Queen is set to launch the second season of their YouTube series Queen The Greatest Liveon Friday.
The new season, which debuts at 7:00 a.m. ET, will feature 50 videos and will once again include archival and contemporary footage of live performances, along with behind-the-scenes interviews, with visuals crated by longtime multimedia collaborator Simon Lupton.
Episode one, titled “Rehearsals – Part 1,” will feature interviews with Brian May and Roger Taylor as they share their rehearsal secrets with fans, sharing footage from both past and present tours.
“Rehearsing before tour is always a bit of a surprise because you don’t know how much you’re going to remember, and you don’t know if it’s still going to feel the same,” May shares in the episode. “But it’s surprising how stuff does flow back into you, into your veins, once you start kicking stuff around.”
Taylor adds of the rehearsal process, “Normally we play a song through and see if we think it’s going to work live. They don’t always work live. So there’s quite a few songs we’ve never played live that have been on albums and probably for good reason.”
(FLINT, Mich.) — While weekly bottled water donations have ended for citizens of Flint, Michigan, according to city officials, the water crisis there is ongoing.
Health officials are urging residents to continue to use faucet filters certified to remove lead until the residential lead service line replacement is completed.
The residential lead service line replacement was initially set to be finished in 2019, according to a settlement agreement with the city. That deadline was eventually pushed back to the fall of 2022 and has most recently been set for completion in August 2023, according to city officials.
The city is offering free water filter units, replacement cartridges and water testing kits for Flint residents for pick up at City Hall or for delivery by the Office of Public Health.
The state is required to fund water filters for one year following the completion of the lead service line replacement project, which has been ongoing since 2016.
“More than 95% of lead pipes in Flint have been replaced, and we will continue the work until the job is done,” Flint Mayor Sheldon Neeley said in a recent statement on the water filters. “I will work with anyone who is committed to making that happen. I ask those remaining homeowners to give our crews right of entry so that we can fix this once and for all.”
The city received an extension and funding from the Environmental Protection Agency for the remaining 5% of lead pipe replacements and excavations.
In 2014, Michigan switched the city’s water supply to the Flint River.
The water source was switched back to Lake Huron in 2015 but according to the Michigan Department of Attorney General, “the damage had been done.”
Highly toxic levels of lead were discovered in the water and outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease coincided with the switch, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prompting a state of emergency declaration in 2016.
“The switch was made without the required anti-corrosive chemicals being added,” read a statement from the city announcing the lead pipe replacement project in 2016. “The corrosive water removed a protective coating on the inside of the pipes, allowing lead to leach into the water going to homes and businesses,” the statement continued.
In their latest announcement, city officials said that since July 2016, the city’s water system has met state and federal standards for lead in drinking water for 12 consecutive monitoring periods, and “bottled water has no health benefits over filtered tap water.”
The city also said that common point-of-use faucet filters like Brita and Pur effectively remove lead when installed and maintained properly.
Since 2018, 100,000 water bottles had been delivered weekly by BlueTriton Brands, Inc — a Connecticut-based beverage company — serving approximately 3,000 people per week, according to Flint officials.
Lack of trust in the city’s tap water has been an ongoing struggle for residents.
“There are huge victories that have [been] accomplished, but there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done,” Flint resident LeeAnne Walters told ABC News in 2021.
Kate Bush made a lot of new fans last year thanks to Stranger Things, and if they want to learn more about her songs, now’s their chance.
The singer is set to release the paperback version of How To Be Invisible: Selected Lyrics, which was released in hardcover in 2018. The new version, dropping May 9, will come with a new introduction courtesy of Bush, along with a new cover design by Jim Kay.You can preorder the book now.
The release will include a limited number of signed copies, available at bookstores and record stores. And some fans who purchase those signed copies are in for a surprise. In a small number of them Bush has included a written message using invisible ink, which can only be revealed under ultraviolet light.
(WASHINGTON) — Embattled Rep. George Santos, who’s facing calls to resign over a string of lies and exaggerations about his background, has denied reports that he performed as a drag queen years ago in Brazil.
“The most recent obsession from the media claiming that I am a drag Queen or ‘performed’ as a drag Queen is categorically false,” Santos, who has publicly supported Republicans’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Florida, wrote on Twitter Thursday. “The media continues to make outrageous claims about my life while I am working to deliver results.”
The freshman representative, who was sworn in to Congress this month, has admitted to “embellishing” some details regarding his background, but has refused to step down despite calls from some members of his own party.
A popular Brazilian drag queen named Eula Rochard, who initially posted the claims on social media, told ABC News in an interview that he knew Santos over ten years ago when he says Santos used the drag queen name Kitara Ravache.
Rochard told ABC News that he knew Santos, who at times in the past has reportedly gone by his middle names, Anthony Devolder, as “Anthony.” He said the two met in 2005 when the now-embattled congressman was a teenager.
Rochard, who lives in Brazil, shared an image with ABC News that he said is a photo of him with Santos dressed in drag as Kitara Ravache, from a Brazilian newspaper, Grito Gay.
“He was a huge liar already. Oh yes, he was such a liar,” Rochard recalled.
Rochard said that he did not recall Santos ever having political ambitions when he knew him.
According to Rochard, Santos registered to be a part of a 2008 “Miss Gay Rio de Janeiro” drag queen competition, but “he did not win Miss Drag Queen contest.”
Santos, who has been widely criticized for fabricating much of his resume, ran in New York as an openly gay Republican.
Since joining Congress, Santos has aligned himself with the far-right wing of the Republican Party, which has targeted the drag queen community and pushed policies that LGBTQ activists have condemned.
He voiced support as recently as last April for Florida Republicans’ Parental Rights in Education bill, HB 1557, which was dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by LGBTQ activists.
The bill, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law last March, bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, and stipulates that any instruction on those topics cannot occur “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” according to the legislation.
“The Left is hellbent on creating a false narrative because they want to groom our kids … As a gay man, I UNAPOLOGETICALLY support this law!” Santos wrote on his Facebook page.
New Kids on the Block singer Jonathan Knight opened up about the challenges he and his husband have faced in starting a family.
Knight wed partner Harley Rodriguez last year and said they’ve been struggling to have a child. Speaking with Lance Bass on the Frosted Tips podcast, the singer revealed they’ve been trying for at least five years.
“We tried it … It just didn’t happen for us,” he explained, adding the two were repeatedly crushed to learn they had to go “back to square one.”
Lance, who welcomed twins with husband Michael Turchin, empathized with Jonathan. “No one understands that emotional journey,” he said, adding they used nearly a dozen donors and waited five years before welcoming Violet and Alexander.
Lance said he also questioned whether he was meant to have children when he and Turchin had to start over again. “But you know, you’re meant to have what you’re meant to have,” he offered to Jonathan.
Elsewhere in the interview, Jonathan opened up about being “so afraid” of people discovering his sexuality during the height of his fame. “My manager knew that I was gay … He pulled me aside and he was like, ‘If anybody finds out, then your career’s over. The New Kids’ career is over. My career is over. Sony is going to lose money.'”
“Looking back, that was a lot of pressure to put on somebody,” Jonathan continued, adding it contributed to a “full-on nervous breakdown” during an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
His worst fears came true when “a boyfriend of mine … sold pictures of us to the National Enquirer” in 2009 and forced him out of the closet. “That whole process was horrible,” he recalled.
Jonathan noted he’s glad things have changed and society is more supportive of the LGBTQ+ community.
(WASHINGTON) — The United States on Thursday reached its borrowing limit, the Treasury Department said, teeing up a congressional showdown later this year with potentially devastating economic consequences.
The federal government can pay most but not all of its bills with the tax and other revenue it takes in, and it must borrow the rest of the money. But Congress enforces a limit on how much debt the government can incur and when that limit — currently about $31.4 trillion — is reached, lawmakers must increase it before the government can borrow more funds.
Republicans in the House say they will insist on deep spending cuts in exchange for their cooperation in again raising the debt ceiling. But Democrats, led by the Biden administration, want a so-called clean hike without concessions on spending and they are publicly signaling they won’t negotiate on the matter.
Thursday’s deadline isn’t yet an economic calamity. But it does mean that the Treasury is going to begin stretching its funds by implementing what Secretary Janet Yellen last week called “extraordinary measures” to keep the federal government fully funded and to avoid a default on its debts.
A full default has never happened — the Congressional Research Service cited a “mini-default” in 1979 that was linked to delayed payments to some investors — but if one did occur, it would likely downgrade the nation’s credit rating, damage its ability to borrow and cause markets around the globe to roil.
Treasury’s newly enacted measures, like cutting contributions to employees’ retirement plans, are expected to stave off bigger problems through sometime this summer, according to a letter Yellen sent to congressional leaders on Friday, giving Congress just a few months to act.
“The use of extraordinary measures enables the government to meet its obligations for only a limited amount of time,” Yellen wrote in her letter. “It is therefore critical that Congress act in a timely manner to increase or suspend the debt limit. Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans, and the global financial stability.”
With the clock ticking on the divided Congress, political brinkmanship on raising the federal debt limit — a move that has come to be seen as politically poisonous in recent years, after fiscal fights under President Barack Obama — is already reaching an all-time high.
Republicans now hold the gavel in the House, and they have said they’ll look to extract major concessions from Democrats in exchange for their necessary cooperation to raise the federal cap. Newly minted Speaker Kevin McCarthy holds the reins on negotiations in the chamber.
To secure the speakership, McCarthy made major promises to the conservative wing of his conference, including seeking to reduce federal spending to fiscal year 2022 levels. The Republicans who supported McCarthy will expect him to use the debt limit as leverage for these cuts.
McCarthy said he wants to negotiate directly with President Joe Biden.
“I had a very good conversation with the president when he called me, and I told him I’d like to sit down with him early and work through these challenges,” McCarthy said during a press conference last week. “We don’t want to put any fiscal problems on our economy and we won’t. But fiscal problems would be continuing to do business as usual.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has side-stepped questions on whether the two men will meet.
“Congress is going to need to address the debt without conditions. And it’s just that simple. There should be no hostage-taking here. There should be no attempts to exploit the debt ceiling or to leverage it,” she said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
“As you’ve heard us say before, we will not be doing any negotiation over the debt ceiling,” she said last week. “It’s not and should not be a political football. … And that’s how we see this process moving forward.”
On Wednesday, Jean-Pierre told reporters that the White House has been “reaching out to all members from both sides of the aisle” but said again that the administration didn’t want to compromise on the debt ceiling. She said both parties have repeatedly voted to raise the limit in the past, including under President Donald Trump.
“It is essential for Congress to recognize that dealing with the debt ceiling is their constitutional responsibility. This is an easy one. This is something that should be happening without conditions,” she said.
While the debt limit fight will likely be heightened in the House, Senate Republicans have a bargaining chip of their own: They remain the minority party in the chamber but at least 60 votes are needed to enact any legislation raising the ceiling.
Senate Democrats could seek a higher debt limit through reconciliation, which requires only 50 votes, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking a tie. But that process is time-intensive and could still be blocked by House Republicans.
The last time the limit had to be raised, in late 2021, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell insisted Democrats increase it on their own. McConnell cut a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer which saw a group of Republicans approve a one-time change to the chamber rules, allowing that debt hike to occur with just 50 votes — all from Democrats.
But that was before Senate Democrats passed Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act a few months later without any Republican support. This time, McConnell might be less inclined to bargain.
Some Senate Democrats wanted to raise the debt limit before House Republicans took control of the lower chamber in January. But they ran out of time to do it during the lame duck session at the end of the last Congress.
Schumer said on CNN last week that he doesn’t regret leaving the debt limit to this term.
“It should be done in a bipartisan way. It always has been,” he said.
He pointed to the 2021 deal he struck with McConnell.
“I think Republicans learned their lesson,” he said. “They suffered, we won the election after that [in 2012], and they will hopefully come and work with us and get this done in a bipartisan way. That’s what we look to do, no brinkmanship.”
While the Biden administration prepares to go toe-to-toe with Republicans, some members of the House GOP conference are crafting a plan to address what might happen if they and Democrats don’t reach a deal to lift the borrowing limit.
The Republican proposal, if it becomes law, would require the Biden administration to prioritize paying back certain debts over others. News of the deal was first reported by The Washington Post.
Sources familiar with the ongoing talks said McCarthy, R-Calif., committed to conservatives that the House would pass the deal and send it to the Senate in the first quarter of 2023 as part of his larger agreement to secure votes to become speaker.
A spokesperson for McCarthy did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment.
Lauren Fine, a spokesperson for Majority Leader Steve Scalise, told ABC News that discussions around the plan “are ongoing with the conference, and the Leader remains a strong proponent of this legislation.”
Even if this legislation passes the House, it almost certainly will not be taken up by Schumer in the Senate.
The Treasury has previously pushed back on the feasibility that it could prioritize certain bills over others, citing legal and logistical issues.
ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky contributed to this report.
J. Cole has a new song that he reportedly wrote after searching through YouTube and finding a beat that broke his writer’s block.
“Procrastination (Broke)” was released on YouTube via the account for Bvtman, the producer behind the beat.
Bvtman announced the news on his Instagram Wednesday via a screenshot of a supposed text from Cole and some words about the story behind the song.
In the text, Cole says he discovered Bvtman’s beat “on a day when I couldn’t find much inspiration” after searching “J. Cole type beat” on YouTube. He “pressed play, focused, and wrote” the song, which he decided to release because he doesn’t “want to hold onto the music like that no more.”
He then suggested the song be released on Bvtman’s page to “serve as a thank you” to him and “every producer out there cooking up and sharing their work with the world.”
“It’s a million artists out there right now just like me, hungry and searching every day for something to spark a word, a melody, a hook, a verse, a punchline, a way to vent, or a way to CUT THROUGH,” Cole wrote.
Bvtman says he learned that Cole was interested in his beat after receiving a text from Ibrahim “IB” Hamad, the co-founder of Dreamville Records and Cole’s longtime manager. “I almost ain’t believe this was real life,” he wrote.
“If you know me you know what this post means to me & what this song means to me. If you know me you know this is my peace finally, my dream,” he captioned the announcement. “Much love to @dreamville & @realcoleworld & @kingofqueenz25.”
Shania Twain knows she’s changing, and she’s just fine with it.
“I sound different. I look different and I’m OK with that,” she tells InStyle as she covers their new Everybody’s In special edition. “I’m fearless in that way and that motivates me.”
The Canadian pop/country superstar also opens up about her two throat surgeries and how her new album amps things up.
“It’s more rhythmic in a lot of ways,” she reveals. “That is very new to me, to the broadness of my recording style so far.”
“There’s a lot more ‘get up and want to shake your body’ kind of thing,” she adds. “There’s still some stomp in there, though. It’s almost like everything is there, but a new dimension. I just really want to get up and dance to it myself.”
Queen of Me arrives February 17. You can check out the full InStyle article now.
After announcing his upcoming project, The First Time, The Kid LAROI has released the first song from it, along with a video.
The brief song is called “I Can’t Go Back To The Way It Was (Intro),” and in it, LAROI talks about his regrets, singing, “I did things that I knew were wrong but/ time keeps on movin’ on/ no matter which way I run/ I can’t go back to the way it was.”
At the end of the moody, simple video, we get the announcement that another new song from the project, called “Love Again,” is due January 27. According to LAROI, that song — a fan favorite people have been begging him to drop — is the “official single.” The First Time is available for presave now.
The new project is the follow-up to F*ck Love 3: Over You, which came out in 2021 and included LAROI’s megahit Justin Bieber collab “Stay.” As previously reported, LAROI performed some unreleased tunes at a Hollywood party last weekend and also reunited with Justin to sing “Stay,” though Justin blanked on the lyrics.
On Thursday, Santa Fe First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies and special prosecutor Andrea Reeb announced that Rust actor and producer Alec Baldwin and armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed will be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter each in the death of Halyna Hutchins on the film’s Santa Fe County set in 2021.
Hutchins, 42, was working as a cinematographer on the Western when she was accidentally shot and killed by the film’s star, Baldwin, while he was practicing using a Colt-style .45 revolver on set. Director Joel Souza was also injured in the shooting.
Assistant director David Halls has signed a plea agreement for the charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. The terms include a suspended sentence and six months of probation, ABC News is reporting.
No charges will be filed related to Souza’s shooting, it was also announced.
“After a thorough review of the evidence and the laws of the state of New Mexico, I have determined that there is sufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Alec Baldwin and other members of the Rust film crew,” Carmack-Altwies said. “On my watch, no one is above the law, and everyone deserves justice.”
Carmack-Altwies’ office said in October she would conduct a “thorough review of the information and evidence to make a thoughtful, timely decision about whether to bring charges” following a yearlong sheriff’s office investigation into the on-set shooting.
