Month: November 2022

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Lizzo adds second North American leg to her ‘Special’ tour

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Lizzo has added a second North American leg to her successful 2022 Special tour. The second legdubbed The Special 2our — kicks off Friday, April 21st in Knoxville, TN at Thompson-Boling Arena.  The 17-date second leg of the tour continues through St. Louis, Montreal, Chicago and more before wrapping up on Friday, June 2, 2023, at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, CA.

Lizzo’s LP Special dropped in July 2022 and went on to debut at No. 2 with 69,000 equivalent album units sold in its first week, giving Lizzo her highest-charting album to date and the highest-charting album by a female artist in 2022 at the time.

Public on sale for the second leg The Special 2our will begin Friday, November 18th at 10 am local time via Ticketmaster.

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Ticketmaster cancels public ticket sale for Taylor Swift tour

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Ticketmaster announced that the public ticket sale for Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” on Fri, November 18th has been canceled. Ticketmaster tweeted on Thursday: “Due to extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand, tomorrow’s public on-sale for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour has been cancelled.” 

Ticket pre-sales began on Nov. 15, with the high demand causing Ticketmaster’s website to crash. The company previously had fans pre-register as Verified Fans before the sale, and over 3.5 million fans pre-registered for Swift’s program — the largest registration in Ticketmaster’s history.   After Ticketmaster’s announcement, Swift fans expressed their disappointment, and even created a website to attempt to take action against Ticketmaster “through collective action.”

Ticketmaster previously issued an explanation in response to the chaos surrounding buying tickets for Swift’s tour: “The Eras on sale made one thing clear: Taylor Swift is an unstoppable force and continues to set records. We strive to make ticket buying as easy as possible for fans, but that hasn’t been the case for many people trying to buy tickets for the Eras Tour. We want to share some information to help explain what happened …Even when a high demand on sale goes flawlessly from a tech perspective, many fans are left empty-handed. For example: based on the volume of traffic to our site, Taylor would need to perform over 900 stadium shows (almost 20x the number of shows she is doing)… that’s a stadium show every single night for the next 2.5 years.”

As of press time, there was no word on whether the general sale will be postponed, or how many tickets still remain after the pre-sale.

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Vehicle strikes and injures 25 LA County sheriff’s recruits on training run

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A vehicle struck a group of Los Angeles County sheriff’s recruits while they were out for a training run early Wednesday in Southern California. The recruits were in the midst of a training run in Whittier, Calif., when they were struck around 6:26 a.m. PST, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department said in a post on Facebook.

California Highway Patrol Assistant Chief Charlie Sampson said about 75 recruits were running in formation northbound in the street when the southbound vehicle veered into the opposing lane and struck the victims. Those who were at the front of the formation could see the vehicle coming and were able to get out of the way, while those behind couldn’t see and took the brunt of the impact.

Authorities said 25 people were injured in the crash, including the driver, and that five recruits were in critical condition. In addition to the five who were critically injured, there were four with moderate injuries and 14 with minor injuries. Officials said Wednesday at a press conference that the driver — identified as a 22-year-old man from Diamond Bar, California — was going the wrong way on the road. According to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, the driver passed a field sobriety test and “blew a 0.0 on a breathalyzer … So, the cause of the accident, motive, anything, is unknown at this time.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement: “Our hearts are with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s recruits injured this morning while training to serve their communities. Jennifer and I send our best wishes for their recovery and stand with their loved ones and colleagues at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department during this difficult time.”

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Mitch McConnell re-elected Senate GOP leader after defeating challenger Rick Scott

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Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell defeated challenger Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and was re-elected as Senate minority leader Wednesday with a vote of 37-10.

McConnell said at a news conference Wednesday that the Republican Party’s failure to pick up seats and win the majority in the Senate can be blamed on too much chaos and too much negativity by Republican candidates.  Said McConnell:  “Here’s the problem .. We underperformed among voters who did not like President Biden’s performance, among independents and among moderate Republicans who looked at us and concluded too much chaos, too much negativity, and we turned off a lot of these centrist voters, which is why I never predicted a red wave to begin with.”

McConnell’s secret ballot win over Scott happened after a motion by 16 GOP senators to delay the leadership election was defeated. GOP senators called for auditing the National Republican Senatorial Committee, after Sen. Scott accused former committee chair Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., of paying unauthorized and improper bonuses to committee staff in 2020. Citing a letter Scott sent to GOP senator’s seeking their votes, Scott reportedly said “it’s time for Senate Republican conference to be far more bold and resolute that we have been in the past.”

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Sam Smith tracklist for upcoming LP ‘Gloria’ features collaboration with Ed Sheeran

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Sam Smith shared the full tracklist for their highly-anticipated new album Gloria. Smith revealed the titles of the 13 tracks that will be included on their upcoming fourth studio album, and in addition to his collab with Kim Petras on their smash hit “Unholy,” Smith also teams up with Ed Sheeran, Jessie Reyez, and Koffee.

Smith shared his thoughts on Gloria:  “I’m feeling overwhelmed and emotional as I start to let go of Gloria and hand this work over to you. It has been magical in every way to make this piece of music and by giving this record to you I am giving you part of my heart and soul.”

Gloria drops on January 27th, 2023. Check out the full tracklist – here.

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Additional performers at 2022 American Music Awards include Bebe Rexha, Lil Baby and more

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ABC has revealed an updated lineup of performers set to take the stage at the 2020 American Music Awards, airing live this Sunday, Nov. 20 at 8 p.m. EST from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Hosted by Wayne Brady, the show will also be available for streaming on Hulu the following day.

The newly-announced artists set to perform at the AMAs include Stevie Wonder, Anitta, Bebe Rexha, David Guetta, Charlie Puth, Dove Cameron, Lil Baby, Ari Lennox, and GloRilla. They join previously announced artists Carrie Underwood, Imagine Dragons, JID, Yola, and DJ D-Nice.

In addiiton, P!NK will sing a tribute to the late Olivia Newton-John. and the show will honor 17-time AMA winner Lionel Richie with the prestigious Icon Award. As a part of the celebration, two-time AMA winner Stevie Wonder and two-time AMA nominee Charlie Puth will take the stage to perform a medley of Richie’s hit songs. They will be joined by Ari Lennox for the special tribute performance as well.

This year’s nominees include Adele, Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, Drake, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, and many more. Bad Bunny is the most nominated artist with eight total nods  Voting for all categories is open on VoteAMAs.com.

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Former President Donald Trump announces 2024 presidential campaign

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Former President Donald Trump announced his third presidential run on Tuesday night from his Mar-a-Lago residence. Trump officially launched his campaign for president in 2024, filing papers with the Federal Election Commission Tuesday night in which he declared himself a candidate for the presidency, and established a new campaign committee.

Trump announced to a crowded ballroom: “In order to make America great again, I am announcing my candidacy for president of the United States. This will not be my campaign. This will be our campaign. This is a task for a great movement. This is not for any one individual. This is a job for tens of thousands of people working together.” Trump added: “We are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation for millions of Americans,” speaking about President Joe Biden’s first two years running the nation. “I will ensure Joe Biden does not receive four more years … This campaign will be about issues, vision and success, and we will not stop, we will not quit, until we’ve achieved the highest goals and made our country greater than it has ever been before.”

Trump’s presidential announcement comes after many in the Republican Party urged the former president to postpone his campaign until after next month’s Georgia Senate runoff. Trump also may have to contend with the possibility of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis challenging him for the nomination. The 44-year-old DeSantis easily won re-election last week, and has already begun to gain support among some Republican politicians, who were disappointed with the poor showing of many Trump-endorsed candidates in the midterm elections. The Florida governor has reportedly met with donors and started assembling his own presidential campaign to challenge Trump for the GOP nomination.

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White House requests additional $37.7 billion from Congress for Ukraine aid

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The White House has asked Congress to approve $37.7 billion in additional aid for Ukraine. The request for Ukraine assistance includes $21.7 billion for military, intelligence and other defense support, $14.5 billion in humanitarian aid and to help keep the Ukrainian government functioning, $900 million for health care and support services for Ukrainians living in the U.S. and $626 million for nuclear security support to Ukraine and for modernizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. U.S. aid to Ukraine has already included tens of thousands of missiles and rockets for air defense and anti-armor systems, and more than 84 million rounds of ammunition, as well as drones, tanks, trucks, radars, body armor and other gear.

The White House has also requested a further $9.25 billion for COVID-19 response efforts. The coronavirus funding ask is considerably lower than the previous request of $22 billion, which reflects in part the changing nature of the virus and the continued effort to combat it. The request includes $2.5 billion for vaccines and therapeutics, $5 billion to support development of new vaccines, $750 million to support research into long COVID and $1 billion to combat the virus internationally.

Shalanda Young, the head of the White House budget office, wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday: “Staying ahead of COVID-19. Supporting Ukraine’s fight to defend its sovereignty. Helping Americans who have borne the brunt of natural disasters. … I urge the Congress to address them as part of a comprehensive, bipartisan agreement in the weeks ahead.”

Congress has until Dec. 16 to agree on a budget or pass an interim measure to avoid a government shutdown.

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BTS’ RM announces his debut solo album ‘Indigo’

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RM of BTS has announced the release of his debut solo album Indigo, set to drop next month. RM took to HYBE’s social networking platform Weverse to share a statement detailing the album: “Hello. Finally. Because of you, my first album is coming out. I prepared hard for four years. It’s very different from my previous work and there are a lot of fun friends included. Please support us until December 2.”  RM previously released his self-titled debut mixtape in 2015, and his follow-up mixtape, Mono, was released in 2018 which included the single “Forever Rain.”

BTS’ label BIGHIT MUSIC also released their own statement about RM’s solo debut: “RM has already given fans an honest look into his world through two mixtapes. Through ‘Indigo’, RM delivers his candid thoughts and feelings and showcases wide-ranging music through collaborations with various artists.”

RM is the third member of BTS to release solo music this year, following J-Hope and Jin (who just released his song “The Astronaut” last month). The band members are focusing on individual projects after they announced over the summer that they would be taking a break as a group to pursue solo endeavors.

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2023 Grammy Awards nominations are revealed: Beyoncé leads the list of nominees

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The Recording Academy has revealed the nominations for the 2023 Grammy Awards. The nominees were announced by Recording Academy president Harvey Mason Jr., John Legend, Machine Gun Kelly, Olivia Rodrigo, and other musical artists during a livestream event held on Tuesday.

Beyoncé leads the nominees with nine nominations, including Album of the Year and Best Dance/Electronic Album for Renaissance. The 2023 nominations bring Beyoncé’s lifetime total to 88 nominations, tying with her husband, rapper Jay-Z, for the most nominations in Grammy history.

Kendrick Lamar follows with eight nominations, including Album of the Year for Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, his first album in five years. Adele and Brandi Carlile both have seven nominations, and artists including Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Lizzo, Mary J. Blige, Doja Cat, Bad Bunny and BTS each earned multiple nominations.

The 65th Annual Grammy Award ceremony will take place Feb. 5 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles and air on CBS. The event will also be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.  For the complete list of 2023 nominees, head here.

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