A new documentary about England’s famed Abbey Road Studios is premiering next month on Disney +, and now, fans are getting their first look at it. A new trailer for the film has been released, featuring appearances by Paul McCartney, Elton John, Ringo Starr and more.
If These Walls Could Sing is directed by Paul’s daughter Mary McCartney, who has a personal connection with the famed studios.
“I have grown up visiting Abbey Road, it feels like family to me,” she tells Rolling Stone. “In directing this feature-length documentary, it felt natural to explore the wealth of stories, and unearth so many unheard gems that I had not known about.”
The trailer features a mix of archival footage, including that of the Beatles, along with snippets of a new interview with McCartney and shots of him playing the piano. Elton is also featured sharing, “When you enter a place with so much history around it, it’s kind of sacred in a way.” He adds, “People want to come here. They want the sound of Abbey Road.”
The film, which debuts December 16, also features interviews with such artists as Roger Waters, Liam Gallagher, Nile Rodgers, John Williams and more.
(WASHINGTON) — China has stolen more of Americans business and personal data than all other countries put together, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a House committee Tuesday.
“China’s vast hacking program is the world’s largest and they have stolen more Americans personal and business data than every other nation combined,” Wray told the House Homeland Security Committee.
Wray testified along with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Christine Abizaid, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, at the annual “Worldwide Threats” hearing.
The FBI director said the U.S. has concerns with China based app TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, which has been under scrutiny of U.S. regulators. The head of the Federal Trade Commission has said the app should be banned.
“I would say we do have national security concern,” Wray told Rep. Diana Harshberger, R-Tenn. “They include the possibility that the Chinese government could use to control data collection on millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so chose or to control software on millions of devices, which gives the opportunity to potentially tactically compromised personal devices,” he said.
“So, there’s a number of concerns there as to what is actually happening and actually being done,” Wray said, adding there are questions about how data sharing works in China with companies required by Chinese law to share data with the government.
Mayorkas also cited concerns about China.
“China’s using its technology to tilt the global playing field to its benefit,” he said.
Bomb threats to HBCUs
The hearing also touched on bomb threats to HBCUs around the country, domestic violent extremists, and the southern border.
Wray said the bomb threats against HBCU’s are “unacceptable” and said a single actor is responsible for the bomb threats that were called in.
“With respect for the first big tranche, investigation has identified an underage, a juvenile subject and because of the federal limitations on charging juveniles with federal crimes, we have worked with state prosecutors to ensure that that Indvidual is charged under other various state offenses which will ensure some sort of restrictions and monitoring and disruption of his criminal behavior. “
Throughout the spring, Historically Black Colleges and Universities saw bomb threats almost daily.
Political violence, threats against law enforcement
The law enforcement leaders were asked about the attack against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, and the leaders said there is a disturbing trend in targeting government officials and law enforcement.
“We have seen a trend over the last several years of people more and more in this country when they’re upset or angry about something turning to violence as the way to manifest it. And that is a very, very dangerous trend,” Wray said.
“There is a right way under the First Amendment to express how angry and upset you are about something or with somebody but violence, violence against government officials is not it but that is something that we’ve been seeing across the political spectrum now for quite a number of years,” he said.
The two leaders said increasing violence against law enforcement is also dangerous with Mayorkas noting more law enforcement have been ambushed than ever.
Both leaders agreed that domestic violent extremists pose the most significant threat to the United States.
Along the southern border, which has been a focus of GOP attacks against the Biden administration, the FBI director said the border has a lot of “complex threats” that it is facing. He said there has been an “increase” in the known or suspected terrorists apprehended along the border. Rep. Mike McCaul said there were 98 known or suspected terrorists apprehended along the southern border in the past fiscal year.
According to a senior DHS official, encounters of known and suspected terrorists attempting to cross the Southern Border are very uncommon. These encounters represent significantly less than 0.01 percent of total encounters per fiscal year in recent years.
Mayorkas said they are “taking it to” the human smugglers and cartel organizations along the southern border, touting the Department’s work in a new program they rolled out earlier this year.
(CARMEL, Ind.) — In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir, former Vice President Mike Pence was pressed on his rhetoric in the days leading up to the riot at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“When I first heard about it in early December, that there might be a rally in Washington,” Pence told Muir, “I thought it might be useful to just call attention to the legal process that would take place on the floor of the House and Senate, where members, under the Electoral Count Act, would have the opportunity to evaluate allegations of voting irregularities, evaluate any evidence that would be presented, and ultimately resolve those issues in the peaceful transfer of power.”
Muir asked Pence about some of his words to supporters leading up to the rally: “But you knew the temperature was rising in the country. You knew what the former president was saying about widespread fraud and these theories being put forth by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and the president himself. And you actually thought a rally on the morning of Jan. 6 was a good idea?”
Pence, who is releasing the memoir So Help Me God on Tuesday, responded: “Well, when I first heard about it in December, as I wrote in my book, it occurred to me that it might be useful, to simply have supporters in town to call attention to the legal process.”
“In hindsight,” Muir asked, “do you think that that was a good idea?”
“In hindsight, it was not a good idea,” Pence replied.
“There was an expectation created that I could do something to change the outcome of the election,” he continued. “In fact, as we drove up to the Capitol, I was sitting next to my daughter in the motorcade, and I looked out across the east front of the Capitol and people were cheering our motorcade, David, and in a peaceful gathering.”
“And my heart sank,” he added. “I just looked at my daughter and said that my heart went out to those people because they’d been told that I could do something to change the outcome of an election that we’d lost. And I looked at my daughter and just said: ‘God bless them all.'”
Muir asked Pence on whether his own words at a Georgia rally two days before the Capitol riot could have given incentives to the crowd: “In looking back to that moment, do you have any regrets about your own rhetoric? Just two days before Jan. 6, you were in Georgia and you said: ‘We all have our doubts about the election. Come this Wednesday, we’ll have our day in Congress. We’ll hear the evidence.’ Were you feeding the false hope?”
“No,” Pence responded, “not in the least.”
Muir pressed: “But do you regret the rhetoric when you look out the window and you see people? And you wrote in your book: ‘These people had been told that the outcome of the election could be changed.’ You knew the rhetoric that was out there. Were you feeding into it by saying this just two days before the election: ‘We’ll see the evidence. Wednesday will be our day.’?”
“No, David,” Pence replied, “not in the least.”
Muir pressed Pence on what was “the evidence” he was referring to at that rally.
“You write in the book about the attorney general, Bill Barr, Dec. 1, saying: ‘There was no widespread fraud that would’ve overturned this election.’ You write it in the book that you are aware that he said that. You agreed with him. You write about the 60 cases that did not go your way. Why are we still saying two days before Jan. 6 to America and to your supporters: ‘We’ll have our day’? In looking back, was there an opportunity there for you to take down the temperature?”
“Well, David, hindsight is always 20-20,” Pence responded. “But I never imagined the violence that would ensue on Jan. 6.”
Pence was overseeing Congress’ certification of the 2020 Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021, when a large crowd urged on by then-President Donald Trump marched to the United States Capitol, overran security and vandalized the building, sending Pence and congressional lawmakers into lockdown.
Trump, who has insisted he did nothing wrong, ultimately told the rioters to leave but only after berating Pence for not blocking the certification — which Pence noted he couldn’t legally do — and repeating baseless conspiracy theories about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
During the exclusive interview at the former vice president’s home in Indiana, Muir pressed Pence further on the Capitol riot, whether Trump should ever be in the White House again, if Pence will run for president, whether Trump hurt Republicans in the midterms and what Pence makes of authorities saying classified documents were taken from the White House.
ABC News’ Tal Axelrod, Adam Carlson and Esther Castillejo contributed to this report.
Nominations for the 65th annual Grammy Awards were announced Tuesday, and Beyoncé
is this year’s leading nominee, with nine nods in total. She and her husband, JAY-Z, are now tied for the title of the most-nominated artist in Grammy history: Each of them have received 88 nominations.
Kendrick Lamar is next with eight nods. Mary J. Blige, DJ Khaled, Future and The-Dream all scored six each.
The Grammys air February 5 on CBS. Here are the nominees in the “Big Four” categories — Record, Song, Album of the Year and Best New Artist — as well as the nominees in the rap and R&B categories:
Record of the Year
“Don’t Me Down,” ABBA
“Easy on Me,” Adele
“Break My Soul,” Beyoncé
“You and Me on the Rock,” Brandi Carlile ft. Lucius
“Woman,” Doja Cat
“Bad Habit,” Steve Lacy
“The Heart, Pt. 5,” Kendrick Lamar
“Good Morning Gorgeous,” Mary J. Blige
“About Damn Time,” Lizzo
“As It Was,” Harry Styles
Album of the Year Voyage, ABBA 30, Adele Un Verano Si Tì, Bad Bunny Renaissance, Beyoncé Good Morning Gorgeous (Deluxe), Mary J. Blige In These Silent Days, Brandi Carlile Music of the Spheres, Coldplay Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers, Kendrick Lamar Special, Lizzo Harry’s House, Harry Styles
Song of the Year
“abcdefu,” GAYLE: Sara Davis, Gayle & Dave Pittenger, songwriters
“About Damn Time,” Lizzo: Melissa “Lizzo” Jefferson, Eric Frederic, Blake Slatkin & Theron Makiel Thomas, songwriters )
“All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (The Short Film),” Taylor Swift: Liz Rose & Taylor Swift, songwriters
“As It Was,” Harry Styles: Tyler Johnson, Kid Harpoon & Harry Styles, songwriters
“Bad Habit,” Steve Lacy: Matthew Castellanos, Brittany Fousheé, Diana Gordon, John Carroll Kirby & Steve Lacy, songwriters
“Break My Soul,” Beyoncé: Beyoncé, S. Carter, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant & Christopher A. Stewart, songwriters
“Easy on Me,” Adele: Adele Adkins & Greg Kurstin, songwriters
“God Did,”DJ Khaled Featuring Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, John Legend & Fridayy,Tarik: Azzouz, E. Blackmon, Khaled Khaled, F. LeBlanc, Shawn Carter, John Stephens, Dwayne Carter, William Roberts & Nicholas Warwar, songwriters
“The Heart Part 5,” Kendrick Lamar: Jake Kosich, Johnny Kosich, Kendrick Lamar & Matt Schaeffer, songwriters
“Just Like That,” Bonnie Raitt: Bonnie Raitt, songwriter
Best New Artist
Anitta
Omar Apollo
Domi and JD Beck
Muni Long
Samara Joy
Tobe Nwigw
Latto
Måneskin
Wet Leg
Molly Tuttle
Best R&B Performance
“VIRGO’S GROOVE,” Beyoncé
“Here With Me,” Mary J. Blige Featuring Anderson .Paak
“Over,” Lucky Daye
“Hrs & Hrs,” Muni Long
“Hurt Me So Good,” Jazmine Sullivan
Best R&B Song
“CUFF IT,” Denisia “Blu June” Andrews, Beyoncé, Mary Christine Brockert, Brittany “Chi” Coney, Terius “The-Dream” Gesteelde-Diamant, Morten Ristorp, Nile Rodgers & Raphael Saadiq, songwriters (Beyoncé)
“Good Morning Gorgeous,” Mary J. Blige, David Brown, Dernst Emile II, Gabriella Wilson & Tiara Thomas, songwriters (Mary J. Blige)
“Hrs & Hrs,” Hamadi Aaabi, Dylan Graham, Thaddis “Kuk” Harrell, Brandon John-Baptiste, Priscilla Renea, Isaac Wriston & Justin Nathaniel Zim, songwriters (Muni Long)
“Hurt Me So Good” — Akeel Henry, Michael Holmes, Luca Mauti, Jazmine Sullivan & Elliott Trent, songwriters (Jazmine Sullivan)
“Please Don’t Walk Away,” PJ Morton, songwriter (PJ Morton)
Best Rap Performance
“GOD DID,” DJ Khaled Featuring Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, JAY-Z, John Legend & Fridayy
“Vegas,” Doja Cat
“pushin P,” Gunna & Future Featuring Young Thug
“F.N.F. (Let’s Go),” Hitkidd & GloRilla
“The Heart Part 5,” Kendrick Lamar
Best Rap Song
“Churchill Downs,” Ace G, BEDRM, Matthew Samuels, Tahrence Brown, Rogét Chahayed, Aubrey Graham, Jack Harlow & Jose Velazquez, songwriters (Jack Harlow Featuring Drake)
“GOD DID,” Tarik Azzouz, E. Blackmon, Khaled Khaled, F. LeBlanc, Shawn Carter, John Stephens, Dwayne Carter, William Roberts & Nicholas Warwar, songwriters (DJ Khaled Featuring Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, JAY-Z, John Legend & Fridayy)
“The Heart Part 5,” Jake Kosich, Johnny Kosich, Kendrick Lamar, & Matt Schaeffer, songwriters (Kendrick Lamar)
“pushin P,” Lucas Depante, Nayvadius Wilburn, Sergio Kitchens, Wesley Tyler Glass & Jeffery Lamar Williams, songwriters (Gunna & Future Featuring Young Thug)
“WAIT FOR U,” Tejiri Akpoghene, Floyd E. Bentley III, Jacob Canady, Isaac De Boni, Aubrey Graham, Israel Ayomide Fowobaje, Nayvadius Wilburn, Michael Mule, Oluwatoroti Oke & Temilade Openiyi, songwriters (Future Featuring Drake & Tems)
Elvis Costello is bringing his The Boy Named If & Other Favourites tour to the U.S. next year. For the tour, Elvis will reunite with his band The Imposters, made up of Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher, along with guitarist Charlie Sexton.
The tour will consist of 11 East Coast shows, kicking off February 23 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and wrapping March 10 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. ET.
The new spring dates launch just one day after Elvis completes his 100 Songs and More residency at the Gramercy Theater in New York. The residency will have him performing a completely new set every night, which will result in him playing more than 200 different songs over the course of the 10 shows.
Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Balenciaga is saying “bye-bye” to Twitter.
Several users recently noticed that the luxury fashion label no longer had an account on the platform. Good Morning America has confirmed that the brand will no longer maintain a Twitter account moving forward.
While the brand has chosen not to make any further statements on its decision to leave Twitter, the news comes shortly after investor Elon Musk’s $44 billion buyout of the company last month.
Prior to leaving Twitter, Balenciaga’s account had millions of followers.
Several other notable public figures, such as Gigi Hadid and Shonda Rhimes, have also left their Twitter accounts behind in the wake of Musk’s takeover. Some have expressed disapproval of Musk’s leadership, claiming his buyout was detrimental to the platform.
“I deactivated my Twitter account today,” Hadid said in an Instagram story alongside a screenshot claiming Twitter’s entire human rights department had been laid off. “For a long time, but especially with its new leadership, it’s becoming more and more of a cesspool of hate & bigotry, and it’s not a place I want to be a part of.”
The screenshot featured a tweet from Twitter’s former human rights counsel Shannon Raj Singh, who claimed on Nov. 4 that the company’s full Human Rights team had been “cut from the company.”
“I am enormously proud of the work we did to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights, to protect those at-risk in global conflicts & crises including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and to defend the needs of those, particularly at risk of human rights abuse by virtue of their social media presence, such as journalists & human rights defenders,” Singh wrote at the time.
Musk’s Twitter takeover has been plagued with issues since day one. In addition to backlash over Musk’s decision to charge $8 for Twitter Blue subscriptions, which provide subscribers with a blue “verified” checkmark, the company has also faced internal upheaval, issuing mass layoffs, losing advertisers, and dealing with product issues that have caused some users to be locked out of their accounts, among other things. Additionally, Musk was forced to freeze new Twitter Blue subscription sign-ups after newly verified paid accounts began impersonating public figures, companies and legitimate media outlets.
The Federal Trade Commission stated last Thursday that it was “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern.”
Meanwhile, a study from Montclair State University earlier in November showed a spike in hate speech on Twitter immediately following Musk’s takeover of the platform.
Balenciaga’s departure comes as other advertisers face increased pressure to consider their futures on the platform, with companies such as General Motors, GM, United Airlines, General Mills, and Mondelez International Inc. pulling ads from Twitter already.
Previously, Musk had threatened “a thermonuclear name & shame” of companies leaving Twitter, however he took a markedly different stance in a conversation with advertisers last week that was broadcast on the platform using the Twitter Spaces function. According to Reuters, over 100,000 listeners tuned into the conversation.
“I understand if people want to give it a minute … [but] the best way to see how things are evolving is just use Twitter,” he said, according to the outlet.
Musk has also attempted to smooth things over on his own official Twitter account. “Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months,” he tweeted on Nov. 9. “We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.”
Representatives for Twitter did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment for this story.
ABC News’ Melanie Schmitz contributed to this story.
(ATLANTA) — A judge on Tuesday overturned Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, ruling that it is not constitutional.
The so-called “heartbeat bill” was signed into law in 2019 by Gov. Brian Kemp but was prevented from going into effect following legal challenges.
In July, three weeks after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, a federal appeals court ruled the ban could go into effect.
The law prevents abortions from performed once fetal cardiac activity can be defected, which typically occurs at about six weeks’ gestation — before many women know they’re pregnant — and redefines the word “person” in Georgia to include an embryo or fetus at any stage of development.
Several groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Georgia, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective — filed a lawsuit arguing the ban violates the right to privacy without political inference protected under the Georgia Constitution.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney agreed and said it went against the law because the ban was signed before Roe was overturned.
“At that time — the spring of 2019 — everywhere in America, including Georgia, it was unequivocally unconstitutional for governments — federal, state, or local — to ban abortions before viability,” McBurney wrote, referring to the original passage of the 6-week ban.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Ben Stein contributed to this report.
Jay Leno might need skin grafts to repair the third degree burns he suffered in a car repair accident in his Los Angeles garage on Sunday, but the former Tonight Show host tells TMZ things could have been much worse.
From his hospital bed at the Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles, the 72-year-old comic and avid car collector explained to the gossip site that he was working on his 1907 White steam car when gas from a fuel leak sprayed on his face and hands. A spark touched off an explosion and set him on fire.
However, Leno says his friend and fellow shop worker Dave acted quickly, jumping on him and smothering the flames.
Jay could spend as many as 10 days in the hospital, according to the site.
(NEW YORK) — Higher ocean temperatures are expected to be detected in the Pacific Ocean by 2030, several decades earlier than previously predicted, new research suggests.
Natural climate variability in the Pacific is largely governed by El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which involves the warm phase, El Nino, when surface water becomes warmer than average and east winds blow weaker than normal, and La Nina, when the water is cooler than normal and the east winds are stronger.
Some of the most extreme weather events around the world in recent years, such as the droughts in the U.S. and Australia and heat waves around the world, have been spurred by ENSO events, Wenju Cai, one of the study’s authors and director of the Center for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research at Australia’s Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, told ABC News.
Previously, research suggested climate change was increasing the variability of ENSO events, but it was predicted that the change wouldn’t be detectable until the at least 2070, Cai said.
For this study, the researchers gathered 70 years of ENSO data — from 1950 onwards — and used some of the newest climate models to estimate when increased ENSO variability will be detectable in the eastern or central Pacific.
They found that climate change-associated temperature increases will likely be detectable around 2030 in the eastern Pacific, four decades earlier than previously expected. The warming is also expected to occur earlier in the eastern than in the central Pacific, driven by the faster warming of this region and therefore a larger increase in rainfall.
“In about 10 years time, we will be able to tell that global warming has changed El Nino,” Cai said.
The increased variability in ENSO events will also make extreme weather events, such as droughts, fires and floods, around the world more severe, Cai said, adding that even if the planet were able to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, it would not stop the change in El Nino events predicted in the next several years.
It would take at least a century to make any significant reductions in changes of variability in ENSO events, Cai said.
“In the next 100 years, if we take action, we can reduce the increase by about 10% from the business-as-usual scenario,” he said. “But we cannot stop it completely.”
Lifelong comic book fan James Gunn came to fame when he turned the obscure Marvel team the Guardians of the Galaxy into a household name. And as reported, he’s now in charge of the fate of Warner Bros. Discovery’s deep bench of DC Comics-based heroes.
With that in mind, hopeful fans are eager to see what’s up his sleeve. If a new Instagram post is any hint, it could be Terrific. Specifically, he just posted, without comment, a rendering of the DC hero Mister Terrific.
The character, the second to take that mantle, is otherwise known in the books as Michael Holt, the third-smartest person in the DC Comics universe behind Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor. A polymath, Holt has earned dozens of Ph.Ds and has invented advanced nanotechnology that gives him all manner of nifty powers, all emanating from the black T-shaped face mask bearing the particles.
The character did appear briefly in CW’s so-called “Arrowverse” but remains — as the Guardians once did — relatively obscure to the casual fan.
So is Gunn teasing that Mister Terrific is ready for a close-up? Time will tell.
As one fan put it in reply, “Is teasing us like this one of the perks that comes with being the head of DC?”
