The law prohibits “adult cabaret performance,” which includes “topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators, or similar entertainers,” on public property or in places it could be seen by a minor. Lee also passed a law banning gender-affirming health care for minors.
In a statement posted to Bonnaroo’s Twitter, organizers for the festival, which has been held in Manchester, Tennessee, since 2002, write, “Bonnaroo has and will always be a place for inclusivity, a safe haven for people of all walks of life and a champion of self-expression.”
“Rest assured The Farm will remain a sanctuary for those freedoms,” the statement continues. “Bonnaroovians will see no changes in programming or celebration of self-expression at the festival.”
This year’s Bonnaroo takes place June 15-18. The lineup includes Foo Fighters, Paramore, Portugal. The Man, Korn, AFI and Marcus Mumford, among others.
Dead & Company has added a very special show to their final tour. Earlier this week the band started teasing a May 8 concert, with what appeared to be the Cornell University logo with the Grateful Dead lightening bolt, leading to speculation they were going to be doing a show at the school. Well, now they’ve confirmed the gig.
“There’s a lot of excitement brewing about what’s to come at Cornell University,” Dead & Company shared on Instagram. “Yes – it’s true – Dead & Company will be playing a benefit concert at @CornellUniversity!”
The “very special show” will take place at Barton Hall, with proceeds benefiting MusiCares and The Cornell 2030 Project. Only a limited number of tickets will be available for the show, and so far there’s no word on when they’ll go on sale.
The new Cornell show coincides with the 46th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s infamous May 8, 1977, Barton Hall concert, which was a legendary band bootleg before officially being released in May 2017. In 2012, a soundboard recording of the show was chosen by the Library of Congress for the National Recording Registry.
We are two weeks away from the release of U2’s new album, Songs of Surrender, and they are giving fans yet another taste of what to expect. The Irish rockers just released their reworked version of the All That You Can’t Leave Behind classic “Beautiful Day,” which is a much quieter version than the original, with some new lyrics added toward the end.
Dropping March 17, Songs of Surrender contains 40 reimagined and rerecorded songs, all curated and produced by The Edge. This is the fourth song U2 has shared from Songs of Surrender, joining “One,” “With or Without You” and “Pride (In The Name of Love).”
“Beautiful Day,” released in October 2000, earned the band three Grammy Awards: Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Donna Summer‘s classic album She Works Hard For The Money, and to celebrate a digital-only anniversary deluxe edition of the album has just been released.
The new deluxe edition includes the original album’s nine tracks, along with four bonus tracks that have never been available for digital download or streaming. They include two club mixes, and two instrumental versions of the album’s title track and the song “Unconditional Love,” featuring the group Musical Youth.
Originally released June 13, 1983, She Works Hard For The Money peaked at nine on the Billboard 200 Album chart and was certified Gold by the RIAA. The title track went to three on the Hot 100 singles chart and earned Summer a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
The new release comes ahead of the upcoming documentary Love to Love You, Donna Summer, which will have its U.S. premiere at SXSW on March 11, then debut on HBO/HBO Max in May.
(NOTE LANGUAGE) Chris Rock takes the stage Saturday night in Netflix’s first live special, but before Selective Outrage drops, the celebrated comedian appears to have been workshopping some material about Will Smith.
Rock hasn’t said much about being the target of Smith’s infamous Oscar-night slap, but if several reports are accurate, he’s coming loaded for bear when he grabs the mic on March 4.
The Baltimore Sun says Rock reportedly told a packed Hippodrome Theatre of Smith’s latest film, “The other day, I watched Emancipation just so I could watch him getting whipped.”
Indeed, the title of the Netflix special seems to be part of his Smith material. “Will Smith practices selective outrage,” Rock reportedly said, noting frequent jokes at Will’s expense regarding Jada Pinkett Smith‘s reported “entanglement” with singer August Alsina were the real cause. And Rock insists he supported Smith throughout that media circus.
The comedian also mentions how before the infamous Oscars incident, “I rooted for Will Smith my whole life.”
Rock reportedly said of the marital headlines, “I felt so bad for Will, I tried to call and give him my condolences,” Rock reportedly said.
“Everybody was calling him a b**** except me. But who does he hit? Me.”
Rock also reportedly said of the slap, “People who are in the know, know that s*** had nothing to do with me.”
“We have all been cheated on,” Rock reportedly said, adding of Jada, “She hurt him way more than he ever hurt me.”
Also of note, Rock did keep Smith’s “wife’s name” out of his mouth, as Will admonished him to do during the Oscars outburst: The paper mentions Rock never referred to Jada by her name.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump is seeking to block an infamous recording from being introduced as evidence in a defamation trial scheduled for next month.
E. Jean Carroll, the former Elle columnist who sued Trump for defamation after he denied raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s, wants to include as evidence the 2005 video of Trump bragging to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush about groping women.
“I don’t even wait,” Trump is heard saying on the tape, which came to light during the 2016 presidential race. “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything, grab them by the p—-, you can do anything.”
Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, said in a filing with the court late Thursday that the Access Hollywood tape shares no unique characteristics to the Carroll case.
“The conduct described on the Tape, which Defendant denies ever actually occurred, were made ten years after the purported incident took place and does not reflect the type of unique and distinctive conduct that can be ‘ear-mark[ed] … as the handiwork’ of Defendant to isolate him as the only person that could have possibly committed these acts,” Habba wrote.
“Plaintiff, in continuing her unabashed demand to admit the Tape, has made it clear that she wishes to convert this trial into a referendum on Plaintiff’s character and distract the jury from determining the merits of the controlling issues of this case,” wrote Habba.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, has argued that the recording is evidence of a pattern of Trump’s behavior.
“On the tape, Trump described the precise conduct that he engaged in here with respect to Carroll,” Kaplan alleged in a filing last month. “He didn’t wait before he kissed Carroll. He didn’t wait before he grabbed her vagina. And he acted throughout the encounter as if he was entitled to do whatever he pleased with Carroll.”
The trial is scheduled to start April 25, although a pending decision in a Washington, D.C., court could halt the case if it’s determined that Trump was acting in his official capacity as president when he denied Carroll’s rape claim.
Last November, Carroll filed a separate lawsuit against Trump alleging defamation and battery under a New York law that allows alleged adult sex assault victims to bring claims otherwise barred by the passage of time.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing both cases, has said he is still deciding whether the trials will be combined.
(NEW YORK) — How much more U.S. aid should be sent to Ukraine is emerging as dividing point among Republican presidential hopefuls, posing a new test of the GOP grassroots’ appetite for overseas involvement and whether foreign policy is potent enough to move the needle in the race.
The debate is part of an early mêlée for support under a tent that includes a base transformed by Trump’s isolationist-tinged “America First” ideology and a swath of voters still aligned with conservative orthodoxy on projecting strength abroad. But whether the fission makes an electoral difference remains an open question given history of foreign policy failing to move enough votes to change a national election outside of wartime.
“Well, we’re gonna find out,” veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres said when asked about the impact the Ukraine debate will have on the primary. “It is a major story, but how that is going to shake out compared to domestic concerns remains to be seen.”
Former President Donald Trump first upended the bedrock of GOP foreign policy during his 2016 presidential bid, railing against “forever wars” amid mounting frustration over U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and other battlefields. With his rise within the party, many ultimately came on board with his worldview, shedding advocacy for an omnipresent military and instead focusing on fixing domestic issues plaguing blue collar Americans.
On one side of the debate are current and would-be contenders like Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who voice skepticism over a supposed “blank check” to Ukraine and the broader danger posed by Moscow. On the other side are more traditional foreign policy conservatives like former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley who have advocated for muscular support for Ukraine and warn that Russia’s military goals extend beyond Ukraine’s borders.
Trump has lambasted Biden’s policy of aiding Ukraine, warning that U.S. assistance could escalate to a broader conflict and maintaining that his method would help bring peace between Kyiv and Moscow — without actually detailing what that method is.
“If you watch and understand the moves being made by Biden on Ukraine, he is systematically, but perhaps unknowingly, pushing us into what could soon be WORLD WAR III,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
DeSantis, for his part, hasn’t called for cutting off aid as some hard-liners in Congress have, but he too has Bashed Biden’s “blank-check policy.”
“These things can escalate. And I don’t think it’s in our interest to be getting into a proxy war,” he said on Fox News last month, warning Biden should instead focus on Chinese aggression.
Still, others haven’t shed their traditional foreign policy bona fides.
“We are involved in a proxy war against the Soviet Union, the Ukrainians are fighting it,” Pence said on Fox News last month. “[L]et’s get them what they need, the tanks, let’s get them the F-16s and support them as they finish this fight.”
Others, like Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have also advocated for keeping up the aid deliveries, suggesting that a defeat for Kyiv — rather than the assistance — risks letting violence spill over Ukraine’s borders.
“If we win this fight for freedom, it will send a signal to every enemy we have. If we lose this fight for freedom, Russia has said Poland and the Baltics are next, and then we’ve got a world war,” she said in February.
Some Republican operatives warn against reading too deeply into the rhetoric, noting that even hawks would favor some limits and are not that far apart from those warning of “blank checks.”
“It’s, ‘sure, we don’t want the Russians to encroach. We think what they did was wrong. This aggression was wrong. But we have to have limits on what we do, what we can do, and we sure don’t want to send American troops to Eastern Europe.’ I think that’s kind of the plurality position,” said GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser.
However, with several candidates struggling to come up with domestic policy differences with Trump, even tonal disagreements on Ukraine could be one of very few chances for differentiation among the candidates.
“I think it’s smart for Trump to also focus on issues like foreign policy and trade where he creates the most contrast with the rest of the field,” said one longtime Trump aide close to his 2024 team.
“You’re not going to differentiate yourself from the field by opposing critical race theory or sex changes or hormones for minors,” the person said.
Those conflicting stances could pose an even greater contrast should one side of the war gain the upper hand or even win outright.
“If the Ukrainians have some success, it will tamper down some of the worries and concerns and criticisms. People will want to be on the side of the winner. I think if it goes really poorly, and … the Russians make gains, I think you’ll see Republicans pick up their critique and say, ‘we need to get to a negotiated settlement,'” Steinhauser said.
Whether those differentiations ultimately will matter electorally remains an open question.
Foreign policy’s traditional failure to impact elections has become almost a cliché in politics. And even as the war in Ukraine emerges as a potentially history-altering struggle and one of the lone differentiators in the mushrooming primary field, strategists are forecasting that the fighting won’t be top of mind when voters decide who to send to the general election next year.
That’s already playing out in early endorsements, with both Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a hawk, and Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, a skeptic of Biden’s broad support for Kyiv, both endorsing Trump.
“I’m as engaged as I think just anybody is, but I can tell you this, the decision I make on who to support for president or senator or whatever is in no way going to be affected by their position on Ukraine,” said Allegheny Country, Pa., GOP Chair and Marine veteran Sam DeMarco.
“I think it will be a differentiator. Whether it is used as the differentiator, I don’t know. To me, the more important differentiators in some ways are just the strategic questions about who can actually win the election,” Republican strategist Scott Jennings added.
Conversations with several attendees of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) back up those assessments.
Conference goers, who in recent years have largely fallen in line behind Trump, almost unanimously insisted on limits on aid to Ukraine in interviews with ABC News.
“I think we’ve given them quite enough, I really do,” said Sandy Bellucci, a surgical coordinator from northern New Jersey supporting Trump.
Still, “I think there’s other issues higher on the list,” she said when asked how a candidate’s Ukraine policy could impact votes. “I think what we have to worry about here is more important to people than what’s going on somewhere else.”
A new docuseries coming to Fox Nation will explore Jussie Smollett‘s alleged hate crime hoax, Deadline reports. Jussie Smollett: Anatomy of a Hoax “will chronicle the behind the scenes maneuvering and drama that turned the star into a pariah and sent shockwaves through Chicago and beyond, leaving a trail of damaged careers and reputations. The Osundairo brothers will unravel the details from the planning of the fake crime, its execution and all that ensued in the aftermath.”
The five-part series will be the first time brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo speak to the media about their role in the incident. It’s set to air March 13.
“Anatomy of a Hoax takes a deep dive into a scam that reverberated through the worlds of entertainment, pop culture and politics,” said John Finley, Fox Nation’s executive vice president. “We’re excited for viewers to hear the real stories behind this scandal from the Osundairo brothers for the very first time.”
For the uninitiated, Jussie claimed in January 2019 that he was attacked by two men who beat him, put a noose around his neck and shouted, “This is MAGA country.” Chicago police later concluded it was a staged attack, for which he hired the Osundairo brothers.
Jussie was convicted of five felony counts last March, and sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months of probation. He was ordered to pay $120,106 in restitution to Chicago, as well as a $25,000 fine. He spent six days behind bars before he was released pending appeal.
Jussie’s lawyer filed a 102-page document with the Illinois Appellate Court for a new trial, as he claims there was “prosecutorial misconduct” in this case.
Neil Young is set to release two more additions to his Original Bootleg Series next month.
The first, Somewhere Under The Rainbow, features Young and the Santa Monica Flyers, made up of Nils Lofgren, Ben Keith, Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina. It was recorded live at the Rainbow Theatre in London and, according to a press release, is “a long-cherished show that has been celebrated for its completely spontaneous and high-revved performance.” One of those performances, of the track “Human Highway,” is out now.
The second is High Flyin’, a double live album from the summer of 1977 featuring The Ducks, the group made up of Young, Bob Mosley, Jeff Blackburn and Johnny Craviotto. The band was known for making unannounced appearances at clubs in Northern California, and the collection features songs from those spontaneous shows, as well as two nights at Magical Devices studio. Young has offered up a taste of the bootleg, with the just-released performance of “Little Wing.”
Fall Out Boy has unveiled the track list for the band’s upcoming album, So Much (for) Stardust.
In addition to the previously released singles “Love from the Other Side” and “Heartbreak Feels So Good,” the 13-song effort also includes titles “Hold Me Like a Grudge,” “Heaven, Iowa” and “Baby Annihilation.”
Perhaps most intriguing, though, is a cut titled “The Pink Seashell,” which features actor Ethan Hawke.
So Much (for) Stardust, the follow-up to 2018’s M A N I A, arrives March 24.
Fall Out Boy will launch a U.S. tour in support of So Much (for) Stardust in June with a hometown show at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Artists including Bring Me the Horizon, Royal & the Serpent and Alkaline Trio will be on the bill for select dates.
Here’s the So Much (for) Stardust track list:
“Love from the Other Side”
“Heartbreak Feels So Good”
“Hold Me Like a Grudge”
“Fake Out”
“Heaven, Iowa”
“So Good Right Now”
“The Pink Seashell” feat. Ethan Hawke
“I Am My Own Muse”
“Flu Game”
“Baby Annihilation”
“The Kintsugi Kid (Ten Years)”
“What a Time to Be Alive”
“So Much (for) Stardust”
