While working on their upcoming sophomore album, Wall of Eyes, the Radiohead offshoot band The Smile recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, which was famously used by The Beatles. However, they weren’t hoping to sound like the Fab Four.
According to NME, The Smile members Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner made a surprise appearance during the London premiere of their Wall of Eyes, on Film theatrical event on Thursday, January 18. During a Q&A session, the group was asked whether they felt influenced by The Beatles while recording at Abbey Road.
“We f****** tried not to!” Yorke answered. “I mean we were in Abbey Road, but it’s like, ‘Let’s not do that, eh?'”
“The fact that we chose to do a tuning-sweep thing halfway through [the song] ‘Bending Hectic’ was just because it wanted that to happen rather than, ‘Hey, let’s do a Beatles song!'” he added.
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump is doubling down on his claims of “complete and total” presidential immunity as he awaits a decision from an appeals court on his effort to have his federal election interference case dismissed.
Trump, appearing to go further than before, wrote on his social media platform on Thursday, in all caps, that even “events that ‘cross the line’ must fall under total immunity” or else there would be “years of trauma trying to determine good from bad.”
Later that day, during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump continued to make his case — unprompted.
Hannity asked Trump to deliver a closing message to New Hampshire voters, who will cast their ballots in the GOP primary on Tuesday.
The former president briefly responded that his message is “Make America Great Again” and then launched into remarks on his legal troubles.
“If a president is afraid to act because they’re worried about being indicted when they leave office — a president of the United States has to have immunity. And the Supreme Court’s going to be ruling on that,” he said. “If they don’t have immunity, no president is going to act. You’re gonna have guys that just sit in office and are afraid to do anything.”
Constitutional scholar Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at University of Chapel Hill, expressed deep skepticism about Trump’s claim that he is entitled to total immunity from criminal prosecution.
“I would describe it as a dangerously bad argument,” Gerhardt told ABC News. “It contradicts nearly everything we know about the Constitution and the intent of the framers.”
Gerhardt continued, “It would be an argument that might make sense if the president were king, but he’s not king.”
Trump’s latest comments also received pushback from one of his Republican rivals.
Nikki Haley, who is looking to beat Trump in New Hampshire’s open primary, was asked to respond to Trump’s social media post on immunity during a CNN town hall on Thursday night.
Haley said it should be “common sense” that presidents can’t do whatever they want with no repercussions.
“It should be common sense, right? Common sense,” she said. “Obviously, if a president is doing something and it’s related to, you know, whether it’s terrorist threats or something like that and people die, that’s one thing.”
“But do you get just total freedom to do whatever you want? No, that’s never the way it was intended to be,” she continued. “There needs to be accountability. No one is above the law.”
Still, Haley said if president she would pardon Trump if he is convicted because him going to jail would only “further divide our country.”
The three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals also seemed extremely wary of Trump’s case when they heard arguments earlier this month.
One judge called Trump’s arguments “paradoxical” and another asked if his team was saying a president could sell pardons or order the military to assassinate a rival with no consequences.
Trump’s attorney argued that any criminal prosecution of a president for action taken while in office is only possible if they are both impeached and convicted first.
The appeals court has not indicated when a decision will be made. But the case could well wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court depending on how the process plays out.
The Supreme Court previously ruled, in a case involving former President Richard Nixon, that presidents can’t be held liable in civil cases for actions they undertook as part of their official duties.
There are no Supreme Court rulings, however, on whether sitting or former presidents are immune from criminal charges related to their actions while in office. That’s because Trump is the first current or former president to ever be criminally indicted.
-ABC News’ Abby Cruz, Lalee Ibssa and Soorin Kim contributed to this report.
A grand jury has indicted Alec Baldwin on an involuntary manslaughter charge in the deadly shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of Rust, months after prosecutors dropped their case against the actor over her death.
The indictment charges Baldwin, 65, with involuntary manslaughter (negligent use of a firearm) or, in the alternative, involuntary manslaughter (without due caution or circumspection), both fourth-degree felonies.
In response to Friday’s indictment, Baldwin’s attorneys, Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel, said, “We look forward to our day in court.”
Special prosecutors investigating the Rust shooting said in October 2023 that they believed Baldwin had “criminal culpability” in the deadly incident. They said at the time they planned to present the case to the grand jury to determine whether probable cause existed to charge him.
The actor was practicing a cross-draw on the Santa Fe set in October 2021 when Baldwin’s Colt-style Western revolver discharged, mortally injuring Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.
Baldwin was initially charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter, before special prosecutors dropped the case against the actor in April 2023. At the time, they noted their investigation remained “active and ongoing.”
Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez was also charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter.
She faces an additional charge of tampering with evidence, with state prosecutors claiming she handed off a small bag of cocaine following her interview with police the day of the shooting.
Jury selection in her trial is scheduled to begin on Feb. 21 in Santa Fe County. The trial is expected to start on Feb. 22 and last two weeks.
Gun enhancement charges initially filed in the case against Gutierrez and Baldwin were ultimately dropped last year.
Sting, ZZ Top and Devo are among the acts booked for the 2024 BeachLife Festival in Redondo Beach, California.
Sting is set to headline the festival’s opening night on Friday, May 3, with Devo on the bill for Saturday, May 4, and ZZ Top playing on the final night, Sunday, May 5.
Joining Sting as headliners are Incubus and My Morning Jacket, with Seal, Trey Anastasio, Sugar Ray, Fleet Foxes and more also on the bill.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Friday signed a stopgap measure to avoid a partial government shutdown that would have taken effect at the end of the day, the White House said.
The measure keeping government funding going for a few more weeks until early March while Republicans and Democrats continue fighting over spending.
Lawmakers on Thursday narrowly averted a partial government shutdown, buying a few extra weeks to try to work out an agreement on a set of bills that will fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year.
After several days of nail-biting over Friday’s looming deadline, which would have seen four of 12 government funding bills expiring, both chambers passed the short-term funding bill — allowing them to get out of town as another snowstorm headed toward the East Coast.
The legislation extends the funding expiration date for the four government funding bills set to expire on Friday to March 1. The other eight bills, which were set to run out of funding on Feb. 2, will now run out of funds on March 8.
“Avoiding a shutdown is very good news for the country, for our veterans, for parents and children, and for farmers and small businesses, all of whom would have felt the sting of the government shutdown,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor. “And this is what the American people want to see. Both sides working together and governing responsibly. No chaos, no spectacle, no shutdown.”
The Senate easily passed the short-term funding bill by an overwhelming vote of 77-18. The House passed it 314-108.
House Freedom Caucus members unsuccessfully pushed for Johnson to add a last-minute border amendment to the stopgap funding bill. Ahead of the vote, the House Freedom Caucus put out a statement urging all Republicans to oppose the funding measure.
“Speaker Mike Johnson should walk away from his agreement with Senate Majority Leader Schumer and pass an appropriations package that meaningfully reduces spending year-over-year and secures our southern border. That is what winning looks like,” the statement said.
The short-term bill buys Congress some additional breathing room, but it ultimately does little to resolve the longer-term questions about government funding that have plagued this Congress, which has already extended its deadline to complete work on government funding twice before, for months.
It’s not clear if this extra bit of time will finally make the difference, despite a breakthrough in negotiations between the House and Senate that has allowed for expedited work on longer-term funding bills.
Earlier this month, Schumer and Johnson reached an agreement on the overall cost of government funding bills after months of squabbling over the matter as House Republicans sought to exact funding cuts greater than those previously agreed to by President Joe Biden and former-Speaker Kevin McCarthy during negotiations over the federal debt limit.
Johnson and Schumer finally settled the matter by announcing they would keep levels consistent with the Biden-McCarthy agreement, inspiring renewed confidence that these extra few weeks could be the magic push that Congress needs to finally complete its work.
But there’s still a long way to go, and it’s not clear whether the extra six weeks Congress is expected to buy itself Thursday will be enough to turn that handshake agreement into legislation that can be voted on and passed — especially with Speaker Johnson’s right flank raging over the deal.
Many of his most right-of-center members are frustrated that Johnson did not fight harder to exact cuts in the agreement.
Johnson has pushed back on that and argued that the stopgap measure that passed Thursday is an important part of his larger effort to secure Republican priorities on the larger government funding bills.
“This is an important thing for us because it allows us to fight for our policy changes, our policy riders, in those spending bills. It takes time to do that. And so, the reason we need just a little more time on the calendar is to allow that process to play out,” Johnson said.
But those policy riders are controversial, and Senate Democrats have vowed to block them.
It’s teeing up a precarious situation for Johnson as he negotiates the next set of bills.
This all comes as negotiations continue on a separate spending package that would provide aid to Ukraine and Israel and strengthen border security. Johnson is digging in on hard-line demands for more restrictive border reforms despite progress in the Senate on a bipartisan compromise.
To further complicate matters, the House is only scheduled to be in session for 11 legislative days between now and the new March 1 funding deadline. The Senate is scheduled for a two-week recess in February.
The next 40 days could make for a crunch on the clock and for Johnson.
ABC News’ Lauren Peller and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
for KING + COUNTRY have released their first new music of 2024.
The Australian brother duo have recorded a reimagined version of “Place In This World,” a 1991 song by Michael W. Smith. It’s from an upcoming soundtrack of songs inspired by the duo’s upcoming movie, Unsung Hero, and it features Smith joining in.
In a statement, Joel and Luke Smallbone say, “The ’90s song, ‘Place In This World,’ by the nobleman, Michael W. Smith, was part of our Australian soundtrack as youngsters. And it is now an indelible part of our upcoming film Unsung Heroes! It was a true thrill to partner with Michael and put our own spin on this classic. Grateful to him for joining us on this project.”
for King + Country will have more new music to come this year. Unsung Hero — based on the true story of how the Smallbone brothers’ parents moved their entire family from Australia to the U.S. to pursue their kids’ musical dreams — arrives in theaters on April 26.
Meanwhile, for KING + COUNTRY are nominated for a Grammy next month for their Jordin Sparks collaboration, “Love Me Like I Am.”
From slow-burning R&B songs to tracks with samples and hard rap collabs, check out this week’s New Music Friday for the culture’s latest and greatest in music.
Fivio Foreign ft. Meek Mill, “Same 24” — It’s New York meets Philly in the latest from Fivio. They each rap about having the same time of day as anyone else, but using the hours to make and uphold a prosperous lifestyle.
Fabolous, “Snooze Freestyle” — Fab takes a note out of SZA‘s book with the sample of her smash single, “Snooze.” He dropped off the official music video, which shows the rapper living the life of luxury during a visit to Melbourne, Australia.
Andra Day, “Where Do We Go” — Just a few days after announcing she’ll perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing” at the upcoming Super Bowl, the singer/actor unveiled her newest R&B ballad, her first since her appearance on The United States vs. Billie Holiday soundtrack in 2021.
Finesse2Tymes ft. RickRoss, “Fat Boy” — The Memphis native returns with the new song featuring the Miami rapper, along with the official visual shot in Ross’ hometown.
Joey BadA$$ ft. KayCyy, “Passports & Suitcases” — The Raising Kanan actor tapped the Kenyan producer for a new single full of R&B vibes, bassy tunes and a display of vocal range from them both.
Megan Moroney has rolled out a new post-breakup anthem, “No Caller ID.”
Megan co-authored the empowering song with Connie Harrington, Jessi Alexander and Jessie Jo Dillion, which chronicles Megan’s resolute to move on from a manipulative ex.
“Hеre you come again, and therе you go/ No coincidence, you always know/ When I’m movin’ on, you move back in/ With a half-ass, “Sorry, how you been?”/ Why do you do it?/ Do you just hate losin’?/ Here you come again, who could it be/ It’s 3 a.m., no caller ID,” goes the candid chorus.
“I played this song on THE LUCKY TOUR last fall, and I could tell my fans wanted me to release it,” shares Megan. “It feels like this song has helped my fans as much as it has helped me. By the end, there is a lot of strength and growth that I’m proud of. I am really excited for this one!”
“No Caller ID” is the first new release following Megan’s 2023 debut album, Lucky. The project spawned her first #1 hit, “Tennessee Orange,” and its follow-up single, “I’m Not Pretty.”
Coming up, Megan will open for Kenny Chesney on his Sun Goes Down 2024 Tour. For tickets and the full tour schedule, head to Megan’s website.
Judas Priest first announced they’d be releasing Invincible Shield during their October performance at Power Trip in Indio, California. The record will be their first new album since 2018’s Firepower.
Fans will soon get a chance to see Judas Priest perform some of these songs live. They kick off a U.K. and European tour starting in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 11, with the tour hitting the U.S. on April 18 in Wallingford, Connecticut. A complete list of dates can be found at judaspriest.com.
(NEW YORK) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams has vetoed a ban on solitary confinement in city jails that was overwhelmingly passed by the city council. He also vetoed legislation to require more transparency on data from the NYPD.
“Vetoing this bill will keep those in our custody and our correction officers safer,” said Adams in a statement Friday after vetoing the solitary confinement legislation.
Adams said if the bill were to take effect, “the Department of Correction would no longer be able to protect people in custody, or the union workers charged with their safety, from violent individuals.”
The city council could still override Adams’ veto with a vote of two-thirds of all council members, or 34 votes.
The council passed the legislation concerning solitary confinement on Dec. 20, with a 39-7 vote. The legislation, sponsored by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, would require all people in city custody to have at least 14 hours of out-of-cell time in shared spaces and would limit solitary confinement to a temporary four-hour period after an incident or confrontation.
The legislation would also implement new disciplinary processes that would only allow isolation only in instances where an incarcerated person engages in a violent incident while in custody.
“Solitary confinement is inhumane, and its presence in our city is indefensible,” Williams said in a statement following the legislation’s passage. “Committing an infraction in jail can cause you to lose privileges, not basic human rights. People in solitary are isolated, denied human contact and connection, denied support, and come out of these deplorable conditions worse than when they went in – and some don’t come out at all.”
“The physical and psychological harm caused by solitary confinement leads to increased death and violence in jails, endangering those incarcerated, as well as correction officers and staff,” said City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. “When formerly incarcerated New Yorkers eventually return to their communities, the lasting trauma of solitary confinement follows them home, and affects us all as neighbors and members of a shared community.”
The mayor said in a statement that despite his opposition to the bill, his administration “does not support solitary confinement in our jails” and “we have achieved significant reductions in key indicators of violence in our correction system without solitary confinement.”
The NYC council also passed policies concerning NYPD transparency, which Mayor Adams also vetoed. These bills would force the NYPD to publicly report on police-civilian investigative stops and consent searches, as well as to expand NYPD reporting on vehicle stops to include the justification and the type of offense observed, as well as other data connected to vehicle stops.
These policies would also expand public insight into overtime, NYPD’s use of stop-question-and-frisk, and crime status information such as data on criminal complaints, arrests, and summons issued. The NYPD has long been under scrutiny over allegations of discriminatory policing by marginalized communities.
“While Intro. 586 has good intentions behind it, the bill is misguided and compromises our public safety,” the mayor said. “Our administration supports efforts to make law enforcement more transparent, more just, and more accountable, but this bill will handcuff our police by drowning officers in unnecessary paperwork that will saddle taxpayers with tens of millions of dollars in additional NYPD overtime each year.”
Mayor Adam’s policies have contributed to an increase in NYPD overtime pay, according to a recent Gothamist report. NYPD activity in the subway system alone has pushed overtime pay from $4 million to $155 million this year under Adams’ push to reduce crime and crack down on New Yorkers sleeping in the subways, according to the Gothamist. The local news outlet found that an “influx of officers corresponded to a 2% drop in what police call ‘major’ crimes in the subway.”
The passage by the city council had been applauded by local civil liberties groups and activists.
