(WASHINGTON) — The Trump Organization and Donald Trump’s presidential inaugural committee have agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine over allegations that Trump and his family misused nonprofit inauguration funds to enrich themselves in early 2017.
The suit claimed that the nonprofit funds raised by the inaugural committee were improperly used for private benefit when the Trump campaign rented $1 million in ballroom space from Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel during the four days of inaugural festivities.
Trump’s company will repay $750,000 to settle the suit, according to the terms of the settlement.
“After he was elected, one of the first actions Donald Trump took was illegally using his own inauguration to enrich his family,” Racine said in a statement. “We refused to let that corruption stand.”
“Nonprofit funds cannot be used to line the pockets of individuals, no matter how powerful they are,” said Racine. “Now any future presidential inaugural committees are on notice that they will not get away with such egregious actions.”
Trump, in a statement, denied any wrongdoing.
“Given the impending sale of The Trump International Hotel, Washington D.C., and with absolutely no admission of liability or guilt, we have reached a settlement to end all litigation with Democrat Attorney General Racine,” the former president said. “As crime rates are soaring in our Nation’s Capital, it is necessary that the Attorney General focus on those issues rather than a further leg of the greatest Witch-Hunt in political history.”
“This was yet another example of weaponizing Law Enforcement against the Republican Party and, in particular, the former President of the United States,” Trump said in the statement. “So bad for our Country!”
The $750,000 in repaid funds with be redirected to nonprofit organizations.
Alice in Chains guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell has announced two new signature guitars in partnership with Epiphone.
The newly launched instruments include the Jerry Cantrell “Wino” Les Paul Custom and the Les Paul Custom Prophecy. The Wino is inspired by Cantrell’s own beloved Les Paul, while the Prophecy is described as a “modern collaboration.”
Cantrell previously released a signature Wino Les Paul with Epiphone’s parent company, Gibson. He joined Gibson as an official brand ambassador in 2020.
You can see Cantrell play a variety of guitars on his current tour in support of his new solo album, Brighten, which continues Wednesday in Sacramento, California.
Stevie Wonder will be honored with the Legal Defense Fund’s inaugural Icon Award at the racial-justice organization’s 2022 National Equal Justice Awards Dinner, which will be held May 10 at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.
Billboard reports that, according to a statement from the Legal Defense Fund, Wonder will be recognized for “his steadfast work throughout his illustrious career, spanning over half a century, which embodies LDF’s values and demonstrates his commitment to confronting the barriers that face Black Americans and other marginalized communities.”
The event, which boasts the theme “Truth Is Power,” will feature video messages from former first lady Michelle Obama and from former NFL quarterback and civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick, as well as performances from the Dance Theater of Harlem.
Also at the event, author and professor Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her book The 1619 Project, will be honored with the Spirit of Justice Award; and Sherrilyn Ifill, the Legal Defense Fund’s outgoing president, will receive the Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award.
“Our honorees have unapologetically used truth as power,” says current LDF president Janai S. Nelson in a statement. “They have refused to back down when others tried to silence them. And they have held their convictions fiercely and been unyielding to false narratives. Most importantly, they have used truth to shape outlooks, inform mindsets, and touch souls.”
For more information about the Legal Defense Fund and its National Equal Justice Awards Dinner, visit NAACPLDF.org.
Fans can now get their first look at WEIRD, the “untold true story” of “Weird Al” Yankovic — and, on brand for the famed parodist, it seems to be something of a spoof of the genre.
As stage lights ignite, and throngs of concert fans scream, serious-looking title cards appear into frame, listing Yankovic’s very real accolades — “6 Platinum Records, 5 Grammys” — before the keyboard open to Al’s Madonna-spoofing “Like a Surgeon” begins.
“Hope you guys are ready for this,” a shirtless Radcliffe tells the crowd as Al, before a shot shows him jumping back up into frame with an accordion.
The clip also shows a fight scene straight out of a kung-fu movie, and apparently another face-off that has Al saying, “Does anyone have an accordion?” before unseen hands shove three into frame.
So it’s safe to say the film isn’t going to be a straight-up biopic — or, as Al says in the teaser, “What can I say? I’m full of surprises.”
Stephen Colbertwas back at The Late Show Monday night, following having COVID. The talk show host used a planned week off to recover, with his wife Evie, who was also infected.
Colbert noted that while he’s back on his feet, the “first three days sucked,” and now, although he’s negative, he’s got a “serious head cold.” He also thanked “science” for providing the vaccines and boosters he’d taken before coming down with the virus.
The late show host also offered well-wishes to Jimmy Kimmel, who announced yesterday that he’s down for the count with the virus. “TV is down a Jimmy!” Colbert joked in a “broadcast emergency.”
“I’m calling on President Biden to open the United States’ Strategic Jimmy Reserve!” Colbert snarked.
That said, Colbert insisted he didn’t infect his late-night colleague. “Of course, I’m on the East Coast, Jimmy’s in LA, there’s no way I could have given it to him,” Colbert said.
“And yes, last week, I did lick a lot of things and FedEx them to his office. But I only paid for two days: gotta be sterile by the time he opens it.”
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Bruno Mars is coming to Boston for a three-day spectacular to celebrate the opening of an all-new music hall.
The Grammy winner will officially open MGM Music Hall at Fenway, which seats 5,000 people, starting September 7. The opening night will be followed by two more shows on September 9 and September 11.
The new venue is located steps away from historic Fenway Park, which is the home of the Boston Red Sox. According to the press release, the MGM Music Hall at Fenway is being billed as “the new, state-of-the-art, multi-purpose performing arts center, occupying roughly 91,500 square feet on four levels.”
The “Leave the Door Open” singer has lately been directing his full attention on his Silk Sonic partnership with Anderson .Paak and the duo are currently performing their An Evening With Silk Sonic Vegas residency at Park MGM, which runs through May.
Tickets go on sale starting Friday at 10 a.m. ET on Ticketmaster.com.
While Bruno will be the first artist to christen the music hall, a line of performances is already building.
Lil Nas X announced last week he’s bringing his Long Live Montero tour to the venue, which stops in Boston on September 18. Other big acts heading to the venue include “Beggin'” singers Måneskin and country group Lady A, among many others.
Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Ashley Judd is taking a walk down memory lane as she reflects on the passing of her mother, Naomi Judd.
The actress took to Instagram following The Judds‘ induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame to share how the family has been honoring the memory of Naomi, who passed away on Saturday at the age of 76 due to mental illness.
In the loving post, Ashley shared a photo of her and sister Wynonna Judd with their backs to the camera, looking at the bronze plaque of The Judds that sits in the rotunda at the Country Music Hall of Fame, along with a photo of Carly Pearce performing at the ceremony.
Ashley then takes viewers inside the Judds’ home, sharing a photo of the altar she created in her mother’s honor that includes a picture of her silhouette from when she was 11 years old, surrounded by flowers and a book titled Grief Therapy. She also shares a video of Naomi’s husband, Larry Strickland, singing “How Great Thou Art,” along with a throwback photo from childhood of the sisters with their mom at Little Cat Creek in their home state of Kentucky.
“Speechless,” Ashley begins in the caption. “Your outpouring is reaching me. Thank you for every thought, prayer, message, text, email, post, expression. We each are alone and we are in fellowship, broken and held, protected from nothing and sustained in everything. It’s the beginning of an old story, life and death, loss and life. Be free, my beautiful mother. Be free.”
Ashley and Wynonna were both present at the Country Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Nashville Sunday, where they paid a tearful tribute to their late mother, who died one day before the event.
(WASHINGTON) — Amid reports of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, an ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that majorities of Americans support upholding Roe, say abortion should be legal in all or most cases and — by a wide margin — see abortion as a decision to be made by a woman and her doctor, not by lawmakers.
The national survey was completed last week, in advance of a report by Politico Monday night that a proposed first draft of an opinion, apparently by Justice Samuel Alito, called for reversing Roe in a case challenging Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
In this poll, by contrast, 57% of Americans oppose a ban after 15 weeks; 58% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases; and 54% say the court should uphold Roe, compared with 28% who say the ruling should be overturned.
Support for upholding Roe is 6 percentage points lower than it was in an ABC/Post poll last November. Preference for reversing it is essentially unchanged; instead, more in this survey express no opinion, 18%.
Moving the question outside a legal framework, 7 in 10 say the decision whether or not a woman can have an abortion should be left to the woman and her doctor; this also is down from November, by 5 points. Twenty-four percent instead say abortion should be regulated by law. Even among those who say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, a substantial share, 41%, also say it should be left to the woman and her doctor.
Trends are not consistent. While support for abortion rights is down slightly in the two items noted above, it’s higher than previously (up 12 points from 2011) “when the woman cannot afford to have a child,” and unchanged in other measures.
Legal or illegal?
Basic views on whether or not abortion should be legal have been more or less stable in polling going back 27 years. The 58% who say it should be legal in all or most cases is very near the average, 56%, in nearly three dozen ABC/Post polls since mid-1995, ranging from 49% to 60%. This includes 26% who now say it should be legal in all cases, exceeding the average, 21%; and 33% who say it should be legal in most cases.
Thirty-seven percent in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, instead say abortion should be illegal in most cases (21%) or all cases (16%). That’s less than the long-term average, 42%, with a range from 36% to 48%. (Five percent have no opinion on this question.)
Circumstances
Considering specific circumstances, substantial majorities say abortion should be legal when the woman’s physical health is endangered (82%), when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest (79%) and when there’s evidence of serious birth defects (67%).
The public divides on another circumstance: When the woman cannot afford to have a child, 48% say abortion should be legal, 45% illegal. Support for legal abortion in this case is its highest in six polls dating back to 1996.
On another front, the poll finds most Americans are unaware of new abortion restrictions in their states. In the 22 states that have passed abortion restrictions since 2020, just 30% of residents are aware that this has occurred; more, 44%, think not, with 26% unsure. An open question is how people who favor legal abortion may react if and when they learn their state has taken a different tack.
State laws
Regarding state-level action, 36% say laws on access to abortion in their state should be left as they are now and 33% say access to abortion should be easier than it is now. Fewer, 25%, say abortion access should be harder than it is currently.
Support for greater restrictions is muted, 30%, even in the 26 states that are reported by the Guttmacher Institute as likely to ban legal abortion if Roe v. Wade were overturned. This shrinks to 21% in other states.
Testing two specific restrictions, almost identical numbers say they’d oppose a law in their state making abortions legal only in the first six weeks of pregnancy (58%) or, as mentioned, only in the first 15 weeks (57%); 36% alike support each prospect. At least 12 states have passed six-week bans (most of which have been struck down or blocked by the courts) and five states have passed 15-week bans, with partial passage in a sixth.
Groups
Sixty-two percent of women and 55% of men say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The gap widens on the shares who say it should be legal in all cases — 33% of women, compared with 19% of men, a wider gap than typical.
Support for legal abortion is highest among liberals (82%), people with no religious preference (80%), Democrats (79%), those with post-graduate degrees (74%) and Northeasterners (72%). It’s lowest among strong conservatives (20%), evangelical Protestants (28%) and Republicans (33%).
As noted, Americans by 54-28% say the Supreme Court should uphold Roe; it’s a similar 51-32% in the states where abortion bans or severe restrictions are anticipated if the ruling were overturned. Among groups, support for overturning Roe reaches a slim majority only among conservatives, 52%. Perhaps surprisingly, support for overturning the precedent reaches only 44% among Republicans and 45% among evangelical Protestants, two of the groups most apt to say abortion should be illegal.
Methodology
This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone April 24-28, 2022, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,004 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions are 29-25-40%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.
(NOTE CONTENT)In a Virginia courtroom today, attorneys for Amber Heard were unsuccessful in their motion to lobby Judge Penny Azcarate to dismiss the $50 million defamation lawsuit leveled against the actress by her ex-husband Johnny Depp.
As reported, Depp is alleging a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post that obliquely accused the actor of physical and sexual abuse, was not only false, but it devastated his reputation and career.
Attorneys for both parties took turns in oral arguments to the judge without the jury present, with Depp’s attorneys mounting a longer, point-by-point defense of why the case should proceed, including a recap of the testimony detailing how the ACLU helped Heard craft her controversial op-ed, and the abuse the Pirates of the Caribbean star allegedly suffered at the hands of the Aquaman actress.
“She even lied about the final insult left on the marital bed,” one of Depp’s attorneys added, regarding the testimony about the poop Depp’s camp says Heard left in their bedroom.
In the end, Judge Azcarate ruled for the plaintiff, Depp, noting, “if there is a scintilla of evidence that a reasonable juror could weigh, then the matter survives a motion to strike.”
She added, there is, “evidence that jurors could weigh that the [op-ed] statements were about the plaintiff, that the statements were published and that the statement was false,” and “that the defendant made the statement knowing it to be false or…made it so recklessly as to amount to willful disregard for the truth…”
The judge then declared the case will resume following a lunch break.
The Legal Defense Fund will hold its 34th National Equal Justice Awards (NEJAD) dinner, an event hosted to highlight the fund’s social justice advocacy and advancements and to celebrate Black community leaders who work to advance civil rights.
Of the honorees to be presented with special awards at the ceremony in New York on May 10, is legendary musician Stevie Wonder, who will be receive the inaugural Icon Award for his philanthropic contributions over the course of his career.
In a statement obtained by Billboard, the fund said Wonder will be honored “in recognition of his steadfast work throughout his illustrious career, spanning over half a century, which embodies LDF’s values and demonstrates his commitment to confronting the barriers that face Black Americans and other marginalized communities.”
Likewise, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones, will receive the Spirit of Justice Award in honor of her courage and dedication to civil rights, including her pioneering and groundbreaking collection of slavery stories illustrated in the 1619 project. LDF will also recognize their outgoing president, Sherrilyn Ifill, with the Thurgood Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award.
“Since the organization’s founding in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund has been an ardent defender of civil rights, advocating for the social, political, educational, and economic advancement of Black Americans,” LDF’s president and director-counsel, Janai S. Nelson, said. “Our honorees have unapologetically used truth as power. They have refused to back down when others tried to silence them. And they have held their convictions fiercely and been unyielding to false narratives. Most importantly, they have used truth to shape outlooks, inform mindsets, and touch souls.”
Former first lady Michelle Obama and civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick will attend the ceremony virtually, by sharing video messages that speak to this year’s theme of “Truth Is Power.”
