doubt in the typically reliable U.S. currency could tank the markets, hurting 401ks and other investments. (The S&P 500 lost 17% in the months surrounding the last debt ceiling standoff.)
FEMA funding for hurricane and wildfire victims could stop.
Public health funding for pandemic mitigation efforts could be cut off.
Child nutrition program and other food assistance could stop.
Moody’s Analytics has estimated that even a long impasse over the debt ceiling could cause the loss of nearly 6 million jobs, increase the unemployment rate to 9% (from 5.2% now) and cause the stock market to lose about a third of its value, wiping out $15 trillion in household wealth.
Would this be worse than a government shutdown?
Yes. This is an even bigger deal than a government shutdown. A government shutdown occurs when Congress does not approve a new spending bill for the next fiscal year, so new payments, such as paychecks, are stopped. In 2019, around 800,000 federal employees were impacted by a government shutdown, and markets dipped.
But the United States has never defaulted on its credit. This would be uncharted territory. The suspension of basically all previously approved government programs, and the ensuing economic shocks, would be unprecedented.
“Many more parties are not paid in a default,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said. “Without enough money to pay its bills, any of the payments are at risk, including all government spending, mandatory payments, interest on our debt and payments to U.S. bondholders. While a government shutdown would be disruptive, a government default could be disastrous.”
Since the debt ceiling system was instituted in 1917, Congress has never not raised the debt ceiling. Congress has voted 80 times to raise or suspend the debt limit since 1960.
Why are we hitting the debt ceiling?
Technically, we already hit the debt ceiling on Aug. 1. But at that time, the Treasury Department started taking so-called “extraordinary measures” to continue to pay the government’s bills. Basically, there is some accounting and investing sleight of hand going on. But one day, the department will run out of tricks and out of cash. Yellen pegged that date as Oct. 18 in a letter to lawmakers Tuesday.
Right now, the federal debt is at $28.43 trillion, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s tracker. The current debt ceiling is actually $28.4 trillion — underscoring the pressure Yellen is under to continue paying the bills through “extraordinary measures.”
Does raising the debt ceiling allow the government to spend more?
Nope. Here’s how Yellen put it during a Tuesday hearing on Capitol Hill: “It has nothing to do with future programs of payments, it’s entirely about paying bills that have already been incurred by this Congress, in previous Congresses, and it’s about making good on past commitments — as you said, paying our credit card bill.”
Democrats, who are depending on Republican help to raise the debt ceiling, are frequently reiterating the point that raising the debt ceiling does not authorize new government spending. It only allows the government to borrow money to pay for spending that previous politicians have already OK’d, including former President Donald Trump and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
But the standoff over the debt ceiling is coming as lawmakers, in an extremely polarized environment, debate passing one of the largest government spending packages in history, Biden’s $3.5 trillion Build Back Better agenda.
The debate about government spending is leading to the politicization of raising the debt ceiling, and the negotiations have become completely intertwined. Republicans insist that if Democrats want to pass such a major spending bill through special budget rules that would require no Republican support, they can raise the debt ceiling on their own, too.
Why do we even have a debt ceiling?
One hundred years ago, Congress used to have to OK every instance of borrowing money — a major inconvenience.
So, in 1917, Congress passed a debt ceiling, which would allow the Treasury Department to borrow money for any approved spending without getting permission from Congress, up to a certain limit. The limit exists to ensure the “power of the purse,” or the ability to determine government spending, stays with the legislative branch, instead of shifting to the Treasury Department.
(NEW YORK) — As President Joe Biden faces a critical moment for his agenda, Americans’ confidence in his handling of a range of issues is eroding, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll finds.
Compared to an August ABC News/Ipsos poll, public approval of how Biden is handling key issues — the pandemic, immigration and the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, gun violence and even rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, the issue he’s pushing this week — is on the decline. Dissatisfaction among Republicans and independents is fueling the decline, but the president’s ratings are also hampered by more lackluster approval among members of his own party than presidents typically enjoy.
The poll, which was conducted Sept. 24-28 using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, comes roughly a month after the most difficult stretch of his presidency thus far — the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Thirteen U.S. service members were killed in a terrorist attack at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport during that drawdown, and for the first time since taking office, FiveThirtyEight’s tracker averaging presidential approval polls showed more Americans disapproved than approved of the job Biden was doing as president.
His overall approval rating now, measured by FiveThirtyEight’s average at 49% disapprove and 45% approve, has worsened since late August, and that sentiment is reflected in the issue-specific approvals measured in this most recent ABC News/Ipsos poll.
Biden’s performance on the coronavirus remains his strongest issue, with nearly six in 10 (57%) Americans still approving of how he is handling it. Still, compared to the ABC News/Ipsos poll in the field Aug. 27-28, Biden’s approval on this issue is down seven points overall and among independents, and down 14 points among Republicans. It’s also down 15 points from his late March record high on COVID-19 job performance in ABC News/Ipsos polling.
Although some Americans are now eligible for a third shot of the vaccine, following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation of boosters for certain populations, vaccinating the unvaccinated remains a central challenge for Biden as his administration works to end the pandemic.
Children under 12 are not currently eligible for vaccines, but that’s likely to change soon. After submitting data on vaccine trials for 5- to 11-year-olds on Tuesday, Pfizer expects to formally request emergency use authorization from the FDA to vaccinate this population.
But this poll, which was weighted to reflect the CDC’s adult vaccination rate, highlights how persuading vaccine-hesitant parents to have their children inoculated will be an additional obstacle for the Biden administration.
A majority (56%) of parents with children under 12 say they are likely to have their child get the coronavirus vaccine when it is available for them. Still, over four in 10 (43%) say they are not likely to.
Even among parents who are vaccinated with at least one shot, approximately two in 10 (21%) say they are not likely to get their child vaccinated when they are eligible. Nearly all (89%) unvaccinated parents say they are not likely to have their child get the coronavirus vaccine when eligible.
About half of parents who have at most a high school degree or who attended some college, 49% and 48% respectively, say they are likely to get their child vaccinated when it’s available to their age group. Among parents with a bachelor’s degree or higher, seven in 10 say they are likely to have their child get the vaccine when possible.
Parents who are Democrats are most likely to be vaccinated with at least one dose themselves (86%) compared to parents who are independents (65%) and parents who are Republicans (55%). For parents who are Democrats and independents, 78% and 61% respectively say they are likely to get their child vaccinated once eligible. However, though a majority of parents who are Republicans are vaccinated, fewer than four in 10 (38%) say they will have their child get the vaccine when it’s available to their age group.
The economic recovery from the pandemic also continues to be a challenge for the president. About equal shares of the public approve and disapprove of his handling of the economic recovery, 51% to 48%. The percentage of Americans disapproving of Biden on the economy increased seven points since late August.
Besides the pandemic, enacting a bill to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure is the most pressing priority for Biden this week, as it will be brought up for a vote on the House floor Thursday. By an 11-point margin, Americans approve of Biden’s handling of this issue, 55% to 44%, but disapproval has increased by nine points since late August. Among Republicans and independents, approval dropped 10 and nine points, respectively.
Black and Hispanic Americans overwhelmingly support the president’s handling of the United States’ infrastructure, with 71% and 70% respectively approving, while a majority of white Americans (54%) disapprove.
In politics today, partisans usually are more unified in their support of or opposition to particular issues or people, but that is not the case for Biden on multiple issues. The vast majority of Democrats back the president on his handling of COVID-19 (91%), rebuilding U.S. infrastructure (87%) and the economic recovery (84%), but support among members of his party drops for his handling of Afghanistan (69%), gun violence (65%) and the immigration situation at the southern border (60%).
Without overwhelming support from his party, Biden’s approval among U.S. adults overall falls below 40% on all three of those issues — 38% on gun violence, 38% on Afghanistan and 33% on immigration and the situation at the border.
The humanitarian crisis at the southern border was thrust into the spotlight over the last two weeks after a surge of migrants, mostly from Haiti, were sheltering under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, hoping to claim asylum and remain in the United States. That migrant camp was cleared as of Friday, but more than 17,400 remained in the U.S., according to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
While the secretary said Friday that about 12,400 of those migrants will have an opportunity to have their asylum cases heard before an immigration judge and about 5,000 were still being processed, thousands did not have that chance before being flown directly back to Haiti or returning on their own to Mexico. The administration has employed a controversial policy using a public health rationale to immediately expel unauthorized migrants at the border.
Most Americans (58%) believe the United States should allow migrants seeking asylum at the border to stay until their cases are heard while four in 10 believe they should be deported back to their native countries immediately, the ABC News/Ipsos poll found.
By party, a majority of Democrats (83%) and independents (57%) believe migrants seeking asylum should be allowed to remain in the United States while their cases are heard, but about seven in 10 (72%) Republicans believe they should be deported immediately.
Across racial groups, most Americans think these migrants should be allowed to stay until their asylum cases are heard, but white Americans (52%) are less likely to feel this way than Hispanic (66%) and Black (78%) Americans.
METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs‘ KnowledgePanel® September 24-28, 2021, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,101 adults, including an oversample of 537 parents with children under the age of 12. The overall results have a margin of sampling error of 3.7 points, including the design effect. Results among parents have a margin of sampling error of 4.7 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 31-24-36 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.
The week after her performance on Live with Kelly & Ryan, Cam‘s new single, “Till There’s Nothing Left,” is breaking into the country airplay chart.
The “Burning House” hitmaker jokes a famous rapper may deserve some of the credit. But since the California native’s already worked with big names in the pop world like Sam Smith, Diplo, and Harry Styles, you never know.
“We joke. [Writer/producer] Jeff [Bhasker] calls it the 50 Cent guitar,” she explains, while starting to sing “In Da Club,” before slipping into her own hit. “‘Go shorty, it’s your birthday!’ But that’s happening… ‘I wanna steal every breath of fire.'”
“It has like a chug to it,” Cam continues, “and you’re like, ‘Okay. This is going somewhere.’ So it’s a banger.”
Lyrically, the song Cam co-wrote with Bhasker, Tyler Johnson, and Hillary Lindsey focuses on an all-consuming love.
“The thesis statement of this song and the heart of the song, it’s like a love that is just all-encompassing,” she tells ABC Audio. “Like, ‘But I just gotta give you everything. I gotta sit in my desires, and I’m not embarrassed by it. I’m just like everything, I want to give everything I am, and disappear into you.'”
“Like it’s very ‘I don’t want the date to end at the [end of the night]’ with your boyfriend or whatever in high school,” she adds.
“Till There’s Nothing Left” is from Cam’s sophomore album, The Otherside. Later this week, she plays the Austin City Limits Festival in the Texas capital.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Tuesday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Chi White Sox 7, Cincinnati 1
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Baltimore 4, Boston 2
Minnesota 3, Detroit 2
NY Yankees 7, Toronto 2
Texas 5, LA Angels 2
Houston 4, Tampa Bay 3
Kansas City 6, Cleveland 4
Seattle 4, Oakland 2
NATIONAL LEAGUE
NY Mets 5, Miami 2
NY Mets 2, Miami 1
Pittsburgh 8, Chi Cubs 6
Atlanta 2, Philadelphia 1
St. Louis 6, Milwaukee 2
Colorado 3, Washington 1
San Francisco 6, Arizona 4
LA Dodgers 2, San Diego 1
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE PRESEASON
NY Rangers 3, Boston 2
NY Islanders 3 Philadelphia 2 (OT)
Carolina 3, Tampa Bay 1
Buffalo 5, Columbus 4 (SO)
Edmonton 6, Seattle 0
Los Angeles 4, San Jose 3
Vegas 4, Colorado 3
WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
Chicago 101, Connecticut 95 (2OT)
Las Vegas 96, Phoenix 90
ABC has tapped former BachelorJesse Palmer to host the show’s upcoming 26th season, the network announced on Tuesday.
The 42-year-old former football pro starred on The Bachelor‘s fifth season. His final rose went to Jessica Bowlin, but the couple split shortly after the show aired in 2004.
“For more than 20 years, The Bachelor has brought the world dozens of unforgettable love stories, including at one time, my own,” Palmer said in a statement. “Falling in love is one of life’s greatest gifts, and I am humbled by the opportunity to return to the show as host this season to offer the newest Bachelor advice gained from firsthand experience and I am grateful to play a small part in his journey.”
Following his Bachelor stint, Palmer went on to host the ABC reality dating show, The Proposal and Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship. He currently hosts ABC’s The Ultimate Surfer and is a football analyst for ESPN.
In July, Christina Aguilera teamed with SweeTARTS to invite fans to create original beats using the candy’s online “music mixer.” The winner, hand-picked by Christina, got one-on-one advice from the singer as he turned his beat into a finished track in a real recording studio. Christina says being able to mentor unknown talent put “a big smile” on her face.
“I love being able to be in that position and do that for people, and I’m so happy that I did do it, because I got to have our session with Augusta Sani, the winner of the contest. And he was only 15 and he’d never had recording studio experience or never tried anything like this before,” Christina tells ABC Audio.
“It was so cute, we had to schedule our call…around his school schedule and his family dinners,” she laughs. “So it was sweet and cool for me to have that experience with someone so young…it was definitely great. I walked away with a big smile on my face.”
Another thing making Christina happy these days is her new music: She’s been working on a Spanish-language album project and says some of it will “be released very, very soon” — not just this fall, but beyond that.
“There was so much material that we’re going to be releasing it throughout next year, in sort of six-song increments every few months,” she explains.
“I’m really excited about releasing this music in a different way,” adds Christina, saying the new songs and videos tell “whole story and take you on this incredible journey…[it’s] my labor of love for a part of me and a part of my culture that’s so important, that isn’t always brought out in my English music.”
M.A.C. Cosmetics is honoring the legacy of the late Whitney Houston with a new cosmetics line in her name.
“The idea that is coming to fruition now is something Whitney always wanted to do,” Whitney’s sister-in-law and former manager, Pat Houston, tells People. “I’m pleased we can do something that I know she would have loved. We are just starting on this collaboration but exciting things are coming!”
M.A.C. is participating in the I Wanna Dance With Somebody biopic, scheduled to be released in 2022. Producer Clive Davis says the film will “present the full story of Whitney Houston impeccably and [ensure] that it will be realistic in every respect.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time with the team at M.A.C. looking at Whitney photos and videos and helping them understand the true essence of her,” the sister-in-law says regarding the biopic. “I think you will see all of her looks ring true to how you saw Whitney in life.”
The six-time Grammy winner passed away on February 11, 2012, at the age of 48. She was introduced to makeup early in life as a teenage model.
“Whitney was always a champion of women feeling beautiful whether it was a major event or just for everyday wear. Our work with M.A.C. is about creating a line that can meet all of those needs,” Pat adds. “The line will be true to her colors that she loved to work with.”
Halestorm is “Back from the Dead,” and there’s a lot more where that came from.
The “I Miss the Misery” rockers unleashed their latest single in August, marking the first preview of their upcoming fifth studio album. As drummer Arejay Hale tells ABC Audio, “Back from the Dead” is just a taste of the intensity you’ll hear when the full record arrives.
“I think the biggest thing that this song represents is a lot of caged energy that has just finally just been — blah! — just released, you know?” Hale laughs.
Writing “Back from the Dead,” Hale shares, was one of those special instances where it felt like the song was writing itself.
“Those are the best songs that come out of you, when they just write themselves, when it all just comes out so easily,” Hale says. “It’s rare…it’s impossible to consciously recreate that, but when it happens, it’s magical. This was one of those songs that just flowed out of us.”
It’s a feeling Hale’s had before, often on songs that turn out to be the backbone on which new Halestorm albums are built.
“Every album cycle, there’s always that one song,” Hale explains. “It was ‘Uncomfortable’ on [Vicious], it was ‘Love Bites’ on Strange Case, and it was ‘Mayhem’ on [Into the Wild Life], where we’re just, like, ‘Let’s give it everything we’ve got.’
“When we do, it’s, like, ‘Oh, OK! I think we’ve got something here, and now we have a template,'” he continues. “‘The bar has been raised up here, and now let’s bring the other songs up to this level.’ And that’s where we’re at right now.”
The new Halestorm album, the follow-up to 2018’s Vicious, is due out in 2022.
