(NEW YORK) — After months of closed door testimony, the special grand jury seated as part of the Fulton County, Georgia, investigation into potential 2020 election interference has finished its work and submitted its final report, according to a filing in the case Monday morning.
The special grand jury, which was seated in May 2022 as part of the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, heard testimony from some of Trump’s closet allies and supporters — including lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman and Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Now, the grand jury has delivered its report and officially has been dissolved, according to a court order by Judge Robert C. McBurney filed on Monday morning.
McBurney has set a Jan. 24 hearing to determine whether the report will be made public.
The special grand jury does not have the ability to return an indictment and can only make recommendations concerning criminal prosecution. Another grand jury would bring any possible charges.
Fulton County District Attorney Fanni Willis officially launched the probe in February 2021, sparked in part by the now-infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump pleaded with Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” the exact number Trump needed to win Georgia.
Trump, who has denounced the probe, has repeatedly defended his phone call to Raffensperger, calling it “perfect.”
The special grand jury was seated in May 2022. Since then, it has issued subpoenas for testimony to a host of Trump allies, including former Trump chief of staff Marc Meadows and former Georgie Rep. Newt Gingrich.
A number of individuals were informed this summer that they were “targets” of the probe, including Giuliani. Sixteen people identified as “fake electors” were also notified that they were considered targets in the ongoing criminal investigation, prosecutors revealed in court documents.
The 16, who prosecutors alleged participated in a scheme to overturn the state’s election results, received letters alerting them that their “testimony was required by the special purpose grand jury and that [they were] targets of the investigation” the filing said.
Public Image Ltd. has released a new song called “Hawaii.”
Not only is the track the first fresh offering from John Lydon and company in eight years, “Hawaii” will be Ireland’s official entry into the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, which recently made global superstars out of Måneskin.
In a statement, Lydon says “Hawaii,” which was written about his wife, Nora, and her ongoing battle with Alzheimer’s disease, “is dedicated to everyone going through tough times on the journey of life, with the person they care for the most.”
“It’s also a message of hope that ultimately love conquers all,” Lydon adds.
While the world watched the public mourning and funeral for Princess Diana after her shocking death in 1997, the princess’ youngest son, then 12-year-old Prince Harry, said he believed his mom hadn’t died.
Describing his thought as “magical thinking,” Harry, now 38, writes in his new memoir Spare that he believed his mom was “hiding.”
In a wide-ranging interview Monday, Harry told Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan that his disbelief that Diana had died was a “defense mechanism.”
“I think for anyone, especially if you’re a kid, I was 12 years old,” he said. “I refused to accept that was what had happened.”
Diana died at age 36 following a car crash in a Paris tunnel, during which paparazzi pursued her.
In Spare, which will be released globally on Tuesday, Harry describes the morning of Aug. 31, 1997, when his father, now King Charles III, delivered the devastating news that Diana died.
“As a dad…I have a huge amount of sympathy and compassion and understanding now about how ill-equipped I guess my dad was, how ill-equipped anybody would be in that situation,” Harry explained.
Harry said Charles waited to tell him about Diana until the morning, when he woke him and shared the news.
Harry writes in Spare about how he suffered after Diana’s death, including his inability for many years to cry over her death.
Looking back, he told Strahan he wonders if his experience would have differed had he been able to seek professional counseling after his mom died.
“I wish I had the ability or the opportunity to do some form of therapy, or at least be able to talk more about losing my mum and celebrating her life,” he said. “But who’s to say that at age 12 whether I would’ve even said yes to that.”
Steve Perry, Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain in 2017; Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Looks like Journey is no longer dealing with at least one court case. While Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain are still at odds, former frontman Steve Perry has decided to drop a lawsuit he filed over the band’s trademarks.
Perry filed his suit back in September, asking a court to stop Schon and Cain’s company, Freedom JN LLC, from using Journey song trademarks on merchandise, clothing and more. He argued the three of them agreed that any business decisions on the matter required unanimous consent from all of them and he hadn’t given his. He argued Cain and Schon committed “fraud on the trademark office” by applying to register the song names without informing the office of the true status of the ownership of the songs.
But based on a tweet by Schon, that legal battle is behind them. He shared the document showing Perry withdrew his lawsuit on Friday, and when asked if that’s indeed what happened he replied, “yes he did. Now we can talk as we were.”
Schon had previously blamed Cain for Perry filing the lawsuit, and in his tweet the guitarist noted, “So much for [Cain] trying to throw me under the bus as he claimed I was blatantly trying to rip off [Perry] while collecting the checks for the very diligent work my wife and I did to protect our Merch.”
Meanwhile, Schon and Cain are getting to hit the road for the band’s Freedom tour kicking off February 4 in Allentown, PA. When asked by a fan how they can share a stage together with all their fighting, he responded, “We’ve written great music. Gregg Rolie will be there also. Channel the great music. Honor it.”
(LONDON) — Prince Harry is sharing new details about his fractured relationships with his father King Charles III and brother Prince William, and how his hope for a “reconciliation” has led him to speak out.
“If we can get to the point of reconciliation, that will have a ripple effect across the world,” Harry told ABC News’ Good Morning America co-anchor Michael Strahan in a new interview about his memoir Spare. “I genuinely believe that, and that’s kind of what is pushing me. And if that doesn’t happen, then that’s very sad.”
Spare — a nod to Harry’s birth order as the younger brother of William, heir to the throne — will be released on Jan. 10, nearly three years to the day that Harry and his wife Meghan, the duchess of Sussex, shocked the world announcing their plans to “step back” as senior members of Britain’s royal family.
Since then, the couple has moved to California, where they now live with their two children, and separated themselves almost completely from royal life, becoming financially independent and pursuing their own careers.
In the wake of their departure, Harry told Strahan he does not believe the details he shares in Spare can make things any worse with his family.
“I have thought about it long and hard,” Harry said. “And as far as I see it, the divide couldn’t be greater before this book.”
William, ‘beloved brother and arch nemesis’
To the outside world Harry, 38, and William, 40, always appeared close, seemingly bonded by the death of their mother Princess Diana when Harry was just 12 and William was 15.
Harry told Strahan that privately, there was more to the brothers’ story. In his memoir, Harry refers to William as his “beloved brother and arch nemesis” and recalls verbal and even physical disputes between them.
“There has always been this competition between us weirdly,” Harry said. “Again, I think it really plays into, or is played, by the heir/spare.”
When asked whether he thought William was jealous of his position as the spare, Harry said yes.
“But I have more freedom than he does, right?” Harry said. “So his life is planned out for him. I have more flexibility to be able to choose the life that I wanted.”
Harry said that while the typical path for the spare is to sit “in the monarch’s shadow,” he wanted to carve a different path.
As Harry moved further down that path and eventually married Meghan, he claims William broke a longstanding “pact” between the brothers to not let their offices fight or brief the press against each other.
In Spare, Harry claims members of the royal institution fed stories to the press and refused to set the record straight on false reports, especially about Meghan, thereby shifting the negative spotlight on her in order to protect other royals.
“The people that he employed broke that,” Harry said of his self-described pact with William. “But again, within the family, it’s hard because you are led to believe that if you don’t play the game, that you will be destroyed. And again, I’m the one who’s proving that that is true, right? Chose not to play the game, but they’re trying to destroy me.”
In one example, Harry claims palace officials failed to correct tabloid stories alleging Meghan made William’s wife Kate, the princess of Wales, cry in the run-up to the Sussexes’ 2018 wedding. Harry writes in Spare, and Meghan has said in a previous interview, that it was Kate who upset Meghan and later apologized.
“[The press] pitched the Waleses, which Kate and William are now, against the Sussexes, me and my wife. They always pitched us against each other,” Harry said. “They pitched Kate and Meghan against each other.”
When asked whether press reports of Kate and Meghan fighting disrupted the women’s relationship, Harry replied, “Without question.”
“If you read [the press coverage], it very much feeds into how you function, operate, and behave. Without question,” Harry said. “But the moment you don’t read it, you can live a truly authentic life.”
Harry said he believes the British press continues to try to “drive a wedge” between him and William, but hopes that he can reconcile with his brother.
“I hope that we will be joined at the hip again,” he said. “Because, you know, if there’s something that will terrify the British press more than anything, it’s William and I being aligned.”
Harry said he “without question” shoulders some of the responsibility for the breakdown of his relationship with William. But he added, “What people don’t know is the efforts that I’ve gone to [in order] to resolve this privately, both with my brother and with my father.”
Neither Kensington Palace — William and Kate’s office — nor Buckingham Palace, the office of Charles and Camilla, the queen consort, have commented on the claims Harry makes in Spare.
ABC News reached out to Kensington Palace and Buckingham palace for response to Harry’s remarks in our interview. Kensington Palace declined to comment.
ABC News received a response from the law firm representing Buckingham Palace Monday saying that the palace needed to “consider exactly what is said in the interview and the context in which it appears,” and asked that we supply them immediately with a copy of the entire interview. We do not do that as a news organization as a matter of policy.
Harry describes how his and Meghan’s hope for a different royal life collapsed
According to Harry, intense press coverage and security concerns played a large part in his and Meghan’s quest to carve out different royal roles for themselves that would allow them to split their time between Canada and the U.K. while still serving the monarchy.
When the proposal was brought to the royal family, Harry said there was “zero compromise.” He added that an agreed-upon 12-month transition period completely fell apart when his own family’s security was pulled.
“I was stunned that my family would allow security to be taken away, especially at the most vulnerable point for us,” said Harry, who was living with Meghan and their son Archie in Vancouver Island, Canada, at the time. “And maybe they didn’t understand the concerns that I had. I mean, I listed them. I laid them out.”
When asked whether he thought his family didn’t understand his security concerns, or didn’t care, Harry replied, “I think probably a little bit of both.”
Harry expressed that neither he nor Meghan wanted to leave their senior royal roles, saying, “We were based in Windsor. That was where we genuinely thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives.”
Describing his and Meghan’s ideal life, he said they wanted to continue to represent the monarchy but to do so mainly outside of the U.K. so that their work wouldn’t go through what he called “the filter of the tabloids.”
“We were trying to find a different way to work, but for one reason or another, despite the fact that it already exists within the family, we weren’t allowed to do things slightly differently,” Harry said. “To still perform and work and support and represent the monarchy, but to be financially independent, to remove the supposed public interest, which the tabloids had used repeatedly to invade every single element of our life.”
A return to the U.K. and a working royal role?
Though Harry’s memoir Spare rips open his view of the royal institution and his family, he said he thinks telling his story is what is needed to make peace.
“I don’t think that we can ever have peace with my family unless the truth is out there,” he told Strahan. “There’s a lot that I can forgive, but there needs to be conversations in order for reconciliation, and part of that has to be accountability.”
Harry said he also hopes to have a candid, private conversation with family members.
“I just hope that there’s a way that we can have a conversation that is trusted within that conversation that isn’t then spilled to the British press,” he said. “That’s where I am.”
When describing how he chose the personal, behind-the-scenes details he shares in Spare, Harry said he thought more about the family he has created with Meghan.
“As [with] everybody who has a large family, a family that you’ve been born into, there becomes a point when the family that you’ve created … becomes the priority over the family that you were born into,” said Harry, who wed Meghan in 2018. “So, not to say it wasn’t hard. It was very hard. But that was my thinking and the process in which I went through.”
Harry has only returned to the U.K. a handful of times since his exit in 2020, including for the funerals of his grandfather Prince Philip and, more recently, his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II.
According to Harry, the queen never told him she was angry with him for wanting to change his royal role, but he believes she was “sad” his situation had reached that point.
“I had many, many conversations with her both in the U.K. over the years and in the run-up to the point of this change, so it was never a surprise to anybody, least of all her,” Harry said. “She knew what was going on. She knew how hard it was. I don’t know whether she was in a position to be able to change it.”
When asked whether he saw himself, Meghan and their children ever returning to the U.K. and becoming working royals again, Harry said he doesn’t think so.
“Even if there was an agreement or an arrangement between me and my family, there is that third party that is going to do everything they can to make sure that that isn’t possible,” Harry said, referring to the British press. “Not stopping us from necessarily going back, but making it unsurvivable, and that’s really sad because that is essentially breaking the relationship between us.”
He added, “If there was something in the future where we can continue to support the Commonwealth, then that’s of course on the table, but there’s so much that needs to happen between now and then, and so much that can happen.”
Harry says he’s speaking out to help protect other generations of royals
The dduke of Sussex said he “genuinely” believes the British monarchy should continue, and that there is a place for it in the 21st century as long as it modernizes.
“I think the same process that I went through regarding my own unconscious bias would be hugely beneficial to them,” he said. “It’s not racism, but unconscious bias if not confronted, if not acknowledged, if not learned and grown from, that can then move into racism. And the way that I understand it is that we all want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.”
Harry said the royals missed a “huge missed opportunity” in modernizing the monarchy through what Meghan represented as a biracial woman.
“It’s what she said to me from right from the beginning, representation,” Harry said of his wife. “And I, as a privileged white man, didn’t really understand what she was talking about.”
With his memoir, Harry said a large part of his drive to speak out stems from a hope to “change the media landscape” in the U.K., giving less status to tabloid newspapers.
“In this instance, the most popular, most read and therefore most influential newspapers in our country are tabloids,” he said. “That affects the country. That affects the construct of the country.”
Harry described also wanting to more specifically change what he described as a “codependency” between U.K. tabloids and the royal family.
“There are some people, especially in the U.K., who have been led to believe that because you are a member of the royal family, somehow everyone owns you or has a stake in you,” he said. “And that’s a message that has been purely pushed out by the British tabloids, and it creates real problems within that family and that relationship.”
Harry added, “Of course, there has to be some sort of relationship, but where it’s got to now is incredibly unhealthy.”
Believing that the monarchy should continue, Harry said he hopes his efforts can help his own two children as well as current and future generations of royals.
“I also worry about other young kids within that family if this continues,” he said, referring to the royal family. “Because who’s to say that someone else doesn’t fill my shoes and that their partner, whether it’s a husband or a wife or boyfriend or a girlfriend, doesn’t get treated exactly the same as Meghan did?”
Peacock got quite the wedding gift from its recently launched spin-off series The Best Man: The Final Chapters.
According to data provided to Variety, the show that reunited the cast of the franchise first started on the big screen in 1999 has become the streaming service’s first original show to hit Nielsen’s Top 10 streaming rankings.
With a cast that includes Nia Long, Taye Diggs, Morris Chestnut, Terrence Howard and Sanaa Lathan, The Final Chapters debuted in the #5 slot for the December 19-25 window, the streaming service’s best debut to date. The performance is particularly strong considering the show premiered in the middle of that viewing window, on December 22.
(NEW YORK) — Colorado will stop sending migrants to New York and Chicago, according to a press release from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
The decision followed days of public discussion between the leaders of the two cities — New York Mayor Eric Adams and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot — and Polis about which city should be responsible for supporting the influx of migrants.
“Also, the Governor had a very productive conversation with Mayor Adams and Mayor Lightfoot today where he shared that there are no more buses scheduled for migrants from Denver to Chicago at this time, and the final chartered transportation to New York City will be successfully completed tomorrow,” said the press release, which was dated Saturday.
Polis announced on Jan. 3 that Colorado would facilitate in transporting of migrants who arrived in Denver to their “final destinations,” noting that about 70% of the migrants did not consider Denver as their destination. The release added that weather and workforce shortages at the time attributed to travel cancellations for many migrants.
New York Mayor Eric Adams had responded before Polis issued that announcement. Joining 77WABC’s “Sid and Friends in the Morning,” Adams informed listeners that Polis notified him on Monday about busing migrants from Colorado.
“This is just unfair for local governments to have to take on this national obligation,” Adams said. “We’ve done our job. There’s no more room at the end, but we are compelled by local laws here that we must provide shelter.”
The City and County of Denver had received 21 migrants overnight on Jan. 4, brining its total to 3,673 migrants since Dec. 9. Over the next three nights, the city received 75, 48 and 78 migrants overnight.
In a joint letter to Polis on Saturday, Adams and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot demanded that Colorado “cease and desist sending migrants to New York City and Chicago.” Lightfoot and Adams asked Polis to ensure “values are lived in good times and especially in challenging times,” saying Polis was sending migrants to cities where they lack family ties and community networks. They said New York and Chicago’s resources were at “maximum capacity.”
New York City received 36,400 asylum seekers in the nine months leading up to Jan. 4 and plans to spend $1 billion in 2023 to “address the asylum crisis,” according to the letter. Chicago has received 3,854 migrants since Aug. 31, the letter said.
With Polis promising to no longer send buses, the cities and Polis also appear to agree on another pressing topic: the necessity for action from the federal government.
“Instead, let us work together to advocate to the federal government for a national solution that responds to this need,” Adams and Lightfoot noted in their letter.
Colorado’s press release said, “Governor Polis has been clear that Congress and the Biden-Harris administration must assist states who are facing these challenges through no fault of their own and looks forward to partnering with the federal government to provide work permits for migrants who want to contribute to Colorado’s thriving economy, and enact better border security and finally pass real immigration reform.”
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock added to the calls for action on Jan. 5, commending President Joe Biden’s efforts to improve border enforcement but calling on more action from Congress.
“I also echo the President’s call for Congress to take meaningful action on comprehensive immigration reform,” he said. “That is the most long term solution to a pressing humanitarian crisis.”
ABC News’ Jeff Cook and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
On Sunday morning, the “Truth Hurts” singer, who is no stranger to voicing her opinion, took to Twitter to air out her grievances.
“This may be a random time to say this but it’s on my heart.. cancel culture is appropriation,” she tweeted. “There was real outrage from truly marginalized people and now it’s become trendy, misused and misdirected. I hope we can phase out of this & focus our outrage on the real problems.”
Lizzo didn’t go into any further detail about the matter, but she did mention another social media issue just days prior.
On Friday, the Grammy-award winner tweeted, “We need to talk about the epidemic of believing any and everything y’all see on social media.”
NBA Youngboy and his longtime girlfriend Jazlyn Mychelle have reportedly tied the knot.
Neither have confirmed or shared the news publicly, however, photos of a Utah county marriage license with their full names surfaced online Sunday. Youngboy, born Kentrell DeSean Gaulden, is listed on the license, along with Jazlyn Mychelle Hayes. The marriage date is listed as January 7.
The “Bandit” rapper and Hayes share two children together. They welcomed a daughter, Nora, in 2021 and a son back in September.
In total, Youngboy, 23, has 10 children, including a son, Kentrell Jr. with Iyanna “Yaya” Mayweather, the daughter of Floyd Mayweather.
Fire Country has been renewed for a season 2 less than two weeks after it debuted, CBS announced on Friday. The series — starring Max Thieriot, Billy Burke, Kevin Alejandro, Diane Farr, Stephanie Arcila, Jordan Calloway and Jules Latimer — is averaging over 10 million viewers per episode in Live+35 day multiplatform viewing, according to the network. The show, which airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET., will air on a special day and time, Jan. 29 immediately following the AFC Championship game, before returning to its regular schedule. Fire Country is also available to stream on Paramount+…
The animated drama series Pantheon is the latest casualty of AMC Networks’ cost-cutting drive, according to Deadline. The series, containing the voices of Daniel Dae Kim, Paul Dano and Taylor Schilling, was pulled from its streaming service after one season, despite getting a season 2 pickup. The second season, which had already been produced, will not air. Pantheon joins shows Demascus, Invitation to a Bonfire and the second seasons of 61st Street and Moonhaven, which also got the axe…
Tim Blake Nelson, the character best known for his roles in films like Oh Brother Where Art Thou and The Incredible Hulk, has been added to the cast of Dune: Part Two, the sequel to Denis Villeneuve‘s Oscar-winning 2021 film, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Details on his role have not been revealed. Nelson joins fellow newcomers Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Léa Seydoux and Christopher Walken, as well as returning cast members Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Stellan Skarsgård and Javier Bardem. Dune: Part Two is set to hit theater November 3…
