Alex Honnold guests on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ (Disney/Randy Holmes)
Taipei 101 climber Alex Honnold has shared the full playlist he listened to during his free solo scaling of the Taiwan skyscraper.
As Honnold revealed in a Variety interview, the playlist indeed features a number of Tool songs, including “Schism,” “Forty Six & 2” and the aptly titled “Invincible.”
The playlist also features songs by Linkin Park, Chevelle, The Used, The Offspring and Nothing More.
You can listen to the whole playlist, titled “T101,” now via Spotify.
Honnold’s Taipei 101 climb streamed live during a Netflix special January. Speaking with ABC Audio, Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan called Honnold’s accomplishment “extremely impressive.”
Singer Joe Elliott of Def Leppard performs at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on February 03, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Denise Truscello/Getty Images for Live Nation Las Vegas)
Def Leppard launched their Las Vegas residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace Tuesday, treating the crowd to some live debuts and songs they haven’t played in a while.
“WOW! THAT is how you kick off a Residency,” the band wrote on Instagram, alongside photos from the show. “Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate night 1 with us. The energy was palpable.” They added, “Let’s do it again, shall we?!”
According to setlist.fm, the band kicked off the show with the first-ever live performance of their new single “Rejoice.” The set also featured their 2024 single “Just Like 73.”
They also debuted a live performance of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus,” a song they recorded in 2018, along with a cover of the David Essex‘s “Rock On,” which Def Leppard hadn’t performed live since 2019.
The band dipped back into its catalog as well, playing the Adrenalize track “White Lightning” for the first time since 1993.
Of course, the show was packed with classic Def Leppard hits, including “Animal,” “Bringin’ On The Heartbreak,” “Armageddon It,” “Love Bites,” “Rock of Ages,” “Photograph,” “Hysteria,” and the show-closing “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”
Def Leppard: Live at Caesars Palace The Las Vegas Residency runs through Feb. 28, with their next show taking place on Saturday. A complete list of dates can be found at DefLeppard.com.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a bill signing in the Oval Office of the White House on February 03, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge on Wednesday is set to consider moving President Donald Trump’s conviction in his criminal hush money case in New York to federal court, where Trump could try to overturn it.
Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office will argue before U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein over the immunity the U.S. Supreme Court granted Trump for his official acts.
The Supreme Court decided in July 2024 that presidents are entitled to presumptive immunity for acts taken in their official capacity. Trump’s attorneys have argued that ruling means his Manhattan criminal case belongs in federal court.
Hellerstein has already denied them twice, deciding that falsifying business records before the 2016 election in order to conceal a long-denied affair with Stormy Daniels had nothing to do with the presidency.
After Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts, his attorneys went back to Hellerstein, who was still not convinced, writing that “hush-money payments were private, unofficial acts, outside the bounds of executive authority.”
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Hellerstein to take another look.
New York Judge Juan Merchan sentenced Trump last year to an unconditional discharge without prison, fines or probation. Prosecutors have argued that the “advanced stage” of the case weighs against moving it into federal court.
Trump was found guilty of orchestrating an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election by directing his personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, to pay $130,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to prevent her from publicly revealing a long-denied sexual encounter with Trump.
Trump is separately pursuing an appeal through the state court system.
Turnstile at The 68th Annual Grammy Awards on February 1, 2026. (Alberto Rodriguez/CBS)
Turnstile has shared a statement regarding the band’s two Grammy wins Sunday.
The hardcore outfit took home best rock album for NEVER ENOUGH and best metal performance for “BIRDS.” They were also nominated in the best rock song and best alternative music performance categories.
“We never thought we’d be in these rooms, but we are very grateful to be here,” Turnstile writes in a Facebook post. “This band has never been about the individual, but rather about a collective searching for a common thread in a world where those threads are being hidden from us. The world likes to tell us who we are and what we’re not, but the truth is we belong to nothing and we belong to everyone.”
“We’re existing in a time of heightened state violence,” the post continues “We are watching people be pushed out of their homes here in America, in Palestine, in Sudan, in Iran, everywhere, as if they don’t belong to them. As if we don’t belong to each other. Music is a vehicle for voices that are buried, that are searching, that are alien. Turnstile has always existed as an alien thing.”
Turnstile concludes the statement by thanking “our family, our friends, our partners, our peers for continuing to shape us and give us sense of belonging,” as well as their fans, team and their hometown of Baltimore.
“Thank you to everyone who has allowed this band to be a mirror for this community,” Turnstile says.
Voters casting ballot (CREDIT: Hill Street Studios/Getty Images)
(FULTON COUNTY, Ga.) — Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, filed a motion Wednesday seeking the return of all files from the 2020 election that were seized by the FBI last week, according to a spokesperson for the county.
FBI agents last Wednesday removed 700 boxes containing ballots and other materials associated with the 2020 election from a county election site after obtaining a search warrant approved by a federal magistrate judge.
The warrant said the material “constitutes evidence of the commission of a criminal offense” and had been “used as the means of committing a criminal offense.”
The county’s new motion also seeks the unsealing of the affidavit filed in relation to the search warrant, the spokesperson said in a statement.
The statement said that because the case is still under seal, the county is unable to share the contents of the motion.
The FBI’s action comes after Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, that contributed to his election loss.
Georgia officials audited and certified the results following the election, and numerous lawsuits challenging the election results in the state were rejected by the courts.
Backstreet Boys are seen filming a T-Mobile commercial in Times Square on Jan. 24, 2026 in New York City. (Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
Tell me why … it’s America’s best network. That’s what Backstreet Boys sing in their new Super Bowl T-Mobile ad, which ABC’s Good Morning America aired a preview of Wednesday morning.
In the clip, the group, wearing white and pink, surprise customers who are shopping for a phone plan in New York’s Times Square. “They couldn’t believe the Backstreet Boys were actually performing in the middle of a T-Mobile store,” Nick CartertoldGMA’s Will Reeve.
“So that was great, and it’s just been a collaborative effort between, I feel like, with these producers, the directors and everybody. It’s been a really great experience.”
Of course, the group’s ongoing popularity is what allowed them to book the ad in the first place.
“We’re grateful, very blessed, and that’s a testament to our music, our fans, and hard work, perseverance, and keep going,” Kevin Richardson told GMA.
Howie Dorough added, “Us still having the drive to want to do this — we’re like a family. We’ve been in this family here longer than our own marriages. Things just keep getting better and better.”
Amid their wildly popular Into the Millennium residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas, AJ McLean said the group is “always trying to set new goals and achieve those goals.”
Nick added, “When we get up on that stage at Sphere, and we see these people coming, wearing the same outfits, enjoying the nostalgia — those are all moments for us to remind us why we do what we do, and why we continue to love it, and that’s what keeps us together.”
A Man on the Inside is coming back for another season. Netflix has renewed the comedy series from creator Michael Schur for a third season. Ted Danson will once again star as the detective Charles Nieuwendyk in this new season. Schur said the team is “absolutely thrilled to partner with Netflix on another season of A Man on the Inside. It’s a true joy to work with this entire team, most especially the handsome, erudite, and monstrously talented Ted Danson, a true American treasure whose contract stipulates exactly what adjectives I am allowed to use while describing him in press releases.” …
The first look at the upcoming Apple TV film Outcome has arrived. Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz and MattBomer star alongside director Jonah Hill in the movie, which will premiere on April 10. The dark comedy follows a beloved Hollywood star who dives into his hidden demons after he’s extorted by a video that could shatter his reputation. Martin Scorsese, Susan Lucci, Laverne Cox, David Spade and Atsuko Okatsuka also star …
The official trailer for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters season 2 has arrived. Apple TV will debut the second season of the Monsterverse series on Feb. 27. After its premiere, a new episode will debut every Friday through May 1. Kurt Russell, Wyatt Russell, Anna Sawai, Kiersey Clemons and Ren Watabe star in the 10-episode season …
Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff for policy, walks on the South Lawn of the White House after arriving on Marine One in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. US President Donald Trump threw his support behind a legislative proposal that would expand sales of higher-ethanol E15 gasoline as he looked to build support for his economic record with a crowd that included farmers in Iowa. (Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Over the weekend, the former chief of staff of the Justice Department — who was one of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s top advisers during her first seven months on the job — issued a public call for lawyers who “support President Trump” to join the Justice Department’s ranks.
In a post on X, the former chief of staff, Chad Mizelle, seemed to suggest he could help such applicants become career federal prosecutors — who by law are supposed to be apolitical.
“DM me,” Mizelle wrote, referring to direct messages sent privately to him. “We need good prosecutors.”
Forty minutes later, one of President Donald Trump’s top policy advisers, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, reposted Mizelle’s message, adding, “Patriots needed.” And then on Monday, the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jason Reding Quinones, also reposted Mizelle’s message, saying, “We are hiring!”
There are political appointees within the Justice Department, including certain leaders based in Washington and the U.S. attorneys who oversee offices around the country — but the assistant U.S. attorneys, or AUSAs, who investigate and prosecute cases in those offices are supposed to be nonpolitical and nonpartisan.
Appearing on a conservative podcast on Monday, Mizelle said he has received “hundreds and hundreds of inquiries already” from lawyers looking to become AUSAs. But his posting, and the subsequent promotion of it by current senior government officials, has roiled some former federal prosecutors on both sides of the political spectrum.
“We shouldn’t have a favorite politician in the Justice Department; we should have a favorite document, and that’s the Constitution,” former prosecutor Perry Carbone told ABC News.
Carbone, who spent more than three decades as a federal prosecutor and until May was the chief of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, said that Mizelle’s post has “generated a lot of discussion” among former federal prosecutors, who are concerned about its implications.
“It’s dangerous,” he said of what the post could mean. “The day that Department of Justice lawyers are hired based on loyalty to a person … is the day the rest of us should get very nervous.”
He said the message in Mizelle’s post — and the reposts by Reding Quinones and Miller — “flatly contradict” federal laws and regulations pertaining to the hiring of career federal employees.
He cited federal laws, including the Civil Service Reform Act, that specifically prohibit favoring or discriminating against applicants for federal civil-service jobs based on their “political affiliation.”
“The law is very clear,” Carbone said.
He also cited the Justice Department’s own manual, which says, “All personnel decisions regarding career positions in the Department must be made without regard to the applicant’s or occupant’s partisan affiliation.”
“Efforts to influence personnel decisions concerning career positions on partisan grounds should be reported to the Deputy Attorney General,” the manual states.
Andy McCarthy, a conservative commentator and frequent Trump critic who himself served as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York for nearly two decades, also blasted Mizelle’s post.
“If support for [the current] president is now a condition of enforcing federal law, Congress should defund DOJ. DOJ should only exist if it’s nonpartisan. Too dangerous to liberty otherwise,” McCarthy wrote.
“If AG Garland’s office had posted this, MAGA & GOP would be calling for impeachment,” he added, referring to Merrick Garland, the Biden administration’s attorney general.
Appearing on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast Monday, Mizelle defended his post, saying that Article II of the Constitution explicitly states that “all executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States,” so “any time an executive branch officer is using executive power — an AUSA indicting somebody or … bringing criminal evidence against somebody — all of that is executive power that’s included.”
Mizelle said that when he was working for Bondi last year, his “job as chief of staff” was to “root out a lot of this stuff,” so, “On Day 1 we dismissed about 100 people who we thought were working against Donald J. Trump,” and then “thousands” more left.
“That’s how government should work. It should work that if you can’t follow the wishes of the duly elected president of the United States, then you need to leave. And all we’re looking for now are people who want to follow his agenda,” Mizelle said.
But Carbone said he rejects Mizelle’s analysis of the Constitution and the work of federal prosecutors under changing administrations. While policies may change, prosecutors “have to exercise independent professional judgment, not political obedience,” he said.
That’s underscored by a 2008 report from the Justice Department’s inspector general, who launched an investigation at the time into allegations that the Justice Department under President George W. Bush had been improperly using political affiliations to screen candidates for an apolitical summer internship program and a program that hired recent law graduates without prior legal experience.
In his report, the inspector general noted that “both DOJ policy and civil service law prohibit discrimination in hiring for DOJ career positions on the basis of political affiliations,” and said courts have considered “political affiliation” to include “commonality of political purpose, partisan activity, and political support.”
After his office’s investigation, the inspector general concluded that two political appointees in the department “took political or ideological affiliations into account in deselecting candidates in violation of Department policy and federal law.”
As for Mizelle’s recent post, Carbone said it is “just another symptom” afflicting a Justice Department that “has been building this reputation of independence for 50 years, since Watergate, and now here we are in a place where we’ve taken a giant step back.”
Mark Rotert, an AUSA in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago during the 1980s and 1990s, who was also on his office’s hiring committee, agreed, calling Mizelle’s post “disgraceful.”
“It never would have occurred to us to explore what the candidate’s views were about the president, or what kind of job the president is doing,” Rotert said of his time on the hiring committee. “Partisan politics were never considered a relevant or even an appropriate discussion point.”
Carbone also said that while Mizelle may not work at the Justice Department anymore, the boost it received from Miller, a senior White House official, and Reding Quinones, a U.S. attorney, shows how connected Mizelle still is — or at the least how his message “is supported by high-level people in the Justice Department.”
Mizelle’s post comes as the Justice Department faces increasing pressure over its handling of a wide array of politically charged matters, including firing prosecutors and investigators who were involved in previous Trump-related investigations; filing federal charges against or otherwise investigating many of President Trump’s political enemies; failing to initially investigate the officer who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis last month; and most recently last week’s FBI seizure of ballots and other records related to the 2020 election from an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia.
A Justice Department spokesman did not respond to a message from ABC News seeking comment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida also did not respond to a message seeking comment from ABC News.
The upper floors of a multi-storey building burn after debris from a Russian drone falls on February 3, 2026 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — American, Ukrainian and Russian representatives gathered again in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday for the next round of trilateral talks regarding a possible end to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the fourth anniversary of which will come later this month.
The talks in Abu Dhabi are expected to run until Thursday. The negotiations are the second instalment of the trilateral format, the first also having been held in Abu Dhabi last month.
Both Moscow and Kyiv described the first round of trilateral talks as constructive, but key areas of disagreement remain.
Among them are the fate of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which Russia has partially occupied and from which Moscow is demanding a full Ukrainian military withdrawal — a proposal rejected by Kyiv.
Control of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine — occupied by Moscow’s forces since March 2022 — is also an important point of discussion.
Another unresolved issue is the nature of post-war Western security guarantees for Ukraine, without which Kyiv says Moscow will be able to launch a new round of aggression in the future. The binding involvement of American forces in those security guarantees is a key Ukrainian demand.
Russia has consistently said it will not accept the deployment of any NATO troops in Ukraine post-war. But following talks with U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace envoy Steve Witkoff over the weekend, Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev said, “Some security guarantees in some form may be acceptable.”
Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council and the leader of Kyiv’s delegation, said in a post to Telegram on Wednesday that the latest round of talks were underway.
“The negotiation process started in a trilateral format — Ukraine, USA and Russia,” Umerov wrote. “Next, work will continue in separate groups by areas, after which a repeated joint synchronization of positions is planned.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, meanwhile, told journalists on Wednesday that Moscow “is continuing its special military operation. The door to a peaceful settlement is open, and Russia remains open,” he said, as quoted by Russia’s state-run Tass news agency.
The delegations gathered on Wednesday as Ukraine reeled from a major Russian drone and missile bombardment on Monday night, which Ukrainian officials said caused serious damage to the country’s energy grid.
This winter has seen intense and sustained Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, prompting regular blackouts for millions of Ukrainians amid below-freezing temperatures.
On Thursday, Trump said he had secured a week-long Russian commitment to halt attacks on Ukrainian energy targets. Moscow confirmed the agreement, but said the pause only extended until Sunday. Kyiv said it would also pause attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested on Tuesday that Monday night’s strikes violated the supposed week-long pause. The Ukrainian president also said, “The work of our negotiating team will be adjusted accordingly.”
Trump, though, told reporters later on Tuesday that the agreement only stretched from “Sunday to Sunday,” adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin “kept his word on that.”
“You know, one week is, we’ll take anything because it’s really, really cold over there. But it was on Sunday and he went from Sunday to Sunday,” Trump said.
Zelenskyy said on Tuesday, “Last night, Russia broke its promise, that means either Russia now believes a week has fewer than four days instead of seven, or it is genuinely betting only on war and simply waited for the coldest days of this winter.”
Zelenskyy also said in a post to Telegram that Kyiv is waiting for “the reaction of the United States of America to the Russian strikes.”
Zelenskyy suggested that the attacks undermined any hope of successful talks. “This also speaks volumes about any other promises Russia has made or might still make. If their word doesn’t hold even now, what can be expected next?” he said in a post to Telegram.
“They lied before this war as well, and Russia launched the full-scale war, trying to deceive everyone about their intentions and about Ukraine. Even now, in these details, in these agreements with the United States, Russia resorts to deception again,” Zelenskyy wrote.
Both Russia and Ukraine continued their long-range attacks overnight into Wednesday.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 105 drones into the country overnight, of which 88 were shot down or suppressed. Seventeen drones impacted across 14 locations, the air force said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down 24 Ukrainian drones overnight.
National Guard soldiers respond to a shooting near the White House on November 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. At least two National Guardsmen have been shot blocks from the White House. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The man accused of ambushing West Virginia National Guard members near the White House in November, killing one and severely wounding another, is set to be arraigned in court on Wednesday.
Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her injuries on Nov. 26, the day before Thanksgiving. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe suffered a gunshot wound to the head and remains in recovery.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who previously worked with the CIA in Afghanistan, faces nine charges, including first-degree murder, assault with intent to kill and illegal possession of a firearm, and has pleaded not guilty.
Lakanwal was one of thousands of Afghans evacuated to the United States after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 2021, his application for asylum was approved in 2025 under the Trump administration.
Court documents say Lakanwal shot Beckstrom and Wolfe in the back of the head with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver. A National Guard major returned fire, and another Guard officer subdued Lakanwal. Wolfe is still recovering and will have cranioplasty, or skull reconstruction surgery, in March, according to Melody Wolfe, his mother.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she is seeking the death penalty. Lakanwal’s attorney declined to comment.
In Afghanistan, Lakanwal was affiliated with a so-called Zero Unit, working closely with the CIA and special operations, ABC News reported in December. He was considered a trusted member of the unit, which carried out U.S. counterterrorism missions, officials with direct knowledge explained.
Investigators believe Lakanwal was under financial strain after his work permit expired and may have been experiencing a mental health crisis, sources told ABC News.
Investigators are also examining whether the recent death of an Afghan commander Lakanwal had worked with and might have admired may have worsened his mental and emotional state, according to sources.
The two guard members were a part of President Donald Trump’s surge of troops into Washington, D.C., for law enforcement. After the shooting, the president deployed an additional 500 guard members into D.C. where some 2,600 are currently deployed performing civic duties like cleaning garbage off the street and patrolling the city’s tourist spots and parks and Metro rail stations.
The guard deployment will last through 2026, two officials told ABC News in January.
