(WASHINGTON) — ABC News reports that Karoline Leavitt is projected to win Tuesday’s GOP primary to take on Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., setting up a general election matchup in one of the nation’s most competitive House races.
Leavitt, a former White House press staffer under President Donald Trump, defeated Matt Mowers, another Trump administration aide, and Gail Huff Brown, the wife of former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. With about 57% of the expected vote in, Leavitt led the field with 34% of the vote, compared with 25% for Mowers in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District.
The results conclude what morphed into a bitter battle between two ideologically aligned foes who found a sliver of difference within the GOP’s right flank.
Both Leavitt and Mowers cast themselves as staunch Trump allies and had big name Republican backers to boot: New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 House Republican, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz backed Leavitt while House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana were among those supporting Mowers.
Yet where Mowers called for audits the 2020 presidential race, Leavitt adamantly — and baselessly — denied the results. And while Mowers has said he would examine a push to impeach President Joe Biden, Leavitt has said she would support impeachment.
The result marks a setback for McCarthy, who is setting himself up to serve as speaker if Republicans flip the House in November. The affiliated Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC spent more than $1.3 million supporting Mowers, who said he would back a McCarthy speakership bid. Leavitt, meanwhile, initially said she would support Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as speaker before changing to say she’d support McCarthy.
Leavitt will now face Pappas in one of Republicans’ top flip opportunities. Pappas defeated Mowers in the 2020 election by 5 points, though the district has flipped between the two parties five times since the start of the century.
(WASHINGTON) — Rhode Island’s Democratic Gov. Dan McKee is projected to win his primary, ABC News reports, fending off a slate of challengers that kept the primary close until Tuesday.
With 98% of the expected vote in, McKee had 33% of the ballots as of late Tuesday, followed by former CVS Health executive Helena Foulkes with 30%. Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea trailed in third with 26% of the vote.
McKee was appointed to his seat last year after his predecessor, Gina Raimondo, was tapped to be commerce secretary in President Joe Biden’s Cabinet. McKee will now face the GOP candidate, health care executive Ashley Kalus, in the general election, though he will be the favorite in the deep blue state.
Polls had shown McKee, Foulkes and Gorbea in a tight race heading into the primary. However, with his victory, all 28 incumbent governors seeking reelection this year won their primaries — the first time there’s been a clean sweep since 2010.
During his short tenure, McKee had suffered from low approval ratings and a federal investigation into his administration’s awarding of a multimillion-dollar contract to a firm connected to an ally. He denied wrongdoing.
(NEW YORK) — As the Chinese government increased its crackdown on political speech and dissenters in Hong Kong in recent years, tens of thousands of longtime residents have fled to nearby Taiwan to escape the oppression.
For many ex-pats, like Annie Zhang, a former editor of a Hong Kong-based media company, their new surroundings have allowed them to express themselves without any fear of jail time or other forms of severe repercussions.
“Many of my friends are cultural producers, or maybe they are booksellers. They are writers. They are artists, but they cannot create things freely in Hong Kong now. So that’s why they chose to leave,” Zhang told ABC News.
Even as tension has risen between Taiwan and its allies and China, some of those in exile say they are determined to speak out and push back against the aggression.
More than 121,000 Hong Kong residents have left the territory in the last year, according to data from Hong Kong’s Census and Statistics Department.
Since 2019, Taiwan has welcomed more than 37,000 Hong Kong residents, according to data from the Taiwanese government.
Two years ago, the Chinese government imposed new national security law on Hong Kong that outlawed “secession, subversion of state power, terrorism and foreign collusion” in intervening in Hong Kong’s affairs. The law was enacted following protests in 2019 and 2020 against the government over its attempt to change its extradition policy.
Hundreds of Hong Kong residents were arrested and targeted in violations of the law for speaking out against the government.
Kacey Wong was a visual artist based in Hong Kong and put out videos that protested the Chinese government’s policies. In one video, he dressed up as Moses and delivered demands to the government.
Wong said he fled to Taiwan after an article in a state-owned newspaper in Hong Kong highlighted his work and protests.
“I think they don’t like to be laughed at. And I think my gripe is I kind of make fun of them. That’s my crime,” Wong told ABC News.
Many Hong Kong ex-pats have continued to publicly express defiance of the Chinese laws since they relocated to Taiwan.
And now many of those ex-pats are witnessing their former country’s government flex its military muscle against their new haven.
Soon after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan and met with its leaders on Aug. 2, the Chinese government stepped up its military presence around the waters between the two nations. Pelosi was the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
In addition to military drills involving jets and ships, the Chinese military also launched missiles that flew over the island.
In reaction to the growing military moves, many Taiwanese residents are training to fight back in case of an attack by the Chinese government.
Robert Tsao, a retired businessman who founded the United Microelectronics Corporation, told ABC News he donated $100 million U.S. to support training Taiwan’s military and civilians.
Tsao said he was spurred to make the donations following Pelosi’s visit and the Chinese government’s military drills.
“I will fight to die. I won’t live to see Taiwan become another Hong Kong,” he told ABC News. “I will not [be] going to allow that happen. They have to over my dead body to do that.”
But as the hostility between the Chinese government and Taiwan wages on, some of the Hong Kong residents who have settled on the island said they have deeper fears.
Wong told ABC News that he is preparing for the possibility that he may have to relocate again.
“From my perspective, I think Hong Kong is the first step. So it’s fallen as a city and Taiwan is next,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Eight people were arrested Tuesday in connection with what federal authorities believe is a sprawling human smuggling operation that may have victimized thousands of migrants.
Erminia Serrano Piedra, also known as “Boss Lady,” allegedly ran the operation along with seven others, federal prosecutors told reporters. The eight were arrested in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas on charges related to transporting a non-citizen for monetary benefit while endangering human life.
The Department of Justice is also seeking $2.3 million in property assets allegedly connected with the operation.
“This organization was motivated by personal greed and Piedra and her co-conspirators prioritized that greed over the safety of those that they illegally smuggled,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite told reporters Tuesday.
Court documents did not list attorneys who could speak on the suspects’ behalf. They have not yet appeared in court.
Department of Justice officials say the migrant victims, believed to be citizens of Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico, were brought to so-called “stash houses” where smugglers conduct and conceal their illicit activity. Authorities say that some of the victims were forced into suitcases while others were crammed into the back of tractor trailers, pick-up trucks and even water tankers as part of their journeys into and across the U.S.
Those who drove the vehicles used to transport migrants were possibly paid as much as $2,500 per person, according to the Department of Justice.
“We have alleged that this particular organization was responsible for the smuggling of at least hundreds if not thousands of potential migrants,” Polite said.
Agents from Homeland Security Investigations, the division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that handles smuggling enforcement, led the probe which resulted in the arrest of Katie Ann Garcia, one of the eight suspects, on Tuesday in Laredo, Texas, where authorities say 12 migrants were found, including two minors.
“If you commit the crime of human smuggling and if you manipulate and imperil and take advantage of struggling and fearful migrants — we are coming for you,” Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security John K. Tien said Tuesday. “We will investigate you. We will prosecute you to the fullest extent of our laws. We will leave no stone unturned until we end your nefarious practices.”
The Department of Homeland Security says it has ramped up its crackdown on transnational organizations that facilitate human smuggling — in recent months arresting nearly 5,000 people whom the department suspects of being associated with criminal trafficking.
The Biden administration also launched a “Joint Task Force Alpha” with DHS and DOJ as part of the government’s work to, as Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said Tuesday, “dismantle the most dangerous human smuggling and trafficking networks.”
“The charges announced today are just the latest example of these efforts’ success,” Garland said in a statement. “The Justice Department will continue to bring our full resources to bear to combat the human smuggling and trafficking groups that endanger our communities, abuse and exploit migrants, and threaten our national security.”
(NEW YORK) — Federal prosecutors requested on Thursday a stay, attempting to block Judge Aileen Cannon’s prior ruling preventing the FBI and Department of Justice from continuing its review of classified documents in connection with its criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of documents seized at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Prosecutors said there was risk of “irreparable harm” to national security and the ongoing investigation if the stay was not granted.
Trump’s legal team responded on Monday, saying that appointing a special master to review the documents is a “sensible preliminary step toward restoring order from chaos,” and urged Cannon to reject the request for a stay.
In order to break down recent developments, ABC News Live Prime spoke with Florida state attorney Dave Aronberg.
PRIME: Dave Aronberg, a state attorney in Palm Beach County, thank you so much for joining us. The Justice Department was fairly aggressive in taking on the arguments in Judge Cannon’s prior ruling. How effective of a case do you think that the DOJ made in calling for a stay that would let them keep reviewing the classified records at the heart of this case?
ARONBERG:I think it was their only choice because if they don’t get this partial stay, then it jeopardizes our national security because what Judge Cannon did was really inconsistent. She said, ‘Hey, FBI and DOJ, you cannot use and review those documents you seize from Mar-a-Lago while the special master review is pending. But at the same time, intelligence community, you can continue with your review to make sure these documents didn’t damage national security by the fact that they’re being kept in a Palm Beach social club.’
It doesn’t make sense because the FBI is part of the intelligence community review of those documents. I mean, the CIA is not a domestic law enforcement agency. The intelligence community depends on the FBI. So I think what the DOJ is doing on this motion is to give the judge a way out, a chance to redeem herself before she gets overturned on appeal.
PRIME:Do you think she will redeem herself?
ARONBERG: I think she will. If you saw her comment recently, it was, ‘hey, Trump’s attorneys, what do you make of this motion?’ It seemed like she was sort of hedging her bets by saying, ‘can you speak to the fact that the DOJ is asking for a partial stay?’
And remember, this is just to allow DOJ to review the 100-plus classified documents, not all the documents, just the 100-plus documents that are classified so, of course, they’re not subject to attorney-client privilege because they’re the government’s documents. They involve national security. It’s not communications between Trump and his own personal lawyer and executive privilege doesn’t apply here.
So I think that the judge is starting to get some buyer’s remorse of her original decision, and I think she’s going to step away from it just a little bit and grant this motion.
PRIME:And just to kind of follow that a little further, they cited the risk of potential, irreparable harm to national security and the ongoing investigation if they can’t continue reviewing the documents and say that Trump has no claim to them. Is the judge likely to be swayed by that argument, given her prior ruling allowing for a special master?
ARONBERG: I hope so, because it’s a really powerful argument. I mean, you’ve got to be able to review these documents, especially now that we’ve heard they involve nuclear secrets. I mean, how do you tell the government ‘put it on hold, don’t review them, don’t use them in any way, and we’ll have the special master that can go on and on and on?’
I mean, there are lives at risk. You have human intelligence sources that have their lives at risk because this information could be floating out there. And so, yeah, I think the argument is definitely on DOJ’s side. The problem is you’ve got a judge in Judge Cannon who has shown that she’s willing to go Donald Trump’s way, the person who appointed her to the bench, the person who sought her out at a courthouse 68 miles from here in West Palm Beach, over in Fort Pierce, where she’s the only judge assigned to that courthouse.
They wanted her on this case because they knew she was a Trump appointee and they thought she would do their bidding. And so far, hey, their faith in her has been rewarded.
PRIME:Palm Beach County state attorney Dave Aronberg. We thank you so much.
Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani have been married for more than a year now, but she still gives him butterflies.
The couple have been together for seven years and wed on their Oklahoma farm in July 2021. Despite all their time together, Blake says that things haven’t changed between them since they tied the knot, revealing that he still hasn’t updated Gwen’s name in his phone from when they were dating.
“If you look at my phone, it says ‘my girlfriend,’ that’s what her contact is. She’s still my girlfriend to me,” Blake shares. “I guess when you’re our age, we’ve been together for seven years, but it still seems like it’s pretty new to me. The nervous phase is still there.”
And while the husband and wife will be sitting on the judges’ panel together on the upcoming season of The Voice, the “No Body” singer asserts that he’s not going to play nice.
“She’s my wife, but on the show, they don’t pay me to lose,” Blake jokes. “I’m out to win this thing. They’re all going down.”
MyPoliceman director Michael Grandage understands some people are going to see his movie just because Harry Styles is in it — and he is looking forward to that.
Speaking with Billboard, Grandage opened up about his thoughts on Harry’s fans flocking to theaters to see the film, which is set in 1950s England when homosexuality was prohibited. Harry stars as Tom, a closeted police officer engaging in an affair with a museum curator named Patrick, played by David Dawson.
Speaking of “the single most important and positive thing that might come out of this entire endeavor,” Grandage said the film will expose Harry’s “massive” fan base “to a story that shows something that they may not know.”
“I’m not going to suggest for the second that a lot of them will know a bit about political gay history of the past, but a fair amount of them, it’s worth assuming, probably don’t know anything about what it was like in 1957 England,” he continued.
Grandage, who is gay, says he has “great confidence” in the younger generation because he says they are “the first seriously unprejudiced generation I’ve been aware of.”
Noting the “forward-thinking people” within that group, the director expressed the underlying importance of exposing them to the uncomfortable truths of queer history.
“If that amount of people with that amount of belief system see that this is the place we could return to, then for me, they may be part of a debate that makes sure that doesn’t happen,” said Grandage. “And for that reason alone, My Policeman becomes a very significant part of the story.”
My Policeman, also starring The Crown‘s Emma Corrin, debuts in theaters on October 21 and will be available to stream on Amazon Prime Video on November 4.
When the first Top Gun movie came out back in the ’80s, movie soundtracks were regularly the source of hit songs — just think Dirty Dancing, Footloose and Purple Rain. That hasn’t necessarily been the case in recent years, but it seems to be changing: OneRepublic has just scored their first top 10 hit since 2015 with “I Ain’t Worried” from the Top Gun: Maverick soundtrack.
“I think soundtracks are becoming [hitmakers] again,” Ryan Tedder tells ABC Audio. In addition to “I Ain’t Worried,” he points to the top 10 success of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” — “a 37-year-old song,” notes Ryan — thanks to its inclusion on the Stranger Things soundtrack.
“Soundtracks are more [important] now, more than in the last 10 years, because of how hard it is for anyone to hear your song,” he says. “You have to go everywhere.”
While Ryan appreciates how TikTok can also make a song a hit and revive older tracks, he says, “For us, whether it’s the Euphoria soundtrack … or it’s Stranger Things or it’s Top Gun, I guarantee you there’s going to be another movie or show this year that spits out another massive smash.”
“I think they’re so important now to do licensing, TV … you have to explore every single option, and focus on TV and film now more than ever, because it’s going to be the way that songs are broken, I think, coming up again,” he concludes. “It’s going to have a resurgence.”
You might recall that Top Gun: Maverick also had another single: Lady Gaga‘s “Hold My Hand.” Surprisingly, it stalled at #49. “I Ain’t Worried,” by comparison, had a slow and steady climb, finally hitting the top 10 after 13 weeks.
When Little Big Town‘s Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet got into the room with Tyler Hubbard and Corey Crowder to write “Hell Yeah,” they knew they had something special on their hands.
Corey had been ruminating on the title for a while, but couldn’t find the lyrics to complete the song. But when he presented the hook that transitions from “hell yeah, I go get drunk on Friday nights” to “but if you’re ever wondering baby if I’m still going through hell, yeah,” the group took off running with the concept.
“I think that’s the magic of that hook because when you see that, you’re like, ‘I know what this is. This is a ‘hell yeah,'” Jimi says. “[Corey] sang an idea for the chorus and everybody lit up. It was like, ‘I have not heard that before. That’s a different twist on that,’ and that’s what you’re looking for,” he continues. “In songs, that can be really elusive to find that angle on something that you haven’t thought of before. So we loved it from the start.”
“Hell Yeah” is the lead single off LBT’s new album, Mr. Sun, set for release Friday.
Earlier this month, David Lee Roth debuted a new solo version of Van Halen‘s classic 1984 hit “Panama” recorded live in the studio and now he’s premiered an updated rendition of another well-known tune by his old band from the same session.
You can check out Roth’s live in-studio version of “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love,” a song that appeared on Van Halen’s self-titled 1978 debut album, at Diamond Dave’s official YouTube channel.
Accompanying the clip is an archival photo of shirtless Roth chained to a fence.
Like his new version of “Panama,” Roth recorded “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love” in May of this year at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles with the current members of his solo backing band — guitarist Al Estrada, bassist Ryan Wheeler and drummer Francis Valentino.
According to the reliable Van Halen News Desk fan site, Roth recorded 14 songs on May 3 during a two-hour session at the studio.
In other Van Halen-related news, a ceremony marking the opening of a new performance stage named after the band in Eddie and Alex Van Halen‘s hometown of Pasadena, California, which was supposed to take place this past Saturday, September 10, was postponed to this Saturday, September 17, because of bad weather, Pasadena Now reports.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held at 9 a.m. PT on Saturday that will celebrate the opening of the stage and the park where its located, Playhouse Village Park. A two-hour community celebration will follow.
The Van Halen family moved to Pasadena from the Netherlands in 1962, and the siblings formed their famous namesake band in the city in 1972. Eddie died in October 2020 from complications of cancer at age 65.
