Madonna celebrated the success of her upcoming Celebration Tour by thanking fans in a video message.
After the tickets went on sale Friday, 98% of the dates sold out as 600,000 tickets were snapped up in a few hours, Billboard reported. Presales for the dates in Denver, Phoenix, Atlanta and a few other cities that weren’t included in the original sale begin Monday; the general sale for those shows is Friday.
In her Instagram video message, the Queen of Pop told fans, “I just want to say thank you to all of my fans for all of your love and support over the last few days.”
“I don’t take any of this for granted,” she added. “I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. And I’m so grateful for all of your support. And I can’t wait to put the show together, and have a moment with each and every one of you on the stage to celebrate the last four decades of my journey.”
Billboard reports that among those commenting on the message was Lady Gaga, who wrote, “We love you M.” However, the comment seems to have disappeared from the post.
The Celebration Tour starts July 15 in Vancouver and will feature Madonna performing songs from her entire 40-year career.
David Crosby’s death last week reportedly came after a “long illness,” but it seems whatever illness he was dealing with didn’t stop him from making music. Friends tell Variety that not only was Crosby working on a new album, he was also planning a tour for this summer, and tickets were only days away from going on sale.
“David didn’t think he was gonna last for years, which he joked about all the time. But there was no sense that we weren’t gonna be able to do this show and these tours,” musician Steve Postell tells the mag. “We were talking tour buses, and what kind of venues, and the whole team was all back together again,” He adds, “There was not even a remote sense that we weren’t about ready to hit the world.”
Postell says he rehearsed with Crosby alone in Santa Barbara the week before he died, and Crosby was “giddy” about plans for the tour. Postell even talked to Crosby the day before his death to discuss a pair of planned shows in February in Santa Barbara. The next day, Postell texted with Crosby’s son, James Raymond, and found out Crosby had died.
As for the new album, singer Sarah Jorosz says she recorded background vocals for it, sharing, “He just wanted to create until the very end, and that was always my impression of him in our conversations.
She says Crosby’s death came as a “shock,” explaining, “I mean, every time we talked, he would call and I’d be like, ‘How are you doing?’ And he’d be like, ‘Well, I’m dying’ — but jokingly, with a laugh.”
Jorosz adds, “I wasn’t aware if there was a long illness. It was more just like the hard years of living, and being 81.”
(NEW YORK) — Scientists will reveal on Tuesday how close humanity is to armageddon with its latest edition of the “Doomsday Clock.”
For the past 75 years, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit media organization comprised of world leaders and Nobel laureates, has announced how close it believes the world is to collapse due to nuclear war, climate change and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is a metaphor, a reminder of the perils we must address if we are to survive on the planet,” the Bulletin, which created the clock, said on its website, also calling it “a design that warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making.”
Tuesday’s announcement will be the first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which could move the clock closer to “doomsday.”
“Every year, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board looks at the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from manmade threats,” Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, told ABC News in a statement. “This year, the war in Ukraine and the ripple effects it has caused around the world and on many issues is a major factor in that consideration.”
Launched in 1947, scientists wanted to highlight the possibility of catastrophe to the public as it pertained to the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, according to the Bulletin, saying that “the greatest danger to humanity came from nuclear weapons” at the time.
The clock indicates how much time remains until midnight, theoretical doomsday.
At its launch, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the “Doomsday Clock” at seven minutes before midnight because artist Martyl Langsdorf, who sketched the clock that appeared on the June 1947 edition of the magazine, said “it looked good” in her eyes, the organization says.
Today, humanity is 100 seconds to midnight, the closest the world has ever been to disaster, according to the Bulletin. Before 2020, the closest the hand was set to midnight was two minutes.
Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Bulletin kept the clock at 100 seconds to midnight, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons if NATO stepped in to help Ukraine “is what 100 seconds to midnight looks like.”
In September, Putin issued a thinly veiled threat that Russia would resort to using nuclear weapons in its fight against Ukraine following several setbacks.
The Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine has come under repeated fire since Russia took it over in March 2022, increasing the risk of nuclear disaster.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said last week that he is worried that the world has become complacent about the potential risks to the plant.
The furthest the clock has ever been from midnight was 17 minutes in 1991 after then-President George H. W. Bush and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev both announced reductions in the nuclear arsenals of their respective countries.
“That reflected a moment when the world was seriously engaging with issues of risk and working together to mitigate it,” Bronson said.
(WASHINGTON) — Arizona Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego announced Monday he is launching a bid for U.S. Senate to unseat independent Kyrsten Sinema.
“I have been deeply humbled by the encouragement I have received from the people of Arizona, and today I am answering the call to serve,” Gallego said in a press release.
In a video announcement, Gallego shared his vision for Arizona and went after Sinema, who has yet to announce if she’ll seek reelection.
“She’s repeatedly broken her promises and fought for the interests of big pharma and Wall Street at our expense,” he said. “I’m running for the U.S. Senate because the rich and the powerful don’t need any more advocates in Washington — but families who can’t afford groceries do.”
Gallego has spoken out against Sinema in the past for holding back several key pieces of Democratic legislation during her time in office. Most recently, he has come after her for switching party affiliation, leaving the Democratic Party and registering as an independent ahead of the 2024 elections.
Last week, Gallego’s fellow Arizona Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton announced that he would not seek to run for Senate next year, forging the path for Gallego to win the Democratic primary.
Gallego said in December some senators and representatives have privately urged him to run against Sinema.
A Gallego-Sinema matchup would make for an important campaign, given Arizona’s battleground state status. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, reports have circulated that former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is also mulling a senatorial run following her loss to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs by less than a percentage point.
Gallego, a former Marine, represents Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District, which includes parts of Phoenix and Glendale. He won reelection in 2022 with 77% of the vote, defeating Republican challenger Jeff Zink. He was first elected to Congress in 2014.
He currently serves on the House Armed Services Committee, the Committee on Natural Resources and the Committee on Veterans Affairs.
Gallego, a first-generation American, is of Colombian and Mexican descent. If elected, he would be the first Latino senator to represent Arizona.
“The odds that a single immigrant mom with a Latino boy, statistically, I was never supposed to end up, even in college. I slept on a floor, on a couch, on a roll-out mat,” Gallego said in the announcement video. “Hearing her cry, like, every night, being stressed out about how she was gonna raise like four kids on a secretary’s salary, you know, with an absent father.”
Gallego and his wife Sydney have a 6-year-old son and are also expecting a baby girl in July.
Among Riley Keough‘s words, read by her Aussie stuntman husband Ben Smith-Petersen at her mom Lisa Marie Presley‘s memorial service Sunday, was a mention that the couple now have a daughter.
Now a rep for the Mad Max: Fury Road star confirmed to Page Six that the couple, married since 2015, welcomed a child at some point, but it’s not known when or what the baby’s name is.
On Sunday, an emotional Smith-Petersen eulogized his late mother-in-law with Riley’s written words, expressing in part, “Thank you for showing me love is the only thing that matters in this life. I hope I can love my daughter the way you loved me…”
Riley also said of her mother, who died on January 12 at age 54, “Thank you for giving me strength, my heart, my empathy, my courage, my sense of humor, my manners, my temper, my wildness, my tenacity. I’m a product of your heart, my sisters are a product of your heart, my brother is a product of your heart.”
Presley was laid to rest Thursday at her father Elvis’ Graceland estate, where the memorial service was held Sunday morning. Lisa Marie was laid to rest next to Benjamin, her son and Riley’s brother, who died by suicide in 2020 at 27.
Lisa Marie was also mom to 14-year-old twin daughters Finley and Harper Lockwood.
If you are in crisis or know someone in crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or by visiting 988lifeline.org. You can also contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.
Beyoncé made a return to the stage over the weekend, performing in Dubai at the grand opening of Atlantis The Royal, a new luxury resort.
During Saturday’s event, the powerhouse singer performed a variety of hits from throughout the years, starting with a cover of Etta James‘ “At Last.” Other tracks she performed included “Ave Maria,” “Halo,” “Countdown,” and “Crazy In Love.” The 41-year-old also performed “Brown Skin Girl” with her 11-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy. Absent were any songs from her recent Renaissance album.
For the closer, Beyoncé was raised 16 feet in the air as she sang “Drunk In Love,” with the backdrop of the resort in the background.
Assisting Beyoncé singer in the performance was a 48-person all-female orchestra, Firdaus, and America’s Got Talent winners The Mayyas, an all-female precision dance group from Lebanon, among others.
The 60-minute set marked Beyoncé’s first performance since 2020 and was attended by around 1,000 people, as well as her husband JAY-Z, her parents and family.
After almost a year, Kylie Jenner is introducing her son to the world.
The Kylie Cosmetics founder, who welcomed a son with Travis Scott last February, took to Instagram on Saturday to share some candid photos while simultaneously revealing the toddler’s name in the caption.
“AIRE,” she wrote, along with the white heart emoji.
Kylie, 25, and Travis, 31, initially named their 11-month old son Wolf Webster. However, in March, a month after his birth, the Kardashians star announced that they changed it.
“FYI our sons [sic] name isn’t Wolf anymore,” she shared in an Instagram Story at the time. “We just really didn’t feel like it was him.”
“Just wanted to share because I keep seeing Wolf everywhere,” she explained, adding the praying hands emoji.
Kylie and Travis welcomed their son on February 2, 2022. The baby boy joins 4-year-old big sister Stormi.
The Mosquito Coast won’t be back for a third season on Apple TV+, according to Deadline. The series, loosely based on Paul Theroux’s bestselling 1981 novel, followed Justin Theroux as a brilliant rebel who, along with his wife, “takes their family on the run to protect them, but end up exposing them to more danger than ever.” Melissa George, Logan Polish and Gabriel Bateman also starred. The first two seasons were essentially a prequel to the book and the 1986 movie, which starred Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix…
NCIS: Los Angeles, the longest-running NCIS spinoff, will end with its season 14th season finale on May 14, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The current cast of the CBS drama includes LL Cool J, Chris O’Donnell and Linda Hunt, who have been together for the show’s entire run, along with Eric Christian Olsen, who recurred in the first season before becoming a season regular in season 2. Medalion Rahimi, Caleb Castille and Gerald McRaney also star…
South Park will return for its 26th season on February 8, Comedy Central announced on Friday. All-new episodes will be available to stream in HD on SouthPark.cc.com, CC.com and the Comedy Central App following the premiere. Last summer, Comedy Central celebrated the historic 25th anniversary of cable’s longest-running scripted series with South Park: The 25th Anniversary Concert…
Peacock has pulled the plug on the teen supernatural series Vampire Academy after one season, series star Jonetta Kaiserannounced Friday on on Instagram, adding that she hoped that the series would be picked up by another network but was “grateful to have had the life-changing opportunity to play Sonya Karp and gain the support of so many kind fans all over the world.” The fantasy horror series followed two women from different social classes, played by Daniela Nieves and Sisi Stringer, who enter vampire society as they start their education…
(WASHINGTON) — The Treasury Department is rolling out new measures aimed at improving customer service as the IRS starts to accept 2022 federal income tax returns.
Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo told reporters on Friday that the agency has used funds from the Inflation Reduction Act to hire more customer service staff and modernize decades-old technology.
That includes 5,000 new customer service workers to answer calls, Adeyemo said. Just 13% of 173 million calls to the IRS were fielded by live agents last year and 8% of calls were answered with automated assistance.
A Treasury Department official said the new hires mean the IRS has a “historic number” of workers ready to answer the phones this tax season, with the goal of reducing average wait times from 30 minutes to 15 minutes.
These workers will be trained and in place by Presidents Day weekend in late February, Adeyemo told reporters. The IRS also beefed up staffing at taxpayer assistance centers across the country, with 700 new hires.
Adeyemo said “meaningful progress” has been made to update technology. The IRS will now let taxpayers respond to notices for document verification and other issues electronically rather than by mail.
The IRS will continue to move towars automating the scanning of millions of individual paper returns, as it currently inputs the information from paper returns manually one number at a time.
“These customer service improvements will have a positive impact on tax filers, ensure returns are processed more quickly and taxpayers are able to access credits and benefits they’re entitled to in a timely manner,” Adeyemo said.
The IRS began to accept federal returns on Monday, and individuals have until April 18 to file. Taxpayers who request an extension will have until Oct. 16.
The agency’s new resources come as congressional Republicans try to reclaim the money approved for the IRS in the Inflation Reduction Act — which was opposed by every GOP lawmaker in the House and Senate. The law allocates roughly $80 billion for the IRS over the next decade.
Earlier this month, House Republicans voted to strip the funding in the first piece of legislation the new majority brought to the floor. Many GOP lawmakers misleadingly claim the money will result in the hiring of 87,000 new agents to target middle- and lower-class families, though IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said it will not increase audits of households making less than $400,000 per year.
The legislation has little chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, and the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement that President Joe Biden would veto it if it came to his desk.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said a priority of the agency is to use the Inflation Reduction Act funding to clear the IRS backlog, as well as improve technology and hire more workers.
“Our work to improve services will continue throughout policies and the resources provided by the [Inflation Reduction Act] will continue to support a years-long transformation with the agency long after this filing season concludes,” Adeyemo said Friday.
(ATLANTA) — After months of testimony, a special grand jury seated in Atlanta last year as part of a probe into efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election has submitted its final report detailing its findings, marking a significant milestone in one of several criminal investigations targeting the former president.
Though the special grand jury does not have the ability to return an indictment, it can make recommendations concerning criminal prosecution — which could then be brought by an additional grand jury.
On Tuesday, the judge overseeing the case is scheduled to hear arguments over whether or not to make the report public, with the central question remaining: Did the grand jury recommend criminal charges for Donald Trump and his allies?
Ambassador Norman Eisen (ret.), a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institute who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2020, told ABC News that “the mountain of evidence” that has been made public regarding the efforts to overturn the election in Georgia “points strongly toward a forecast that the report recommends Donald Trump and his conspirators for prosecution.”
“Like the weather forecast or rain, there’s no guarantee,” Eisen said, “but when you look outside your window and the rain clouds are dark … that’s where we are with all of these facts.”
Possible charges could include solicitations of election fraud, other forms of fraud, conspiracy, and possibly racketeering, Eisen said.
“The allegations are very serious. If indicted and convicted, people are facing prison sentences,” Willis said of the investigation in an interview with The Washington Post last year.
A spokesperson for the DA’s office declined to comment on the status of the investigation ahead of the hearing next week, including whether the DA would oppose or support the release of the report.
The office also has not yet filed a motion in court indicating its position.
‘Find 11,780 votes’
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis officially launched the probe in February 2021, sparked in part by the now-infamous Jan. 2, 2021, phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which Trump pleaded with Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” the exact number Trump needed to win Georgia.
Trump has repeatedly defended his call to Raffensperger, calling it “perfect.”
The special grand jury was seated in May 2022, after Willis wrote that the panel was needed because “a significant number of witnesses and prospective witnesses have refused to cooperate with the investigation absent a subpoena requiring their testimony.”
Since then, those who have been subpoenaed for testimony include some of Trump’s closest allies and supporters, including attorneys Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, who unsuccessfully fought his subpoena up to the United State Supreme Court.
Graham argued, among other things, that he was acting “within [his] official legislative responsibilities” as a senator and chairman of the Judiciary Committee when he allegedly made calls to Georgia officials following the 2020 election.
During calls to Raffensperger and others, Graham allegedly asked about “reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump,” the judge wrote in a filing in the case.
Willis also sought testimony from a number of Georgia’s highest elected officials, including Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp and Rep. Jody Hice.
Targets of the probe
A number of individuals have also been informed that they are considered “targets” of the probe, including Giuliani. In the wake of the election, Giuliani appeared at a series of legislative hearings around the country — including Georgia — where he urged state legislators to reject the results of the election.
Responding to the notification of his status as a target of the probe, Giuliani said, “I appeared in Georgia as attorney for Donald J. Trump. So I’m going to be prosecuted for what I did as an attorney?”
Sixteen people identified as so-called “fake electors” in the state were also notified that they were considered targets in the ongoing criminal investigation, prosecutors revealed in court documents over the summer.
The 16, who allegedly participated in a scheme to overturn the state’s election results, received letters “alerting that person both that [their] testimony was required by the special purpose grand jury and that [they were a] target of the investigation” the filing said.
Specifically, they are being investigated for “creation of a document that identified [themselves] as being among the ‘duly elected and qualified Electors for president and Vice President of the United States of America from the State of Georgia,’ and the submission of that document to the National Archives.”
The House committee probing the Jan. 6 attack on U.S. Capitol described the “fake electors” plan, which appeared to have multiple iterations, as being set up by the Trump campaign in multiple swing states in which they sought to assemble “groups of individuals in key battleground states and got them to call themselves electors, created phony certificates associated with these fake electors and then transmitted these certificates to Washington, and to the Congress, to be counted during the joint session of Congress on January 6th,” according to the filing.
The Department of Justice is also examining the issue of fake electors as part of its own separate investigation, sources have told ABC News.
Attorneys for the electors have denied any wrongdoing in their actions.
“They cannot have and did not commit any crime as a matter of fact and law,” wrote attorney Holly Pierson, who represents 11 of the alleged fake electors.
Setbacks for Willis
Willis suffered a setback last year when she unsuccessfully fought to have Pierson and her law partner disqualified from representing those 11, alleging that it was a “conflict of interest.”
Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney largely denied the request, only removing one of the electors as Pierson’s client, but keeping the rest.
Earlier, McBurney disqualified Willis from investigating one of the 16 alleged fake electors, Georgia state Sen. Burt Jones, after Willis held a fundraiser for Jones’ political opponent in the race for lieutenant governor. The judge called it “harmful” to the investigation and said the “optics are horrid.”
“An investigation of this significance, garnering the public attention it necessarily does and touching so many political nerves in our society, cannot be bordered by legitimate doubts about the District Attorney’s motives,” McBurney wrote.
On Tuesday, McBurney will consider whether the report should be made public or remain sealed — though Eisen, the Brookings expert, said its release could be harmful to the case.
“If you have the report out there before the DA has taken it to the regular grand jury, it complicates her life, because the report gets ahead of the normal lifecycle of the case, where the indictments are the first,” Eisen told ABC News.
“She may not want the report to be issued until her indictments are out,” he said.
