Exciting news for Miley Cyrus fans: new music’s coming — with video to go along with it.
Miley covers Harper’s Bazaar‘s December ‘24/January ‘25 Art Issue, and in the cover story, we learn that she’s working on a “visual album” for release in 2025. She tells the mag that the vibe of the project is “hypnotizing and glamorous,” adding, “It’s a concept album that’s an attempt to medicate somewhat of a sick culture through music.”
The project was inspired by Pink Floyd — The Wall, the trippy 1982 part live-action, part animated film based on the classic album of the same name. “My idea was making The Wall, but with a better wardrobe and more glamorous and filled with pop culture,” Miley explains. Helping her out is Panos Cosmatos, who directed what she calls one of her favorite films of all time, 2018’s Mandy starring Nicolas Cage.
“[The album is] more experimental than anything she’s ever done, but in a pop way that I love,” says Cosmatos.
Miley notes, “The visual component of this is driving the sound … the songs, whether they’re about destruction or heartbreak or death, they’re presented in a way that is beautiful, because the nastiest times of our life do have a point of beauty.”
Miley is also collaborating with her boyfriend, Maxx Morando. He’s produced multiple songs for the project and co-wrote one called “Something Beautiful,” which is currently set to be the title track. “I’ve always worked with the people that I love,” she points out.
But though she’s focusing on her new album, she’s also aware of what’s going on in current pop music and reached out to Chappell Roan after the singer complained about the way fans were treating her. Miley says, “I wish people would not give her a hard time.”
(ATHENS, Ga.) — The suspect accused of murdering Laken Riley on the University of Georgia’s campus was found guilty on all charges Wednesday, including malice murder and felony murder.
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.
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.”
Court is on recess until 12:30 p.m. ET, at which point Haggard said he is ready to move ahead with sentencing.
Jose Ibarra faces a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.
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.
Special prosecutor Sheila 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 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.
Jose Ibarra was also seen in different clothes from the dumpster Ring footage discarding unidentifiable items in a bag that was never recovered by police hours after the killing. Ross surmised that the bag contained the clothes he was wearing earlier, 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.
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, which “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.
Diego Ibarra told officers during questioning that he was asleep at the time the killing occurred. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation 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 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 alleged that he “knowingly concealed” evidence — the jacket and gloves — involving the offense of malice murder.
Jose Ibarra was also charged with 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.
The Beatles released the 60-track compilation album Anthology 1, featuring rarities, outtakes and live performances recorded from 1958 to 1964.
It also included the first new Beatles song in 25 years, “Free as a Bird,” which featured audio from a John Lennon demo he recorded in 1977. It was given to Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr by his widow, Yoko Ono,and the trio then recorded new music that was incorporated into the song.
Anthology 1 reached #1 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart and went on to be certified eight-times Platinum. “Free as a Bird” peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Anthology 1 was the first in a trio of compilations. Anthology 2, which featured the new song “Real Love,” was released in March 1996 and Anthology 3 was released in October 1996.
That same Lennon demo used for the new songs on the Anthology series was used to create the song “Now and Then,” which was released in 2023. It debuted at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and just earned a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year.
There’s a first time for everything, and for Riley Green, 2024 has been the year of numerous firsts — including getting nominated for a CMA Award and being invited to perform onstage.
“You know, being nominated for a CMA Award, getting to perform at the CMAs is such a huge thing,” Riley tells ABC Audio. “It’s my first time being nominated for a CMA, and those [types] of accolades, whatever you want to call it, they never go away.”
“Whether you win or not, being nominated is something that’s just validating as a songwriter and a performer,” he continues. “It means people are buying into what you’re doing. So that means a lot.”
Reflecting on his milestone year, Riley adds, “We did Red Rocks the first time [this year]. Was an awesome show. I had my whole family there. A lot of moments stand out this year and, you know, it just makes you more excited about the next year of touring.”
Riley will hit the road in 2025 for his Damn Country Music Tour with his fellow CMA Music Event of the Year nominee Ella Langely. But before that, they’ll take the CMAs stage Wednesday to perform their hit, “you look like you love me.”
The 2024 CMAs, hosted by Luke Bryan, Lainey Wilson and Peyton Manning, air live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and stream the next day on Hulu.
André 3000 has more solo music on the way. Speaking to Amazon Music, he shared that his plans for 2025 include “new music for sure.” “I don’t wanna pinpoint what it is, but I just want to express more,” André said, avoiding further discussion about details of the project and its release date. “Put it like that.”
Kodak Black‘s behavior has concerned fans since he appeared on Kai Cenat‘s livestream early in November, but in a recent Instagram Live, he confirms it’s because he’s “never sober.” “For what? For what? Look at this money. Look at all this cash,” he said. “Sober for what? I’m too young to die sober.” This admission comes after podcaster Wallo and Gillie Da Kidattempted to spread words of encouragement his way.
The marching band at Jackson State University played a live version of Tyler, The Creator‘s “Sticky” featuring GloRilla and Lil Wayne over the weekend. Reacting to the performance, Tyler wrote on social platform X, “THIS IS WHY I MADE STICKY!!!!!! THIS IS WHY I ARRANGED IT THAT WAY. THIS BEAUTIFUL MY HEART IS FILLED.” Sexyy Red also shared her thoughts, writing, “This so raw.”
(AUSTIN, Texas) — Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham is offering the incoming Trump administration 1,402 acres it purchased along the Texas-Mexico border to be used in a mass deportation operation.
In a letter to President-elect Donald Trump, Buckingham said she’s offering the land “to be used to construct deportation facilities.”
The Texas General Land Office purchased the plot of land from a farmer in October to facilitate Texas’ efforts to build a wall.
“My office is fully prepared to enter into an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the United States Border Patrol to allow a facility to be built for the processing, detention, and coordination of the largest deportation of violent criminals in the nation’s history,” Buckingham wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs told ABC News Live on Monday that she would not use state police or the National Guard to help with mass deportation.
“We will not be participating in misguided efforts that harm our communities,” she said.
Trump on Monday confirmed he would declare a national emergency to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. without legal permission, and pledged to get started on the mass deportations as soon as he enters office.
A spokeswoman for the Trump transition team said the president-elect will “marshal every lever of power” to launch his mass deportation plans.
“Local and state officials on the frontlines of the Harris-Biden border invasion have been suffering for four years and are eager for President Trump to return to the Oval Office. On day one, President Trump will marshal every lever of power to secure the border, protect their communities, and launch the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrant criminals in history,” Karoline Leavitt said.
In an interview with Fox News, which first reported the news of the Texas General Land Office’s offer, Buckingham reiterated she is “100% on board” with the incoming administration’s promise to deport criminals.
The plot of land is in Starr County, about 35 miles west of McAllen, Texas.
“Now it’s essentially farmland, so it’s flat, it’s easy to build on. We can very easily put a detention center on there — a holding place as we get these criminals out of our country,” she told Fox News.
(WASHNGTON) — Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be attorney general, is meeting with senators on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning alongside Vice President-elect JD Vance, making his case for the job hours before the House Ethics Committee is set to discuss its report on him.
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 has 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 and Lindsey Graham met with Vance and Gaetz Wednesday morning.
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 was walking into the meeting when he told reporters that in his view, Congress should move forward with Gaetz’s confirmation process and respond to the allegations against him.
“Do the hearing and let him respond to everything under oath in public,” Hawley told reporters.
The fate of the Gaetz report is in the hands of the committee, and it’s not clear if the committee will vote on whether to release the report.
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.
Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
Denzel Washington is one of the most famous people on the planet, but he shows a new side of himself in a first-person feature in Esquire.
Denzel looks back at having “one foot” in the rough streets of Mount Vernon, New York, growing up, and tracks his life from then to today.
In his youth, Denzel explained, “I shot dope just like they shot dope, but I never got strung out. And I never got strung out on liquor. I had this ideal idea of wine tastings and all that — which is what it was at first. And that’s a very subtle thing. I mean, I drank the best.”
He said he’d down two bottles of “the best” on the daily, but clarified, “I never drank while I was working or preparing. I would clean up, go back to work. … However many months of shooting, bang, it’s time to go. Then, boom. Three months of wine, then time to go back to work.”
Denzel said he’ll be sober 10 years this December.
Now 70, Washington says his “little brother” Lenny Kravitz hooked him up with a trainer. “Things are opening up for me now — like being seventy,” Denzel says.
“It’s real. And it’s okay. This is the last chapter — if I get another thirty, what do I want to do? My mother made it to ninety-seven.”
Of his faith, Denzel says, “I know now. God is real. God is love. God is the only way. God is the true way. God blesses. It’s my job to lift God up, to give Him praise, to make sure that anyone and everyone I speak to the rest of my life understands that He is responsible for me.”
“I’m unafraid. I don’t care what anyone thinks,” Washington says, adding of his faith, “you can’t talk like that and win Oscars. … It’s not talked about in this town. It’s not talked about.”
(CHAPEL HILL, N.C.) — Madyson Barber, a grad student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was researching young transiting systems in space when she made a remarkable discovery.
Barber used data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to observe the brightness of stars over time. During the observations, Barber noticed some “little dips” in brightness, indicating that a “transiting” planet may be passing near Earth.
The planet, named IRAS 04125+2902 b, is estimated to be 3 million years old, which is considered “young” for stars, Barber said. Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and took an estimated 10 million to 20 millions to form. The next youngest known planet is about 10 million years old, Barber said.
“It’s about the same as a 10-day-old baby in human timescale,” she added. “So, super, super young in comparison to our home.”
Nicknamed “TIDYE-1b” by researchers, the new planet has been shown to have an orbital period of 8.83 days, according to a paper published Thursday in Nature. It has a radius about 10.7 times larger than Earth and has approximately 30% of the mass of Jupiter.
TIDYE-1b orbits a star of about the same age named IRAS 04125+2902.
Astronomers noted some unusual characteristics of the star, which is located relatively close to Earth at 160 parsecs, or 522 lightyears, away, researchers said. The outer protoplanetary disk surrounding the star is misaligned and the star has a depleted inner disk.
The combination of these unique features allowed scientists to observe the transiting protoplanet.
“If part of the planetary discs were still present, it would be in the same plane of rotation as that spinning star and the orbiting planet,” Barber said. “So the disc would block our observations of the star.”
Astronomers are still learning about the planet. They were able to calculate the upper mass limit by looking at the radial velocity of the star, which is the movement of the star over time, and measuring “little wiggles in that movement,” Barber added.
“Other than that, there’s not a whole lot we can say about the planet at this point,” she said.
Right now, the researchers are only 95% confident in the measurements they’ve taken for the planet’s upper mass limit, and they hypothesize that the planet’s real mass is actually much smaller, Barber said.
“Because we don’t have a ton of these young transiting systems that we know of, it’s really important that we look for more so that we can have a better picture of what that formation and evolution looks like, so we can better understand how our own home formed and evolved,” Barber said.
The researchers believe the new planet could be a precursor of the super-Earth and sub-Neptune planets that are frequently found orbiting main-sequence stars.
The system could also be a useful target for studying the early stages of planet formation due to its young age, the rare disk misalignment and the relatively close location to Earth, Barber said.
(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal hush money conviction in New York must be dismissed “to facilitate the orderly transition of Executive power,” Trump’s defense attorneys argued Wednesday in a letter to the court.
Defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove — both of whom Trump nominated last week to top DOJ posts in his new administration — sought the judge’s permission to file a motion to dismiss the case.
“Continuing with this case would be uniquely destabilizing,” the defense letter argued. “Just as a sitting President is completely immune from any criminal process, so too is President Trump as President-elect.”
The defense filing comes one day after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg opposed dismissing the case but consented to freeze of all remaining proceedings, including sentencing, until after Trump completes his term.
The defense sought a Dec. 20 deadline to file its motion to dismiss Trump’s 34-count felony conviction for falsifying business records.
Blanche and Bove said that would give Trump time to address “the positions taken by DOJ in the federal cases” Trump faces over the his election interference efforts and his handling of classified documents.
Both of the federal cases are currently paused while the Justice Department evaluates how to proceed.
Trump was convicted in May of all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to silence allegations about a 2006 sexual encounter with Trump in order to boost his electoral prospects in the 2016 presidential election.
His conviction carries a maximum penalty of up to four years in prison, but first-time offenders would normally receive a lesser sentence.
