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Published by OK Magazine mega It seems Billie Eilish and her newly Instagram official flame, The Neighbourhood frontman Jesse Rutherford, have been made out to be the “bad guy” this week, facing backlash for their Halloween costumes: a baby and an old man. On Tuesday, November 1, the 20-year-old artist took to social media, sharing several photos depicting her Halloween celebrations, including one showing her and Rutherford, 30, posing side-by-side in their holiday getup. “Life is craaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy,” Eilish captioned the carousel, which also included a snap of the “Sweater Weather” artist sporting a clown getup. “Happy halloween.” @billieeilish/instagram With Eilish sporting a bright pink bonnet and a matching bib and Rutherford rocking seemingly complex age makeup, the pair’s joint costume and subsequent post appears to be a dig at critics who have condemned their 10-year age gap. Yet it seems several fans were less than amused with Eilish’s seemingly tongue-in-cheek approach to the late October holiday, flooding the post’s comments section with pointed and concerned messages about the “Ocean Eyes” songstress’ new romance. “Girl do yourself a favor and delete the last photo,” wrote one fan. “That last slide is gonna haunt her in a few years when she’s older and realizes that a 31 year old has no business with someone that young,” quipped another. “Honestly yikes on the last photo,” added a third. mega First spotted smooching last month, the pair seemingly go way back, allegedly first meeting in 2017 when Eilish would have been 15 or 16 years old, perElle, a sentiment that has sparked alarm among fans. BILLIE EILISH & MATTHEW TYLER VORCE SPLIT, ACTOR ADDRESSES CHEATING ACCUSATIONS Yet this isn’t the only instance in which Eilish has dated someone a decade her senior. Earlier this year, the star made headlines after calling it quits with former flame Matthew Tyler Vorce. @billieeilish/instagram Despite rumors that Vorce had cheated on Eilish, the actor took to social media to set the record straight following their split. “The fact that thousands of people take time out of their day to write the most heinous things on someone they will never know posts is the most cowardly thing you can do. Live your own life,” he wrote in an Instagram Story at the time. “Nobody cheated on anyone. Relationships end. Simple as that. Creating rumors and LYING on the internet is dangerous.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Jason Lange WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden’s approval rating edged higher with just a week to go before U.S. midterm elections when his Democratic Party is expected to lose control of the House of Representatives, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll completed on Tuesday found. The two-day national poll found that 40% of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance, a percentage point higher than a week earlier. Despite the increase, Biden’s approval rating remains near the lowest levels of his presidency, and his unpopularity is helping drive the view that Republicans will win control of the House and possibly also the Senate on Nov. 8. Control of even one chamber of Congress would give Republicans the power to bring Biden’s legislative agenda to a halt. Taking office in January 2021 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden’s term has been marked by the economic scars of the global health crisis, including soaring inflation. This year, his approval rating drifted as low as 36% in May and June. In this week’s Reuters/Ipsos poll, about a third of respondents picked the economy as the country’s biggest problem, a much larger share than the one in 10 who picked crime or the end of national abortion rights following the Supreme Court’s June decision. The poll, conducted online in English throughout the United States, gathered responses from 1,004 adults, including 455 Democrats and 355 Republicans. It has a credibility interval – a measure of precision – of 4 percentage points either way. (Reporting by Jason Lange; editing by Jonathan Oatis) View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mirrorpix / MEGA Leslie Jordan‘s legacy lives on. A photo of the beloved actor and comedian has been placed in the front lobby of the picturesque Los Angeles condo he purchased just weeks before his death, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned. “As far as I’m concerned Leslie Jordan still lives in our building,” read a Facebook post from Vintage Los Angeles, showing a portrait of the star smiling as a greeting for residents in the iconic building overlooking Sunset Plaza and Hollywood Hills. Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency / MEGA “Leslie had just moved to a condo in the same building I live in,” wrote the author, revealing they heard he was “moving in his furniture the day he passed.” As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Jordan had spent $1.75 million for the place at the beginning of August. “We were so looking forward to knowing him better and just seeing his smiling face in the elevator,” the author gushed about Jordan via social media. “What an incredibly talented, unique, positive individual that can never be replaced.” Fans were devastated to learn that Jordan died on October 24. He was 67. The cherished performer was tragically involved in a car accident in Hollywood and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Los Angeles County coroner. At this time, it’s unknown if Jordan suffered some sort of medical emergency beforehand. Rod Lamkey – CNP / MEGA Prior to his death, Jordan made a name for himself in Tinseltown thanks to his work on popular TV shows including Will & Grace, Hearts Afire, and American Horror Story. He also garnered a large following on social media during the pandemic. RadarOnline.com has since learned that Jordan’s life was celebrated by those near and dear to him during a recent event. Over the weekend, the Chattanooga, Tennessee, native had been scheduled to join his costars in Palm Springs, California, to ring in the 22nd anniversary of the cult-favorite film Sordid Lives, and they used the opportunity to pay homage to his memory. MEGA “We’re not so great,” writer and director Del Shores said. “But we’re here, and y’all make everything better. It’s been a sad week for us.” “There was a discussion for a while that we were gonna cancel because I was just so ‘tore up,’ as we say in the South, over Leslie’s death,” Shores added. “As this became an impromptu memorial service of sorts, we figured there was no better way than to kick it off than with a special message in song by Rosemary and Newell Alexander.” View the full article

Published by AFP After the US Supreme Court's controversial decision to overturn the nationwide right to abortion, more women have sought out abortion pills online Washington (AFP) – Requests by Americans for abortion pills from outside the United States have surged since the US Supreme Court’s explosive decision last summer to overturn the nationwide right to the procedure, according to a study published Tuesday. Researchers, whose work was published in the medical journal JAMA, analyzed the number of requests submitted to telemedicine service Aid Access, which delivers abortion pills from abroad to 30 US states. Aid Access was purposefully set up to help women “self-manage” their abortions at home, circumventing local bans or other barriers. After the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in late June, many Republican-led states severely restricted or outright banned abortions. According to the study, Aid Access received an average of 83 requests per day before the Supreme Court’s decision from the 30 states in which it operates. But in the two months after, that number jumped to 213 per day — an increase of about 160 percent. Proportional to the number of women in each state, the increase in Aid Access requests were highest in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama and Oklahoma — all of which completely banned abortions. In the states that outlawed abortions, “current legal restrictions” was cited as women’s motivation for using the service in about 62 percent of cases after the Supreme Court decision, compared to 31 percent before. The study did analyze requests for the pills on other sites, where they are easily available for a few hundred dollars — but without medical supervision. Another study, also published Tuesday in the journal JAMA, looked at the average travel time for women to reach an abortion clinic in the United States. The average time was 28 minutes before the Supreme Court’s decision, and it increased significantly to 1 hour and 40 minutes afterward. The national average however masks wide local disparities. In states that implemented a total abortion ban or limits after six weeks of pregnancy, the average travel time increase was four hours, according to the study, which added that the lack of access was especially a problem for those with fewer resources. In the 100 days following the Supreme Court ruling, at least 66 clinics stopped performing abortions, according to a report in early October by the Guttmacher Institute. View the full article

Published by AFP A rare original copy of the 1787 U.S. Constitution, photographed at Sotheby's in New York on October 31, 2022 prior to its auction on December 13 for an estimated $20 million to $30 million New York (AFP) – An original copy of the US Constitution — one of only two known to be in private hands — will be auctioned off in December with bidding estimated to go as high as $30 million, Sotheby’s announced Tuesday. Five hundred first printings were made of the US Constitution’s final text and provided to participants at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin, but almost all have been lost to history. Of the 13 that are known to have remained, 11 are owned by governments and institutions. Last year, one of the two privately held copies was bought for $43.2 million by US hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who outbid a group of 17,000 cryptocurrency investors who had raised $40 million to try to buy the document, vowing to exhibit it in the public digital domain. Griffin’s purchase, which he has since lent for display at a free public museum, set a record for the highest price ever paid for a historical document at auction, according to Sotheby’s. The second copy will be auctioned off on December 13 for up to $30 million dollars, but bidding could soar even higher, according to Richard Austin, an expert in manuscripts and old books at Sotheby’s New York auction house. Austin told AFP he would “like to see another private individual or perhaps a group being responsible for the care of this very important document.” The artifact will be on public display at Sotheby’s New York starting on November 4. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Brendan Pierson (Reuters) -CVS Health Corp, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc and Walmart Inc have agreed to pay about $13.8 billion to resolve thousands of U.S. state, local and tribal government lawsuits accusing the pharmacy chains of mishandling opioid painkillers. CVS said Wednesday it had agreed to pay about $5 billion over 10 years, and Walgreens disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it had agreed to pay about $5.7 billion over 15 years. Neither company admitted wrongdoing. Walmart has agreed to pay $3.1 billion, mostly up front, according to two people familiar with the matter. Paul Geller, one of the lawyers who negotiated for the governments, said that settlements with pharmacies “will bring billions of additional dollars to communities that are desperate for funds to combat the epidemic” of opioid addiction. “We know that reckless, profit-driven dispensing practices fueled the crisis; but we know just as surely that with better systems in place and proper heeding of red flag warnings, pharmacies can play a direct role in reducing opioid abuse and in saving lives,” Geller said. CVS general counsel Thomas Moriarty said in a statement the company was pleased to resolve the claims and the deal was “in the best interest of all parties, as well as our customers, colleagues and shareholders.” Walgreens said in its SEC filing that it “continues to believe it has strong legal defenses” and will defend itself vigorously against any future lawsuits not covered by the settlement. Both CVS and Walgreens said their agreements would not be final until certain non-monetary terms were worked out, and that the total amount could be reduced if not enough government plaintiffs sign on. Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The proposed settlement, which would be the first nationwide deal with retail pharmacy companies, follows nationwide opioid settlements with drugmakers and distributors totaling more than $33 billion. In more than 3,300 lawsuits, beginning in 2017, state and local governments accused drugmakers of downplaying the risks of their opioid pain medicines, and distributors and pharmacies of ignoring red flags that prescriptions were being diverted into illegal trafficking. They said the resulting human toll, as well as strain on public health services and law enforcement, was a public nuisance that the companies must pay to fix. CVS, Walgreens and Walmart are the three largest retail pharmacies in the country by market share. If their settlement becomes final, it will put much of the sprawling, years-long litigation over opioids to rest, though cases are still pending against smaller, more regionally focused pharmacy operators including Rite Aid Corp and Kroger Co. Plaintiffs had scored some significant trial victories against pharmacy chains, including a $650.6 million judgment in favor of two Ohio counties against CVS, Walgreens and Walmart, and a ruling that Walgreens contributed to the opioid epidemic in San Francisco. Previous settlements netted $21 billion from the three largest U.S. drug distributors, $5 billion from Johnson & Johnson, $4.35 billion from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, $2.37 billion from AbbVie Inc and $450 million from Endo International Plc. Purdue Pharma LP, whose prescription pill OxyContin is widely blamed for sparking the addiction and overdose crisis, and its Sackler family owners are seeking to resolve opioid claims against them through a $6 billion settlement in bankruptcy court. State and local authorities have said they will use the money from the settlements to combat the opioid crisis, which according to federal government data has caused nearly 650,000 overdose deaths since 1999 and is continuing to worsen. Prescriptions for opioids rose sharply in the 1990s as companies aggressively promoted the drugs, long used primarily in cancer patients, as a safe way to treat all kinds of chronic pain. Overdoses involving opioids, including prescription pills and heroin, surged further during the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing 38% in 2020 over the previous year and another 15% in 2021, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency has attributed much of the recent rise in overdose cases to illegally manufactured fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. A congressional report last month put the economic toll of the opioid crisis in 2020 alone at $1.5 trillion. (Reporting by Baranjot Kaur in Bengaluru, Brendan Pierson in New York and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Kenneth Maxwell and Mark Potter) View the full article

Published by AFP White House national security spokesman John Kirby says Washington has grown increasingly concerned by Moscow's repeated mention of the possibility of using nuclear arms in Ukraine Washington (AFP) – The White House said Wednesday it was increasingly concerned over Moscow’s talk of using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, after a media report said top Russian military officials had discussed how and when to use such a weapon. “We have grown increasingly concerned about the potential as these months have gone on,” said White House national security spokesman John Kirby. Kirby did not confirm a New York Times report that said high-level Russian military officials recently discussed when and how they might use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. The report, which cited unnamed US officials, said Russian President Vladimir Putin did not take part in the discussions, and there was no indication that the Russian military had decided to deploy the weapons. But Kirby said any comments on the use of nuclear weapons by Russia are “deeply concerning,” and said the United States takes them seriously. He pointed to recent Putin comments talking about nuclear weapons and referencing the bombs US forces dropped on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki near the end of World War II. “We take note of that,” Kirby said. “It increasingly is unsettling in terms of the degree to which he feels he has to continue to stretch to prosecute this war,” he said. At the same time, Kirby reiterated, Washington sees no indications that Russia is making preparations to use nuclear weapons, adding that US intelligence does not necessarily see or know everything. The United States has been warning Moscow for weeks over public comments from top Russian officials that they could use nuclear weapons in Ukraine in certain cases, particularly if they felt there was a threat to Russian territorial integrity. The most recent threat came from former Russian president and senior security council official Dmitry Medvedev. Medvedev said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s objective to reclaim all its territories occupied by Russia, which include the Donbas region and Crimea, would be a “threat to the existence of our state.” That, Medvedev said, would be “a direct reason” to invoke nuclear deterrence. However, early Wednesday Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Western media was “deliberately pumping up the topic of the use of nuclear weapons.” Moscow does “not have the slightest intention to take part in this,” he said, calling the Times report “very irresponsible.” In September, Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security advisor, said that the United States has warned Russia at “very high levels” of “catastrophic consequences” for using nuclear arms. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned on October 13 that Russian forces would be “annihilated” by the West if Putin uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Sheila Dang (Reuters) – Banned accounts will not be allowed back onto Twitter until the social media platform has “a clear process for doing so,” Elon Musk tweeted in the early hours on Wednesday, giving more clarity about the potential return of Twitter’s most famous banned user, former U.S. President Donald Trump. Creating such a process would take at least a few more weeks, Musk tweeted. The new timeline implies Trump will not return in time for the midterm elections on Nov. 8. Twitter users, advertisers and its own employees have been watching closely for signs of what Musk will do in his first week as Twitter’s owner. The Tesla chief executive has previously said Twitter should not permanently ban users and that he would reverse the ban on Trump, who was suspended for risk of further incitement of violence after the U.S. Capitol riot last year. Musk’s tweets came after he held a call with several civil rights organizations including Color of Change, the Anti-Defamation League and the NAACP on Tuesday. During the call, Musk committed to uphold Twitter’s content moderation policies and enforcement around election integrity, said Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, in an interview. Musk also reiterated in his tweet on Wednesday that Twitter will create a content moderation council composed of representatives with “widely divergent views.” The billionaire expressed during the call that he would like the civil society groups to join the council, Robinson said, adding the discussions were still at an early stage. “Actions will speak louder than words,” he said. “The issues that were addressed in this meeting were just the tip of the iceberg.” (Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Editing by Nick Zieminski) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Deena Beasley (Reuters) – The annual price of a newly-launched cancer drug in the United States averaged $283,000 last year, a 53% increase from 2017, according to a new report from U.S. Democratic Representative Katie Porter, a consumer bankruptcy law professor running for re-election in California. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, oncology treatments are nearly four times as costly as other therapies and are largely paid for by taxpayer-funded programs like the government’s Medicare plan for people over age 65, the report notes. Reuters reported in August on the record-high launch prices of new drugs in 2022 versus 2021 – an area that has driven drugmaker profits as they limited year-over-year price increases on existing drugs due to pressure from lawmakers and the public. This new analysis is a first look at the degree to which cancer drugmakers rely on high launch prices, an area left out of the Medicare pricing limits set out in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed by U.S. President Joe Biden in August. The IRA focuses on Medicare price negotiation for older drugs and caps on price increases. It also limits annual out-of-pocket drug costs for beneficiaries to $2,000, which means the Medicare plan will be responsible for costs over that amount. By law, Medicare is required to cover all cancer medications. “Launch prices are an important issue and one that is not touched by the IRA,” Stacie Dusetzina, an associate professor of health policy at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University Medical Center who studies drug costs told Reuters. “I do think there is a possibility we see launch prices go up,” she said. Cancer drugs set to get costlier https://graphics.reuters.com/US-DRUGS/xmpjkgqnrvr/chart.png Porter, who championed inflation-based caps on drug prices, is calling for additional national legislation to link launch prices to how well a drug works. And, in the case of drugs approved under the Food and Drug Administration’s accelerated pathway, limiting prices until there is sufficient data to show the drugs are effective. “The trend toward ever higher launch prices is ongoing and accelerating. And I think we should expect it to continue unless we do something about it,” Porter told Reuters. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry’s main trade group, has maintained that “government price setting has a devastating impact on biopharmaceutical research and development and places an additional barrier between patients and innovative medicines.” CANCER PILLS ROSE NEARLY 26% IN FIVE YEARS Many of the newer cancer drugs are biologics that need to be given as an infusion by a healthcare professional, but an increasing number are self-administered pills or tablets. The report found that the average launch price of a self-administered cancer drug, after adjusting for inflation, rose by nearly 26% to $238,000 between 2017 and 2021. U.S. cancer drug launch prices in 2017 https://graphics.reuters.com/US-DRUGS2017/akpeqgygjpr/chart.png U.S. cancer drug launch prices in 2021 https://graphics.reuters.com/US-DRUGS2021/lbpggryrdpq/chart.png The analysis excluded an ultra-expensive class of treatments called CAR-T, which involve drawing white blood cells from a patient, processing them in the lab to target cancer and infusing the cells back into the patient. In 2017, the most expensive new cancer tablet was Celgene’s Idhifa at $298,465 a year. Celgene was later acquired by Bristol Myers, which said in 2020 that a study of Idhifa, approved to treat a subset of leukemia patients, failed to show that it improved survival compared to standard care. No other new drug launched in 2017 had an annual price over $200,000. By 2022, six out of the eight newly-launched oral cancer drugs had prices over $200,000 per year. These included lung cancer pills such as Takeda Pharmaceutical’s Exkivity at $299,995, Merck KGaA’s Tepmetko at $250,775 and Amgen Inc’s Lumakras at $214,800. Based on current trends, the report calculated that by 2026, when Medicare will first be able to negotiate drug prices, the average self-administered cancer drug launch price will be nearly $325,000 per year and over $525,000 for pills and biologics. (Reporting By Deena Beasley; Editing by Caroline Humer and Josie Kao) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Mariah Carey says writing “saved” her as she used poetry and music as an escape. The 52-year-old star has penned new children’s book ‘The Christmas Princess’ about a 12-year-old girl called Mariah who is rescued by her music, and she has noted some parallels with her own life. The ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ hitmaker explained while the story is “a fairy tale”, there are some similarities. As well as the character’s “shack”, her mum is called Diva, while Mariah’s actual mother Patricia was an opera singer. The age of the protagonist is also relevant, as the singer told PEOPLE magazine: “That’s the age when I learned I was definitely ‘other.’ “ She added: “It would’ve been great to actually be a chameleon, but I didn’t have the tools for it. Meaning we didn’t have money.” Instead, Mariah turned to poetry and music as an excape, with her childhood inspiring the lyrics for tracks like 1997’s ‘Outside’. She said: “Writing saved me.” Referencing the book’s character, she noted: “Her music rescues her. It’s not a Prince Charming who comes in. She saves her own day.” Meanwhile, Mariah – the self-professed Queen of Christmas – admitted another festive holiday gave her the spark to start writing the book. She explained: “It was two years ago at Thanksgiving, and I was making a pot of greens. They were so good we named them the Anointed Greens. “Cooking for my friends and family, everything that I was doing at the time, I thought, ‘Wow, this is so different from when I was little.’ “ Mariah previously suggested diamonds really might be a girl’s best friends as she reflected on her butterfly-themed jewellery collections with Chopard and insitsed most people “let you down”. She said: “I hate to say it, but for the most part, people let you down. So I might have to go with it. With very few exceptions, but for the most part, yeah.” View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Robbie Williams thinks Tom Hanks and Noel Gallagher are the only people unaffected by fame. The ‘Let Me Entertain You’ hitmaker – who has been honest about his battles with addiction and the difficulties of life in the spotlight – suggested the Hollywood actor and Oasis legend appear to have come through relatively unscathed. Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, he said: “I play this game, that who has got through that [fame], come through the other side and gone, ‘I enjoyed every bit about it, and I’m totally mentally really well and I’m happy to continue. Let’s do more of it.’ “Do you know, here’s the thing. The first person that jumps to my head is Tom Hanks. But, we don’t know the real Tom Hanks. So we don’t know what went on with his life. “The other one who I think… Noel Gallagher seems to have handled extreme fame really, really well. They still achieved what they achieved, and he’s still Noel Gallagher.” Of course, the challenges of fame are well known, and the former Take That singer himself thinks it can be particularly tough for members of boybands and girlbands. He explained: “If you run through every boyband and girlband that’s ever existed. With Take That, Gary Barlow leaves the band, his career’s supposed to do that and it didn’t. “He suffered with bulimia, didn’t leave his house, went to sleep underneath his piano because he’d forgotten how to write songs. Incredibly depressed. “Changed his name on his credit card because he didn’t want people to see Barlow. “Howard Donald wanted to commit suicide after he left Take That. Mark Owen’s been to rehab and Jason Orange just can’t do it.” As well as his former bandmates, the 48-year-old star has battled his own issues, and he thinks a lot of that can be blamed on “this machine”. He explained: “And then there’s me, the mental health, the rehabs, the addiction, there’s all of that. So that’s what being in a boyband really does. “And I’m sure that in five or 10 years’ time if you sit down with One Direction to a man, they’re all going to have their isms that have been caused by this machine. “I want to do a documentary about it. Maybe we should do it together. About boybands and girlbands and what really happens. Why fame does that to you.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Daniel Trotta (Reuters) – Democratic former President Barack Obama on Tuesday warned that “more people are going to get hurt” unless the U.S. political climate changes, after the husband of the Speaker of the House was attacked by a man wielding a hammer. A 42-year-old man has been charged with breaking into the home of Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday and, in her absence, attacking her 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, fracturing his skull and causing other injuries. The suspect pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and a host of other state charges. Campaigning at a rally for Democratic candidates in Nevada, the former president said he had spoken to Paul Pelosi recently and “he’s going to be OK.” But Obama expressed grave concern about “this erosion of just basic civility and democratic norms,” in a country where supporters of Republican former President Donald Trump violently attacked the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. “This increasing habit of demonizing political opponents creates a dangerous climate,” Obama said, faulting elected officials who fail to reject the violence, make light of it, or inflame the situation with heated rhetoric. “If that’s the environment that we create, more people are going to get hurt.” Obama was in Las Vegas to lend his star power to candidates who are in extremely close races for U.S. Senate and governor ahead of the Nov. 8 election. He also backed candidates further down the ballot in races for the U.S. Congress, state attorney general and secretary of state. The two-term president, who left office in 2017, remains the Democratic Party’s most popular figure and has already made campaign stops in Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia. The Obama tour will continue on Wednesday in Arizona and Saturday in Pennsylvania, two more states with tight races for governor and senator. In Nevada, incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is facing a fierce challenge from Republican Adam Laxalt, a former attorney general who supported Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by fraud. The Nevada race could determine which party controls the Senate, which is split 50-50 and in Democratic hands only because Vice Present Kamala Harris can break any ties. In the race for governor, Democratic incumbent Steve Sisolak is locked in a close race with Republican challenger Joe Lombardo, the Clark County sheriff. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Kim Coghill) View the full article

Published by Raw Story By Sky Palma A TikTok creator posted a video showing a woman harassing her in a public bathroom because the woman thought she was trans. Jay, who uses the TikTok handle @creatingjayrose, shared the video which shows the woman questioning her identity. “I knew she was talking about me so I started recording… Today a woman thought I was trans and harassed me for using the bathroom,” Jay stated in the video. When Jay stepped out of the bathroom, the woman immediately approached her and said: “Stay right there, yeah, figure out your identity in your bedroom. I am pissed right now.” IN OTHER NEWS… Read More View the full article

Published by The Detroit News It only makes sense that Al Yankovic’s biopic would be a parody of biopics. So “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” is anything but the A-Z story of the song parodist who is perhaps not technically the best but arguably went on to become the most famous accordion player in an extremely specific genre of music. Take any music biopic, whether it’s “Walk the Line,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “Ray,” and give it the “Weird” Al treatment, and you’ve got this absurdist, playful, self-aware send-up of the man who took a gamble and risked it all to turn “Like a Virgin” into “Like a Surgeon.” Yankovic, who co-wro… Read More View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Sappy William Shatner‘s got a new outlook on life after boldly going into outer space last year — and now, he hopes to launch a truce with Star Trek castmate George Takei, RadarOnline.com has learned. The sci-fi legends have bickered with each other for decades — but Shatner, 91, is eager to make peace with Takei, 85, while they still can, tipsters snitched. Mega “Bill has been reaching out to try and mend fences,” spilled an insider. “He doesn’t want the bad blood anymore, and word is George is open to it. “Bill’s the first to admit he’s been stubborn, big-headed, and ego-driven. It’s taken years, but Bill’s come a long way — and better late than never.” Star Trek‘s Nichelle Nichols died of natural causes in July at the age of 89 while fellow franchise icon Leonard Nimoy, 83, succumbed to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2015 — without ever responding to Shatner’s calls and texts. Nichelle Nichols Hand-Wrote Will CUT HER SON OUT Of $10 Million Estate Mega “Bill was devastated when Leonard died. He never did get a chance to say goodbye,” confided the source. “And he was so sad over Nichelle’s passing. He’ll always remember her as a great lady.” According to the mole, Shatner “seems to be getting a little lonely,” and “everyone would like to see Bill and George be on friendly terms.” Shatner’s epiphany comes just one week after he revealed he felt profound grief after launching into space, detailing his experience in his memoir, Boldly Go. “I was crying,” the actor told NPR. “I didn’t know what I was crying about. I had to go off some place and sit down and think, what’s the matter with me? And I realized I was in grief.” Mega Shatner said space gave him “the strongest feelings of grief” he had ever felt in his life. “I wept for the Earth because I realized it’s dying,” the star said. “I dedicated my book, Boldly Go, to my great-grandchild, who’s three now — coming three — and in the dedication, say it’s them, those youngsters, who are going to reap what we have sown in terms of the destruction of the Earth.” View the full article

Published by AFP The 'Big Five' publishing companies are Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group USA and Macmillan Publishers New York (AFP) – A federal judge on Monday blocked publishing giant Penguin Random House from acquiring its competitor Simon & Schuster, siding with the US Justice Department which had argued against the mega-merger. The deal, worth $2.2 billion, had been announced in November 2020 and would have brought together two of the five largest American publishers. US District Court Judge Florence Pan, in her ruling, said the government had convincingly shown that the merger would substantially lessen competition “in the market for the US publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books.” Pan said her full reasoning for the decision would be issued under seal, as it relied on confidential business information. The Justice Department hailed the decision, which comes only a week before crucial midterm elections in which Democratic President Joe Biden has tried to paint his party as defending consumers’ interests. The Justice Department under Biden has been more aggressive than his predecessors in attempting to block mergers, with mixed success so far. “Today’s decision protects vital competition for books and is a victory for authors, readers, and the free exchange of ideas,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter in a statement. With 10,000 employees worldwide and nearly 15,000 books published per year, Penguin Random House — a subsidiary of the German Bertelsmann Group — dominates the industry in the United States. Simon & Schuster, owned by Paramount, is the fourth largest of America’s “Big Five” publishing companies, which also include HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group USA and Macmillan Publishers. Stephen King ‘delighted’ Big-name writers on the roster at Simon & Schuster include Stephen King and Doris Kearns Goodwin, while Barack and Michelle Obama and John Grisham have books published by Penguin Random House. It is also preparing to release Prince Harry’s memoir, in early 2023. Penguin Random House said it strongly disagreed with the judge’s ruling and announced it will request an expedited appeal. “We believe this merger will be pro-competitive, and we will continue to work closely with Paramount and Simon & Schuster on next steps,” it said in a statement. But best-selling author King praised Pan’s decision, in a statement going against his own publisher. “I am delighted that Judge Florence Pan has blocked the merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster,” the “King of Horror” said in a tweet. “The proposed merger was never about readers and writers; it was about preserving (and growing) PRH’s market share. In other words: $$$,” he said. Paramount said it was disappointed by the ruling. “We are reviewing the decision and discussing next steps with Bertelsmann and Penguin Random House, including seeking an expedited appeal,” it said. Prior to the US action against the takeover, the UK’s competition authority had also taken a close look at the merger, as both groups have British divisions. It issued a favorable opinion in May 2021. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Julia Harte (Reuters) – U.S. states have enacted more than 30 new voting restrictions since 2020, from voter ID requirements to limits on mail-in voting, fueling tensions between Republicans and Democrats ahead of November’s general election. Republicans, who have largely embraced former President Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election, say the measures are necessary to ensure election integrity. Democrats say they are aimed at making it harder for voters who traditionally back the Democratic Party to cast their votes. Most of the measures were backed by Republican state legislators and opposed by Democrats, but the divide is not purely red and blue. Sometimes the debate over each law comes down to the fine print of the details. VOTER ID Eleven U.S. states have imposed stricter voter identification requirements since 2020, according to the Brennan Center for Justice and the Voting Rights Lab, which track voting legislation across the country. Opponents of voter ID measures do not object to the requirement that voters verify their identity when voting – which is already standard in every state – but rather the means used to verify them. Unlike many European democracies, where government-issued IDs are more ubiquitous, studies have found that millions of U.S. voters lack photo ID. Two of the most controversial 2021 laws changed the ID rules for absentee or mail-in ballots. Georgia now requires voters who lack driver’s licenses or state ID cards to include in their absentee ballot application a photocopy of another government-issued ID, which many voters may not be able to easily produce. Previously, absentee voters’ identities were verified by signature-matching. Texas’ law permits voters to use a broader set of IDs when applying for and casting mail-in ballots. However, it automatically rejects them if the voter uses an ID number different from the one they provided when they registered to vote. In Texas’ March primary, election officials rejected one out of every eight mail-in ballots, according to data from the secretary of state’s office. That rate – 12.4% – vastly exceeded Texas’ 0.8% mail ballot rejection rate during the 2020 presidential election. Officials blamed most of the increase on the new law, according to local news reports. Advocates of the Georgia and Texas measures say they are necessary to ensure that voters are who they claim to be, and cite studies that show some voter ID laws have not depressed turnout. Opponents say there is no need for stricter ID rules because voter fraud is already vanishingly rare, and point to studies showing that voter ID laws in states such as North Carolina reduced turnout by voters of color. MAIL-IN VOTING Mail-in voting laws are especially complex in the United States. Only 11 countries in the world do not require voters to provide an excuse to vote by mail, according to the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA). Two-thirds of U.S. states are in this category. Since 2020, 19 states have enacted laws making it harder for voters to apply for, receive, or cast mail-in ballots, according to the Brennan Center and the Voting Rights Lab. Some states’ laws restricted mail-in voting one way while easing it other ways. Kentucky’s Republican-controlled legislature passed a law that allowed voters to fix absentee ballots if they made errors, but also limited the application period for absentee ballots. Proponents of limiting mail-in voting say it adds to the cost of running elections and creates more opportunities for ballots to be intercepted by unintended recipients who might fraudulently cast them. Advocates of expanding mail-in voting say limiting it hinders voters who cannot go to a polling place. VOTER LIST MAINTENANCE Unlike many democratic countries, the United States does not have compulsory voter registration through a centralized system. As a result, states must periodically review their lists of registered voters to ensure they are up to date. Since 2020, seven states have enacted laws that facilitated the delisting of voters. Advocates of the laws say they are necessary for ensuring only eligible voters are kept on the list, whereas opponents say the laws make it harder for voters to know they have been removed or remedy wrongful removals. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in April enacted a law he said would improve election security by requiring election supervisors to clean up voter rolls every year rather than every two years, and establishing a statewide Office of Election Crimes and Security to investigate election “irregularities.” Voter advocates criticized the law, saying it created more opportunities for voters to be wrongly purged from the rolls and intimidated by investigators from the new office. PARTISAN VS. NONPARTISAN ELECTION ADMINISTRATION The United States has one of the world’s most fractured election administration systems. In most U.S. states, elections are overseen by elected or appointed state officials. Within each county, elections are run by local officials such as clerks and judges, sometimes in conjunction with nonpartisan or bipartisan election boards. Few state-level voting laws sought to change election management authority before the hotly contested 2020 election, in which Trump falsely blamed his loss on voter fraud. But since that election, 25 states have enacted laws that shifted power away from traditional election managers and, in many cases, ceded control to partisan actors, according to the Voting Rights Lab. Advocates of the laws, who were overwhelmingly Republican, argued they would bolster oversight of local election officials. Such laws are unusual in other democracies. The human rights body Council of Europe adopted guidelines in 2010 that called for high-level positions within election-management bodies to be “dispersed among parties” to ensure balance. (Reporting by Julia Harte; editing by Ross Colvin and Jonathan Oatis) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Greta Thunberg says that teenagers have been “betrayed” by those in power. The 19-year-old activist – who became known around the world when she staged regular school strikes outside the Swedish Parliament in 2018 to protest against climate change and has gone on to become a figurehead of the movement – recently announced her decision to avoid COP27 this month in Egypt, having accused the United Nations of “green-washing” their annual summit but when asked how she felt about UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also choosing to also skip the event, she noted that it was a sign of government failure. She said: “All these individual cases have many different reasons why they made these decisions, so of course we shouldn’t be focussing ourselves blindly to just one example. “The people in power do not really prioritise the climate crisis and have proven time and time again that their priorities are somewhere else entirely, they would rather stay in power and serve the forces of greed.” Greta insisted people needed to keep “demanding this change”. She continued: “The change is going to come from the outside when enough people are demanding this change, because they are most likely going to do what they can, as long as they can get away with it. So we have to make sure that they do not get away with it.” Meanwhile, she admitted she goes for “long walks” to “clear her head” and deal with the idea of being a frontrunner in the campaign. She said: “I usually go for very, very long walks, to try to clear my head. It shouldn’t have to be like this, this responsibility shouldn’t have to fall on teenagers at all. The fact that there are young people, mostly, who have to take up this fight is a sign of betrayal and failure from those in power.” Greta also explained that there has been a “difference” in activism since her rise to fame because “millions” have joined her in protest but claimed that the action taken has been “not nearly” enough and we need “everyone” to play a part in managing the crisis. Speaking on UK TV show ‘This Morning’ on ITV, she said: “You could look at it in a way that emissions are still on the rise and we are speeding in the wrong direction. We are still expanding fossil fuels for infrastructure and so on. There is no sense of urgency whatsoever. No one is acting if we are in a crisis. But on the other hand, of course, we have had millions of people flooding the streets and demanding action. “So, it depends on how you see it. Of course, there has been a difference but not nearly enough. It’s very difficult to describe. We never thought that it would be possible to do anything like that. In the beginning, it was just me, and then it was a handful of others – schoolchildren. “We just thought that since we had the opportunity to do something, it was our moral duty to go out and act. Someone needed to take action so we just did it. We didn’t count on any consequences or so on, we just did it.” View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Hillary Clinton recently demanded Donald Trump pay upwards of $1 million to cover her legal fees following a failed racketeering lawsuit against her, RadarOnline.com can confirm. The surprising request came on Monday when lawyers for the former first lady-turned-2016 presidential candidate filed a motion in federal court demanding sanctions be imposed upon ex-President Trump. Mega Clinton’s lawyers also called the racketeering lawsuit, which was thrown out of court in September, nothing more than a “political stunt.” “A reasonable attorney would never have filed this suit, let alone continued to prosecute it after multiple Defendants’ motions to dismiss highlighted its fundamental and incurable defects,” Clinton’s lawyers wrote, according to the Post. Mega Her legal team requested Trump pay a whopping $1.06 million to cover all the legal fees accrued by the numerous defendants named in the failed lawsuit. As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Trump filed a civil lawsuit in March and accused Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and numerous others of conspiring to undermine his 2016 presidential campaign with accusations Trump’s team colluded with Russia. British ex-spy Christopher Steele, who made headlines in 2016 over claims he had a “dirty dossier” proving Russia had blackmail against then-candidate Trump, was also named as a defendant in the civil suit. Trump claimed he lost $24 million as a result of the Russian collusion rumors – although US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1997 and oversaw the lawsuit, threw the suit out of court in September due to “deficiencies in the plaintiff’s argument.” Mega Trump’s legal team, led by his lawyer Alina Habba, have since appealed the dismissal of the $24 million civil suit. Habba has also accused Clinton of having “political reasons” for Monday’s motion demanding sanctions against Trump. “This motion, conveniently filed one week prior to election day, is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to score political points,” Habba said on Monday after Clinton’s team demanded $1.06 million from Trump. “This motion is particularly inappropriate, given that our client’s case will soon be reviewed by the Eleventh Circuit,” Habba continued. “We will oppose this motion and trust that the Court will see through this ruse.” View the full article

Published by AFP Election denialism — the rejection of President Joe Biden's certified victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election — is potential fuel for political violence in the 2022 midterm vote Washington (AFP) – The shocking assault of top Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s husband at their home has heightened concerns that unconstrained disinformation and toxic political partisanship could spill over into violence around next week’s US midterm elections. US security officials say unconstrained disinformation and political vitriol is volatile fuel for attacks, like the one in which a follower of right-wing conspiracy theories apparently sought to kidnap Nancy Pelosi over alleged election “lies.” David DePape, who allegedly assaulted Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband Paul in their San Francisco home when he found she wasn’t there, posted conservative conspiracy theories on his website on election fraud, Covid vaccines, climate change, the Holocaust and trans people in schools. The attack came one week before midterm congressional elections, as politicians and poll workers have reported a surge in threat messages and intimidation. Those include, in Arizona, armed men patrolling ballot drop boxes, alarming people attempting to vote. On Friday, the day of the Pelosi attack, US security agencies issued a warning that domestic violent extremists (DVE) pose “heightened threats” around the November 8 vote. “Election-related perceptions of fraud and DVE reactions to divisive topics will likely drive sporadic DVE plotting of violence and broader efforts to justify violence in the lead up to and following the 2022 midterm election cycle,” the agencies said in a joint intelligence bulletin. Trump rhetoric Talk of political violence climbed after former president Donald Trump refused in November 2020 to accept his election defeat by Joe Biden, leading to the assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters two months later, on January 6, 2021. Since then the political rhetoric has not dampened, in part because Trump himself still dominates the Republican Party and tells supporters that Biden’s Democrats are bent on stealing the upcoming elections. In Robstown, Texas last week, Trump urged voters not to trust the polls, called Pelosi “crazy” and said “Biden and the far left lunatics are waging war on Texas,” among other accusations made without evidence. “Biden and his left wing handlers are turning America into a police state,” he asserted, repeating his unfounded claim that “January 6th was caused because of a crooked stolen election.” Democratic, Republican officials targeted Nothing like January 6 has recurred. But there are enough incidents and social media-fuelled disinformation to give officials cause for worry. In June an armed man traveled to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home just outside Washington, unhappy about the high court’s opposition to abortion rights. In July a man with a gun threatened Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal at her home in Seattle. The same month a military veteran, later described as suffering from alcoholism and PTSD, tried to knife Republican New York governor candidate Lee Zeldin. And Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell has been the target of numerous violent threats. Swalwell placed the blame directly on Trump’s fiery “Make American Great Again” movement. “MAGA political violence is at peak level in America and it’s going to get someone killed,” he wrote in August, urging Republican leaders to denounce it. Rampant disinformation In addition, poll workers have reported widespread threats after Trump and his followers blamed them for his 2020 election loss. Some areas say they now cannot recruit enough poll workers. In Arizona — where tensions over the allegedly “stolen” 2020 presidential election have been particularly high — armed people wielding video cameras have shown up at ballot drop boxes. Such actions “raise serious concerns of voter intimidation,” the Justice Department said in a filing to the Arizona federal district court, where a lawsuit has been filed over the issue. Underpinning the worries of violence is an atmosphere of copious disinformation online that angers readers and can lead them to launch attacks, as with Pelosi’s attacker. On Sunday the US government’s top cybersecurity official Jen Easterly said there was “a very complex threat environment helped by “rampant disinformation” and “threats of harassment, intimidation and violence against election officials, polling places and voters.” Disinformation “can undermine confidence in election integrity and that can be used to incite violence,” Easterly said on CBS. View the full article

Published by AFP The report sounded the alarm on the scale of land needed for countries' climate plans Paris (AFP) – The world needs to set aside an area bigger than the United States for tree planting and other measures to meet climate pledges, according to research published Tuesday that warned against “unrealistic” carbon-cutting plans. Almost 200 nations will begin high-stakes UN climate talks in Egypt from November 6, as increasing damage from floods, heat waves and droughts are being felt across the world. Recent UN assessments conclude that current policies and plans are not nearly enough to limit global warming and avoid catastrophic climate impacts. They may also be unattainable, new research showed Tuesday on the planned use of land-based schemes such as tree planting to offset fossil fuel pollution. An assessment of plans from 166 countries and the European Union, released by the University of Melbourne, estimated that the total area implied was almost 1.2 billion hectares (2.9 billion acres) — bigger than the United States, or four times the size of India. “Servicing all of the land-based carbon removal pledges is unrealistic because it would require a land mass half the size of current global cropland, putting potential pressure on ecosystems, food security and indigenous peoples’ rights,” the report said. The research looked at countries’ targets, particularly longer-term commitments, and if the land needed was not explicitly stated, they calculated using information about the types of activity as well as carbon removal data from UN climate experts. They found that while over 550 hectares were earmarked for restoring degraded land and protecting primary forests, some 630 million hectares were estimated for carbon capture schemes, like tree planting. “Land-based carbon removals have to be considered together with deep cuts in fossil fuel emissions, not as a replacement,” said Anne Larson, of the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry, who was a co-author of the report. ‘Dangerous overreliance’ Larson said governments might see tree planting as “easy, compared to other options”, but cautioned that these projects can cause their own problems. If there is no long-term management plan or if the species are not native, the trees can simply wither. Tree plantations imposed on communities risk being “neglected, burned, cut down”, she said. Such expansion is also seen as incompatible with the rights of many indigenous peoples, who are increasingly being recognised as crucial custodians of nature, as the world faces a human-caused extinction crisis as well as climate change. The Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, representing 35 million people living in forest territories in Asia, Africa and Latin America, on Tuesday said: “dangerous overreliance on land-based methods to capture carbon would gobble up much of our ancestral lands, which we desperately need for food production and nature protection”. “Simply put, we cannot plant trees to escape climate disaster, there is not enough land. Instead, we need to protect and restore existing forests and you can only do that with us,” the alliance said. UN climate scientists have said the world needs to slash carbon emissions 45 percent by 2030 in order to limit global heating to the more ambitious Paris Agreement goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Melbourne University report said any tree planting schemes would be simply unable to meet the urgent challenge of reducing greenhouse gas pollution. “Countries need to reduce their expected reliance on land-based carbon removal in favour of stepping up emissions reductions from all sectors and prioritising ecosystem-based approaches,” the report said. View the full article

Published by Al-Araby As the 2022 World Cup fast approaches, a wave of false and misleading news targeting host country Qatar has intensified across websites, newspapers, and social networking sites. Below is a sample of false or misleading news stories published in the last few weeks, debunked by the Misbar.com fact-checking website. Claim 1: A graphic entitled “Qatar Welcomes You” was circulated on social media. It claimed to contain official instructions from the State of Qatar for visitors coming to the 2022 World Cup, suggesting the Qatari authorities planned to restrict fans’ personal freedoms during the tour… Read More View the full article

Published by The Detroit News As Halloween comes to a close, the candles are blown out inside the pumpkins on your porch and the trick-or-treaters are safely tucked in bed, Mariah Carey will be waiting in the wings somewhere, ready to kick off Christmas season once again. Nov. 1 has become the official start of the holiday season, the day we put away everything orange and black and bring out everything red and green. And it starts the two-month run in which Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” is inescapable wherever you go. The four-minute, one-second burst of joy will be blasted from cars, bars, dentist’s off… Read More View the full article

Published by New York Daily News NEW YORK — Nearly 70 years after her death, the world’s fascination with Frida Kahlo continues to flourish — generating popular culture conversations in ways the groundbreaking Mexican artist would likely not even understand. That includes exhibitions chronicling her life and work; an upcoming Broadway musical exploring the artist’s intercontinental career; and even the alleged burning of an estimated $10 million Frida Kahlo drawings as part of an NFT launch, which has sparked a criminal investigation by Mexican authorities. Now, a new Brooklyn exhibition described as an “immersive biography” … Read More View the full article