The annual National Christmas Tree Lighting in Washington, D.C., will feature a star-studded lineup that includes soul/R&B legend Patti LaBelle and will be hosted by recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee LL Cool J.
Other performers who will be on hand to spread some holiday cheer at the event include Chris Stapleton, H.E.R., Keb’ Mo’, Kristin Chenoweth, Maren Morris and Billy Porter. The lighting ceremony will be taped on Thursday, December 2, on The Ellipse in President’’ Park in the nation’s capital.
Brad Paisley will head across the pond next summer for a seven-date European run that kicks off in Glasgow, Scotland.
The overseas trip will also take him to cities in the Netherlands, Norway, Germany and more. “Kiss Somebody” hit-maker Morgan Evans, who recently released his new EP The Country and the Coast Side A, will join Brad as an opening act.
A couple months after the tour, Brad will share the stage with Morgan once again — and Kane Brown, too — during a stop in Australia as part of CMC Rocks Fest. That performance will take place in September.
Brad also serves as duet partner on Jimmie Allen’s latest country radio single, “Freedom Was a Highway.” Over the summer, he also shared a new song called “City of Music.”
(NEW YORK) — Nearly 57 years after the assassination of Malcolm X in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance is moving to vacate the convictions of two of the men convicted as accomplices, his office said Wednesday.
Muhammad Aziz, now 83 and previously known as Norman Butler, spent 22 years in prison before he was paroled in 1985. A co-defendant who also maintained his innocence, Khalil Islam, died in 2009. Confessed assassin Thomas Hagan had long said neither man participated in killing Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965.
Vance’s office, along with the Innocence Project and civil rights attorney David Shanies, began reexamining the investigation last year.
“The assassination of Malcolm X was a historic event that demanded a scrupulous investigation and prosecution but, instead, produced one of the most blatant miscarriages of justice that I have ever seen,” Barry Scheck with the Innocence Project said in a statement Wednesday.
A spokesman said the FBI cooperated with the district attorney’s review.
Vance, Shanies Law and Innocence Project will file a joint motion on Thursday to vacate the 1966 convictions.
“The joint motion is the culmination of a collaborative reinvestigation of the case which began in January 2020 and unearthed new evidence of Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam’s innocence, including FBI documents that had been available at the time of trial but were withheld from both the defense and prosecution,” the lawyers for Aziz and Islam said in a statement Wednesday.
This past February new questions were raised about the NYPD’s handling of the investigation after a letter surfaced that had been written by a former New York City Police Department officer on his death bed.
On Jan. 25, 2011, Ray Wood, who was serving as an undercover police officer on the day of Malcolm X’s death, wrote a letter in which he admitted he “participated in actions that in hindsight were deplorable and detrimental to the advancement of my own black people.”
When Wood was hired by the NYPD in 1964, his job was to “infiltrate civil rights organizations” to find evidence of criminal activity so the FBI could discredit the subjects and arrest its leaders, Wood wrote in the letter obtained by ABC News.
Wood’s handler devised the arrest of two of Malcolm X’s “key” security detail members in a plot to bomb the Statue of Liberty days before his 1965 assassination, Wood wrote.
“It was my assignment to draw the two men into a felonious federal crime, so that they could be arrested by the FBI and kept away from managing Malcolm X’s door security on February 21, 1965,” Wood wrote. “… At that time I was not aware that Malcolm X was the target.”
Wood wrote that, as he faced failing health, he was concerned that the family of Thomas Johnson, one of the men convicted of killing Malcolm X, would not be able to exonerate him after Wood died. Johnson was arrested at the Audubon Ballroom the night Malcolm X was killed to protect Wood’s cover and “the secrets of the FBI and NYPD,” Wood wrote.
Wood placed his full confession into the care of his cousin, Reginald Wood Jr., and requested that the information be held until after his death.
“Muhammad’s and Khalil’s convictions were the product of gross official misconduct and a criminal justice system weighed against people of color,” Their exoneration was decades in the making and is proof that we need—and are able—to do better.” Deborah Francois, Shanies Law, said in a statement Wednesday.
The next Foo Fighters video apparently stars Ted Lasso’s evil twin.
The clip, which will accompany the Medicine at Midnight closer “Love Dies Young,” stars Jason Sudeikis as the coach of a synchronized swimming team. Instead of the warmhearted, folksy Midwesterner he plays on Ted Lasso, Sudeikis here portarys a gruff, mean coach with an accent of indeterminate origin whose harsh methods would make even Led Tasso blush.
You can watch a preview of the “Love Dies Young” video now via the Foo Fighters Twitter. The full thing is set to premiere on YouTube this Thursday, November 18, at 10 a.m. ET.
By the way, Sudeikis starring in a Foo Fighters video isn’t the first crossover between the two. The actor previously told Mark Hoppus‘ After School Radio Apple Music Hits program that the Foo song “My Hero” helped inspire the themes of Ted Lasso’s second season.
Still of Gold tier crypto artwork created by Diana Sinclair from the Whitney Houston Collection
Add the late Whitney Houston to the growing list of celebrities joining the growing world of NFTs. A demo song recorded by a then-17-year-old Whitney is about to hit the auction block.
OneOf, the NFT platform backed by Quincy Jones, announced that the track is a “never-before-heard full-length song.” The lucky winner of the auction “will have personal access to this recording in their OneOf Vault.”
The recording will be sold as part of an NFT collection that includes an accompanying music video created by 17-year-old artist Diana Sinclair featuring rare archival footage of Houston’s early days.
Joshua James, who co-founded OneOf, added, “We couldn’t be more excited to be releasing this historical song from the very beginning of her journey as an artist.”
Details of the two-day auction event are set to go live December 1. Proceeds from the sale will benefit the Whitney E. Houston Foundation, a nonprofit that continues the singer’s legacy in empowering and supporting young women.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, allow buyers to exercise sole ownership over a unique piece of digital media, such as individual songs, videos and images.
The seven-track collection features previously unheard early recordings of Aerosmith playing several songs in their rehearsal room, one year before the band was signed to Columbia Records. The release will be limited to only 10,000 vinyl copies and 2,000 cassettes, available exclusively at participating independent record shops on Friday, November 26.
Among the songs Aerosmith performs on the recording are versions of five tunes that went on to appear on the band’s 1973 self-titled debut album — the aforementioned “Movin’ Out,” the classic rock anthem “Dream On,” “Mama Kin,” “Somebody,” and a cover of Rufus Thomas‘ 1963 hit “Walkin’ the Dog.”
Here’s the full track list of 1971: The Road Starts Here:
Side A
“Rehearsal Room”
“Somebody”
“Reefer Headed Woman”/”Walkin’ the Dog”
Side B
“Movin’ Out”
“Major Barbra”
“Dream On”
“Mama Kin”
Weatherly and Dushku in “Bull” — Barbara Nitke/CBS via Getty Images
(NOTE CONTENT) Actress Eliza Dushku appeared via video before a House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to detail the “near-constant” sexual harassment she claims she suffered on the set of the CBS legal drama Bull.
According to a video of her testimony posted by Page Six, Dushku participated in a virtual hearing titled “Silenced: How Forced Arbitration Keeps Victims of Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment in the Shadow.”
Dushku claimed that she was subjected to “relentless…crude” comments, from her co-star, whom she didn’t identify by name as Michael Weatherly — whom she’d formerly and formally accused, eventually winning a multimillion dollar settlement from the network.
“[I]n my first week on my new job I found myself the brunt of crude, sexualized and lewd verbal assaults,” and “near-constant sexual harassment from my co-star,” she said.
The actress called the treatment “beyond anything I had experienced in my 30-year career.”
What’s more, the 40-year-old actress claimed that she was “fired and silenced when I attempted to address it.”
Many of the comments she claimed were directed at her were unprintably “crude.”
Dushku alleged that the co-star in question said he wanted to take her “to his rape van,” and that he’d “smell me and leeringly look me up and down.”
She added that the harassing comments “were incessant and demeaning and directed at me in the middle of what was supposed to be a professional workplace.”
CBS has not responded to Dushku’s new comments.
However, the network acknowledged in 2019 that Weatherly and executive producer Glenn Gordon Caron were receiving “leadership coaching.”
CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl said then, “[A]s the head of a show, [they want] to make the set a positive place to work.”
The network also noted at the time, “The allegations in Ms. Dushku’s claims are an example that, while we remain committed to a culture defined by a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace, our work is far from done.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 766,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 68.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-Moderna asks FDA to authorize booster for all adults
-27 states see at least 10% jump in daily cases
-FDA may issue guidance on boosters for adults as soon as this week
-Pfizer asks FDA for COVID-19 pill authorization
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Nov 17, 2:26 pm
Moderna asks FDA to authorize booster for all adults
Moderna has now asked the FDA to authorize its COVID-19 booster for all adults.
Pfizer has already asked the FDA to amend its booster authorization to all adults.
The FDA could make an authorization decision by Friday. The CDC also needs to sign off. The CDC’s advisory committee will meet on Friday to discuss new booster recommendations.
Johnson & Johnson boosters are already authorized for everyone 18 and older.
ABC News’ Sony Salzman
Nov 17, 1:24 pm
2.6 million kids to be vaccinated by end of day: White House
Nearly 10% of the 28 million eligible 5- to 11-year-olds will be partially vaccinated by the end of Wednesday, White House COVID coordinator Jeff Zients said at a White House briefing.
The kids vaccine program has been operational for about 10 days.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett
Nov 17, 12:43 pm
27 states see at least 10% jump in daily cases
The Northeast and Midwest have seen the greatest increase in cases and hospitalizations as the weather gets colder and people head indoors, according to federal data.
Twenty states have reported at least a 10% increase in hospital admissions over the last week: Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin.
Twenty-seven states have seen at least a 10% jump in daily cases over the last two weeks: Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, New York City, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin.
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos
Nov 17, 12:28 pm
Kansas, Maine offering boosters to all adults
All fully vaccinated adults in Kansas and Maine can now get a booster if it’s been six months since their Pfizer or Moderna dose or two months since their Johnson & Johnson shot, the governors said.
“Expanding access to booster shots will help us put an end to this deadly pandemic,” Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said in a statement.
Nirav D. Shah, director of the Maine CDC, said, “Given the high level of COVID-19 transmission occurring in Maine, we want Maine people to be clear that all adults are now eligible for a booster.”
Booster eligibility has been expanded to all adults in several other states, including New York, New Jersey, Arkansas and Colorado.
(LONDON) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson commented in a meeting Tuesday with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that the decision to return the famous Parthenon marbles to Greece would be left to the British Museum, rather than the coming from Downing Street.
This is a break from his previous comments to Greek newspaper Ta Nea in March, when Johnson said the marbles shouldn’t be sent back as they’d been “legally acquired” at the beginning of the 19th century.
The marble sculptures are part of a Frieze previously wrapped around the walls of the Parthenon, which represents the procession of the Panathenaic festival, a commemoration of the birthday of the goddess Athena. Built 442 to 438 BC by the great Greek sculptor Phidias, the Frieze is composed on 115 marble panels, adorned with carved reliefs that represent humans, divine figures, mythological creatures and animals honoring Athena.
In 1801, while Greece was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, several of these blocks were taken by Thomas Bruce, the lord of Elgin, who was then the British ambassador to Constantinople. According to the museum’s website, “Elgin’s workmen cut off with saws or crowbars only the faces of the blocks that bore the relief decoration.”
Elgin claimed he had secured a permit from the then Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Selim III, a fact still disputed — some say his permit only allowed for conducting research on the site.
“He secured a permit from the Sultan to conduct research on the Acropolis which was under Ottoman-Turkish rule. However, he did not limit himself to that, but went ahead and removed numerous sculptures,” according to the Acropolis museum website, which says the sculptures were “forcibly removed” and “looted.”
Upon Elgin’s return to Britain, the pieces where moved to the British Museum, where they’ve remained.
“His actions were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal, prior to the sculptures entering the collection of the British Museum by Act of Parliament,” says the British Museum’s website.
A large part of the Parthenon already had been destroyed in 1687, during a bombardment orchestrated by the Venetian army of Francesco Morosini against the Ottomans. The temple continued deteriorating until 2009, when the Acropolis museum was built at the foot of the monument, and all the marbles were transferred there for safekeeping.
While most of the remaining marbles are divided between the British Museum and the Acropolis Museum, some fragments can be found at the Louvres in Paris, at the Vatican and in other major western European capitals. Mitsotakis has offered to exchange the marbles for other Greek artifacts that could be shown in their place.
While the Louvres temporarily sent back some of its marbles to Greece in 2019, in exchange for other artifacts, the British museum has not relented.
Paul Cartledge, a professor emeritus of Greek culture at Cambridge University and vice-chair of the British Committee for the Return of the Parthenon Marbles, told ABC News that the responsibility lies with the British government, which would have to approve the museum’s final decision by rescinding the 1816 parliamentary act that legally recognized ownership of the marbles.
“As the recent September 2021 UNESCO conference on cultural property reaffirmed,” Cartledge wrote in an email, “the decision and prior negotiations have to be ultimately nation-to-nation, Greece-to-Britain, and it has to be the decision of the U.K. Parliament.”
(NEW YORK) — Sixty-thousand inmates potentially did not properly receive credits for time served under the First Step Act’s recidivism programs, the Department of Justice inspector general found.
“We are concerned that the delay in applying earned time credits may negatively affect inmates who have earned a reduction in their sentence or an earlier placement in the community,” Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote in the report released Tuesday.
The inspector general also found that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) failed to incentivize or reward inmates who completed First Step-related programs.
After the implementation of the sweeping First Step Act, a recidivism program was put into place with time-served credit for inmates who completed it.
The BOP told the inspector general the credits weren’t applied because they “must be negotiated with the national union because it would create changes to conditions of employment, including determinations and application of earned time credits for inmates, for Unit Team staff working in BOP institutions who are bargaining unit employees,” according to the report.
The DOJ report noted that a lack of in-person negotiations with BOP union members slowed the implementation of the act and inspector general recommendations. BOP union negotiations weren’t taking place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite BOP staff going into federal prisons across the country.
The Bureau of Prisons union has not responded to ABC News’ request for comment.
“BOP disagrees with OIG’s characterization of the agency’s delayed implementation of FSA requirements,” the Bureau of Prisons wrote in a written response attached to the report. “Although the COVID- 19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for the federal government, BOP has taken significant steps in implementing the FSA’s requirements, consistent with the FSA’s phased approach, and has complied with all mandatory statutory guidelines to-date.”
On Tuesday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin called for Attorney General Merrick Garland to dismiss BOP Director Michael Carvajal after The Associated Press released a report detailing an amalgamation of federal charges against BOP employees.
“Director Carvajal was handpicked by former Attorney General Bill Barr and has overseen a series of mounting crises, including failing to protect BOP staff and inmates from the COVID-19 pandemic, failing to address chronic understaffing, failing to implement the landmark First Step Act and more,” Durbin said. “It is past time for Attorney General Garland to replace Director Carvajal with a reform-minded director who is not a product of the BOP bureaucracy.”
The Bureau of Prisons has been under scrutiny for more than half a decade for a multitude of issues.
Following the suicide of Jeffery Epstein at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, there were calls to revamp BOP totally, and former Attorney General Barr brought in former Director Kathleen Hawk Sawyer to run the agency. After she left, Caravajal took over.
