This month will officially mark 40 years since Michael Jackson released his groundbreaking sixth studio album, Thriller. To celebrate the milestone, the late singer’s estate has teamed with Sony Music to launch a global anniversary campaign.
This worldwide initiative will allow fans across the globe to celebrate the late singer’s legacy. Two immersive fan experiences have been announced for Dusseldorf, Germany and New York City. Both events will offer photo ops, track-focused experiences, interactive elements and elements for social media engagement.
Germany’s event will run November 10 through November 13, while New York City’s will be held November 18 to November 20. Registration for both events is now open on the Michael Jackson website.
That’s not all: There will also be Thriller-themed parties held across the world that will allow fans to learn the story behind Michael’s groundbreaking album by giving them an exclusive peek at the Thriller 40 documentary. Tickets for these parties — which will be held in major cities such as London, Toronto, Madrid, Amsterdam and Seoul — will be sold on Michael’s official website.
Aside from the one-time-only screenings, there will also be fan events held worldwide that’ll feature DJs, short film screenings, giveaways and more. Details on how to register are forthcoming.
Michael released Thriller on November 30, 1982. It is hailed as one of the best-selling albums of all time. The album, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1984, is RIAA-certified triple Diamond in the U.S.
On November 18, Sony Music will release Michael Jackson Thriller 40, a double CD set with a bonus record filled with rare audio recordings and demos that Jackson worked on during the 1982 album’s sessions.
(NEW YORK) — Midterm election results may come down to the price of a gallon of gas.
Roughly half of Americans say either the economy or inflation is the most important issue in their vote for Congress, making bread-and-butter financial issues by far the most dominant in the lead-up to the midterm elections, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday.
Meanwhile, research has established a relationship between gas prices and presidential approval ratings that reaches back decades, despite the limited control that presidents exert over fuel costs, experts told ABC News. Presidential approval ratings, in turn, mark a key indicator of midterm success or failure for the party in control of the White House, they said.
After reaching a summer peak, gas prices declined for about 100 consecutive days, buoying Biden’s approval rating. But a price spike in early October weighed on his approval.
Over the last few weeks, prices have returned to a steady decline – though they remain elevated – leaving an open question about whether consumers will recognize the trend and reward the Democrats or punish them for too little, too late.
“Swing voters will be deciding as they’re literally walking into the voting booth,” Colin McAuliffe, co-founder of left-leaning research firm Data for Progress, told ABC News.
The ubiquity of gas prices emblazoned on towering roadside signs can affect the financial attitude of those who do not even purchase gas. For those who do, filling up the tank offers a few minutes of repose with little to do but watch the price slowly add up, the experts said.
“People know their grocery bill has gone up but they can’t say necessarily how much the price of meat versus milk versus cereal has changed,” Laurel Harbridge-Yong, a professor of political science at Northwestern University who has studied the political implications of gas prices, told ABC News. “Gas is a very visible item and an item you buy one at a time, without bundling it with others.”
In 2016, a study in the academic journal Political Psychology examined the relationship between gas prices and presidential approval rating between the mid-1970s and mid-2000s, finding that elevated gas prices drove a president’s approval downward. To be exact, each 10-cent increase in the gas price was associated with more than half a percentage point decline in presidential approval, the research showed.
Further, the researchers studied press coverage of the gas prices, finding that the effect on presidential approval occurred regardless of how much attention the prices got. On that score, gas prices contrast with other economic indicators, like the unemployment rate or overall inflation, which typically require media coverage that gives voters a sense of the trend, said Harbridge-Yong, one of the researchers who conducted the study.
McAuliffe, of Data for Progress, has established more recent findings, demonstrating a correlation between gas prices and presidential approval during Biden’s time in office stretching to as recently as August. “The correlation has held up pretty strongly,” he said.
The continued salience of gas prices amid inflation under Biden comes as no surprise to Jon Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University who co-authored the 2016 study. “When we see gas prices go up as much as they have gone up, clearly there are implications,” he said.
Despite the relationship between gas prices and presidential approval rating, presidents exert little control over fuel costs, leaving them largely powerless to address perceptions of their performance in this area, experts said.
The U.S. is set to produce an average of 11.8 million barrels oil per day in 2022, which stands 500,000 barrels short of a record set in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But oil prices are set on a global market, where supply shortages caused by the Russia-Ukraine War and OPEC+ output cuts cannot be offset by a comparable short-term increase in U.S. oil output.
Typically, gas prices drop ahead of midterm elections, since the Fall brings a decline in demand as Americans scale back from summer travel, said Patrick De Haan, an oil and gas analyst for GasBuddy. In recent weeks, the drop has also stemmed from the repair of damage at a string of oil refineries, which brought them back online and increased overall output, he added.
“It’s normal for prices to go down this time of year,” De haan told ABC News. “It’s not political.”
The price relief may have arrived too late for voters to notice, said Krosnick, of Stanford University.
“There’s not a lot of time between now and election day,” he said. “Obviously any change in gasoline prices has to take place and be detected by the public.”
Biden highlighted the issue on Monday, threatening oil and gas companies with higher taxes if they do not relieve a supply shortage with increased output. Many of the major oil producers have reported recorded profits in recent quarters.
On election day, gas prices will play an unmistakable role in the outcome, Krosnick said.
“People bring to the table a mix of issues. You can think of it as making a complicated soup with lots of ingredients that play a part,” he said. “Gas prices clearly are a part of the soup.”
The entertainment world is mourning the shocking death of Migos member Takeoff.
As previously reported, the rapper from Lawrenceville, Georgia was fatally shot early Tuesday morning in Houston, Texas. He was 28.
Houston ABC News affiliate KTRK reported that police were called to 810 Billiards & Bowling at about 2:30 a.m. local time for reports of a shooting. According to TMZ, Takeoff and fellow Migos member Quavo were playing a game of dice when an altercation broke out and someone opened fire, shooting Takeoff.
Takeoff, born Kirshnik Khari Ball, formed Migos with Quavo, his uncle, and Offset, his cousin, in 2008. Takeoff and Quavo released an album as a duo, Only Built for Infinity Links, last month and dropped their Halloween-themed “Messy” video on Monday.
Gucci Mane collaborated with the duo on the second single from their new album, “Us vs. Them.” He shared a photo of Takeoff on Instagram and commented, “This broke my heart. Rest in peace.”
More celebrity reactions to Takeoff’s death:
Teyana Taylor-“Please tell me this is just a bad dream pleaseeeeeeee I don’t want to believe this lil bro please.”
Bow Wow – “Gone way to soon… we was just at magic and Kevin hart show together. This beyond unreal”
Ja Rule– “Rip Takeoff this s*** has to STOP… sending love to friends and family”
Keri Hilson – “Rest In Peace Healing love to your brothers, family, & friends”
Lloyd Banks– “My condolences to his family and close friends, very dope artist gone too soon.”
Winston Duke– “I’m lost for words! What an incredible loss for his family, friends, fans and the culture … may we all be comforted during this time of grief.”
DJ Premier – “Condolences to Takeoff’s Family. This is beyond sad to be killed in a senseless situation with so much success.”
A new animated video for “I’m Only Sleeping,” one of the songs featured on The Beatles‘ new remastered edition of Revolver, just hit YouTube.
The trippy clip opens with an oil-painting image of John Lennon sleeping, which swirls into a series of dreamy, watery images, some featuring the other Beatles, their manager Brian Epstein, fighter planes dropping bombs, birds and more. The concept seems to be that everything we’re seeing is part of Lennon’s dream.
As the dream progresses, time seems to progress backwards: We see more swirly, oil-painting images of The Beatles running onto a stadium field for a concert, the band performing onstage, headlines trumpeting their success, the group playing at the Cavern Club in their early days, a quick glimpse of Liverpool’s Penny Lane and what looks like Lennon receiving his first guitar.
The clip ends with the final image being wiped away in real life by an artist, who’s apparently been painting the entire thing in his studio.
(NEW YORK) — New research is shedding light on just how much higher proportions of dangerous toxins people in minority communities are breathing in.
Populations in racially segregated communities in the U.S. may be more likely to be exposed to a form of air pollution, according to a study published in Nature Communications on Tuesday.
Researchers combined air pollution monitoring and American Community Survey data from 2014 to 2019 to assess air pollution exposure across the U.S. and found that communities with a high degree of racial residential segregation are exposed to concentrations of total fine particulate matter that are two times higher. Concentrations of metals from anthropogenic sources are over 10 times higher when compared to communities with a low degree of racial residential segregation, John Kodros, who authored the study as a research scientist at Colorado State University, told ABC News.
The research also suggests these communities were exposed to an even more toxic form of air pollution, with a three times higher mass proportion of known toxic and carcinogenic metals — including lead, nickel and chromium.
“What this is showing, is that communities across the United States are not exposed to the same mixture of particulate air pollution,” Kodros said.
While scientists have long proven that residents in impoverished and minority communities are suffering greater environmental detriments than other populations, little was previously known about the distribution of exposure among racially segregated communities to specific toxic chemical elements contained in particulate matter, the researchers said.
There has been “extensive research” looking at the disparities of total fine particulate matter across lines of racial and ethnic demographics, Kodros said. The new findings illustrate the disproportionate burden of air pollution faced by some populations, according to the study.
“Even normalizing by total air pollution, the concentrations of these metals are much higher in content in more racially segregated communities compared to well integrated communities,” Kodros said.
Segregation has “been systematic in the history of our country,” Kodros added.
“Often when areas are building a road or a factory, it goes into a certain part of the city,” Kodros said. “Putting in that factory or that highway often ends up in areas that are more racially segregated and in the communities of color.”
This leads to emissions from the factories and roads occurring at different rates based on segregation and race and ethnicity, Kodros said.
The researchers found evidence that disproportionate exposure could be reduced through regulatory action, including recent regulations on marine oil that have reduced concentrations of vanadium and lessened the pollution risk faced by racially segregated communities
The scientists hope the research helps to inform regulations to reduce air pollution exposure.
Policymakers also need to consider targeted regulations to reduce emissions through a lens of environmental justice, as opposed to just trying to reduce emissions everywhere, Kodros said.
“We need to really think about reducing emissions in communities that are not often well representative at the table,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Cherelle Griner, the wife of Brittney Griner, spoke out on The View following a Russian court denying the WNBA star’s appeal on drug charges.
Griner told the co-hosts that the denied appeal was “just disheartening” and left her in “complete disbelief.”
“I understand being in the field of law that every state, every country has their own rules, but this is just absurd,” she said. “The crime and the punishment is disproportionate at its finest … There are people convicted of murder in Russia who [have] a sentence way less than B.G., and it just makes absolutely no sense to me.”
“That was the complete end of it. There’s nothing more to expect from a legal standpoint and all eggs are in basket, you know, for our government and for America to see how important this issue is,” she continued. “This could happen to anybody and we should be praying that we have a country that recognizes the importance of that and are willing to actually go get our Americans and bring them back home.”
Brittney is a two-time Olympic gold medalist that plays professional basketball for Phoenix Mercury, but flew out to Russia during the WNBA’s off-season to play for UMMC Ekaterinburg. On Feb. 17, she was accused of having vape cartridges containing hashish oil, which is illegal in Russia, and detained at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Khimki.
On April 29, the U.S. State Department officially classified Brittney’s case as a wrongful detention. After nearly five months of being detained in Russia, Brittney pleaded guilty on drug charges and said in her testimony that she had no “intention” of breaking the law.
On Aug. 4, Brittney was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison. The judge of a Moscow-area court found that Griner had criminal intent and said she was guilty of smuggling and storing illegal drugs.
When asked about her thoughts on whether Brittney’s sentence was politically motivated, Griner told The View that “there’s no other way for me to see it except the fact that this is political.”
Griner noted that Brittney is an international basketball player that’s won championships, played undefeated seasons and was awarded MVP of WNBA All-Star Weekend.
“To see that the totality of the circumstances of who she is as a person was not taken into account when they rendered a decision, it makes me feel like this – at this point – has to be political,” Griner said.
“It’s not her footprint. Her footprint is amazing for Russia. She’s paying taxes there,” Griner continued. “She’s great for Russia.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin, who’s on the WNBA Board of Advocates, pointed out the pay inequity to the league compared to the NBA, saying the reason for Brittney’s travels to Russia was so she could supplement her salary.
“I’m grateful that my wife was willing to go overseas and make sure that I could go to law school and that we could have a home and things like that,” Griner told Hostin. She still encourages players to go overseas to play in the off-season if needed, but to “pay attention to the geo political nature of where you’re going, because B.G. left, and by the time she landed there was an e-mail from the WNBA that was saying if you’re going to Russia we recommend you not go and if you’re already there we recommend you come home, but it was too late.”
Last week, Brittney appeared virtually for an appeal hearing and urged the court to reassess her sentence and apologized for her “mistake.”
“I beg that the court takes in all of the stakes that was overlooked in the first court and reassess my sentence here,” Brittney said, adding that it has been “traumatic” to be away from her family.
Brittney is expected to serve out the entirety of her sentence in a penal colony labor camp, which are known for their harsh conditions. Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said that her situation is “only made worse” by the country’s history of homophobic persecution.
Griner said that it’s impossible not to love Brittney once you meet her, but she still prays that wherever she ultimately ends up serving out her sentence, “her personality can do her a little bit of favor in keeping her safe.” Still, “the fear is the fact that there’s so much discretion here.”
“There is no one way they have to do anything there, and that is very [sic] tetrifying to know they can wake up one day and say yes to something, and wake up one day and say no,” she continued. “That’s not a safe place to be.”
Since Brittney’s detainment in February, Griner has been working to bring awareness to her case through her initiative “We Are BG,” which is committed to bringing all wrongfully detained Americans home. She also met with President Joe Biden on Sept. 16.
Biden “appreciated the opportunity to learn more about Brittney and Paul from those who love them most, and acknowledged that every minute they are being held is a minute too long,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during her readout of the meeting. “The President held the meetings to reiterate his continued commitment to working through all available avenues to bring Brittney and Paul home safely. He asked after the wellbeing of Elizabeth and Cherelle and their respective families during this painful time.”
“We all admire the courage of the Whelan and Griner families in the face of these unimaginable circumstances, and we remain committed to reuniting them with their loved ones,” she continued.
In July, the Biden administration said it had made a “substantial proposal” to Russia to have Brittney and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan returned to the U.S. without success.
Prior to Brittney’s denied appeal, her attorney Alexandr Boikov told ABC News, “Her being afraid of not being released is mostly connected to the negotiations, which we are not aware of at all.”
Griner also had the opportunity to speak with Brittney a week before her the appeal hearing. “Her mental it’s not there, and she told me, ‘I’m really just trying to hold on to the last bit of you that I can remember.'”
“We spoke only three times so far out of the eight months that [Brittney’s] been sentenced,” Griner said. She went on to tell co-host Whoopi Goldberg that she’s been in contact with the U.S. State Department since Brittney was first detained, but much of what goes on behind the scenes is considered classified information. “For the most part they try kind of keep updated as possible on what’s happening with the negotiations”
For those feeling helpless thinking of the situation Brittney is in, Griner said, “words make a big difference,” so she’s set up a letter writing campaign through “We Are BG” to remind her that she’s “important” and “impossible to forget.”
“Be her strength for her right now, because she doesn’t have it,” Griner said of her wife.
Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew are reuniting next year for more installments of their popular show celebrating the music of Talking Heads.
The Talking Heads guitarist/keyboardist and the former King Crimson singer and guitarist started doing these gigs in 2021 after being inspired by a 1980 show that Talking Heads played in Rome to support their album Remain in Light. At the time, Belew was a touring member of the band. Harrison and Belew performed songs from Remain in Light at Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theater last month.
The tour starts February 16 in Denver and wraps up in New Haven, CT on March 11. Tickets go on sale this Friday, November 4 at 10 a.m. local time via remaininlight.net.
In a statement, Harrison says, “Remain In Light is a high point in my career. Adrian and I had often discussed the magic of the 1980 tour and the sheer joy it brought to audiences. It is such a delight to see that joy once again in the audiences on the current tour.”
Belew adds, “A joyful show of Talking Heads songs you know and love performed by a hot, eleven-piece ensemble including Jerry and me: You can’t help but dance and go home with a happy smile on your face.”
On Thursday, Marvel Studios will launch an official Black Panther podcast ahead of the November 11 debut of the movie’s anticipated sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Author, journalist and Black Panther comics writer Ta-Nehisi Coates will host the program, which promises to explore “the next chapter in the story of Wakanda and honors the remarkable legacy of Chadwick Boseman.”
The podcast is a collab between Marvel Studios and Proximity Media, which was founded by Black Panther franchise director Ryan Coogler, his wife Zinzi Coogler and Sev Ohanian.
The first episode features a conversation between Coates and Coogler, in which the pair “reflect on the cultural impact of Black Panther, the legacy of Chadwick Boseman and his inspiration to the cast and crew.”
A preview of the show is now available across all major podcast platforms. In the sneak peek, Coogler shares with Coates what it was like to make the film without Boseman, who died of cancer in 2020, and without recasting his role of T’Challa. “My truth is Chad was gone,” he says. “…And for somebody else to be him, we wouldn’t have believed it…No matter how good the actor was.”
The filmmaker continues, “Our truth was loss…Heroes, great men die.”
Producers promise weekly episodes starting in January of 2023, with guests including members of the two films’ crew and cast, includingAngela Bassett, who plays Queen Ramonda, and Dominique Thorne, who debuts in Wakanda Forever as Riri Williams. Other guests will include soundtrack composer and producer Ludwig Göransson, Coogler’s co-writer Joe Robert Cole; Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige and producer Nate Moore and others.
Marvel Studios is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
Huey Lewis and the News is the latest veteran act to sell their catalog for millions.
The group has partnered with Primary Wave Music to sell their “entire commercially released music catalog” from the band’s beginnings through 1994. The deal includes hits like “Heart of Rock & Roll,” “I Want a New Drug,” “Hip to Be Square,” “Workin’ for a Livin'” and the number-one smash “The Power of Love.”
In a statement, a Primary Wave executive said the company looks “forward to working with Huey to create new opportunities for his storied song catalog into the future.”
While Primary Wave would only describe the deal as “multi-million dollar,” Variety reports that according to sources, it’s worth around $20 million.
In 2018, Lewis revealed that he’s suffering from an inner-ear disorder, Meniere’s disease, which forced him to retire from performing. That same year, the band released Weather, an album of tracks recorded before Lewis was diagnosed. Lewis has said there are plans in the works for a jukebox musical based on the band’s hits.
On Friday, Hall & Oates singer John Oates released a soulful new single titled “Pushin’ a Rock” that ties in with this year’s edition of Movember, an annual campaign that focuses on raising awareness about men’s health issues.
Oates has been asked to serve as the international spokesperson for the campaign, which asks people to grow or wear a mustache for the month of November while encouraging men to address such issues as testicular cancer, prostate cancer and mental health.
John, who’s growing back a full mustache for the first time in 30 years in conjunction with the initiative, tells ABC Audio, “[I]t’s an honor to be able to try to … get the word out on men’s health issues.”
As Oates explains, “Pushin’ a Rock” is a reworked version of a song he first recorded and released several years ago, and he decided to contribute the new rendition to the Movember campaign because he felt its message aligned with that of the initiative.
“[I]t’s about overcoming struggles,” John notes. “The inspiration came from … the old myth of Sisyphus pushing a rock uphill, and when it rolls back down … sometimes you just have to either never give up or you just keep pushing … And it really seemed to dovetail and speak for what Movember was all about.”
With regard to being a Movember spokesperson, Oates admits that while he’s had a very successful career in music, “I’ve definitely had my moments and my issues, and they’re ongoing,” adding that important for people to realize that “no matter how much difficulty you have, you can overcome it if you … try your best.”
“Pushin’ a Rock” is available now via streaming services, and you can watch a companion music video at John’s official YouTube channel.
