Guns N’ Roses have premiered two new songs called “Atlas” and “Nothin’.”
“‘Nothin” and ‘Atlas’ find the long-running band still at the height of their powers, showcasing two different sides of their personality,” a press release reads. “‘Atlas’ is GNR in full surging rock mode, while ‘Nothin” grows more introspective over floaty keys and an emotive guitar.”
You can listen to both songs out now on digitaloutlets. They’ll be released on a 7-inch vinyl single that will be available to preorder starting Dec. 12.
“Atlas” and “Nothin'” mark the first new GN’R music since the 2023 singles “The General” and “Perhaps.” The most recent Guns N’ Roses album is 2008’s Chinese Democracy, which was released before Slash and Duff McKagan rejoined Axl Rose in the band in 2016.
Guns N’ Roses will launch a 2026 U.S. tour in July.
New York Attorney General Letitia James stands silently during a press conference on October 21, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The nationwide fight over the Trump Administration’s top prosecutors moves to an Albany courtroom this morning, when a federal judge hears arguments about whether Acting U.S. Attorney John Sarcone has the authority to act as Northern New York’s chief law enforcement officer.
New York Attorney General Letitia James began the legal fight against Sarcone after the Federal Bureau of Investigation served two grand jury subpoenas to her office for documents related to the civil cases against the Trump Organization and National Rifle Association.
The oral arguments over the legitimacy of the subpoenas and criminal investigation comes one week after a judge in Virginia dismissed a criminal mortgage fraud case against James over issues with the appointment of Trump’s handpicked prosecutor.
Lawyers for the attorney general’s office argue that the subpoenas and ongoing criminal investigations are a “flagrant abuse of the criminal justice system” to punish James’ office for bringing cases against the president, his business and his allies.
“The Executive Branch seeks to transform a personal grievance, which failed as civil claims, into a federal criminal prosecution—a plain and calculated campaign to harass a law enforcement agency that held Mr. Trump and his organization to account,” attorneys wrote in a motion to quash the subpoenas.
Last year, James won a half-billion-dollar penalty against Trump for inflating his net worth to secure better business deals, but a state appeals court vacated the financial penalty when it upheld the ruling earlier this year. According to court filings, a grand jury in Albany issued two subpoenas in August to the office to turn over any documents or records related to both cases to the Justice Department.
James’s office moved to quash both the subpoenas in August by arguing the subpoenas were issued in bad faith, lacked a legitimate legal basis, violated state sovereignty, infringed on First Amendment protections and were issued by an unlawfully appointed federal prosecutor.
“The U.S. Department of Justice asks this Court to treat this as an ordinary case. It portrays the subpoenas as routine. And it recites the usual standards governing grand jury investigations — while trying to ignore and trying to convince this Court to ignore the extraordinary reality before it, that these subpoenas are a flagrant abuse of the criminal justice system, even by this President’s standards,” lawyers for the office wrote.
Prosecutors with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York have defended the subpoenas by arguing that the grand jury has vast power to investigate James because she allegedly “repeatedly promised to investigate, prosecute and sue the NRA and President Trump.”
“The challenged subpoenas … were issued by a validly empaneled grand jury in the Northern District of New York, which is entitled to investigate whether Attorney General Letitia James — alone or in concert with others — violated federal law by selectively pursuing the NYOAG Lawsuits against the NRA and President Trump when other similarly situated entities and individuals went unpursued,” prosecutors wrote.
The legal fight took on an added significance in recent months as the Trump administration’s policy of circumventing the Senate confirmation process for many of its U.S. attorneys has been scrutinized and rejected by federal judges.
A federal judge recently dismissed criminal cases against James and former FBI Director James Comey because the president’s handpicked prosecutor lacked the authority to bring the cases, and a federal appeals court unanimously upheld a decision on Monday disqualifying Alina Habba as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield — a judge in the Southern District of New York overseeing the case after Northern District judges recused themselves — narrowed the purpose of today’s hearing to the sole question of whether Sarcone’s allegedly unlawful appointment invalidates the subpoenas.
Sarcone has functioned as the Acting U.S. attorney in Northern New York, but a panel of judges in July refused to permanently appoint him to lead the office following his controversial interim tenure. In response, Attorney General Pam Bondi named him as a “special attorney to the attorney general” who can indefinitely serve as northern New York’s top federal prosecutor.
Similar legal standoffs have sprouted across the country over the last few months, as federal courts have disqualified the U.S. attorneys in Nevada, California, and New Jersey. In each case, the Trump administration’s original picks to lead the office have remained in charge, bucking the long-standing practice of having the Senate confirm the president’s picks for the positions.
ock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Steve Cropper, founding member of Booker T. & the MG’s and the Blues Brothers Band, performs onstage at The Rose on September 28, 2018 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)
Booker T. and the M.G.’s guitarist Steve Cropper died Wednesday at the age of 84. The news was confirmed on Cropper’s Facebook page, which noted he “died peacefully in Nashville.”
“Steve was a beloved musician, songwriter, and producer whose extraordinary talent touched millions of lives around the world,” read the statement. “While we mourn the loss of a husband, father, and friend, we find comfort knowing that Steve will live forever through his music. Every note he played, every song he wrote, and every artist he inspired ensures that his spirit and artistry will continue to move people for generations.”
Booker T. and the M.G.’s was the house band for the legendary label Stax Records, with Cropper playing on iconic recordings like Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man” and Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) the Dock of the Bay,” which he co-wrote and produced. He also produced many Stax recordings, and co-wrote songs like “In The Midnight Hour” with Wilson Pickett, and “Knock on Wood” with Eddie Floyd.
After leaving Stax in 1970, he went on to work with artists like Rod Stewart, Ringo Starr,John Lennon, The Jeff Beck Group, Peter Frampton and others. Cropper was also the lead guitarist in the Blues Brothers, fronted by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, and appeared in the two Blues Brothers movies: 1980’s The Blues Brothers and 1998’s Blues Brothers 2000.
Despite his departure from Stax, Cropper continued to record and tour with Booker T. and the M.G.’s, and they released their last album, That’s the Way It Should Be, in 1994.
Cropper launched his solo career with the 1969 album With a Little Help From My Friends. He released his most recent album, 2024’s Friendlytown, with his band The Midnight Hour. It featured guest appearances by ZZ Top’s Billy F Gibbons and Queen’s Brian May.
Cropper, nicknamed “The Colonel,” won two Grammy awards and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 as a member of Booker T. and the M.G.’s. In 2005, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Catherine Stein, far right, speaks during a meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on September 18, 2025 in Chamblee, Georgia. (Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee is set to meet Thursday and Friday to discuss the childhood vaccine schedule, adjuvants and contaminants, and the hepatitis B vaccine.
It marks the third meeting this year of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) since Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members, replacing them with his own hand-selected picks, many of whom have expressed vaccine-skeptic views.
This is also the first meeting since the chair of the ACIP, Martin Kulldorff — a former Harvard Medical School professor — accepted a permanent role at HHS. Pediatric cardiologist and former U.S. Air Force flight surgeon Dr. Kirk Milhoan will chair the committee during the upcoming meeting.
Milhoan is a fellow with the Independent Medical Alliance, a group that has advocated for unproven treatments for COVID-19, including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
A draft agenda posted online indicates the ACIP will discuss and vote on recommendations around the hepatitis B vaccine on day one and discuss the childhood vaccine schedule on day two.
“I think every single thing on that agenda is concerning,” Dr. Richard Besser, resident and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and acting director of the CDC during the administration of former President Barack Obama, told ABC News. “We have an administration [that] seems hellbent on undermining people’s trust in vaccination.”
Hepatitis B vaccine
Since the new ACIP members were installed, the committee has recommended against flu vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal — despite public health experts saying there is no evidence that low doses of thimerosal in vaccines cause harm — and has narrowed existing recommendations for the combined MMRV shot that protects against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox.
The first day of the meeting will include presentations and discussions about the hepatitis B vaccine.
The agenda also lists a scheduled vote and, although it’s not clear what will be voted on, experts believe the universal hepatitis B vaccine dose given at birth will be at issue.
The CDC currently recommends that the first dose of the three-dose hepatitis B vaccine be given to babies within 24 hours of birth. Doctors have said the universal birth dose recommendation has virtually eliminated hepatitis B among babies in the U.S.
However, earlier this year, Kulldorff questioned whether it was “wise” to administer shots “to every newborn before leaving the hospital.” Separately, Kennedy has falsely linked the hepatitis B vaccine to autism.
Some experts believe the panel will vote to either delay or remove the decades-long recommendation that newborns be vaccinated against hepatitis B.
“I am concerned that the committee is going to attempt to minimize the harm resulting from any changes to this long-standing recommendation,” Dr. Fiona Havers, a former CDC official who worked on vaccine policy and led the CDC’s tracking of hospitalizations from COVID-19 and RSV, told ABC News.
“They’re going to say that there’s no need to vaccinate babies at birth because you can screen mothers and only vaccinate babies born to patients who test positive or whose status is unknown,” she continued.
Havers said only vaccinating high-risk babies was the policy in the U.S. before the universal birth dose was implemented, but it was changed after doctors saw that babies and children continued to be infected with hepatitis B.
Additionally, babies infected with hepatitis B are at risk for chronic infection as well as liver disease, liver failure and even liver cancer.
“Babies can be infected not only by their mother if she has hepatitis B, but also by caregivers or others in the community who may not know that they have hepatitis B and any change to the routine recommendation means that we will see an increase in hepatitis B infections in infants and children,” Havers said.
She added, “Any hepatitis B infections that occur because a child wasn’t vaccinated at birth are an avoidable tragedy. We will start seeing more children living with a lifelong incurable infection that can lead to death from cirrhosis or liver cancer.”
Childhood immunization schedule
Besser said he is particularly concerned about the second day, which includes a discussion about the childhood immunization schedule.
The draft agenda is scant on details aside from topics including CDC vaccine risk monitoring evaluation discussion, vaccine schedule history, vaccine schedule considerations and a discussion of the childhood/adolescent immunization schedule
Earlier this year, the ACIP formed two new work groups, one focusing on the cumulative effects of children and adolescents receiving all recommended vaccines on the schedule and another reviewing vaccines that haven’t been examined for more than seven years.
Kennedy has suggested that children receive too many vaccine doses “to be fully compliant” and that the number of doses children receive has increased from three doses during his childhood to 92 doses today.
Doctors previously told ABC News that children actually receive about 30 vaccine doses and that the number of available, recommended immunizations has grown since the first vaccines were recommended in the late 1940s, based on evolving science and manufacturing capacity.
Besser said he has not heard safety concerns about the schedule from vaccine experts, pediatricians, those who administer vaccines or patient advocacy groups.
“There had not been concerns raised around the immunization schedule and forming a group that is going to look at [the schedule] wholesale when the going-in presumption is that it’s not safe really, really worries me,” Besser said.
The panel will also discuss vaccine “adjuvants and contaminants,” according to the draft agenda.
In a 2023 interview on The Joe Rogan Experience, Kennedy claimed aluminum adjuvants are neurotoxins and are associated with allergies, including food allergies.
The CDC says adjuvants are ingredients used in some vaccines to help boost the immune response and have been used safely in vaccines for more than 70 years.
We have never, ever been happier. Euphoria season 3 is set to premiere on HBO and HBO Max on April 3, 2026. The network made the announcement by sharing a graphic featuring Zendaya in costume as Rue to its Instagram. “Let’s ride. April 2026. #Euphoria,” the caption reads …
More episodes of Your Friends & Neighbors are headed to Apple TV in the spring. The streaming service has revealed that season 2 of the Jon Hamm-starring drama series from creator Jonathan Tropper will premiere on April 3, 2026. A new episode of the show will drop weekly each Friday through June 5. Season 2 finds Hamm’s Andrew Cooper doubling down on his life as a suburban thief. James Marsden joins the cast that also stars Amanda Peet and Olivia Munn …
New seasons of Boston Blue and Sheriff Country are in the works. CBS has renewed the two broadcast series for sophomore seasons. They’ll both air during the 2026-27 TV season. Boston Blue is a spinoff of the network’s series Blue Bloods, while Sheriff Country is an offshoot of the drama series Fire Country …
Luigi Mangione (R) appears for a suppression of evidence hearing in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan Criminal Court on December 01, 2025 in New York City. (Steven Hirsch-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A year to the day after Luigi Mangione allegedly stalked and gunned down United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan sidewalk, the 27-year-old alleged killer returns to court Thursday as a high-profile hearing in his state murder case enters its third day.
His lawyers are attempting to convince the judge overseeing his case to prohibit prosecutors from using critical evidence, including the alleged murder weapon and Mangione’s journal. They argue the evidence was unlawfully seized from his backpack without a warrant during his arrest.
The hearing has the potential to sideline what prosecutors say is some of the strongest evidence of Mangione’s guilt, and has provided the most detailed preview to date of their case against the alleged killer. As Mangione sat alongside his lawyers, the accused gunman has rewatched the video of him allegedly shooting Thompson in the back and heard from the officer who arrested him a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
“It’s him. I have been seeing all the pictures. He is nervous as hell. I ask him have you been in New York, he’s all quiet,” Altoona police officer Joseph Detwiler told the courtroom on Tuesday.
Prosecutors have so far called six witnesses to make their case that Mangione was lawfully arrested five days after allegedly killing Thompson. They presented security footage inside the McDonalds showing Mangione enter around 9 a.m., the recording of the restaurant’s manager calling 911, and body camera footage of officers approaching Mangione before his arrest.
Defense attorneys have homed in on the 20 minutes between officers confronting Mangione and arresting him. They argue that Mangione’s rights were violated because they waited too long to read his Miranda rights.
During his day-long testimony on Tuesday, Detwiler offered his account of the high-profile arrest, telling the courtroom that he was so skeptical that the McDonald’s tip was legitimate that he didn’t even turn on his sirens on the way to the restaurant. But once he asked Mangione to pull down his face mask, Detwiler said he “knew it was him immediately.”
“Were you up in New York recently?” Detwiler asked Mangione, according to body camera footage played in court.
According to Detwiler, Mangione claimed he was homeless and presented a New Jersey driver’s license with the name Mark Rosario. As Christmas music played in the McDonald’s, the video showed Detwiler attempting to make small talk with Mangione while a dozen officers arrived at the restaurant. Twenty minutes after he was first approached, Mangione was in handcuffs and under arrest for providing a fake ID to officers.
The hearing could last into next week. The coming days are expected to focus on Mangione’s backpack, which officers placed on a table out of Mangione’s reach during the arrest — a standard move, according to Detwiler, to ensure the officers’ safety.
Defense lawyers say that another officer conducted an illegal search of the bag while the arrest was underway, eventually finding a 3D-printed handgun that prosecutors say is the murder weapon. Mangione’s attorneys argue that the gun and Mangione’s writings — in which Mangione allegedly blasts the health care insurance industry and plans the assassination — were the products of an illegal search and should never be shown to a jury.
(WASHINGTON) — A 19-year old college student who was deported the week before Thanksgiving after a federal judge blocked her removal said she was handcuffed and later forced to sleep on the floor in a detention center.
“I burst into tears because I couldn’t believe it, and spending the night there, sleeping on the floor,” Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, speaking from Honduras, told ABC News in an exclusive interview.
Lopez Belloza, who entered the U.S. from Honduras with her family when she was 8 years old, was about to board her flight from Massachusetts to Texas last Friday to surprise her parents for the holiday when immigration authorities detained her.
“When they told me, ‘You’re going to come with us’ … I was like, ‘Oh, I have a plane that I literally have to be there right now.’ They’re like, ‘No, you’re not even going to go on the plane,'” Lopez Belloza said.
The college freshman told ABC News that immigration officers declined to answer her repeated questions about why she was arrested and where she was going.
Court documents obtained by ABC News show that within hours of her detainment, a federal judge ordered the government not to remove Lopez Belloza from the U.S. and not to transfer her outside of Massachusetts.
But she was transferred that evening to a detention center in Texas and deported to Honduras the next day despite the court order.
“How does it feel to know that you were deported despite a judge saying that you should not be?” ABC News asked.
“It feels unfair,” Lopez Belloza said. “If there was an order, then why did everything happen to me so fast, within three days?”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told ABC News that Lopez Belloza had been issued an order for removal in 2015, but Lopez Belloza said she was surprised when authorities informed her of that.
“On November 20, CBP arrested Any Lopez-Belloza, an illegal alien from Honduras, as she was attempting to board a flight at Boston Logan International Airport,” the DHS spokesperson said. “This illegal alien entered the country in 2014 and an immigration judge ordered her removed from the country in 2015, over 10 years ago. She has illegally stayed in the country since.”
“Illegal aliens should use the CBP Home app to fly home for free and receive $1,000 stipend, while preserving the option to return the legal, right way,” said the DHS spokesperson. “It’s an easy choice leave voluntarily and receive $1,000 check or stay and wait till you are fined $1,000 day, arrested, and deported without a possibility to return legally.”
Lopez Belloza told ABC News that her parents were not aware she was traveling to Texas for the holidays.
“They didn’t know that I was at the airport,” she said. “They didn’t know nothing … and I just thought … now the surprise is going to be that I got arrested. It shouldn’t have been this way.”
“I feel like I made a mistake by me going to the airport … I’ve never, lied to my parents in that kind of way,” she said.
Lopez Belloza said this is her first time back in Honduras since her family fled the country more than a decade ago. She said her family thinks her deportation isn’t fair because she has no criminal record and was “just focusing on her studies.”
She told ABC News that she was living her American Dream.
“My parents, who they work so hard to be able to send me to college,” she said. “And I got really good financial aid. I really got a good college that basically wanted me, and I wanted them.”
“My dream was for me to be in college, fulfill not only mine but also my family dream … for me to be in college, be one of the first ones in my family to be there,” she said. “It was like … wow … I’m doing this. It’s happening.”
The 19-year-old was removed as part of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, under which half a million migrants have been deported and at least another 1.6 million have self-deported.
When asked by ABC News what her message would be to President Donald Trump, Lopez Belloza said, “Why is he getting people who are living in the United States working day and night, people, people like me, who are in college, doing their dreams, having an education?”
The healthcare.gov website on a laptop arranged in Norfolk, Virginia, US, on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — One in four Americans covered by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are considering going without health insurance if their monthly premiums double next year, a new KFF poll published Thursday finds.
Open enrollment for the ACA began last month, and many Americans experienced sticker shock upon receiving their annual notices and discovering their 2026 premiums would be increasing.
At the same time, enhanced premium tax credits under the ACA, which help lower the cost of monthly premiums for about 22 million Americans, are set to expire at the end of the year, and it’s unclear if Congress will take action to extend them.
The survey, which included a nationally representative sample of 1,350 U.S. adults between ages 18 and 64 and was conducted during early to mid-November, found that many Americans are reconsidering coverage on the ACA marketplaces.
“What we’re really interested in is understanding how marketplace enrollees are thinking about their decisions around coverage in 2026 … and so we wanted to actually hear from the people that were being directly impacted by this,” Ashley Kirzinger, director of survey methodology at KFF, told ABC News.
The survey found that one in three people covered under the ACA said they would “very likely” shop for a cheaper plan if their premium payments doubled, or if they currently don’t pay a premium and would have to pay $50 a month.
Kirzinger said the finding that one in four Americans would “very likely” forego insurance if faced with the same scenario is concerning.
“One of the things that the Affordable Care Act did was decrease our uninsurance rate in this country,” she said. “And so this could have major implications and major consequences as more people become uninsured for the first time in a decade.”
“And so, it’s not that they want to go without coverage. It’s that that may be the only option available to them,” Kirzinger added.
‘We have to judge the value of our health’
One of the survey respondents, Jon, 38, from Florida, who withheld his last name due to privacy reasons, said his family needs a health insurance plan on the marketplace that has good coverage because his wife has an autoimmune disorder.
The monthly premium — which covers Jon, his wife and their two children — is currently $2,000 per month and is going up to $2,500 per month next year.
“Having health insurance is important,” he told ABC News. “We’re one accident from not being financially okay, one accident away from not being able to cover the cost of food, daily expenses.”
Jon said that his family is considering a plan next year that would lower the cost of the monthly premium but would raise their copay for doctor’s visits and emergency room visits
“Now we have to judge what the value of our health and nobody should have to judge the value of that,” he said.
The survey also found that 58% of enrollees, or six in 10 Americans, say they could not afford an annual increase of just $300 per year without significantly disrupting their household finances.
An additional 20% said they would not be able to afford a $1,000 per year increase without disrupting their finances.
If total health care costs — including premiums, deductibles and other expenses increase by $1,000 next year, about 67% of marketplace enrollees said they would likely cut down on daily household needs and 41% said they would likely skip or delay other bills, according to the survey.
‘Our most difficult monthly cost’
More than half of ACA policyholders, or 54%, said they expect the cost of their health insurance coverage next year to “increase a lot more than usual,” with one in four saying it will “increase a little more than usual,” the survey found.
Another survey respondent, Venus, 27, from Kentucky, who withheld her last name due to privacy reasons, told ABC News it’s currently difficult to pay for the cost of her and her husband’s monthly health insurance premiums.
“Mainly because we only have one income and we have to pay for two health insurances for people with two different chronic illnesses,” she said. “It’s our most difficult monthly cost to pay.”
Venus explained that because they need an insurance plan with a higher deductible, their premium is lower, but out-of-pocket costs are higher.
She and her husband pay about $200 each month, and their monthly premium is expected to increase $90, which will eat into their monthly budget.
If premiums doubled, she said she and her husband would have to consider going without insurance.
“I don’t even have the words for that,” she said, “Paying for insulin out-of-pocket, I just couldn’t imagine.”
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (C) speaks during a Cabinet meeting alongside (L-R) U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy in the Cabinet Room of the White House on December 02, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, the commander at the center of the controversial Sept. 2 strikes on an alleged drug-running boat in the Caribbean Sea, has served for decades as a Navy SEAL officer while rising through the ranks to lead all U.S. special operators globally.
Bradley will brief lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday in a bipartisan inquiry into the incident, in which two survivors from a first strike were later seen climbing back into the boat, a source familiar with the incident told ABC News.
The source said the pair of survivors were later killed in a second strike because they were deemed to “still be in the fight” because they were in communications with other vessels nearby and were gathering some of the cargo of drugs the boat had been carrying.
The White House and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have said it was Bradley’s call to order the second strike.
The initial attack was overseen by Hegseth himself, who told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that he watched the first strike unfold before leaving for meetings. He said he did not see any survivors or any further strikes that followed.
“Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat,” Hegseth said.
“He sunk the boat, sunk the boat, and eliminated the threat. And it was the right call. We have his back,” he said.
At the time of the attack, Bradley was the three-star admiral in command of the Joint Special Operations Command that oversees the most sensitive special operations missions carried out by units like SEAL Team Six and Delta Force.
Bradley graduated in 1991 from the U.S. Naval Academy, where he studied physics and was a varsity gymnast, according to his Navy biography, and has commanded at all levels of U.S. special operations.
He was among the first to deploy into Afghanistan after the 9/11 terror attacks, his bio says.
Originally from Eldorado, Texas, Bradley earned a Master’s Degree in physics from Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he received a provisional patent for his research in 2006, according to his bio.
Those who served with him characterized him as among the military’s best.
Retired Navy Cdr. Eric Oelerich, a former SEAL and current ABC News contributor, said Bradley, who’s been a mentor to him for decades, is an adaptive leader and “one of the most intelligent officers” in the U.S. military.
“Bradley is an example of the very best of what is in the U.S. military,” said Oelerich, who commanded special operators as a Navy officer. “And he is a man extremely grounded in morality.”
Retired Brig. Gen. Shawn Harris, who worked with Bradley and is now a Democratic candidate for Congress in Georgia, told ABC News the admiral is “an outstanding leader.”
Used to operating in the shadows as a senior special operations leader, Bradley made a rare public appearance in July at a Senate confirmation hearing. Nominated to serve as the four-star commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, he was confirmed and assumed the rank and command role in October.
At the time of the September strike, Bradley headed Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which has operational authority over the military’s elite special warfare units.
In his confirmation hearing to lead Special Operations Command, the parent organization of JSOC, Bradley said officers under his command would be focused on preventing civilian harm and the laws of war.
“Just to resonate, it is not only an obligation to adhere to the law of armed conflict to protect civilians, it is critical to our success and competition to represent our values,” Bradley told Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “I believe that every uniformed, every civilian, and every contractor that is employed or in oversight of the use of lethal force has a critical obligation to be able to do that, and I do commit to keeping that as a focus for our command, if confirmed.”
Warren replied, “That is a strong answer, and I appreciate it.”
The administration has maintained that the 11 people killed in the Sept. 2 incident — as well as the more than 80 killed by strikes in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean — were not civilians but rather terrorist combatants that the U.S. was empowered to kill on self-defense grounds.
Some legal experts, including a group of former military lawyers, have said they believe the people killed in the follow-up strikes were no longer in the fight and therefore not legal military targets.
