“The Road West Was Paved with Blood,” reads a title card in the new trailer of Yellowstone‘s prequel series 1883 — and there’s plenty of the red stuff to go around.
As previously reported, real-life husband and wife Tim McGraw and Faith Hill star in the Paramount+ series, playing James and Margaret Dutton, the patriarch and matriarch of Yellowstone‘s Dutton family.
The series, which also stars Sam Elliot, Billy Bob Thornton and newcomer Isabel May, centers on this country’s often brutal westward expansion, following the Dutton clan “as they embark on a journey west through the Great Plains toward the last bastion of untamed America…Montana.”
“This way is a free country,” Elliot’s Civil War vet Shea Brennan tells a settler, pointing to the east.
“That way is No Man’s Land, and that’s where we’re headed,” he adds, gesturing to the then-untamed, and unclaimed, West.
The trailer is as brutal as the journey: As one might expect of the Western genre, there’s more gunplay than you can shake a six-shooter at, from beginning to end.
(NOTE LANGUAGE) HBO Max has released a new trailer to its upcoming spin-off of The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, and in it, John Cena‘s over-the-top anti-hero shows off a vulnerable side.
Not only is Cena’s titular character apparently having second thoughts about his peace-through-violence mantra, hesitating when ordered to fire on innocent people so that he can kill a target, but he’s also having issues with his dad.
Terminator 2 and Sons of Anarchy veteran Robert Patrick plays his father, and he’s tough to impress. When Cena’s character mentions that he survived being shot — and had a building fall on top of him, referring to the close of The Suicide Squad — Patrick’s character replies, “You let somebody shoot you?!”
Despite his reservations, however, Peacemaker isn’t afraid of the action: In one scene he’s shown boasting about a new tool he created — a hand grenade attached to an old Russian tank shell. “A grenade only kills like two people!” he says in explaining his need for the upgrade.
He also lobs the weapon while heartily declaring, “Eat peace, motherf***er!”
Peacemaker premieres on HBO Max on January 13, 2022.
Lady Gaga is already off to a good start this awards season.
The singer/actress has been named Best Actress by the New York Film Critics Circle for her role in House of Gucci. In the Ridley Scott-directed film, Gaga plays Patrizia Reggiani, the woman who was famously convicted of arranging the murder of her ex-husband, Italian fashion heir Maurizio Gucci.
Gaga has been generally getting rave reviews for her performance, though the Gucci family has spoken out decrying the film’s portrayal of the protagonists as inaccurate.
House of Gucci is Gaga’s acting follow-up to her Oscar-nominated role in 2018’s A Star Is Born.
The New York Film Critics Circle also named Benedict Cumberbatch as Best Actor for The Power of the Dog while Drive My Car was chosen as Best Film.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has signed a short-term funding bill to keep the government open until Feb. 18, 2022, narrowly averting a shutdown that loomed for Friday, the White House said.
At the top of earlier remarks on the November jobs report Friday, Biden teased he would sign the bill before heading to Camp David for the weekend and said the action represents the “bare minimum” of what Congress should do.
“Funding the government isn’t a great achievement, it’s a bare minimum of what we need to get done,” he said.
The president also thanked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for their leadership on getting the bill passed and called for them to start working now on a full-year funding bill.
“In these times, a bipartisan cooperation is worth recognition. So I want to thank Speaker Pelosi and Schumer getting this done. And I want to urge Congress to use the time this bill provides to work toward a bipartisan agreement on a full-year funding bill that makes the needed investments in our economy and our people,” he said.
Both chambers of Congress passed the continuing resolution on Thursday that will kick the can of keeping the government open down the road until mid-February, averting a shutdown even after a small group of Senate Republicans threatened to stall the legislation in protest of Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal workers.
The small contingent of GOP senators, fronted by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, insisted that the Senate consider an amendment to the stopgap funding bill that would have effectively zeroed out funding to support the mandate.
Debate between Senate leaders about whether to allow such a vote nearly ground the upper chamber to a halt and threatened to cause time-consuming procedural delays that would have led to a temporary shutdown — but late Thursday night, a deal was reached to allow a vote on the amendment and on final passage.
“I am glad that in the end cooler heads prevailed. The government will stay open and I thank the members of this chamber for walking us back from the brink of an avoidable needless and costly shutdown,” Schumer said just before the votes were taken.
Efforts to strip funds for the mandate failed, with two Republicans absent for the vote, but the short-term spending bill passed. Nineteen Republicans including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell voted with Democrats after the House approved the bill largely along party lines — other than the support of a single Republican, retiring Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.
Sometime next week, the Senate will take another vote on overturning Biden’s vaccine mandate. The effort has been backed by moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and is expected to pass the upper chamber, though it likely won’t get a vote in the Democrat-controlled House.
To avert a future shutdown, Congress will need to pass another short-term spending bill before Feb. 18 or pass a package of large appropriations bills that have been caught up in negotiation for months.
Thomas Rhett’s “Slow Down Summer” tells the story of young love that’s racing against the clock, with both people in the relationship desperately clinging to the time they’ve got left together before the seasons change and their busy lives pull them apart.
In his just-released music video, the singer sets a visual component to his song, following two people as they head into colder weather but can’t forget the memories of those blissful summer days.
In one scene, a young guy is driving along a snow-covered road, and when he looks over to the passenger seat, the weather instantly changes to hot and sunny, and he sees the girl he lost smiling back at him from the shotgun seat.
“Slow Down Summer” is the lead single from Thomas’ next album, Where We Started, due out in early 2022. He’s been on a creative hot streak lately, as Country Again: Side A just came out earlier this year, and Side B of that double album is due out in the fall of 2022.
New music Friday continues with Doja Cat, who gave her single, “Woman,” a music video makeover that once again takes us back to Planet Her.
The sultry video follows a queen, played by Teyana Taylor, and her generals seducing the men who want to steal her crown. The creation is rich with colorful visuals and killer choreography, which fans have come to expect with Doja’s work. However, this goes a little further than just serving as a piece of eye candy. The “Woman” music video is also interactive and urges her fans to take a crack at coding.
Doja teamed with Girls Who Code to create the DojaCode, which fans can use to unlock exclusive content in the music video. Girls Who Code claim this is “the first ever codable music video” out there and are looking forward to seeing how fans “control the story using code.”
Doja was also excited about the partnership and said in a statement, “I am so excited that Girls Who Code has partnered with me to make my ‘Woman’ music video the world’s first codable music video. Fans all over the world will get to input code via a microsite and unlock some really cool special features. It’s going to be awesome.”
“Woman” is featured on Doja’s Grammy-nominated album, Planet Her.
(WASHINGTON) — On the heels of a sluggish November jobs report, President Joe Biden on Friday touted the country’s employment landscape as improving despite there being fewer jobs added last month than economists expected.
“We’re looking at the sharpest one-year decline in unemployment ever. Simply put, America — America is back to work. And our jobs recovery is going very strong,” Biden said in remarks from the White House on Friday morning. “Today’s historic drop in unemployment rate includes dramatic improvements for workers who have often seen higher wages and higher levels of unemployment.”
With Biden sounding congested for the second day in a row, a reporter said his voice sounded “different” and asked the 79-year-old president if he was OK.
“I’m OK. I have a test every day to see — a COVID test,” Biden said. “I have a 1-and-a-half-year-old grandson who had a cold who likes to kiss his pop.”
“But it’s just a cold,” the president said with a smile.
Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, later released a letter saying it’s “readily apparent” that he’s been experiencing congestion this week and is currently taking over the counter medication. O’Conner said Biden was tested three times this week for “COVID-19, other coronaviruses, influenza, streptococcus” among others, and were all negative.
Friday’s remarks came as concerns climbed over the potential economic and health impacts of the new omicron variant detected in five states so far.
The Labor Department released its report ahead of Biden’s remarks revealing that 210,000 jobs were added in November, the fewest in nearly a year — a number well below economists’ expectations of more than 550,000 jobs.
Biden, instead, focused on the report showing that the nation’s unemployment rate fell sharply from 4.6% to 4.2% — the lowest it’s been since the pandemic began but still higher than the pre-pandemic unemployment rate of 3.5%. Still, he touted the report as “incredible news” and a sign that the economy is “stronger” than it was a year ago.
The president said the unemployment falling more than two percentage points since he took office marked the “fastest decline on record and three times faster than any other president in their first year in office.”
With inflation still at a three-decade high amid ongoing worker shortages and supply chain issues, the November jobs report still reflects a resilient economic recovery nearly two years after COVID-19 arrived on U.S. soil.
“Even after accounting for rising prices, the typical American family has more money in their pockets than they did last year. In fact, we are the only leading economy in the world where household income and the economy as a whole are stronger than they were before the pandemic,” Biden said.
Despite the progress the president noted, he said he recognizes Americans are still “anxious.”
“But I also know that despite this progress, families are anxious. They’re anxious about COVID. They’re anxious about the cost of living, the economy more broadly. They’re still uncertain. I want you to know I hear you,” he added. “You need to see it and feel it in your own lives around the kitchen table and in your checkbooks.”
To that end, he reiterated his nine-point plan to combat COVID-19 this winter as a way to show that the administration is aiming to protect the economy as the pandemic continues and the new omicron variant spreads.
While he said it’s impossible to “build a wall around America” to keep the virus out, Biden said the new measures he announced Thursday are “sufficient” to deal with the omicron variant, and the White House is not considering any new measures for domestic travel, such as requiring travelers be vaccinated.
ABC News’ Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — On the heels of a sluggish November jobs report, President Joe Biden on Friday touted the country’s employment landscape as improving despite there being fewer jobs added last month than economists expected.
“We’re looking at the sharpest one-year decline in unemployment ever. Simply put, America — America is back to work. And our jobs recovery is going very strong,” Biden said in remarks from the White House on Friday morning. “Today’s historic drop in unemployment rate includes dramatic improvements for workers who have often seen higher wages and higher levels of unemployment.”
With Biden sounding congested for the second day in a row, a reporter said his voice sounded “different” and asked the 79-year-old president if he was OK.
“I’m OK. I have a test every day to see — a COVID test,” Biden said. “I have a 1-and-a-half-year-old grandson who had a cold who likes to kiss his pop.”
“But it’s just a cold,” the president said with a smile.
Friday’s remarks came as concerns climbed over the potential economic and health impacts of the new omicron variant detected in five states so far.
The Labor Department released its report ahead of Biden’s remarks revealing that 210,000 jobs were added in November, the fewest in nearly a year — a number well below economists’ expectations of more than 550,000 jobs.
Biden, instead, focused on the report showing that the nation’s unemployment rate fell sharply from 4.6% to 4.2% — the lowest it’s been since the pandemic began but still higher than the pre-pandemic unemployment rate of 3.5%. Still, he touted the report as “incredible news” and a sign that the economy is “stronger” than it was a year ago.
The president said the unemployment falling more than two percentage points since he took office marked the “fastest decline on record and three times faster than any other president in their first year in office.”
With inflation still at a three-decade high amid ongoing worker shortages and supply chain issues, the November jobs report still reflects a resilient economic recovery nearly two years after COVID-19 arrived on U.S. soil.
“Even after accounting for rising prices, the typical American family has more money in their pockets than they did last year. In fact, we are the only leading economy in the world where household income and the economy as a whole are stronger than they were before the pandemic,” Biden said.
Despite the progress the president noted, he said he recognizes Americans are still “anxious.”
“But I also know that despite this progress, families are anxious. They’re anxious about COVID. They’re anxious about the cost of living, the economy more broadly. They’re still uncertain. I want you to know I hear you,” he added. “You need to see it and feel it in your own lives around the kitchen table and in your checkbooks.”
To that end, he reiterated his nine-point plan to combat COVID-19 this winter as a way to show that the administration is aiming to protect the economy as the pandemic continues and the new omicron variant spreads.
While he said it’s impossible to “build a wall around America” to keep the virus out, Biden said the new measures he announced Thursday are “sufficient” to deal with the omicron variant, and the White House is not considering any new measures for domestic travel, such as requiring travelers be vaccinated.
ABC News’ Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.
(OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich.) — The parents charged in connection with this week’s deadly shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan are returning to town for their arraignment, their attorney said, after detectives announced they were trying to locate the couple.
James and Jennifer Crumbley were each charged Friday with four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Their son, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, allegedly used his father’s semi-automatic handgun in the Tuesday shooting that killed four and injured seven.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said the Crumbleys’ attorney would make arrangements for their arrest if charges were issued, and when the warrants were issued Friday, “detectives immediately moved to arrest the couple,” the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said.
The attorney told police “she had made repeated attempts to reach them by phone and text without success,” the sheriff’s office said.
Bouchard said, “The action of fleeing and ignoring their attorney certainly adds weight to the charges. They cannot run from their part in this tragedy.”
The couple’s attorneys then said in a statement: “The Crumbleys left town on the night of the tragic shooting for their own safety. They are returning to the area to be arraigned. They are not fleeing from law enforcement.”
Earlier on Friday, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald at a news conference outlined an alarming and violent note Ethan Crumbley allegedly drew hours before the shooting that prompted his parents to be called to the school. She also stressed the importance of responsible gun ownership.
“While the shooter was the one who entered the high school and pulled the trigger, there are other individuals who contributed to this, to the events on November 30, and it is my intention to hold them accountable,” McDonald said.
Ethan Crumbley was with his father when he bought the 9 mm Sig Sauer pistol on Nov. 26, McDonald said. The teen posted photos of the gun on social media, writing, “Just got my new beauty today,” she said. Jennifer Crumbley also posted online about testing the gun out with her son, McDonald said.
A teacher saw Ethan Crumbley researching ammunition in class days before the shooting, the prosecutor said. School officials contacted his parents, but they didn’t respond, McDonald said. However, according to the prosecutor, Jennifer Crumbley texted her son, writing, “lol, I’m not mad at you, you have to learn not to get caught.”
According to McDonald, the morning of Tuesday’s shooting, Ethan Crumbley’s teacher saw an alarming note on his desk. McDonald described the note as “a drawing of a semi-automatic handgun pointing at the words, ‘The thoughts won’t stop, help me.’ In another section of the note was a drawing of a bullet with the following words above that bullet, ‘Blood everywhere.'”
“Between the drawing of the gun and the bullet is a drawing of a person who appears to have been shot twice and bleeding,” she said. “Below that figure is a drawing of a laughing emoji. Further down the drawing are the words, ‘My life is useless,’ and to the right of that are the words, ‘The world is dead.'”
Ethan Crumbley was removed from the classroom and his parents were called to the school, McDonald said. By the time a counselor obtained the drawing, the teen had allegedly altered it, McDonald said.
“At the meeting, James and Jennifer Crumbley were shown the drawing and were advised that they were required to get their son into counseling within 48 hours,” she said. “Both James and Jennifer Crumbley failed to ask their son if he had his gun with him or where his gun was located and failed to inspect his backpack for the presence of the gun, which he had with him.”
The parents left school while Ethan Crumbley returned to class, likely with the gun in his backpack, McDonald said.
Once news broke of a shooting at the school, McDonald said Jennifer Crumbley texted her son, “Ethan, don’t do it.”
James Crumbley called 911 to report that a gun was missing from his house and said he believed his son may be the shooter, McDonald said.
Authorities determined James Crumbley’s semi-automatic handgun was stored unlocked in a drawer in his bedroom, McDonald said.
McDonald said involuntary manslaughter is “the strongest possible charge that we could prove” against the suspect’s parents.
“These charges are intended to hold the individuals who contributed to this tragedy accountable and also send a message that gun owners have a responsibility. When they fail to uphold that responsibility, there are serious and criminal consequences,” she said.
Ethan Crumbley has been charged as an adult with one count of terrorism causing death; four counts of first-degree murder; seven counts of assault with intent to murder; and 11 counts of possession of a firearm in commission of a felony.
A judge entered a not guilty plea for Ethan Crumbley on Wednesday. His next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 13.
(OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich.) — The parents of a teenager accused of killing four classmates at Oxford High School in Michigan have been charged in connection to the school shooting.
James and Jennifer Crumbley were each charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald announced Friday.
The suspected gunman, 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley, allegedly used his father’s semi-automatic handgun, a 9mm Sig Sauer pistol, in the Tuesday shooting that killed four and injured seven. Ethan Crumbley has been charged as an adult with one count of terrorism causing death; four counts of first-degree murder; seven counts of assault with intent to murder; and 11 counts of possession of a firearm in commission of a felony.
McDonald at a news conference outlined an alarming and violent note the suspect allegedly drew hours before the shooting that prompted his parents to be called to the school. She also stressed the importance of responsible gun ownership.
“While the shooter was the one who entered the high school and pulled the trigger, there are other individuals who contributed to this, to the events on November 30, and it is my intention to hold them accountable,” McDonald said.
Ethan Crumbley was with his father when he bought the gun on Nov. 26, McDonald said. The teen posted photos of the gun on social media, writing, “Just got my new beauty today,” she said. Jennifer Crumbley also posted online about testing the gun out with her son, McDonald said.
A teacher saw Ethan Crumbley researching ammunition in class days before the shooting, the prosecutor said. School officials contacted his parents, but they didn’t respond, McDonald said. However, according to the prosecutor, Jennifer Crumbley texted her son, writing, “lol, I’m not mad at you, you have to learn not to get caught.”
According to McDonald, the morning of Tuesday’s shooting, Ethan Crumbley’s teacher saw an alarming note on his desk. McDonald described the note as “a drawing of a semi-automatic handgun pointing at the words, ‘The thoughts won’t stop, help me.’ In another section of the note was a drawing of a bullet with the following words above that bullet, ‘Blood everywhere.'”
“Between the drawing of the gun and the bullet is a drawing of a person who appears to have been shot twice and bleeding,” she said. “Below that figure is a drawing of a laughing emoji. Further down the drawing are the words, ‘My life is useless,’ and to the right of that are the words, ‘The world is dead.'”
Ethan Crumbley was removed from the classroom and his parents were called to the school, McDonald said. By the time a counselor obtained the drawing, the teen had allegedly altered it, McDonald said.
“At the meeting, James and Jennifer Crumbley were shown the drawing and were advised that they were required to get their son into counseling within 48 hours,” she said. “Both James and Jennifer Crumbley failed to ask their son if he had his gun with him or where his gun was located and failed to inspect his backpack for the presence of the gun, which he had with him.”
The parents left school while Ethan Crumbley returned to class, likely with the gun in his backpack, McDonald said.
Once news broke of a shooting at the school, McDonald said Jennifer Crumbley texted her son, “Ethan, don’t do it.”
James Crumbley called 911 to report that a gun was missing from his house and said he believed his son may be the shooter, McDonald said.
Authorities determined James Crumbley’s semi-automatic handgun was stored unlocked in a drawer in his bedroom, McDonald said.
McDonald said involuntary manslaughter is “the strongest possible charge that we could prove” against the suspect’s parents.
“These charges are intended to hold the individuals who contributed to this tragedy accountable and also send a message that gun owners have a responsibility. When they fail to uphold that responsibility, there are serious and criminal consequences,” she said.
A judge entered a not guilty plea for Ethan Crumbley on Wednesday. His next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 13.
