Everclear has announced a new live album called Live at The Whisky a Go Go.
The set was recorded during the “Santa Monica” outfit’s show at the famed Los Angeles club in 2022 during their 30th anniversary tour.
“Live at The Whisky a Go Go is raw, loose, noisy, and kind of ragged around the edges … just like rock & roll is supposed to be,” says frontman Art Alexakis. “Having grown up in Santa Monica in the late 1970s, performing at The Whisky was always a dream, and that dream finally came true last December.”
“Everclear has always been one of those bands that are way louder and rowdier live than we are on record,” he continues. “This album is a gift of love to the thousands of fans who have come to our shows over the last 30 years.”
Live at The Whisky a Go Go will be released September 8. You can listen to the album’s performance of the song “Heroin Girl” now via digital outlets.
(NEW YORK) — Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guard member accused of leaking classified documents online, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.
The 21-year-old Massachusetts native was indicted by a grand jury earlier this month.
Teixeira’s family said in a statement Wednesday, “We remain as committed as ever and our entire family continues to share complete and unwavering support of Jack.”
“Jack will now have his day in court. And as we move through this process, we are hopeful that Jack will be getting the fair and just treatment he deserves,” the family said. “We realize there is a long road ahead, and we ask for your continued respect for our privacy during this difficult ordeal.”
Teixeira is accused of abusing his security clearance and posting classified documents on social media sites, according to the Department of Justice. Teixeira allegedly revealed the kinds of military equipment the United States was prepared to give to Ukraine, “how the equipment would be transferred, and how the equipment would be used upon receipt,” according to the indictment.
Teixeira has been in custody since his April arrest. Magistrate Judge David Hennessy on Wednesday denied a defense request to revisit pretrial detention.
Teixeira enlisted in the Air National Guard in 2019, according to his service record, and had top secret security clearance since 2021, according to the Department of Justice.
He allegedly began posting classified documents online in January 2022, according to the Justice Department.
Teixeira’s next court date is set for Aug. 9 via telephone.
He could face 10 years in prison for each charge if convicted.
ABC News’ Chris Donato contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon on Wednesday for allegedly using deceitful tactics in a years-long effort to trick millions of customers into enrolling in its Prime subscription service, the agency said.
The company also made it more complicated for customers to cancel their subscription membership in an effort to enhance sales, according to the FTC complaint.
The suit, filed in the Western District of Washington, alleged that certain Amazon executives took part in making it harder for consumers to opt out of renewing or signing up for their Prime subscriptions “because those changes would also negatively affect Amazon’s bottom line.”
“Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement on Wednesday.
The heavily redacted complaint alleges that Amazon violated several laws, including deploying marketing tactics known as “dark patterns,” which manipulate consumers into unknowingly making purchases or sharing user data, the FTC alleged.
In a statement provided to ABC News, Amazon called the FTC’s claims “false on the facts and the law. The truth is that customers love Prime, and by design we make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up for or cancel their Prime membership. As with all our products and services, we continually listen to customer feedback and look for ways to improve the customer experience, and we look forward to the facts becoming clear as this case plays out.”
Amazon’s response also said the FTC “announced this lawsuit without notice to us, in the midst of our discussions with FTC staff members to ensure they understand the facts, context, and legal issues, and before we were able to have a dialog with the Commissioners themselves before they filed a lawsuit.”
“While the absence of that normal course engagement is extremely disappointing, we look forward to proving our case in court,” Amazon’s statement concluded.
Prime Membership, according to the FTC, amounts to $25 billion of Amazon’s annual revenue. Company leadership “slowed, avoided, and even undid” changes to the membership interface that it knew would negatively affect sales, the complaint said.
In recent months, however, the company changed its subscription cancellation process in response to “substantial pressure” from the FTC, the legal complaint said.
The FTC released a report in September sounding an alarm about a rise in the use of dark patterns by companies across the digital economy.
In 2021, the agency released a warning that it would ramp up enforcement of violations tied to the use of dark patterns in response to a “rising number of complaints.”
The lawsuit on Wednesday marks the third action taken by the FTC against Amazon this year. Last month, Amazon agreed to pay $25 million to settle FTC allegations that the company’s Alexa smart home device illegally collected data on children.
The FTC lawsuit adds to a series of recent setbacks for Amazon, including a wave of layoffs that slashed 18,000 jobs, as well as the delayed opening of a second headquarters in Virginia, known as “HQ2.”
Sales at top tech firms have retreated from the blistering pace attained during the pandemic, when billions across the world were forced into isolation and came to rely more on services like e-commerce delivery.
Still, shares of Amazon have surged nearly 50% this year, owing in part to a tech sector rally amid enthusiasm about artificial intelligence.
Amazon’s stock value fell roughly half a percentage point in early trading on Wednesday.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday issued a public rebuttal to a new report detailing a luxury vacation he took with a wealthy hedge fund manager who later had business before the Supreme Court.
According to ProPublica, Alito accompanied billionaire Paul Singer on a fishing trip in 2008. Alito was flown there on a private jet provided by Singer, which the investigative outlet said would have cost more than $100,000 one-way.
The trip went undisclosed on his financial disclosures for 2008, the report said, and Singer’s business later went before the court at least 10 times, including a 2014 case in which Alito sided with the majority in Singer’s favor — raising ethical concerns, ProPublica said.
Justice Alito declined to answer questions posed by ProPublica, the outlet said, and instead tried to rebut the report in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal before it was published. The title of the opinion column reads, “Justice Samuel Alito: ProPublica Misleads Its Readers.”
“ProPublica has leveled two charges against me: first, that I should have recused in matters in which an entity connected with Paul Singer was a party and, second, that I was obligated to list certain items as gifts on my 2008 Financial Disclose Report,” Alito wrote in the editorial. “Neither charge is valid.”
Alito asserted he was not aware of Singer’s connection in the cases that went before the court, and that his conversations with Singer were limited and didn’t include his business or that of the court.
On the issue of not disclosing the trip and travel on his annual form, Alito argued the justices “commonly interpreted” rules regarding hospitality “to mean that accommodations and transportation for social events were not reportable gifts.”
When it came to the private jet travel, Alito said he accepted the offer because a seat would have otherwise gone vacant and had he taken a commercial flight it “would have imposed a substantial cost and inconvenience on the deputy U.S. Marshals” who would’ve been required to accompany him.
A spokesperson for Singer told ABC News in a statement that “Mr. Singer did not organize the trip in question or invite Justice Alito, nor was he aware that Justice Alito would be attending when he accepted the invitation.”
“At the time of the trip, neither Mr. Singer nor any Elliott entities had any pending matters before the Supreme Court, nor could Mr. Singer have anticipated in 2008 that a subsequent matter would arise that would merit Supreme Court review,” the statement continued. “Additionally, Mr. Singer has never discussed his business interests with Justice Alito.”
ABC News has reached out to the Supreme Court and Justice Alito for any additional comment but has not gotten a response.
ProPublica has also reported on undisclosed trips taken by Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Ginni, courtesy of wealthy Republican donor Harlan Crow. It also reported Crow paid for school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew, who the justice was raising as a son.
Thomas, too, said he was advised personal hospitality from friends didn’t have to be included on the forms.
Earlier this year, the Judicial Conference of the United States outlined stricter rules for reporting “personal hospitality” gifts, stating the exemption doesn’t apply to non-commercial transportation and gifts extended at a commercial property.
The ProPublica reports on Justice Thomas sparked debate over Supreme Court ethics, and calls for the justices to adopt an enforceable code of conduct. But Congress is at an impasse when it comes to legislative remedies, and all nine justices have pushed back on calls for new guidelines.
Supreme Court justices recently released their financial disclosures for 2022, but those of Alito and Thomas were noticeably not available to view online.
Chief Justice John Roberts defended the court’s integrity in remarks last month at the American Law Institute gala in Washington.
“I want to assure people that I am committed to making certain that we as a Court adhere to the highest standards of conduct,” Roberts said.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Doctors at Ukraine’s leading trauma hospital are working around the clock to save the most badly wounded soldiers as the country continues its counteroffensive against Russian forces.
In the last year, a team of 100 surgeons has performed 2,000 trauma operations at the hospital, the hospital’s director told ABC News’ Ian Pannell. The facility’s name and location are being withheld.
Nearly all the injuries treated there are shrapnel wounds from Russian shelling, missiles and exploded mines, the director said. Only 2% of the injuries are bullet wounds. Of the 2,000 trauma operations over the last year, around half were amputations performed on soldiers who lost limbs in battle.
The heavy toll has only increased in recent weeks, with the hospital seeing a 20% surge in patient admissions since the counteroffensive began two weeks ago, the director said.
Ukraine said Monday it had driven Russian forces from an eighth village.
“We are moving forward gradually, with small steps, but very confidently,” Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said Tuesday, adding that Ukrainian forces are “gnawing every meter of land from the enemy.”
In some areas, Russia is advancing and Ukrainian forces are on the defensive, Maliar said. In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces fired more than 277,000 shells at Ukrainian forces in the last week, Maliar said.
As an ABC News crew visited the trauma hospital, surgeons were amputating the leg of a 30-year-old soldier who had stepped on a Russian mine. Another patient was an American veteran from Alaska who was hit by shrapnel from a tank round two days ago while volunteering to fight for Ukraine.
“It’s a lot of artillery. It’s a lot of tanks sitting at standoff distances,” the American veteran told ABC News.
After being stabilized, soldiers are taken for further medical care away from the hospital by a fleet of around 40 ambulances, with help from of a crew of international medics.
ABC News’ Darren Price contributed to this report.
Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(GLENDALE, Calif.) — Protesters clashed once again outside the Glendale Unified School District’s board meeting on Tuesday in response to the district’s recognition of Pride month.
Police said no one was arrested during the protests on Tuesday. Earlier this month, as the board met to vote on recognizing the month honoring the LGBTQ community, three people were arrested during fights between protesters and counter-protesters.
The three were arrested for unlawful use of pepper spray and willfully obstructing officers in the course of their duties, police said after the protest on June 6.
No LGBTQ issues were on the agenda for the Tuesday board meeting, but the planned protest continued, ABC Los Angeles affiliate KABC reported.
Police had urged residents not to engage in violence and officers were deployed in riot gear during the protests Tuesday.
“To the Glendale community, your police department is fully prepared and equipped to safeguard and protect our community, including against any agitators desiring to utilize this planned protest as an opportunity to cause violence and disturbances,” a statement from the department posted earlier on Tuesday read.
The board has recognized the month for several years, but renewed anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in politics has led to growing tensions against the community.
The district said in a June 5 statement that disinformation “about LGBTQIA+ curriculum, sex education, and supporting transgender and gender non-conforming youth” had been spread on social media about the district’s effort to acknowledge LGBTQ+ identities.
The Department of Homeland Security warned that threats of violence against the LGBTQ+ community are on the rise and intensifying across the country.
Ocean Gate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(BOSTON) — As crews scour the Atlantic for the missing submersible, a man who has completed four dives with the sub’s company, OceanGate, is sharing his story.
Mike Reiss told ABC News his submersible lost contact with its host ship on all four of his 10-hour dives, including his one trip to the Titanic.
“Every time they lost communication — that seems to be just something baked into the system,” he said.
With no GPS, Reiss said it took his crew three hours to find the Titanic despite landing just 500 yards from the ship.
Reiss, who served as showrunner for “The Simpsons,” said he signed “a waiver that mentions death three times on the first page.”
“It is always in the back of your head that this is dangerous, and any small problem will turn into a major catastrophe,” he said.
He said the submersible is built simply and is “just propelled by two fans on the outside.”
“Even I was able to steer and navigate the sub for a while,” he noted.
Reiss said his greatest fear was that the sub wouldn’t be able to release the weights that force it to submerge once it was time to rise to the surface.
Wednesday marks the final full day of oxygen available to the five crew members aboard the missing 21-foot sealed craft, named Titan.
The deep-sea vessel lost contact about an hour and 45 minutes after submerging on Sunday morning to head to the Titanic site.
Titan began the trip with a 96-hour oxygen supply. That oxygen is forecast to run out Thursday morning.
“We have to remain optimistic and hopeful,” Capt. Jamie Frederick, the First Coast Guard District response coordinator, said at a news conference Wednesday.
(WASHINGTON) — Vivek Ramaswamy has emerged as one of the most vocal defenders of Donald Trump — which has some other Republicans scratching their heads, because Ramaswamy and Trump are technically rivals in the 2024 primary race.
Since launching his long shot presidential campaign in February, Ramaswamy, a biotech founder, has regularly rallied to Trump’s side, including issuing a challenge last week for his fellow GOP primary candidates to vow to pardon Trump if Trump is convicted of mishandling government secrets, an allegation he denies.
When heckled earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ramaswamy said, “I love the man” — though, by way of differentiating himself from Trump, he argues that he would be more effective as president at building on Trump’s first-term policies.
That strategy has Republicans questioning the lack of a consistent contrast posed by Ramaswamy and wondering if he in fact has ambitions outside the Oval Office.
“He’s very much in the zeitgeist of some of the more esoteric cultural conversations happening in the party and in the country. But I don’t understand this strategy of running against Donald Trump while not running against Donald Trump,” said Iowa GOP strategist David Kochel. “If you think you’re gonna be a better president, then you have to make the case of why you’re going to be a better president. And if you’re not doing that, then what are you doing?”
Ramaswamy, who has written several books lamenting liberalism and what he sees as the decay of a national identity, has leaned deep into the culture wars in his campaign so far.
He has vowed to eliminate both the U.S. Department of Education and the FBI, use the military to stem illegal border crossings and ban gender-affirming care for minors. He has also supported raising the voting age to 25 — a pledge that would require amending the Constitution — with exceptions for those who serve in the military, for first responders and for those who pass the civics test used to grant citizenship.
In an interview with ABC News, Ramaswamy said he was running for the White House in part to fill a national “moral vacuum” that “the left” is seeking to fill with “a vision of identity grounded in race, sexuality, gender, climate.”
When given the opportunity to go after Trump on policy, Ramaswamy took his shots, suggesting he would go “further” in office than Trump did during his four years in the White House and that the former president has veered from his initial appeal.
“I’m taking the ‘America first’ agenda further than Donald Trump did, far further than Donald Trump, because I’m doing it based on, first, principles and moral authority, not just vengeance and grievance,” he said. “That’s the case I make to our base is, it’s not diet Donald Trump or Trump without the drama. There are others making that case. My case is bolder than that.”
“I think Trump is not the same person today that he was eight years ago,” he added. “I’m closer to Trump in 2015 than Trump today is to Trump in 2015. I’m 37. I’ve got fresh legs. I’m not yet jaded and cynical and tired and defeated. Maybe I will be, in some ways, eight years from now. Trump made his contributions.” (A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on this criticism from ABC News.)
On personality, though, Ramaswamy was more equivocal. On top of vowing to pardon Trump if elected president, Ramaswamy suggested the allegations about Trump’s handling of sensitive documents were reflective of possible bad judgement but not criminal offenses.
“I’m especially skeptical here,” he said of the 37-count indictment against Trump. “If the facts described in there are true, I think this is reflective of very poor judgment on President Trump’s part. I would have made different judgments than he made. But a bad judgment is not the same thing as breaking the law.”
Prosecutors describe their case very differently. The indictment describes in detail how Trump allegedly held onto government secrets after leaving office and refused to return them, even, prosecutors claim, disclosing some of the classified information to unauthorized people.
On the campaign trail, Ramaswamy and his allies don’t see a contradiction between his jabs on Trump’s policy and defense of Trump himself.
“It’s not a matter of taking a position for President Trump, it’s taking a position on the rule of law and the fact of how this is all transpiring. So, he states his position clearly, and it’s not coddling to President Trump or coddling to the Trump’s voters. He speaks what he believes is the truth,” said New Hampshire state Rep. Fred Doucette, who is a strategist for Ramaswamy’s campaign in the state.
While early polls show Ramaswamy is not receiving anywhere near the same GOP voter support as Trump, the front-runner, or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, he is around the same level as former Vice President Mike Pence and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average of surveys.
At Pence’s campaign launch this month in Iowa, several attendees organically brought up Ramaswamy in conversations with ABC News.
What’s more, Ramaswamy claims to have already clinched a spot on the debate stages later this year by getting the necessary donors: at least 40,000 national contributors and at least 200 unique donors per state or territory in no fewer than 20 states or territories — a threshold other candidates are anticipated to struggle to meet. (Ramaswamy’s fundraising will not be publicly verified until after his campaign’s first Federal Election Commission filings are due on July 15.)
“I think it’s going great for someone who has basically zero name recognition to be polling where he is because of his voice, his positions,” Doucette said. “I think we’re in a really great spot.”
Ramaswamy’s strategy has also won fans among Trump’s supporters — even if they’re still pulling for the former president.
“I think Vivek has been the best messenger to the base of the non-Trump candidates in this race,” said one GOP operative who is supporting Trump and asked not to be quoted by name.
Still, this person conceded, “I don’t know that it actually matters in the end, because I think the race is so baked in for Trump right now.”
Other Republicans question the philosophy of flicking at differences with Trump in one sentence while supporting him in another.
“They may have a great plan that they’re not talking about, they may have thought this through, but it’s hard to be the biggest cheerleader in the race for President Trump and somehow get votes,” New Hampshire-based GOP strategist Dave Carney said. “From the non-Trump people, it’s not gonna happen, and from the Trump people, it’s not gonna happen.”
“Trump’s appeal is his personality,” Carney added. “It isn’t based on policy. You’re not going to out-Trump Trump. The inconsistencies that people point out, this isn’t The Oxford Union where you can score points.”
That view, which is shared by a half-dozen Republican strategists who spoke with ABC News for this story, has led some to think Ramaswamy’s ambitions actually lie in some future Cabinet position or media role.
One source familiar with Ramaswamy’s campaign told ABC News that “he’s a true believer in what he thinks” but scoffed at the idea that Ramaswamy would ever occupy the Oval Office.
“I think he’s running to be Tucker Carlson’s replacement,” the source said, “not Donald Trump’s replacement.”x
Mick Jagger’s girlfriend, Melanie Hamrick, is opening up about their relationship and is clarifying the meaning behind the diamond ring she wears, which was a gift from The Rolling Stones frontman.
“I mean, I have to giggle because did Mick give me the ring? Yes. Is it for that finger? Yes,” she tells People. “But are we like, horny teenagers where we’re giving each other … In my mind, it’s a promise ring. We’ll be immature and call it a promise ring.”
As for whether that means they’ll walk down the aisle at any point, she shares, “I don’t know. I’m kind of like, a live-in-the-moment type of person, so who knows.”
Jagger and Hamrick have been dating since 2014 and have a 7-year-old son together, Deveraux. While she has shared video of their son on social media, she says she prefers to not share too much.
“If we didn’t have social media, then no one would know anything about your life. So I guess it’s, why don’t we keep it as it would be if there wasn’t social media and share the things that you want to share,” she says. “I like that approach. I think what goes on in someone’s home is private.”
Cardi B shared a fun fact about the single that catapulted her into mainstream fame. “I spend ten thousand dollars on the ‘Bodak yellow’ music video,” she tweeted Tuesday.
Nia Long is releasing a memoir with 13A, an imprint of Gallery Books. In a statement, she says readers will find “truth and transparency in the storytelling, sprinkled with 90s nostalgia.”
While congratulating Pharrell for his Louis Vuitton debut, Swizz Beatz called him the “Louis Vuitton don” — but was quickly corrected. “Nah nah nah nah,” Pharrell said in a clip shared on Swizz’s Instagram. “Louis Vuitton Don is the one, great Kanye West. Period. That’s the Louis Vuitton Don. I’m the pupil king, I’m forever the student.”
Jay-Z performed at Pharrell’s debut and initially wanted some crowd participation, asking fans to clap on beat to his song “F***withmeyouknowigotit.” When he realized they weren’t in sync with the beat, he said, “Forget the clap” and proceeded with the performance.
Young Nudy and 21 Savage released the music video for their collab “Peaches & Eggplants,” which finds them rapping as several women twerk and have fun in the park.
Monica is taking her talents to Apple Music, where she’ll launch her Mo Talk Radio show. Airing June 24 at 3 p.m. PT, the show will feature interviews, songs from the ’90s and 2000s and more. She says it’s “an outlet for artists, entertainers, musicians, politicians, athletes, and others to share their story, their way.” Her first guest will be Shaquille O’Neal.
