(WASHINGTON) — In a major development, the House Jan. 6 select committee on Wednesday asked GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy to voluntarily cooperate with its probe.
In a letter, the committee asked him to voluntarily provide information.
It is not compelling him to provide information or sit before the committee at this time.
Chairman Bennie Thompson said in the letter that he believes McCarthy has relevant information that could speak into the facts, circumstances, and causes leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
Thompson also wants information from McCarthy about events in the days before and after Jan. 6.
“You have acknowledged speaking directly with the former President while the violence was underway on January 6th,” Thompson writes.
“The Select Committee wishes to question you regarding communications you may have had with President Trump, President Trump’s legal team, Representative Jordan, and others at the time on that topic,” Thompson writes.
McCarthy has made multiple statements about Jan. 6 and about his conversations with Trump that day.
ABC News has reached out to McCarthy’s office for comment.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Ronnie Spector, the voice behind The Ronettes’ hits like “Be My Baby” and “Baby, I Love You,” has died. She was 78.
A statement on her website reads, “Our beloved earth angel, Ronnie, peacefully left this world today after a brief battle with cancer. She was with family and in the arms of her husband, Jonathan.”
“Ronnie lived her life with a twinkle in her eye, a spunky attitude, a wicked sense of humor and a smile on her face. She was filled with love and gratitude. Her joyful sound, playful nature and magical presence will live on in all who knew, heard or saw her.”
The statement continued, “In lieu of flowers, Ronnie requested that donations be made to your local women’s shelter or to the American Indian College Fund. A celebration of Ronnie’s life and music will be announced in the future. The family respectfully asks for privacy at this time.”
Bleachers will be living up to the name of their new album with a last-minute performance on Saturday Night Live.
The NBC show announced Wednesday that Jack Antonoff and company will be the musical guests on this Saturday’s episode, hosted by West Side Story star Ariana DeBose.
The episode was originally supposed to feature rapper Roddy Ricch, but Variety reports he dropped out due to his team being exposed to COVID-19.
Bleachers released their now very fittingly titled album Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night last July. On New Year’s Day, Antonoff announced that he plans to release another Bleachers record later in 2022.
Chris Pratt may not be perfect, but at least his pants now are. That’s the gist of his first new ad as a brand ambassador for TravisMathew, a sports-lifestyle label.
“These pants are perfect,” the Marvel movie star and Jurassic World series lead says in a voice-over as he admires himself in a mirror.
“They’re comfortable, stretchy, versatile. I want to be perfect as these pants,” he thinks, before saying aloud, pensively, “Can they make me perfect?”
What follows is a montage of Pratt reading lines badly, breaking a window with an overzealous indoor golf putt, and watching a newly installed closet rod collapse.
“It’s definitely just the pants,” he reconsiders.
Pratt captioned the spot by saying, “Dreeeams can come true!!! Thanks to @travismathew I am now a #ProGolfer. I know what you’re thinking… ‘No he’s not.’ But you are wrong. Because, yes I am. I mean… Why else would the world’s top golf and lifestyle brand insist I wear only their clothes on the course? Obviously they saw my swing. Rest is history.”
Pratt will be seen next onscreen — where directors and editors make sure things appear perfect — in Jurassic Word: Dominion, which opens June 10, and in Thor: Love and Thunder, which hits theaters July 8.
Jared Leto is among the nominees for the 2022 Screen Actors Guild Awards.
The Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman’s role as Paolo Gucci in the film House of Gucci is up for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role.
“To be nominated and recognized by your peers is one of the highest honors imaginable and upon hearing the news this morning I was filled with gratitude and humility,” Leto says. “Making House of Gucci and working with this incredible cast was an absolute inspiration.”
Leto previously won a SAG Award for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club, which also earned him an Oscar.
The 2022 Screen Actors Guild Awards will air February 27 on TNT and TBS.
(WASHINGTON) — A record number of law enforcement officers died in the line of duty in 2021, according to a report from the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund Wednesday, with most losing their lives to COVID-19.
In 2021, 458 law enforcement officers died — up 55% from 2020, according to the report.
In 2020, 295 federal, state, local and tribal officers died in the line of duty. The closest number to 2021’s was recorded was in 1930, when there were 312 law enforcement deaths.
The vast majority of deaths — 301 — were due to COVID-19 according to the report, the second year in a row COVID-19 was the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths. The vaccination status of the 301 is not known.
Customs and Border Patrol Agent David Ramirez was among those who died due to complications of COVID-19. Ramirez, a father of three, was assigned to the Sector Intelligence Unit/Joint California Forensics Center in San Diego, according to Customs and Border Protection.
“This year’s statistics demonstrate that America’s front-line law enforcement officers continue to battle the deadly effects of the Covid-19 pandemic nationwide,” the report said. “Law enforcement officers nationwide continue to be exposed to the Covid-19 virus in the course of their daily assignments; therefore, the number of line-of-duty deaths is sadly ever-increasing.”
Officers like Lubbock County, Texas, Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Joshua Bartlett were among the 62 officers killed by guns in 2021.
In the morning hours of July 15, a man was stopped by the Texas Highway Patrol for reckless driving. According to the NODEM page, the subject returned home after the incident and began walking around his neighborhood with a gun. When the SWAT team and Bartlett showed up, the suspect allegedly opened fire after barricading himself in his house, killing Bartlett, a military veteran.
The increase in officers killed by a gun increased by 36% from 2020. Handguns were the leading cause of death in the firearm category — with eight in October, making it the deadliest month in 2021.
Traffic-related incident killings, such as during stops, saw an increase of 38% from 2020.
Cordae announced a star-studded lineup for his second studio album, including Stevie Wonder, Eminem, Lil Wayne and Nas.
They will be joined by H.E.R., Roddy Ricch, Gunna, Lil Durk, and Freddie Gibbs on the 14-track project, titled From a Bird’s Eye View, which will be released Friday. Wayne is featured on the second single from the album, “Sinister.”
From a Bird’s Eye View is the followup to the “Gifted” rapper’s 2019 debut album, The Lost Boy.
The two-time Grammy nominee will promote the project with his From a Bird’s Eye View tour. Cordae will perform in 28 cities, beginning February 3, in Dallas. Tour stops will include New Orleans, Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and his hometown, Raleigh, North Carolina.
In the summer, Cordae announced he was launching his own label, High Level Records.
“I had this epiphany right in the middle of the pandemic. It’s a frame of my mind. Everything I do, I must do it at the highest level,” he said Monday on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Cordae also revealed that despite his success, when he returns home, his mother makes sure to keep him grounded.
“She’s not that impressed to be honest,” he said. “I go back home. I gotta wash the dishes, mow the lawn, for real. That’s her way of, hold on, don’t put too much dip on your chip now,” Cordae said with a laugh.
(WASHINGTON) — As President Joe Biden prepared to head to Capitol Hill on Thursday to rally Senate Democrats on election reform, a visibly angry Republican Leader Mitch McConnell fired back Wednesday, saying that he didn’t recognize the man who delivered the fiery speech in Georgia on voting rights one day earlier.
McConnell characterized Biden’s speech — in which the president called for the Senate to change its rules by “whichever way they need to be changed” in order to pass Democrats’ voting bills — as “profoundly, profoundly un-presidential,” deeming the remarks a “rant” that “was incoherent, incorrect and beneath his office.”
The Kentucky Republican repeatedly took issue with Biden linking Republicans to Jim Crow-era legislation for standing in the way of election reform, as at least 19 GOP-led states have passed laws in the last year that experts at the Brennan Center for Justice say restrict voting access.
“We have a sitting president — a sitting president — invoking the Civil War, shouting about totalitarianism and labeling millions of Americans his domestic enemies?” McConnell said. “Yesterday, he poured a giant can of gasoline on the fire.”
Biden, one day earlier in Atlanta, spoke forcefully in favor of changing the Senate filibuster rule so that Democrats could pass two key voting bills that have stalled in the Senate.
“Nowhere does the Constitution give a minority the right to unilaterally block legislation,” Biden said. “The American people have waited long enough. The Senate must act.”
McConnell, in turn, closed his floor speech on Wednesday by imploring his colleagues — including an indirect call to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., whom he has courted to change parties — that it’s up to them to defend tradition in the Senate.
“Unfortunately, President Biden has rejected the ‘better angels of our nature.’ So, it is the Senate’s responsibility to protect the country. This institution was constructed as a firewall against exactly — exactly the kind of rage and false hysteria we saw on full display yesterday,” McConnell said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had promised to move toward a showdown on votes on Democrats’ voting legislation as soon as Wednesday.
The Democratic leader met Tuesday night with Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema — another Democrat who has not committed to a filibuster carveout but says she supports election reforms — and then with Manchin on Wednesday morning for around an hour as he navigates a way to push through Biden’s agenda.
While acknowledging he likely doesn’t have the votes to move the bills forward, Schumer said he wants to force a vote to put senators on the record to show Americans — and history — where they stand on the issue that Democrats call vital to democracy.
A recorded vote on those bills could be seen as the first move toward another vote on changing or eliminating the filibuster on the measures, which could potentially fall on Monday given the symbolism of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Ahead of his visit to Capitol Hill on Thursday, Biden in Atlanta on Tuesday attempted to shame the 16 sitting Republicans who voted to extend the Voting Rights Act before — to support voting rights now.
“Not a single Republican has displayed the courage to stand up to a defeated president to protect America’s right to vote, not one,” he said. “Not one.”
While Biden, having served in Congress for 36 years, has defended the filibuster in the past, he changed his tune regarding election reforms, saying Tuesday that a minority of senators shouldn’t be permitted to block actions on voting rights for all Americans.
In conjunction with the upcoming release of the Dark Knight’s latest onscreen adventure, The Batman, Warner Bros. has teamed up with the world’s darkest cookie for a limited run of Oreos.
“Two icons unite,” a moody new spot teases, as the cookies animate to portray the superhero, and his Batmobile.
“Who? Have you got a clue? Let’s play a game, just we and you,” a narrator intones in the spirit of the Caped Crusader’s nemesis in the film, Riddler.
One side of each cookie is embossed with Batman’s face, and the treats come packaged in The Batman-branded sleeves.
Unfortunately for fans in the States, the limited-edition Oreos won’t be on store shelves here, however you can bet they’ll be up for sale on eBay and elsewhere.
The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Paul Dano as Riddler, hits theaters March 4.
