Gwen Stefani’s rocked a stellar array of looks over the years, but her latest might just be her best outfit yet — at least, if you ask her country superstar husband, Blake Shelton.
Gwen shared a hilarious step-by-step tutorial on how to rock true country style on TikTok this week, captioning the video, “why come back as a Country Boy when I can dress like one now?!” Of course, Blake’s chart-topping “Come Back as a Country” blasts in the background of the clip.
Even when she’s emulating his style, Gwen’s still the fashion expert of the household: The camera shows her hand-picking various items from Blake’s closet, and slaps her husband away when he tries to reach for the incorrect ball cap.
The results? A perfectly oversized hunting shirt, with baggy jeans and cowboy boots, plus the singer’s blonde hair pulled back under her cap. At the end of the video, Blake nods his approval toward the camera.
Gwen and Blake got married last summer on Blake’s Oklahoma ranch. His wedding vows to her came in the form of a song he wrote — and subsequently released to the public — called “We Can Reach the Stars.”
Machine Gun Kelly earned his first number-one album on the Billboard 200 with 2020’s Tickets to My Downfall, and he’s aiming to do that again with his next record, Mainstream Sellout.
Speaking with Billboard about his sales hopes for the upcoming effort, the “Bloody Valentine” rocker says, “One thing about Machine Gun Kelly: He doesn’t lose to the Encanto soundtrack.”
That may be easier said then done, since the “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”-spawning album ruled the Billboard 200 for eight straight frames before rapper Lil Durk dethroned it just this week. Billboard also notes that Kelly sounded “about 10% like he’s joking” when he made his declaration.
Still, Kelly is certainly confident in the material of Mainstream Sellout. “I’ve waited for this,” he says. “The confidence to hit ‘play’ and know that what’s about to come out of the speakers is what I’ve wanted to say all along.”
Like Tickets to My Downfall, Mainstream Sellout was recorded with Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, and continues Kelly’s pop-punk sound after spending his early career as a rapper. As Kelly tells Billboard, he originally planned to go back to rap for a Tickets follow-up, but he found he “love[s] playing guitar.”
“The 2010s was great for singers and rappers, and I was part of that,” Kelly says. “But I think we needed something else: We needed an instrument.”
He adds, “Kids come up to me like, ‘Dude, the first time I ever saw someone play guitar in concert was at your concert — and now I take guitar lessons.'”
Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett kicks off a 36-date North American tour leg with a two-show engagement this Saturday and Sunday, March 26-27, in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.
The trek, dubbed “Genesis Revisited: Seconds Out + More Tour,” is plotted out through a May 19 concert in Seattle. As the trek’s name implies, Hackett and his solo band will be performing Genesis’ 1977 live double album Seconds Out in its entirety at each show. Steve tells ABC Audio that the concerts also will feature some material from his new solo album, 2021’s Surrender of Silence, “and some old favorites as well.”
Hackett notes that Seconds Out is an album “much loved by fans,” and says about the performance, “[W]e’re doing full-length things. We’re doing all the introductions, all the ins and outs to try and give people the works.”
As for his band’s preparation for the trek, Steve says, “They’re sounding spectacular. They sound wonderful. And it’s not easy music. I won’t pretend that it is. You have to be on your mettle the whole time.”
Nine of the U.S. concerts that Hackett is playing on the tour actually are rescheduled dates from shows that were postponed in 2020 and 2021. Those concerts also will include a full performance of Genesis’ 1973 studio album Selling England by the Pound, as well as Seconds Out.
In other news, a two-CD/three-LP version of Hackett’s his 2019 concert album Genesis Revisited Band & Orchestra: Live at the Royal Festival Hallwill be released on May 6.
The collection, which previously was issued as a two-CD/DVD/Blu-ray set, documents an October 2018 show in London that featured Hackett and his touring band accompanied by the 41-piece Heart of England Orchestra.
Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Prolific hit songwriter Desmond Child will headline a special songwriting-themed edition of Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp scheduled to take place April 7-10 in Nashville.
Child, who has co-written such classic songs as Bon Jovi‘s “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Livin’ on a Prayer,” Aerosmith‘s “Dude Looks Like a Lady,” KISS‘ “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” and Ricky Martin‘s “Livin’ la Vida Loca,” will be joined by — as he describes them — “spectacular featured guests,” including Steve Cropper, Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt, Marti Frederiksen and Desmond’s “all-time hero,” Felix Cavaliere from The Rascals.
Attendees will be expected to bring their own original songs to the camp, and Child will share his expertise on how to hone their compositions. In addition, he will give campers assignments to write various types of tunes, and campers also will collaborate with each other on songs.
Of course, the guest mentors also will be on hand to impart their songwriting knowledge.
“I’m gonna be attending every single one of those [sessions] if they don’t have me busy doing mine,” Child tells ABC Audio, “because there’s something to learn from everybody.”
Regarding his own participation in the camp, Child says, “I have all of this knowledge inside that I’m dying to share…with young people [who]…even if they don’t make it their career…have that kind of appreciation of…how a song is made and how it’s constructed and what makes a song successful.”
In addition to the various aspects of songwriting, the camp will focus on such topics as recording demos, navigating through the music business and much more.
Desmond says that for him, though, “the main thing is to be inspired by art, by creating.”
Visit RockCamp.com for full details about “Desmond Child & Friends” camp.
It’s a big week for Bridgerton fans! The hit Netflix show returns Friday for season two, with all the scandal and sexiness we’ve come to expect from the period drama.
After a successful season one, some might worry about a sophomore slump, but not this cast. Nicola Coughlan, who plays Penelope Featherington on the show, tells ABC Audio that everyone was “so excited just to be back at work.”
“We hadn’t gotten to celebrate in person the success the show had been. So to be back at work…We were all just like, ‘Oh, this is great,'” she explains.
Additional perks of having a successful debut season is that “we know what this show is now,” Coughlan says.
“We know what to expect and we know what to give to our audience,” she adds. “So even though it maybe should have been intimidating, we were all just more excited.”
At the end of season one it was revealed that Coughlan’s character was living a double life, and she was also the town gossip columnist Lady Whistledown. Now that the secret’s out, she says “it was fun to get to play the Whistledown side of her and the conniving side of her and the businesswoman side of her. I just think she’s sort of a ball of contradictions.”
As for getting back into character after so much time off, that wasn’t an issue at all, because once you put on those clothes and step on those sets “you feel immediately different,” the actress shares.
Coughlan also picked up a new skill: calligraphy.
“I had to learn calligraphy, I had to learn how to write with a quill because it needed to look convincingly like I was writing at certain points,” she shares. “But mostly there is a hand double.”
(NEW YORK) — Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are putting up “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation.”
Russian forces moving from neighboring Belarus toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, have advanced closer to the city center in recent days despite the resistance. Heavy shelling and missile attacks, many on civilian buildings, continue in Kyiv, as well as major cities like Kharkiv and Mariupol. Russia also bombed western cities for the first time this week, targeting Lviv and a military base near the Poland border.
Russia has been met by sanctions from the United States, Canada and countries throughout Europe, targeting the Russian economy as well as Putin himself.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 24, 5:48 am
NATO leaders pose for photo ahead of emergency summit
NATO leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, posed for a photo at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels on Thursday ahead of an emergency summit, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine grants into a second month.
Biden stood in the front row in between NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Biden and Stoltenberg were the last of the leaders to arrive for the photo-op. As they walked in the room, Biden ignored a question from a reporter about what his message is to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Instead, Biden went to shake hands with Johnson and then greeted French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi
Mar 24, 5:20 am
Biden arrives at NATO headquarters for emergency summit
U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Brussels on Thursday morning ahead of an emergency NATO summit to discuss the Western defense alliance’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The European diplomatic capital is also hosting a gathering of the Group of Seven industrialized nations and a summit of the 27 members of the European Union on Thursday. Biden is scheduled to attend all three meetings and hold a press conference at the end of the day.
Upon his arrival at NATO headquarters, Biden was greeted by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. The two leaders stood and spoke for a few moments, though their conversation was inaudible. Biden and Stoltenberg then walked into the building and down the hallway, where they did not stop to speak to reporters who asked whether Russia’s potential use of chemical weapons in Ukraine are a red line that would trigger a response from NATO.
Biden and Stolenberg will now meet privately before taking a photo with other NATO leaders.
Earlier Thursday, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced the same question from reporters when he arrived at NATO headquarters.
“Look, I think that the reality is that President Putin has already crossed a red line in barbarism and it’s now up to NATO to consider together the appalling crisis in Ukraine, the appalling suffering of the people of Ukraine,” Johnson replied. “And see what more we can do to help the people of Ukraine protect themselves. See what more we can do to tighten the economic vice around the Putin regime.”
Mar 24, 5:03 am
Ukraine calls Russian military ‘a gang of terrorists’
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov on Thursday lambasted Russia’s military as “a gang of terrorists, criminals and cowards” who she claimed are committing war crimes.
In a statement posted on her official Facebook account, Reznikov marked one month since Russian forces invaded Ukraine and warned that Ukrainians “still have a very difficult period ahead.”
“The Russian military machine will not stop until it is drenched in the blood of its soldiers,” Reznikov said.
Earlier this month, Russian troops opened fire on a nursing home in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kreminna, killing 56 people, according to Reznikov.
“This is not an accidental hit,” she said. “This is the deliberate killing of defenseless people — a war crime. That’s why the Russian army is a gang of terrorists, criminals and cowards.”
Still, Reznikov remained confident that Ukrainian forces will prevail with international support.
“We will drive them out. We will rebuild everything,” she added. “We will clean our land from the effects of war. It will take a lot of effort and time.”
Mar 24, 4:36 am
Russian military leaders repeatedly decline calls from US counterparts
Top Russian defense and military leaders have repeatedly declined telephone calls from their U.S. counterparts since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, according to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.
Kirby said in a statement Wednesday that, over the last month, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, “have sought, and continued to seek, calls with” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. But the Russians “have so far declined to engage,” he said.
“We continue to believe that engagement between U.S. and Russian defense leaders is critically important at this time,” Kirby added.
Mar 24, 3:31 am
US slams Russia’s plans to partially reopen stock market
The United States is slamming Russia’s plans to reopen its stock market for limited trading on Thursday for the first time in a month since Russian forces invaded Ukraine.
“What we’re seeing is a charade: a Potemkin market opening,” White House deputy national security adviser Daleep Singh said in a statement early Thursday. “After keeping its markets closed for nearly a month, Russia announced it will only allow 15% of listed shares to trade, foreigners are prohibited from selling their shares, and short selling in general has been banned. Meanwhile, Russia has made clear they are going to pour government resources into artificially propping up the shares of companies that are trading.”
“This is not a real market and not a sustainable model—which only underscores Russia’s isolation from the global financial system,” he added. “The United States and our allies and partners will continue taking action to further isolate Russia from the international economic order as long it continues its brutal war against Ukraine.”
Shares plunged and the Moscow Exchange was shut down following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Mar 23, 11:39 pm
White House team plans for worst-case scenarios, including chemical attacks
A team set up by the White House has been gaming out worst-case scenarios in Ukraine, mostly focused on the possibility Russia carries out chemical and biological attacks, according to a National Security Council official.
The so-called “Tiger Team,” set up at the request of national security adviser Jake Sullivan in late February after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, has analyzed the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons, but the NSC official emphasized that is not the team’s focus. The official said the group is mostly focused on protecting supply chains, security operations of U.S. personnel and planning for chemical or biological weapon attacks.
U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that Russia may be considering using chemical weapons in Ukraine and say Russian allegations that Ukrainians were developing chemical weapons may be a pretense to use such weapons themselves.
(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION
Detroit 122, Atlanta 101
New York 121, Charlotte 106
Sacramento 110, Indiana 109
Boston 125, Utah 97
Memphis 132, Brooklyn 120
Golden State 118, Miami 104
Oklahoma City 118, Orlando 102
Phoenix 125, Minnesota 116
Dallas 110, Houston 91
San Antonio 133, Portland 96
Philadelphia 126, LA Lakers 121
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Toronto 3, New Jersey 2
Buffalo 4, Pittsburgh 3 (SO)
Vancouver 3, Colorado 1
Chicago 4, Anaheim 2
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon has been providing daily updates on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s efforts to resist.
Here are highlights of what a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Wednesday on Day 28:
Russian troops face major setback east of Kyiv and moving into defensive positions
In a significant movement, Ukraine’s military forces have pushed back Russian forces east of Kyiv to 55 kilometers from the city center, according to a senior defense official.
For weeks, and as recently as Tuesday, Russian forces have been kept at bay approximately 20 to 30 kilometers from the center of the capital city.
The official said that Ukrainian forces near Bovary “have been able to push the Russians back to about 55 kilometers east and northeast of Kyiv.”
The ability to push back Russian forces nearly twice as far as where they had been for weeks is in line with what the official had said on Tuesday were indications that in some areas Ukrainian forces were attempting to retake territory taken by Russia. “Ukrainians are not only in some of these places up sufficiently defending they’re going on the offense in some of these places and actually pushing the Russians backwards, or in the case of Kiev, they’re, they’re basically forcing them into a defensive position,” the official said Wednesday.
The U.S. now assesses that Russian troops that have been stalled 12 to 15 kilometers north of the city are “digging in” and establishing defensive positions according to the official. “They’re forcing them into a defensive position” the official told reporters on Wednesday. “So it’s not that they’re not advancing, they’re actually not trying to advance right now,” said the official. “They’re taking more defensive positions.”
“We’re starting to see him sort of dig in around Kyiv but really trying to go more on the offense than they have been, more energy applied, in that eastern part of Ukraine” said the official.
Ukrainians pushing back Russian troops in Cherniviv
Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops in the city of Chernihiv, northeast of Kyiv, have also succeeded in slightly pushing back some of the Russian forces that have surrounded the city for weeks. The official described Ukrainians forces there as continuing to fight “very hard” against Russian forces to keep them out of the city and in some cases Russian troops have been “ceding ground.” “They are actually moving in the opposite direction, but not by much,” the official said of Russian forces around the city.
Russian troops now prioritizing operations in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region
The official said Russia appears to be “starting to prioritize” their operations in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, particularly around Luhansk, to cut off Ukraine’s military that has been fighting there against Russian separatists for the past eight years. “We still believe that the Russians are trying to basically cut it off and therefore pin down Ukrainian forces that are that are in the Luhansk, Donetsk area,” said the official.
“What we’re seeing now is indications that the Russians are really starting to prioritize that part of eastern Ukraine,” said the official. “We believe that they are now going to start to apply, actually, they have applied a lot more energy in the Luhansk, Donetsk area, particularly around Luhansk. You’re seeing them really put more energy and effort into that part of Ukraine.”
The official has previously said that it appears that the Russian forces fighting to take over the southern port city of Mariupol so they can then push north into the Donbass to cut off the Ukrainian military. Meanwhile, the fighting in that city remains “very very contested” according to the official who also described the fighting there between Russian and Ukrainian troops as being “hardcore.” The official noted that Russian forces continue to heavily bombard the city with artillery and long range missile fire.
Meanwhile, it appears that recent Russian military activity around the western port city of Odessa that led to speculation of an attack on the city may have been a feint intended to “pin down Ukrainian forces.” “It’s not entirely it’s not entirely obvious that they actually will make a move on Odessa,” said the official. “So we’re just we’re just kind of watching that to see to see where it goes.”
More US troops going forward to eastern Europe?
The official said that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is always assessing the U.S. military presence in eastern Europe and has not “taken off the table” the possibility “that he will flow more forces in from the United States or reposition from elsewhere in Europe.”
But for now there are no announcements to make said the official who added that it’s unclear what the U.S. military posture in eastern Europe will look like going forward. “Certainly, the security environment in Europe is different now. And it will be different that it will be different no matter what the outcome is of this war,” said the official.
“I think it’s safe to say that the United States as well as other NATO nations will be taken a hard look at what it whether we have the footprint right and whether the posture is appropriate to the new security environment that results from all this,” the official said.
Russia has lots of missiles left to use
According to the official, Russia has now launched more than 1,200 missiles into Ukraine, but “we still assess that they have the vast majority of their of their assembled available inventory of surface to air missiles and cruise missiles available to them.” Though the Russian military has expended a lot of the missile inventory readied for operations in Ukraine the official noted that “they still have an awful lot left.”
The official said that Russia’s military is “running the lowest on our air launched cruise missiles” but that they still have “over 50% of what they had assembled prior to the invasion. But they still have a significant number of ground launched cruise missiles, short range ballistic missiles, and medium range ballistic missiles.
(NEW YORK) — During a news conference Wednesday, Chinese authorities said that they believe the recovered device is the cockpit voice recorder. It was found in the main impact point of the crash and has been sent to Beijing for repair and analysis, officials said.
Authorities publicly acknowledged for the first time that human remains were found at the crash site.
Investigators are still searching for the second recorder that stores flight data, including airspeed, altitude and wing flap positions.
Early data shows the Boeing 737-800 plunged from 29,000 feet to 8,000 feet, leveled off and then went into a freefall, exploding into a fireball that was seen and filmed by people nearby. One video showed the plane nose-diving into the ground.
“What that cockpit voice recorder is going to tell us is what were the pilots saying to each other. What were they doing? It will mean the difference between being able to say, okay, obviously, they had a major emergency they were fighting all the way down, or maybe there was only one person in the cockpit. We don’t know,” said ABC News contributor John Nance, a former commercial pilot.
The plane crashed after taking off from Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan province. The flight was headed to Guangzhou, a port city northwest of Hong Kong, Chinese officials said.
Air traffic controllers made repeated attempts to radio the flight crew when they noticed the aircraft’s rapid descent but were unable to restore communications with the crew before the crash, Chinese officials said.
U.S. intelligence doesn’t have a clear theory on what led to the plane crashing. A source tells ABC News they aren’t ruling anything out, including a possible intentional downing.
“Having an airliner impact the ground as fast as this is going, almost to the speed of sound, means that it’s going to pulverize the airplane and everything in it,” Nance said. “However, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder are in the tail of the airplane, which slows down considerably by the time they reach the ground. Consequently, even though the box is mangled, the chip inside it can withstand almost 100 G’s, so that should be OK.”
As a precaution, China Eastern Airline grounded its fleet of Boeing 737-800s on Wednesday.
Members of the U.S. National Safety Transportation Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing and engine-maker CFM International are all joining the probe.
ABC News’ Amanda Maile contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The nation’s first Black woman nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, cleared 19-hours of grueling questioning at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, appearing headed toward confirmation as a justice with support from all Democrats and a small number of Republicans.
“In my capacity as a justice, I would do what I’ve done for the past decade,” Jackson told the committee on her third day of testimony, “which is to rule from a position of neutrality, to look carefully at the facts and… to render rulings that I believe and that I hope that people would have confidence in.”
The three days of hearings reached an emotional climax during a dramatic soliloquy by Sen. Cory Booker who, reflecting on the historic nature of the moment, moved Jackson to tears.
“You did not get there because of some left wing agenda. You didn’t get here because of some dark money groups. You got here how every Black woman in America who has gotten anywhere has done,” Booker said. “You are worthy. You are a great American.”
Here are several key takeaways from testimony on Wednesday:
Judge Jackson fights back
Cool and restrained under fire on Tuesday, Judge Jackson’s performance Wednesday was noticeably more confident, emotive and dynamic in responding to Republican criticism of her record.
“I have spoken at length throughout this hearing about these cases. I have said what I’m going to say,” Jackson bluntly told Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who continued to press the judge over sentences she handed down in child porn cases.
Jackson sparred defiantly with Sen. Josh Hawley, who repeatedly pushed explosive allegations that the judge had endangered children by letting child porn offenders “off the hook.”
“My question is, do you regret it or not?” the senator asked of one of the cases, in which the offender was sentenced to three months behind bars.
“Senator, what I regret is that in a hearing about my qualifications to be a justice on the Supreme Court we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on this small subset of my sentences,” Jackson fired back.
Recusing from major affirmative action case
One of the first and most significant cases Jackson would hear as a justice, if confirmed, is a challenge to Harvard University’s use of race in college admissions. On Wednesday, Jackson said she plans to recuse herself from the case.
“That is my plan,” she told Cruz, a fellow Harvard graduate.
Jackson, a double Harvard graduate, currently sits on the school’s Board of Overseers that “provides counsel to the University’s leadership on priorities, plans, and strategic initiatives,” according to its website.
Jackson’s six-year term concludes on May 26, a school spokesperson said. Supreme Court oral arguments in the school’s case would be heard several months later.
Federal law stipulates that federal judges must recuse themselves from cases whenever their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” or when “the judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding.”
Enforcement of the rules on the Supreme Court is by honor system, leaving it to each justice individually to decide when it’s appropriate to recuse from a case. Several independent ethics watchdogs have said it would be prudent for Jackson to step aside from the case if she’s on the bench.
Jackson mum on court expansion, cameras, shadow docket
The size of the Supreme Court at nine justices is determined by lawmakers in Congress – not the justices themselves. Nevertheless, several members of the committee asked Jackson about her view of progressive calls to expand the size of the court to compensate for its conservative majority.
“I’m a human being and I have an opinion on a lot of things. The reason why, in my view, it is not appropriate for me to comment is because of my fidelity to the judicial role,” she told Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. “I understand it’s a political question and that is precisely why I think that I am uncomfortable speaking to it.”
The current members of the court, including Jackson’s mentor Justice Stephen Breyer, have publicly come out against expanding the court.
“She refuses to rule out what the radical activists want,” Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell said of her answer on the Senate floor. “I’m not sure Judge Jackson’s secret opinion on court-packing is as secret as she thinks it is.”
Several Democratic senators raised issues of transparency around the court — allowing cameras in the courtroom and reducing the use of so-called “shadow docket” cases to make significant pronouncements — and urged Jackson to consider them if she makes it there. She said she would discuss the matters with her would-be peers but declined to take a firm position.
Deciding porn punishments
Several Republicans sought to prompt Jackson to elaborate on the reasoning behind her sentences of some child pornography offenders to sentences below federal guidelines and below what government prosecutors requested.
“It seems as though you’re a very kind person and there’s at least a level of empathy that enters into your treatment of a defendant that some could view as — maybe beyond what some of us would be comfortable with respect to administering justice,” said Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
Jackson explained that Congress tasked judges with delivering punishments aimed at rehabilitation, not just retribution, considering a multitude of factors beyond federal guidelines. (A Supreme Court decision authored by Justice Antonin Scalia said the guidelines could not be made mandatory, she noted.)
“My attempts to communicate directly with defendants is about public safety, because most of the people who are incarcerated via the federal system…will come out, will be a part of our communities again,” she said.
In a separate exchange, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., disparaged Jackson for coupling prison sentences for child porn offenders with “substantial supervision” after release.
“You think it is a bigger deterrent to take somebody who’s on a computer looking at sexual images of children, in the disgusting way, is to supervise their computer habits versus putting ’em in jail?” he asked.
“No, senator. I didn’t say ‘versus,'” Jackson shot back.
Praise from Republicans
While GOP Sens. Graham, Cruz, Hawley and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., grabbed attention with their highly critical exchanges with Jackson, several Republicans on the panel offered more thoughtful and measured scrutiny of her record — including praise for Jackson after their questions had ended.
“You’re going to be a hero. You are already a hero to lots and lots of kids,” Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska told the nominee.
“I believe we still haven’t heard the judicial philosophy, and I wish I’d made more progress with you on that,” Sasse said, but “I want to thank you…for what you have endured and for spending time with us.”
Tillis, one of the few GOP members of the committee who sat in the chamber for nearly the entirety of the 19 hours of questions, also had notably warm words for the nominee.
“I thought you’ve done a great job over the last two days,” Tillis told Jackson. “I thought that you presented yourself well. There was a lot of pressure. And that demonstrates a certain temperament or poise.”
“I just want to commend you, your family, your daughter, who has been glowing every time you talk, and I appreciate your service,” he said.
Neither Sasse nor Tillis has said whether they would vote in favor of Jackson. Both opposed her elevation to the federal appeals court last year.
