Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars‘ duet “Die With a Smile” is quietly becoming one of the biggest hits of the year.
While it hasn’t topped the Billboard Hot 100, it’s currently at #2 and has topped various other Billboard charts. And on Wednesday came the news that it has just set a record as the fastest song in history to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify.
According to the streaming platform, the song dropped on Aug. 16 and hit the milestone on Nov. 20, so it accomplished that feat in less than 100 days. The song has also earned the superstar duo two Grammy nominations.
But what about Gaga’s other single, “Disease”? She’s just released a new version of it called “Disease (The Poison Live).” It’s a live-in-the-studio, stripped-down performance in which Gaga is accompanied only by an electric guitar. It’s the follow-up to another version she released called “Disease (The Antidote Live).” That one had her singing the song accompanied only by a piano and acoustic guitar.
Why so many versions? According to a press release, each one “highlights a different facet of the track’s emotional intensity and versatility.”
“Disease” is the first single from Gaga’s seventh album, which is due out next year.
(WASHNGTON) — Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be attorney general, met with Republican senators on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning alongside Vice President-elect JD Vance, making his case for the job hours before the House Ethics Committee was set to discuss its report on him.
Several senators have called for the House Ethics Committee to release its report into Gaetz over allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use before they consider his confirmation.
The Justice Department also spent years probing sexual misconduct allegations against Gaetz, as well as allegations of obstruction of justice, before informing Gaetz last year that it would not bring charges. Gaetz has long denied any wrongdoing related to the allegations investigated during the congressional and Justice Department probes.
After Trump announced Gaetz as his attorney general pick, the Florida congressman resigned from the House, meaning the House Ethics Committee no longer has the jurisdiction to continue its investigation into him — however Republicans and Democrats have argued whether a break in that precedent is necessary for the Senate to perform its constitutional duty to advise and consent to presidential nominations.
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, Marsha Blackburn, John Kennedy and John Cornyn met with Vance and Gaetz Wednesday.
Graham told reporters that the meeting went well and that Gaetz deserves a fair nomination process.
“Here’s what I told him, no rubber stamps and no lynch mob. I’m not going to be part of a process that leaks information that shouldn’t be leaked,” Graham said. “I’m not going to legitimize the process to destroy the man because people don’t like his politics. He will be held to account in the confirmation process. He deserves a chance to make his argument why he should be attorney general.”
Hawley defended Gaetz’s nomination.
“My intention is to vote for all the president’s nominees,” Hawley said. “I think for my colleagues who are — who have concerns about the Attorney General nominee, my message would be, well, let’s have a hearing on this. You can ask whatever — if you’re a member of the committee, you can ask whatever question you want, give Gaetz the opportunity to answer questions, lay out his vision, answer concerns.”
Hawley said Gaetz understands his job, if confirmed, is to “serve at the pleasure of the president.”
“You gotta remember that cabinet secretary is not an exercise in individuality. I mean, you’re there to serve at the pleasure of the president. That’s the job, and he has a sense of what the president wants to do in terms of prioritizing law enforcement, getting the department out of the business of political prosecutions. So he wants a chance to lay that out,” Hawley said.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday to request the complete evidentiary file in the bureau’s closed investigation into Gaetz. Included in the ask is a request for forms that memorialize interviews conducted as part of the investigation.
The Democrats argued in the letter that there is precedent for the FBI providing these sorts of documents to Congress, including instances when Republicans obtained these documents.
As Vance and Gaetz met with senators, Trump attempted to blame Democrats for the allegations launched against some of his controversial Cabinet picks.
“They dirty them up, they destroy them, and then they spit them out. They are trying that right now with some great American Patriots who are only trying to fix the mess that the Democrats have made of our Country,” Trump posted on his social media platform Wednesday afternoon.
The fate of the Gaetz report is in the hands of the committee, and Rep. Susan Wild, ranking member on the House Ethics Committee, said the committee will vote on whether to release the report on Wednesday.
If there is a vote, a majority of the five Democrats and five Republicans on the committee must approve its public disclosure — meaning at least one Republican must break party ranks to join Democrats to force its release.
ABC News’ John Parkinson, Lauren Peller, Jay O’Brien and Chris Boccia contributed to this report.
Current Yes frontman Jon Davison has issued a statement regarding the copyright lawsuit filed by his former friend and bandmate Riz Story.
Story, whose legal name is Rudolph Zahler, is claiming Davison and Yes’ Steve Howe stole the music from his song “Reunion,” which was featured in the indie movie A Winter Rose, for the Yes song “Dare To Know,” which appeared on the band’s 2021 album, The Quest.
“It’s hard to put in words how it feels to wake up one day to hear that a person who I thought was a friend has brought not only an utterly fictitious, but also, a defamatory case against me,” Davis shared on Yes’ website, calling Riz’s claims “blatant lies.”
Davison says he and the band have evidence proving they didn’t steal “Reunion,” and says the musicologist report in Riz’s suit that claims the songs are similar “is seriously flawed and uses deceptive methods to force a similarity that is not there.”
Davison goes on to say he didn’t write “Dare To Know,” and that he never heard Riz’s composition “Reunion” and didn’t see the movie, noting he only congratulated him on the film “out of politeness.”
He also says it’s “a complete fabrication” that he talked about the music from the film with Riz, adding, “The ‘composition’ isn’t even on the soundtrack album, so I couldn’t have even stumbled across it by accident.”
“Any suggestion that I might have heard this generic melody when we were younger, let alone thought it was worthy of Yes, is utterly absurd,” Davison says. “Our lawyer described this as a ‘shakedown’, and I can see no better word for it.”
Considering the fact that Rod Stewart‘s newly announced 2025 tour is called One Last Time, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s farewell trek. Well, it is, and it isn’t.
Sir Rod writes on Instagram, “This will be the end of large-scale world tours for me, but I have no desire to retire. I love what I do and I do what I love.”
“I’m fit, have a full head of hair and can run 100 meters in 18 seconds at the jolly old age of 79,” he boasts.
He goes on to explain that, while he wants to continue to perform live, he’s going to do it on a different scale, writing, “I’d like to move onto a Great American Songbook, Swing Fever tour the year after next.”
Swing Fever is Rod’s most recent album: It’s a collaboration with bandleader Jools Holland, featuring Rod singing big band and swing music. Great American Songbook is, of course, Rod’s wildly successful five-volume series of albums in which he covered standards like “It Had to Be You” and “I’m in the Mood for Love.”
Rod says this tour would find him playing “smaller venues and more intimacy.” But then, he pivots and concludes, “But then again, I may not.”
He signed the post, “The Ambiguous Sir Rod Stewart.” So, is it his last tour? Your guess is as good as ours.
(ATHENS, Ga.) — The suspect accused of murdering Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus was found guilty by a judge on all charges Wednesday, including malice murder and felony murder.
He was sentenced by the judge to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the maximum possible.
Prosecutors called the evidence against the suspect “overwhelming,” while the defense raised the theory that the defendant could be an accomplice but not the killer during closing arguments in his trial.
Jose Ibarra, 26, was accused of killing the 22-year-old nursing student while she was out for a run after prosecutors said she “refused to be his rape victim.” Jose Ibarra, an undocumented migrant, was charged with malice murder and felony murder in connection with her death, which became a rallying cry for immigration reform from many conservatives, including President-elect Donald Trump.
Jose Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial and the case was presented over four days in the Athens-Clarke County courtroom to Judge H. Patrick Haggard, who rendered the verdict on Wednesday shortly after closing arguments in the trial.
Sobbing could be heard in the courtroom as he read the guilty verdicts on each charge.
Before announcing his verdict, Haggard told the courtroom that he wrote down two statements from the attorneys during closing arguments.
One was a statement by the prosecutor, who said the “evidence was overwhelming and powerful.”
The other was one by the defense attorney, who said that the judge is “required to set aside my emotions.”
“That’s the same thing we tell jurors,” he said. “That’s the way I have to approach this, and I did. Both of those statements are correct.”
In subsequently issuing his sentence on Wednesday, Haggard acknowledged there can be “no such thing as closure” in an event like this.
“As many times as you reflect on the loss, at some point you start smiling about the memories, and I’m hopeful that at some point that takes over to a certain extent, but there’s very little, including the sentence of Mr. Ibarra, that’s going to help much, and I acknowledge that,” he said.
Riley’s family addresses court: ‘There is no end to the pain’
Riley’s family addressed the court ahead of sentencing with often tearful victim impact statements while calling for a life sentence without parole.
“There is no end to the pain, suffering and loss that we have experienced or will continue to endure,” her mother, Allyson Phillips, said.
She remembered Riley as “smart, hard-working, kind, thoughtful, and most importantly she was a child of God.”
She called Jose Ibarra a “monster” who “took my best friend.”
“This horrific individual robbed us all of our hopes and dreams for Laken,” she said.
Lauren Phillips, Riley’s sister, said her big sister was her “biggest role model.”
“I looked up to her in every way,” she said. “She brought the joy that I needed into my life and never failed to make me laugh.”
She said seeing her parents’ heartbreak is “excruciating” and she will never get closure over her sister’s murder.
“We’re a broken family of three struggling to find out how to live this life through the silence and emptiness that her absence has left behind,” she said.
Riley’s father, Jason Riley, said he is “haunted by the fear” his daughter must have felt in her final moments.
“I have to live with the fact that I could not protect her when she needed me the most,” he said.
Riley’s stepfather, John Phillips, said she was the “best daughter, sister, granddaughter, friend and overall person that you could ever hope to meet.”
“I plead with this court to protect the world from this truly evil person by sentencing him to prison for life without the possibility of parole for any reason, so that he could never have the opportunity to do this to anyone else ever again,” he said.
Several of Riley’s good friends also addressed the court, including Riley’s three roommates, who had testified during the trial about trying to find and get in touch with her the day of her murder.
Connolly Huth said she used to run with Riley, but has since “lost the joy of what running was before Laken was taken from us.”
“I live with excruciating guilt every day that I was not accompanying Laken on this run and that it was her and not me,” she said, crying. “I hope and pray that it will never happen again to anyone.”
Lilly Steiner said life has been “dull” without Riley.
“Laken left a colossal legacy to everyone she touched and I have zero doubt that she is still not finished building it,” she said. “And that is something Jose Ibarra will never be able to take away.”
Sofia Magana called Riley her “chosen family” and “fearless other half,” and said her heart is “full of grief, sadness and an overwhelming sense of lost.”
“The loss of my best friend has shattered my world in ways I never thought possible,” she said through tears.
State shows moment parents learned Riley was dead
As part of the victim impact statements ahead of sentencing, the state showed body worn camera of officers breaking the news to Laken’s family that she was dead.
Her mother could be seen collapsing on the ground, weeping.
“That’s what they endured,” special prosecutor Sheila Ross told the judge. “That’s how it was on that day when they came here to look for their daughter.”
Ross also showed the court videos of Riley, including ones of her running in a race.
“These are just little snippets that we saw in the investigation that we thought would be important to share with the court that shows not only the type of person that she was — that you just heard from her friends and family — but the true impact that her murder had on her parents,” Ross said.
Jose Ibarra faced a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole and maximum of life without the possibility of parole for the top charge of malice murder.
Ross urged the judge to offer a sentence that “brings comfort to this community” and one that “appropriately reflects the harm that was done in this case” while asking for the maximum sentence.
The defense asked the judge to impose life with the possibility of parole.
“Getting a life sentence is automatic,” defense attorney John Donnelly said. “There’s certainly no guarantee of parole.”
He added that given the defendant’s immigration status, if he were to be released in the future, “it would only to be deported.”
State says evidence ‘loud and clear’
Prosecutors called 28 witnesses while laying out what they said was evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Jose Ibarra killed Riley, who died by blunt force head trauma and asphyxia.
Ross told the court Jose Ibarra encountered Riley while she was on her morning jog on Feb. 22 while he was out “hunting” for women on the Athens campus.
Ross said Riley “fought for her life” in a struggle that caused Jose Ibarra to leave forensic evidence behind. Digital and video evidence also pointed to him as the only killer, she said.
“The evidence in this case has been overwhelming, and the evidence in this case has spoken loud and clear — that he is Laken Riley’s killer, and that he killed her because she would not let him rape her,” Ross said during her closing argument on Wednesday.
A forensics expert testified that Jose Ibarra’s DNA was found under Riley’s right fingernails, and that his two brothers, who lived with him in an apartment near the campus, were excluded as matches.
When Jose Ibarra was questioned by police a day after the murder, he had visible scratches on his arms, officers said. He also had scratches on his neck and back, which Ross said could have only been left by Riley.
“In order to not find him guilty, you would have to disbelieve your own eyes,” Ross said.
“She marked him. She marked him for everyone to see. She marked him for you to see,” Ross told the judge.
Prosecutors argued Jose Ibarra hindered Riley from making a 911 call, and said his thumbprint was left on her phone. Data from his Samsung phone and the Garmin watch Riley was wearing on her run showed the devices overlapped and were in close proximity in the forest where she was found dead, an FBI analyst testified.
Jose Ibarra was captured on Ring footage discarding a bloody jacket and three disposable gloves near his apartment about 15 minutes after Riley died, prosecutors said. The individual’s face can’t be seen in the video, but Jose Ibarra’s roommate testified that it was him. The defendant’s brother, Diego Ibarra, also identified him as the person in the video while being questioned by police a day after the murder.
Riley’s DNA was found on the jacket and gloves, the forensics expert said. Jose Ibarra’s DNA was also found on the jacket, while his two brothers were excluded as matches, the expert said.
“That is what we call consciousness of guilt in our business — he threw away those items because he knew he had killed her, and he threw them away because he didn’t want anyone to find him,” Ross said.
Her DNA was also found on an Adidas cap he was seen wearing in the video, the expert said. That cap was not discarded, Ross surmised, because Jose Ibarra could not see that there was actually blood on it.
Hours after the killing, Jose Ibarra was also captured wearing different clothes from the dumpster Ring footage while discarding unidentifiable items in a bag in another dumpster at his apartment complex, Ross said. That bag was never recovered by police, she said. Ross surmised that the bag contained the clothes he was wearing earlier that day, which were also similar to ones he was wearing in a selfie posted on Snapchat earlier that morning.
“His digital evidence of posting selfies of himself wearing what is basically his rapist gear an hour before he leaves his house — that condemns him, he has condemned himself,” Ross said.
Defense presents alternative theory
The defense called three witnesses, including a neighbor who said Diego Ibarra had threatened her the night of Riley’s murder.
The defense said they had planned to call two additional witnesses — including Diego Ibarra, who is in federal custody awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to possessing a fraudulent green card, however, his attorney did not wish for him to testify.
“While the evidence in this case is voluminous, it is circumstantial,” defense attorney Kaitlyn Beck told the judge.
Beck told the judge they advised Jose Ibarra to have a bench trial “trusting that your honor could and believing that your honor would set aside the emotions in this case and simply consider the evidence.”
She argued there is doubt about what was tested and said the judge should be “skeptical” of the DNA evidence.
She presented an “alternative theory” that Diego Ibarra was actually Riley’s murderer, and that Jose Ibarra was an accomplice in covering up the evidence.
“Maybe it was him throwing away the jacket, as Diego said, maybe he was covering up for his brother,” Beck said.
“Under that theory, of course, Jose would be guilty of tampering, but that theory does not prove that he was present or involved in the murder of Laken Riley,” she said.
She said since three gloves were discarded, it “suggests that there are multiple pairs of hands wearing those gloves.”
On rebuttal, Ross called the defense’s theory “desperate” and a “mischaracterization of the evidence.”
“There is no reasonable explanation for all of this evidence other than he is guilty of every single count in this indictment,” Ross said of Jose Ibarra.
Diego Ibarra told officers during questioning that he was asleep at the time the killing occurred. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent who was on the case testified earlier Wednesday that there was no evidence to contradict that statement.
Jose Ibarra, a migrant from Venezuela who officials said illegally entered the U.S. in 2022, waived his right to testify during the trial. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges, including malice murder and three counts of felony murder.
Additional charges in the 10-count indictment included aggravated battery, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, obstructing or hindering a person making an emergency telephone call and tampering with evidence. The latter charge was that he “knowingly concealed” evidence — the jacket and gloves — in the murder.
Jose Ibarra was also convicted of a peeping tom offense. Prosecutors said that in the hours before Riley’s murder, he spied through the window of a UGA graduate student, and said the incident “shows his state of mind” that day.
The student testified that she called police after hearing someone trying to open her door.
Ross said the person at the student’s apartment was wearing clothes similar to the ones Jose Ibarra had on in the Snapchat selfie posted earlier that morning, including the Adidas cap.
Trump released a statement following the verdict in the high-profile trial, saying that “our hearts will always be with” Riley. He also said it’s “time to secure our border, and remove these criminals and thugs from our Country, so nothing like this can happen again!”
Elton John onstage with the cast of his musical ‘Tammy Faye’; Bruce Glikas/Getty Images
When it comes to the two musicals that Elton John currently has onstage — one on Broadway and one in London’s West End — there’s good news and bad news.
First, the bad news: Tammy Faye, Elton’s musical about the late televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, opened on Nov. 14 and is closing on Dec. 8 after what will be just 29 regular performances. Why? According to The New York Times, the show, which cost $25 million, won awards in London but was poorly received once it moved to Broadway. Indeed, The Times called it “disjointed” and “strangely bland.”
The Times also described the show’s box office receipts as “disastrous” and noted that it was playing to houses that were 37% empty. Elton wrote the music for the show and also co-produced it via Rocket Stage, his production company.
Now, the good news: Elton’s other musical, an adaptation of the movie The Devil Wears Prada starring Vanessa Williams, has been in previews on the West End since the end of October and there’s no sign that it’s in trouble — in fact, November performances are completely sold out. What’s more, the cast will perform for King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the annual Royal Variety Performance, taking place Nov. 22 at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall.
Elton and his husband, David Furnish, will take the stage to introduce the cast at the prestigious event, which will feature magicians Penn & Teller, James Bay and “Murder on the Dance Floor” singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor, as well as other stars from across the entertainment spectrum.
Grateful and excited are common feelings when one receives an award nomination. However, another feeling that CMA New Artist nominee Bailey Zimmerman felt was “weird.”
“It’s something that I’ve never felt before,” Bailey recounts to ABC Audio of the moment he found out about his nod. “It was super weird. It didn’t feel like real life.”
“We woke up and saw the news and people were calling me and I called my mom and it was sick,” he recalls. “It’s like, you just remember and flash back to all the work that’s been put into it and all the people that have really cared about what we’re doing and put so much love and effort into it.”
Needless to say, it’s been quite the journey for Bailey, which is why he’s thankful for the recognition.
“It’s just a big win for us, you know? Whether we win or lose, being nominated and acknowledged is all you can ask for,” says Bailey, who already has four #1 hits under his belt.
“So, yeah! Let’s freaking go!” he adds. “Like, we did it! Let’s go!”
Will Bailey beat out fellow nominees Megan Moroney, Shaboozey, Nate Smith, Zach Top and MitchellTenpenny for the CMA New Artist of the Year trophy? Find out when the 2024 CMAs air live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and stream the next day on Hulu.
Noah Weiland, the son of late Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland, has released a new song called “2 Nights.”
The track previews Noah’s upcoming full-length debut album, titled Call Jesus, which will be released in 2025.
You can listen to “2 Nights” now via digital outlets and watch its accompanying video on YouTube.
In April, Noah released a song called “Time Will Tell,” which he’d recorded with his father before his 2015 death. Noah said at the time he was putting the track out because an unknown party threatened to leak it.
Noah was also in a band called Supsect208 alongside London Hudson and Tye Trujillo, the sons of Slash and Metallica‘s Robert Trujillo, respectively. He parted ways with the group in 2021.
Jethro Tull is getting ready to reissue their 2003 holiday album, and they’ve just shared a track from the record.
The band has just released a new mix of “Jack Frost and Hooded Crow,” which will appear on the now-titled The Jethro Tull Christmas Album – Fresh Snow at Christmas. The album will be released Dec. 6, featuring the new mix, along with 40 minutes of previously unreleased recordings.
It is being released as a limited-edition four-CD + Blu-ray set, which includes the new mix by The Pineapple Thief’s Bruce Soord, as well as the original mix, along with live recordings from two charity concerts at London’s St. Bride’s church to benefit the homeless: Christmas Live at St. Bride’s 2008 and a previously unreleased recording, The Ian Anderson Band Live At St. Brides 2006.
The Blu-ray will feature Dolby Atmos 5.1 mixes of the album, as well as high resolution audio mixes of the two live albums.
The remixed version of the album will also be released as a two-LP vinyl set, the very first time it’s been available on vinyl.
Dean Martin’s take on the classic holiday single “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas” has made its Billboard chart debut.
Billboard reports that 73 years after the song was recorded the track has debuted on the Adult Contemporary chart at #30. The song, from a 1952 episode of The Martin and Lewis Show, was released for the first time back in October, followed by an animated video on Nov. 14.
That new Adult Contemporary chart hit comes 60 years, four months and three weeks after Martin’s first time on the chart, with the #1 track “Everybody Loves Somebody” in 1964. Nat King Cole is the only artist with a longer span on the AC chart, at 60 years, five months and two weeks.
But “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas” isn’t Martin’s only popular holiday song. His take on “Let it Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow” reached a new high of #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2023.
