Ethan Hawke is taking a deep dive into the lives of legendary Hollywood power couple Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in the six-part documentary The Last Movie Stars.
Hawke was tapped to direct the documentary by Newman and Woodward’s daughter Clea Newman, who wanted the story told with an actor’s point of view. In order to achieve that, Hawke enlisted famous actors to read interview transcripts from the couple and the people closest to them, casting George Clooney as Paul and Laura Linney as Joanne, among others.
“The bad news was it was a giant international pandemic. The good news is everybody was bored,” Hawke says. “So I could call up [Sam] Rockwell and say, ‘Hey, you want to play the director of Cool Hand Luke?’ And he’s like, sure, you know, I mean, why not?”
The pandemic also gave Hawke the time he needed to binge-watch the couple’s extensive filmography, including Newman classics The Hustler and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Woodward’s Oscar-winning turn in The Three Faces of Eve, as well as the 16 films they worked on together during their more than 50-year relationship.
But the best part for Hawke was learning that off-screen, Newman and Woodward were exactly the kind of people he thought they were.
“They’re just on the right side of history,” he says, adding, “And then the biggest funny surprise is, I just would have never known that Paul Newman was as insecure as he was. You know, like, it’s kind of a relief to realize that he was sweating through three shirts and a nervous wreck and worried he wasn’t good enough. And you’re like, wow, we’re all like that!”
The Last Movie Stars premieres Thursday on HBO Max.
Father and son Kurt and Wyatt Russell have been tapped to star in Apple TV+ and Legendary Television’s Godzilla series, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The series, part of Legendary’s Monsterverse franchise, is set in the aftermath of the battle between Godzilla and the Titans that decimated San Francisco in 2014’s Godzilla. It follows a family’s journey to uncover its buried secrets, and a legacy linking them to the secret organization known as Monarch. Details on the Russells’ roles are being kept under wraps…
Apple Original Films announced on Tuesday that it has landed the rights to Causeway, a new film produced by and starring Jennifer Lawrence. The movie is described as “an intimate portrait of a soldier struggling to adjust to her life after returning home to New Orleans.” Atlanta and Bullet Train actor Brian Tyree Henry stars alongside Lawrence…
Peacock dropped the full-length trailer for the horror film They/Them. Kevin Bacon leads the cast of the film, which follows a group of LGBTQ+ campers who arrive at a conversion camp run by Owen Whistler — played by Bacon — to “help them find a new sense of freedom.” according to the film’s official logline. “But as the counselors attempt to psychologically break down each of the campers, a mysterious killer starts claiming victims, and they must reclaim their power if they’re going to survive the horrors of the camp.” Carrie Preston, Anna Chlumsky, Theo Germaine, Quei Tann, Anna Lore, Monique Kim, Darwin del Fabro, Cooper Koch and Austin Crute also star…
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating Jan. 6 is holding its second prime-time hearing on Thursday, which will focus on the Trump White House’s reaction to the insurrection as it unfolded.
Following a recent and highly publicized hearing, renewed attention is on witness tampering and the possibility that it was committed by Trump.
During a recent hearing, Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, said that Trump attempted to call a witness in the committee’s investigation into last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation — a witness you have not yet seen in these hearings. That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump’s call and, instead, alerted their lawyer to the call,” Cheney said at the time.
The committee warned against witness tampering as it continues its investigation. “Let me say one more time, we will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously,” Cheney said.
But what is witness tampering, and did Trump possibly commit it?
What is witness tampering?
Witness tampering is a federal crime and is considered a form of obstruction of justice.
According to the Department of Justice, witness tampering occurs when someone tries to “influence, delay or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding.”
“It’s either threatening a witness with some type of harm if the person doesn’t testify in a certain way or doing this thing, which is defined by Congress as correctly persuading someone to say something,” Robert Weisberg, faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, told ABC News. “Unfortunately, Congress has done an absolute horrible job defining the crime.”
Congress has the authority to investigate if a crime took place, but it doesn’t have the power to charge someone with witness tampering — that is left up to the Department of Justice.
A person could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of witness tampering.
Jan. 6 witness Trump allegedly tried to call was White House support staff, sources say
Donald Trump’s alleged witness tampering
The committee has examined not only the insurrection at the Capitol, but also then-President Trump’s possible role in the events leading up to, during and after that day, actions the committee says were a “dereliction of duty” on his part.
Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, has repeatedly criticized the House select committee for its investigation into the Jan. 6 riot, calling it one-sided and politically motivated.
Cheney’s bombshell accusation about Trump raises questions on if he committed a crime and, if so, if there’s enough evidence to charge him.
“It would depend on the strength of the case,” Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor, told ABC News. “When people make calls like that, usually it’s a little more guarded and a little bit of a wink wink, nudge nudge.”
Trump allegedly attempted to call a White House support staffer, a person he wouldn’t normally call, sources said.
Despite not reaching the witness during the purported call, a crime still allegedly took place, this according to guidance from the DOJ under section 18 U.S.C. 1512, “Protection of government processes — Tampering with victims, witnesses or informants.”
“There is no requirement that the defendant’s actions have the intended obstructive effect,” it reads.
Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich sharply criticized Cheney’s accusation while also going after the media — but did not deny her claims.
“The media has become pawns of the Unselect Committee. Liz Cheney continues to traffic in innuendos and lies that go unchallenged, unconfirmed, but repeated as fact because the narrative is more important than the truth,” he tweeted on July 12.
Cheney’s claim against the former president isn’t the first time Trump has been accused of obstructing justice.
Michael Cohen
Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, was convicted in 2018 for tax evasion, violating campaign finance rules and lying to Congress.
For years, Cohen had signaled loyalty to Trump. But after the FBI raided his home in 2018, he was open to cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the then-president.
Cohen’s lawyer said that Trump’s advisers were hinting that he would pardon Cohen following the FBI’s raid into his home. Once Cohen agreed to testify, Trump began publicly attacking his former lawyer and suggested that his father-in-law should be investigated.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform said at the time that “efforts to intimidate witnesses, scare their family members, or prevent them from testifying before Congress are textbook mob tactics that we condemn in the strongest terms. Our nation’s laws prohibit efforts to discourage, intimidate, or otherwise pressure a witness not to provide testimony to Congress.”
In 2019, after a delay, Cohen testified in front of the House Oversight Committee about his time working for his former boss. Cohen said he initially delayed his testimony because of “ongoing threats against his family from President Trump.”
Could Trump be charged?
It’s unlikely Attorney General Merrick Garland will charge Trump, especially if he plans to run for president again, according to Weisberg.
“If he declares he’s running for president, even though that doesn’t give him any immunity from indictment, we know that’s exactly the situation Garland fears, namely indicting someone amidst a presidential campaign, because he doesn’t want the criminal justice systems to distort the political process,” Weisberg said.
“There’s a weird kind of leverage that Trump has here,” he added.
(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will hold the eighth in its latest string of hearings on Thursday starting at 8 p.m. ET — in prime-time.
Committee aides say the session will zero-in on then-President Donald Trump’s response to the insurrection by a pro-Trump mob, specifically the 187 minutes between his speech at the Ellipse near the White House earlier that day and his public statement telling rioters to go home.
The panel will also discuss what occurred on the remainder of Jan. 6, including a tweet Trump sent around 6 p.m., and the fallout on Jan. 7, 2021.
Trump’s tweet — shortly before he was permanently banned from Twitter, read: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Aides also emphasized, without providing details, that there would be new evidence presented Thursday and told reporters that there was “no reason to think” this will be the committee’s final hearing, though it is expected to be the last session in the near future.
Two former Trump White House aides are expected to testify, sources previously confirmed to ABC News: former deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews and Matthew Pottinger, who was a member of the National Security Council.
Both Matthews and Pottinger quit on Jan. 6.
ABC News has also learned the committee has outtakes of Trump’s pre-recorded message delivered on Jan. 7, where he condemned the attack on the Capitol and pledged a “seamless transition of power.” But the outtakes tell a different story — showing a president struggling to say the election was over and to condemn the rioters, sources familiar with their contents said.
The sources said the committee may show at least some of the outtakes during Thursday’s hearing but cautioned that plans to do so could change.
Committee aides — previewing the hearing in very broad terms — have said they will show testimony from individuals who spoke to Trump and from those in the West Wing who were aware of what Trump, his staff and his family were doing on Jan. 6.
“What we’ll get into tomorrow is what happened when that speech ended and President Trump, against his wishes, was returned to the White House,” one aide said Wednesday.
“We’re going to demonstrate sort of who was talking to him and what they were urging him to do in that time period,” the aide continued. “We’re going to talk about when he was made aware of what was going on at the Capitol.”
Cassidy Hutchinson, formerly a top aide to Trump’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, previously testified to the committee about a conversation she had with members of Trump’s security detail after the rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6.
Hutchinson said Tony Ornato, the head of the president’s security team, told her that Trump lunged toward his driver in the presidential SUV and tried to grab the steering wheel in a push to be taken to the Capitol with his supporters.
“Tony described him as being irate,” Hutchinson testified. (The Secret Service subsequently said it will respond on the record to Hutchinson’s account.)
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., will be chairing Thursday’s hearing remotely as he’s recovering from COVID-19. Thompson announced on Monday that he tested positive for the virus and would be isolating for several days, per federal guidelines.
A spokesperson for the committee confirmed the hearing would go on as planned despite Thompson’s diagnosis, noting the panel was wishing him a “speedy recovery.”
Reps. Elaine Luria, D-Va., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., will lead the hearing.
Lawmakers on the committee are also dealing with a revelation about Secret Service records as it relates to Jan. 6.
A government watchdog previously requested messages sent and received by Secret Service personnel around the time of the attack, but a spokesperson for the agency acknowledged last week that text messages from last Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 were deleted after being sought by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.
The agency maintained that the deletion occurred during a device-replacement program and was not “malicious.”
The House committee subpoenaed the Secret Service for the records on Friday and the National Archives and Records Administration asked the agency to account for the lost texts.
The service has only provided a single text exchange to the DHS inspector general, according to an agency letter to the House Jan. 6 committee and obtained by ABC News.
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said the committee was working to get to the bottom of the situation.
“We continue to work through these issues but clearly that’s not enough,” Aguilar told ABC News.
“There’s a lot more questions to answer, but we have the responsibility to tell the truth and chase the facts and that’s exactly what we plan to do in this regard, as well as our general oversight over the executive department,” Aguilar added.
ABC News’ Rachel Scott contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — In the aftermath of the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Highland Park, Illinois, experts say there is a lot that communities can do to improve how they respond to warning signs indicating people could be a risk to themselves or others.
John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and the former acting undersecretary for intelligence and counterterrorism coordinator at the Department of Homeland Security, told ABC News that law enforcement professionals he has met with around the country have raised concerns that there’s not much they can do when they receive reports of concerning behavior.
But even if the person exhibiting concerning behavior has not committed a crime, there is still room for preventative intervention and community support, Cohen said.
“Too many law enforcement agencies tend to look at these issues, simply from the perspective of: has the person violated the law or not. And what a lot of law enforcement agencies have learned is that there is a middle ground,” he said.
He recognized that a lack of access to inpatient and outpatient mental health care is a large concern.
Jarrod Burguan, a former chief of police in San Bernardino, California, and an ABC News contributor, said in an interview that his experience in law enforcement showed him that the mental healthcare system is a “revolving door” that does not do a good job of forcing people to get help or protecting the rest of society from people who pose a risk.
“We have this major issue of how we deal with mental illness. And we’re very, very ineffective at it,” he said. “We have this disconnect in how we treat mental illness in this country.”
Oftentimes, police take in someone for a mental health evaluation, but there is no leverage for them to get treatment and there is not much else authorities can do to address concerning behavior that has been brought to their attention if it isn’t illegal, Burguan said.
“As a police officer, you’ve got to work within the confines of what you can do legally,” Burguan said.
When police receive a report of concerning behavior, they make contact with the individual to see if they can collect enough information to justify a mental health hold or to determine if a crime has been committed. Police could then take the person into the mental healthcare system if justified, but there is not much else they could do, Burguan said.
Burguan said the threshold for family members to forcibly commit someone into a mental health facility is very high. The process is often difficult for families and can be very expensive, he said. He said that family members rarely think that their loved ones would be able to do something violent like a shooting.
“As a result, we have millions and millions and millions of people that fall through the cracks. We need something that puts more teeth and the ability of the mental health system to hold somebody and force them into treatment and stop allowing people to walk away, and then affect everybody else in society,” Burguan said.
Burguan also said the criminal justice system is not effectively correcting peoples’ paths. While he was chief, he says his department looked through data for two straight years and found that in cases where police had identified a suspect in a murder, an overwhelming majority of the suspects had extensive criminal histories.
“We’re not fixing people through the criminal justice system,” Burguan said.
Cohen said there is still an important role local communities can play to intervene when individuals are showing warning signs that they could be a risk to themselves or others.
He said as far back as 2014 when he was at DHS, the department was working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies to study the behavioral characteristics of mass shooters and work to develop prevention strategies to be applied in local communities.
He said the strategies center on law enforcement working with mental health professionals and others in the community to assess the risks of people who exhibit these behaviors, making sure that people within the community are educated on what they should be looking for.
Local authorities should be conducting threat assessments to determine whether the individual poses a high risk of committing an act of violence, Cohen said. If the answer is yes, then the community should engage in threat management strategies, he said.
“You bring mental health professionals, the family community members, our community organizations, faith leaders, social service providers, whoever you need to at the local level, you bring them together and you can put in place a plan to address the underlying issues that are causing this person to travel down the path of violence,” Cohen said.
‘Red flag’ laws
Many states have incorporated the use of “red flag” laws, also called extreme protection orders, in their strategies to temporarily restrict an individual’s access to guns when they are found to be a risk to themselves or others, Cohen said.
He said these threat management and threat assessment strategies, implemented in various jurisdictions around the country, including Los Angeles, have been successful in preventing attacks.
“With all the mass shootings that we have experienced over the last 10 years, it is mind-boggling to me that we still have communities that have not established the capabilities to engage in threat assessment and threat management activities,” Cohen said.
He added, “They save lives. They’ve worked in communities across the country. And what we need is a consistent capability in every locality across the United States to do that type of work.”
Cohen said a strategy should have been created to address warning signs the Uvalde school shooter displayed in the leading up to the shooting. Cohen said the large amount of ammunition the shooter purchased in addition to the other warning signs should have been brought to the attention of law enforcement, who should have launched a threat assessment investigation.
Recognizing that this requires a certain level of sophistication, expertise and funding, Cohen said it falls to state and federal governments to intervene. DHS and the Justice Department provide grant funding to support local efforts and the FBI and U.S. Secret Service can provide training and technical assistance to local communities, Cohen said.
“Any police department or any local community that is not prepared to assess the risk posed by an individual who comes to their attention and to take steps to mitigate that risk, is placing themselves in jeopardy of experiencing this type of attack,” Cohen said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will unveil on Thursday an expanded budget request to Congress with $37 billion in funding for law enforcement and crime prevention for what the White House is calling his “Safer America Plan.”
But Biden’s request is aspirational — it’s for fiscal year 2023, which for the U.S. government begins this October, and it needs to be approved by Congress. Presidential administrations past and present often make large, ambitious budget requests as a messaging tool, only to see them not come to fruition or to be whittled down.
As part of his “Safer America Plan,” the White House said Biden will request “a fully paid-for new investment of approximately $35 billion to support law enforcement and crime prevention — in addition to the President’s $2 billion discretionary request for these same programs.”
According to the White House, the requested funding would be used in hiring and training 100,000 new police officers for “accountable community policing,” clearing court backlogs, solving murders and setting up community task forces to share intelligence. The funds would also target crimes not directly related to guns, such as fentanyl trafficking.
Moreover, the White House said the plan would establish a $15 billion grant program for states and cities to use over the next 10 years that would prevent violent crime and help in “identifying non-violent situations that may merit a public health response or other response.”
“The President will also continue to call on Congress to take additional actions on guns,” the White House added, “including requiring background checks for all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, closing the dating violence restraining order loophole, and banning the manufacture, sale, or possession of unserialized ‘ghost guns.'”
On Thursday afternoon, Biden will travel to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where he will deliver remarks on gun violence, firearms legislation and policing at Wilkes University, according to the White House.
The president’s budget request comes in the wake of a string of mass shootings that have taken place across the United States this summer, including one at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, another at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
(WASHINGTON) — Students over the age of 12 will be required to receive COVID-19 vaccines this fall in Washington, D.C., the district’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education has announced.
“We want to make sure that all of our students have everything they need for a healthy start to the school year,” State Superintendent of Education Dr. Christina Grant said in a statement on Tuesday. “This means making sure children see their primary medical provider for a well-child visit and receive all needed immunizations.”
Beginning this fall, for the 2022-23 school year, student vaccine requirements will include the COVID-19 vaccine for all students for whom there is a federally, fully approved COVID-19 vaccine.
Unless exempted, children ages 12 to 15 will be required to receive a primary COVID-19 vaccine series, or to have started receiving their shots by Sept. 16, 2022. Similarly, all students 16 or older must have received, or have started receiving, their primary COVID-19 vaccination series by the beginning of the school year.
Students attending all Washington, D.C., schools, including private, parochial and independent schools, need to be up-to-date with all required vaccinations in order to attend school. Schools are also mandated to confirm vaccination for all students, according to district law.
The Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has been fully approved by the FDA for all people 16 years and older since August 2021, and just this month, Pfizer’s vaccine was also fully approved for adolescents ages 12 to 15.
As of July 13, 80% of district residents ages 12 to 15; 76% of residents ages 16 and 17, and 52% of residents ages 18 to 24, have been fully vaccinated with their primary series, according to district data.
The department did not immediately respond to ABC News’ inquiry regarding what type of exemptions would be allowed, or whether remote options may be offered to students who do not comply with the requirement.
Across the country, in California, officials announced last fall that they would implement a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for students.
“The state already requires that students are vaccinated against viruses that cause measles, mumps and rubella — there’s no reason why we wouldn’t do the same for COVID-19,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement in October. “Today’s measure, just like our first-in-the-nation school masking and staff vaccination requirements, is about protecting our children and school staff, and keeping them in the classroom.”
However, in April, the state announced that it would not initiate the regulatory process for its COVID-19 vaccine requirement in schools until after July 1, 2023, to “ensure sufficient time for successful implementation of new vaccine requirements.”
(LOS ANGELES) — The accolades continue for Stephen Curry.
One month after winning the NBA Championship, the Golden State Warriors star hosted Wednesday’s ESPY Awards. Curry also took home two awards, and the Warriors won Best Team.
“I see down here so many special people,” Curry said in his opening monologue. “So many champions, so many potential Dancing With The Stars contestants.”
Opening the ceremony with humor, Curry found moments to address serious matters.
One notable absence in the Dolby Theatre was WBNA’s Brittney Griner, who has been detained in Russia since February for drug charges.
Wearing Griner’s jersey, Curry took the stage with WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith.
“But as we hope for the best, we urge the entire global sports community to continue to stay energized on her behalf,” Curry said. “She’s one of us, the team of athletes in this room tonight and all over the world. A team that has nothing to do with politics or global conflict.”
While accepting the Best Play award for her performance on the United States women’s national soccer team, Megan Rapinoe also used the space to speak about Griner’s detainment.
“The most striking thing is that BG’s not here,” Rapinoe said. “BG deserves to be free. She’s being held as a political prisoner, obviously.”
The ceremony included a 50th anniversary celebration of Title IX. Notable female athletes paid tribute on stage.
“We refuse to be happy with the minimum, because more than it has been does not mean it’s where it should be,” snowboarder and two-time Olympic gold medalist Chloe Kim said.
“We still fight for safety, to be believed and we still fight to have control over our own bodies,” Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman added.
ESPN broadcaster Dick Vitale won the Jimmy V award for Perseverance. Vitale had a recent seven-month battle with cancer.
“Just remember perseverance, plus passion, plus pride equals winning in the game of life,” he said.
Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Billboard for iHeartMedia
Lizzo has a brand-new album out now called Special, and to celebrate, the “About Damn Time” singer recorded a segment for Jimmy Kimmel Live! called “Undercover Sing,” where she surprised some of her fans by appearing to them in person.
The unsuspecting “Lizzbians” were told they were chosen to listen to Lizzo’s new album and have their reactions recorded for a fake website. What they didn’t know was that Lizzo herself was actually watching them from the next room.
As each person listened to one of the songs, Lizzo serenaded them with improvised lyrics tailored just for them, then snuck up behind them.
One of the funniest moments came when she stood directly behind a young man named Mike, who failed to realize it, even as Lizzo fed him hints like “I’m somewhere in this room.” It wasn’t until she jumped up and yelled, “Michael, turn around!” that he spotted her.
The participants were also surprised with tickets to Lizzo’s show at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles.
