On Friday, fans were blessed with Never Enough, Daniel Caesar‘s first album since Case Study 01. He came up with the title after repeatedly saying the phrase, as well as a coincidental moment he experienced when abroad.
“I’d been saying it a lot,” he tells Variety of the album’s name. “And then one day … I was on a boat ranting about something never being enough. Then this other boat just floated by, and it was called Never Enough. That was an interesting name for a boat.”
“I was in the south of France … and I started talking with the people on the boat and found that they were from [my hometown of] Toronto,” he continues. “I was so far away from home and met a family from Toronto on this boat. It just felt like a synchronicity moment.”
Never Enough marks Daniel’s third studio album. It sees him take on more of a producer role, which he says he’d “been itching to do.” “I’m still stepping into it. I still needed guidance; I still needed people around that I trusted to bounce ideas off of,” he adds. He says it was initially daunting to produce alongside Raphael Saadiq, but notes the singer is the kind of person who “makes you feel comfortable.”
After a nearly four-year hiatus, Daniel says he’s learned that “it’s never over ‘til it’s over.”
“During COVID, it kind of felt like the world had moved on. If I’m not doing COVID radio or getting on Instagram Live … you feel like the world is going to move on, and then you don’t have a platform anymore,” he says. “If every time you make something, you put your all into it, and people like it, there’ll be someone there to listen when you come back around.”
Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band are currently on their North American tour, and it certainly sounds like E Streeter StevenVan Zandt is loving it.
“This tour is really interesting, and different from what we’ve done for the past 40 years,” he tells USA Today, noting that unlike previous concerts where the set changes every night, this one has a theme and “is more like a Broadway show.”
He says, “It combines a theme of mortality with a proof of vitality. This show is a hurricane from beginning to end.”
Little Steven has toured with Springsteen for a long time and has performed a lot of his songs. So, what are some of his favorite ones to play live? “A lot of my favorites we don’t play,” he says, listing off cuts like “Restless Nights” and “Loose Ends” from the 1998 compilation Tracks, and “The Little Things (My Baby Does)” and “Gotta Get That Feeling” from 2010’s The Promise.
“But I love the show we’re doing,” Van Zandt says. “The guy has not written a song that I don’t enjoy.”
Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band still have a couple of shows left for this leg of the tour. They play Long Island, New York, on Tuesday, April 11, before wrapping things up on Friday, April 14, at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. They then go to Europe and the U.K. before returning to the States in August. A complete list of dates can be found at BruceSpringsteen.net.
Let’s go, Mario! The Super Mario Bros. Movie topped the box office delivering an estimated $146.4 million domestically in its three-day opening weekend and $204.6 million in its first five days.
The impressive debut makes the animated adventure film the biggest opening of 2023 with a $377.6 million worldwide tally. It also broke records for the biggest animated film surpassing Frozen 2’s record of$358 million and became the top-grossing video game adaptation ever over Warcraft‘s $210 million.
Super Mario Bros., which featured characters voiced by Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Seth Rogan, Keegan-Michael Key, Charlie Day, and more, also now stands as the highest-grossing debut for an Illumination film and the second-biggest debut ever for an animated title over Finding Dory.
Remaining in second at the box office was John Wick: Chapter 4. The Keanu Reeves-led movie added another $14 million to its tally, bringing its total to $147 since opening three weeks ago.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves dropped to the third slot in its second week of release with $14.5 million, while Mat Damon’s Air came in fourth with $14 million.
Scream VI rounded out the top five, adding $3.3 million to its total.
(NEW YORK) — With former President Donald Trump now formally charged on criminal charges, a majority of Americans (53%) believe he intentionally did something illegal, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.
An additional 11% say he acted wrongly but not intentionally. Only 20% believe Trump did not do anything wrong, and 16% say they don’t know, per the ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel.
As part of the Tuesday charges against the former president, Manhattan prosecutors alleged that Trump engaged in a “scheme” to boost his election chances during the 2016 presidential race through a string of hush money payments made by others to boost his campaign, and then “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records” to conceal that criminal conduct.
A “statement of facts” paired with the 34-count indictment alleges that Trump discussed the scheme while he was in the Oval Office and made reimbursement payments to his lawyer for a year while in office.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all 34 felony counts and has long denied any wrongdoing.
Democrats are largely convinced of Trump’s culpability, with 87% saying he intentionally did something illegal, and a majority of independents (57%) agree.
Of note, the former president is enjoying weaker-than-usual support from his own partisans with only a plurality of Republicans (45%) thinking Trump did nothing wrong, and the rest of the party split among the belief he intentionally did something illegal (19%), he was wrong but it was unintentional (18%) or they simply do not know (17%).
ABC News/Ipsos asked nearly identical questions of the American public in polling conducted last week immediately following the historic indictment and once again after the charges were made public and Trump was formally arraigned.
Between the weeks, some modest but clear trends have emerged.
The announcement of formal charges has nudged public opinion slightly against Trump, particularly among independent voters. As of April 1, exactly half of the public said the charges against Trump were either very or somewhat serious, and 36% said they were not. Now, after the indictment has been unsealed and the public has heard Trump’s condemnation of the investigation, 52% find the charges very or somewhat serious, and 39% deem the charges not too serious or not serious at all.
But either way, more Americans are making up their minds — while 14% of the public did not know how they felt about the severity of the charges as of April 1, that figure has shrunk to 8%.
Independents had an 11-point point shift in their views of the severity of the views, the polling showed. Last week, 43% of independents found the charges very or somewhat serious. This group, a critical voting bloc for the once-again presidential candidate, has swung against him, as 54% now say the same.
More Americans believe this week that Trump should have been charged with a crime, with 50% saying he should have been, 33% saying he should not, and 17% not knowing. Roughly the same percentages say that the charges are politically motivated, with 50% saying they are, 36% saying they aren’t, and 13% not knowing.
Slightly more Americans (48%) also believe Trump should suspend his bid for the White House, compared to the 43% who suggested so in the last ABC News/Ipsos poll. Again, independents were most likely to shift on this question, going from 41% saying he should suspend his campaign on April 1 to 52% now.
Views of Trump overall have taken a hit too, with only 25% thinking favorably of him, down 10 points since right before the last presidential election. In comparison, President Joe Biden’s favorability rating currently stands at 34%, according to the poll.
In a speech at his Mar-a-Lago estate Tuesday night, Trump claimed the “fake case” was brought “only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election” and said it should be “dropped immediately.”
Joe Tacopina, a Trump attorney, said the indictment “shows that the rule of law died in this country.”
“While everyone is not above the law, no one’s below it either,” Tacopina said. “And if this man’s name was not Donald J. Trump, there is no scenario we’d all be here today.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a press conference claimed Trump and his associates engaged in a “catch-and-kill scheme.”
“These are felony crimes in New York state, no matter who you are,” Bragg said. “We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct.
This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using Ipsos Public Affairs’ KnowledgePanel® April 6-7, 2023, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 566 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.4 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 26-25-40 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s topline results and details on the methodology here.
(ORLANDO, Fla.) — Three people and one suspect are dead after a suspected domestic violence incident turned deadly in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday morning, according to Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith.
Officers received calls for a domestic violence incident and arrived at a home near Parramore Avenue and Grand Street at around 2:28 a.m. Sunday. Once they arrived, they heard shots fired inside the home, Chief Smith said in a press conference.
The suspect, who was armed, later walked out of the home and started firing at responding officers, the chief said. Police then returned fire, and the suspect later died in police custody, he said.
Three people had been shot inside the home, officers said. One victim, who was a child, was transported to a hospital, but later succumbed to their injuries, said Smith. The other two victims, who were adults, also died by gunfire, he said. Their names and ages have not been released at this time.
The two officers who responded were not injured, and will be placed on administrative leave, as is protocol with officer-involved shootings, the Orlando Police Department said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — With the trial of John Carter, who’s been charged in the cold case murder of his fiancee, Katelyn Markham, scheduled to begin in the summer of 2024, the victim’s father said he hoped a conviction would close a dark chapter in his life.
“That has been a huge and very hard time of my life for 12 years,” David Markham told ABC News. “The relief that I think I am going to feel will be so welcomed and grateful.”
Carter, who is now 35, reported Katelyn’s disappearance to police in Ohio in 2011. Her remains were found in rural Indiana two years later. Carter’s trial is expected to begin next summer, with an opening date scheduled for June 24, 2024.
In an interview days after her disappearance, Carter told ABC Cincinnati affiliate WCPO-TV he hoped to see Katelyn again.
“I’m terrified, I’m absolutely terrified,” he said at the time. “I just want to find Katelyn and celebrate her birthday with her.”
Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser included in court documents a typed poem that his office said was found in Carter’s home.
“Deep down I love her. You want to kill her,” it said in part. “But I love her. She must die. I can’t kill her. Yes you can. No. Yes.”
Gmoser and his team took over the cold case two years ago and said they were able to gather enough information through interviews and documents to lead to Carter’s arrest.
Markham said he was blindsided when notified by the prosecution that Carter’s arrest was imminent.
“I had no indication that they were going to arrest him,” Markham said.
A few minutes later, he found out Carter was in police custody, he said. His phone started buzzing with messages from reporters, friends and family, he said.
“It took me a few hours to kind of let it sink in,” Markham said. “The biggest feeling was relief and it’s about time.”
Carter’s defense attorney, Chris Pagan, did not respond to ABC News’ request to comment.
Carter posted a $1 million bond, but was still being held in Butler County Jail as of Friday, according to the Sheriff’s office.
He is expected to wear a GPS monitor as he awaits his trial under Honorary Judge Daniel E. Haughey, according to Butler County Clerk online records.
A support rally for Katelyn was held at Creekside Park in Fairfield on Saturday with family and friends attending as they continue to honor her and hope for closure in this cold case.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Sunday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
INTERLEAGUE
Pittsburgh 1, Chicago White Sox 0
Texas 8, Chicago Cubs 2
San Francisco 3, Kansas City 1
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Boston 4, Detroit 1
Tampa Bay 11, Oakland 0
NY Yankees 5, Baltimore 3
Houston 5, Minnesota 1
Cleveland 7, Seattle 6
Toronto 12, LA Angels 11
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati 6, Philadelphia 4
Miami 7, NY Mets 2
Milwaukee 6, St. Louis 1
Colorado 7, Washington 6
Arizona 11, LA Dodgers 6
San Diego 10, Atlanta 2
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Toronto 121, Milwaukee 105
Boston 120, Atlanta 114
Charlotte 106, Cleveland 95
Chicago 103, Detroit 81
Houston 114, Washington 109
Philadelphia 134, Brooklyn 105
Miami 123, Orlando 110
Indiana 141, New York 136
San Antonio 138, Dallas 117
Oklahoma City 115, Memphis 100
Golden State 157, Portland 101
Denver 109, Sacramento 95
LA Lakers 128, Utah 117
LA Clippers 119, Phoenix 114
Minnesota 113, New Orleans 108
(WASHINGTON) — Former Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson said Sunday he expects to be quickly reappointed after what he called his “unprecedented” expulsion for participating in a raucous, unrecognized gun violence protest on the Legislature floor.
“I do hope to continue to serve District 86 in the reappointment,” Pearson, a Memphis Democrat, told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. “If there is a special election, I would definitely run in that special election because our voters have been disenfranchised.”
Pearson was ousted from the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday along with Democratic Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville. It was the first such partisan expulsion in the state’s modern history.
During protests on March 30, Jones and Pearson used a bullhorn to lead chants on the House floor, briefly disrupting legislative business. State Rep. Gloria Johnson, a fellow Democrat who also faced expulsion, was not seen using the bullhorn and was spared from removal by one vote.
Jones and Pearson are both Black; Johnson is white. All three have said they believe race was a factor.
“This is one of the greatest tactics of voter disenfranchisement and voter oppression that I’ve ever witnessed,” Pearson argued on “This Week.”
“The reality is we have a super-majority Republican legislature that doesn’t want to see progress, that prefers to listen to the NRA rather than the constituents,” he said.
Pearson said the Covenant school shooting in Nashville, which killed six before police killed the shooter, “has catalyzed the conversation about the need to end gun violence in our communities.”
“To realize that yes, it is in schools and that’s something that we need to deal with, but it is also in our communities,” Pearson said. “That’s because there’s been a proliferation of guns and also a proliferation of laws in Republican-led majority legislatures like here in Tennessee that continue to have negative consequences for our communities.”
There are two possible ways Pearson and Jones could return to the Legislature: appointment by their respective county commissioners to the vacant seats or running for reelection.
Thursday’s vote was “not only unprecedented, it is historical in nature, it is a historical abuse of power by [Speaker] Cameron Sexton and the super-majority Republican Legislature who would rather expel our voices and tried to expel our people’s voices from the people’s house, rather than address the issue of gun violence and the need for real gun safety reform legislation that could prevent people from dying in the first place.”
Tennessee state Rep. Jeremy Faison, the chair of the state House Republican Caucus, previously defended the move in an interview with CNN.
“It’s not possible for us to move forward with the way they were behaving in committee and on the House floor,” Faison said. “There’s got to be some peace.”
He also said that the expulsion proceedings included “due process.” All three members were able to speak in the chamber to defend themselves before the votes.
During Sunday’s interview with Karl, Pearson referenced Tennessee’s 2021 permitless carry law and how it affects his district, linking it to rising homicides. “Murders are up 44% relative to this point last year in our city,” he said. “There are real consequences to the decisions of people in power.”
“We can never forget that it was tragedy that has brought us to this moment,” Pearson said. “The speaker had the audacity to call some of those children and some of those parents and grandparents ‘insurrectionist,’ likening them to Jan. 6, because they’re demanding that their voices be heard in a democracy.”
It’s young people, Pearson said, that are pushing the movement forward.
“It’s children and teenagers by the thousands, who continue to protest, who continue to march, who continue to raise their voices to say, ‘We need to do something to end gun violence,'” Pearson said. “I pray to God to be able to use my voice as a member of the state Legislature to represent Memphis and Shelby County and Millington, to continue to fight to pass reasonable, sensible legislation that the majority of people in Tennessee want.”
ABC News’ Kiara Alfonseca contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s attorney Jim Trusty said Sunday he expects the legal team representing the former president in New York City to seek to dismiss his recent indictment over hush money payments.
“I think there’s going to be some very well-placed motions to dismiss based on the legal frailties of this kind of, you know, mental gymnastics indictment that [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg is trying to piece together,” Trusty told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Pressed by Karl on whether to also expect motions to request a change of venue following Trump claiming on social media that neighboring Staten Island would be a “very fair and secure location for the trial,” Trusty said seeking to dismiss the case takes precedence.
“I think the motions to dismiss have to be a priority because they amputate this miscarriage of justice early on,” Trusty said.
The “very robust” motions could be on issues that include the statute of limitations, the “bootstrapping” of federal election law in state charges and more, he said.
He said he expected to see such motions “probably much earlier than December,” the next court date.
“We have a lot of confidence about how it plays out in the long run,” he said.
Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to paying adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to keep her from going public with a claim of an affair he says is false. That money was part of a “scheme” to bolster Trump’s election chances and he then sought to cover it up, prosecutors allege.
Trump pleaded not guilty at an arraignment Tuesday and has vehemently denied wrongdoing, claiming he’s being persecuted.
Trusty echoed that on “This Week.”
“The president is obviously a very resilient guy. He’s upset by this situation in terms of being targeted and that’s really the key. … This is a bad moment for this country,” Trusty said, calling Bragg’s case a “rancid ham sandwich of an indictment.”
Karl pushed for Trusty’s own opinion on Judge Juan Merchan, in light of Trump’s derisive comments about Merchan and Merchan’s family. Trusty said he didn’t want to “jump onto any bandwagon when it comes to criticizing.”
However, he insisted that with Merchan’s family, Trump was pointing out their personal bias rather than personally attacking them when he singled them out in a speech at his Mar-a-Lago Club on Tuesday.
Karl challenged Trusty on whether Trump’s attacks on Bragg were wise. “I’m in the legal lane. I’m not going to worry too much or be able to try to control the politics of the moment,” he said.
But he painted Bragg as a partisan prosecutor who “ran for office saying he’s the best guy to take out Donald Trump.” (Before being elected as district attorney, Bragg touted his past experience in court against Trump and said Trump should be held “accountable” but that he would go “wherever the facts take me.”)
“No matter what your political stripes, we should not have the criminal justice system that starts off with targeting people to find some sort of charge, because if you do, you end up coming up with tread bare charges like this,” Trusty said on “This Week.”
Trump’s comments about Bragg and others prompted Merchan, who has faced threats of his own, to warn Trump in court last week to watch his words. Merchan has the ability to issue a gag order on Trump but said he was reluctant to take such a sweeping move — for now.
Karl also asked Trusty about the Department of Justice special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office.
Trusty, one of the lawyers representing the former president in that case, assured Karl that the former president now no longer has such documents in his possession and has been seeking to be in compliance with the government’s efforts to retake the sensitive material.
According to court records, Trump previously resisted returning the documents, leading to an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last year.
“There’s no outstanding issue related to compliance with the subpoena,” Trusty said on Sunday. “Every step of the way, if we found anything of interest, even if it’s probably not classified, we’d turn it over.”
“So, no more classified documents in his position? They’ve all been turned over?” Karl followed up.
“Correct,” Trusty said. “We’ve done what’s right when it comes to the court proceedings and to knocking out the issue of whether there’s anything standing. And it also shows there’s no obstruction going on. So, I think we’re in a good place if the facts actually come out.”
(WASHINGTON) — Donald Trump’s former Attorney General William Barr warned Sunday that, in his view, Trump faces more legal peril from the federal probe into his possession of classified documents after leaving office than from the case in New York City over hush money paid to Stormy Daniels.
“I don’t think it has any merit. I think it is transparently an abuse of prosecutorial power to accomplish a political end,” Barr told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat.
However, Barr added, “I’d be most concerned about the documents at Mar-a-Lago.”
“I think that’s a serious potential case. I think they probably have some very good evidence,” he said.
He pointed to the prolonged back-and-forth between Trump and the government when, according to court records, Trump resisted returning the classified materials — leading to an FBI search of his home last year.
“I think he was jerking the government around and they subpoenaed it, and they tried to jawbone him into delivering the documents. But the government is investigating the extent to which games were played and there was obstruction and keeping the documents from them,” Barr said.
His remarks come after Trump was arraigned last week on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records related to paying Daniels, a porn actress, over her long-denied claims that they had an affair. Trump pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Tuesday.
Bragg, the district attorney, has alleged the money was part of a “scheme” in violation of state election laws to ensure Daniels’ allegations didn’t surface during the 2016 presidential campaign and harm Trump politically.
Barr said on “This Week” that, conversely, Trump being charged could help his current presidential bid.
“It … may accomplish his purpose, which is to get into the middle of the Republican primary process and turn it into a circus,” Barr said. “And I think, ultimately, the savvy Democratic strategists know this is going to help Trump, and they want him to be the nominee because he is the weakest of the Republican candidates and the most likely to lose again to [President Joe] Biden.”
However, Trump is currently mired in at least three other criminal investigations, including into his possession of classified documents after leaving office, his conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot and his efforts to overturn his election loss in Georgia in 2020.
Trump denies wrongdoing in each case and has insisted he is being persecuted.
Barr singled out the investigation into Trump’s possession of classified material, even though President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence were both also found to have retained classified documents while out of office.
Barr noted the difference in the cases is that Biden and Pence appear to have immediately informed the government of the documents once they were discovered, while Trump sought to keep them.
“My read was, before they found the documents in Biden’s house and Vice President Pence’s house, my read was that they were going to indict [Trump] and I still think there’s a very good chance of that,” Barr said. “I think it depends on how sensitive the documents were, but also what evidence they have of obstruction and games playing for the president and whether he directed people to lie or gave them information that was deceitful to pass on to the government.”
Barr also suggested his former boss could hurt his own standing with attacks on Bragg and the judge overseeing his case in New York.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate or wise. The president notoriously lacks self-control, and he frequently gets himself into trouble with these midnight tweets and other things,” he said of Trump’s criticism, including calling Bragg, who is Black, a racist. “These are gratuitous comments and aren’t particularly helpful.”
