Participating artists have been announced for The Music of Paul McCartney,a tribute concert scheduled for New York City’s Carnegie Hall on March 15, 2023.
The show is the latest in the series of annual charity concerts that New York City entrepreneur Michael Dorf has been organizing since 2004. Each year focuses on the music of a single well-known artist.
The lineup includes McCartney’s old pal Peter Asher, the guitarist, singer, manager and producer who was a member of the vocal duo Peter & Gordon, and is the brother of McCartney’s former girlfriend, Jane Asher.
Also on the bill are Ingrid Michaelson, Lyle Lovett, soul singer Bettye Lavette, the band Lake Street Dive, Irish singer/songwriter Glen Hansard and Canadian singer/songwriter Allison Russell. More artists will be added in the coming weeks.
Proceeds from the concert will go to organizations that provide music education programs and opportunities to underserved youth. Since the concert series started in 2004, over $1.5 million in proceeds have been donated.
VIP tickets are available now via MusicOf.org, with general admission tickets coming soon. The top-tier A Day in the Life Package costs $15,000, which not only gets you tickets to the show, but also lets you help Michael Dorf determine the set list.
The Really Love You package costs 10 grand: That gets you access to the rehearsals and a dinner party with the artists, access to soundcheck, great seats for the show, the ability to join everyone onstage for the finale and access to the after-party. The rest of the packages range from $375 to $3,000.
(NEW YORK) — NBA Commissioner Adam Silver celebrated the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner from Russian custody on Thursday and thanked the athletes who used their platforms to raise awareness about her case since her detention nearly ten months ago.
“Brittney has had to endure an unimaginable situation and we’re thrilled that she is on her way home to her family and friends,” Silver said in a statement on Thursday. “We thank the members of the NBA and WNBA community who never wavered in their efforts to raise awareness of Brittney’s unjust circumstances.”
Griner was released this week in a prisoner exchange with Russia, where she has been detained since Feb. 17 and was sentenced to nine years in Russia prison after she was found guilty of drug charges.
The U.S. classified Griner’s case as “wrongfully detained” in May and has been working for months to secure her freedom. After months of negotiations, Russia agreed to swap Griner for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Throughout her detention, top stars in the WNBA and NBA rallied for Griner on and off the court, raising awareness about her case through public statements, putting pressure on the White House to secure her release.
Current and former WNBA stars led the way in the sports world and provided direct support to Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, who publicly called for a meeting with President Joe Biden and asked him to make Griner’s freedom a priority.
WNBA Hall of Famer Dawn Staley, who coached Griner and her teammates to a gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics last year, has consistently voiced her support for Griner and celebrated her release in tweet on Thursday.
“God’s grace is SUFFICIENT!,” she wrote. “[Brittney Griner] is home! I love you BG!”
“Seen you soon [Brittney Griner,]” tweeted Los Angeles Sparks star Nneka Ogwumike, along with a photo of herself standing next to a picture of Griner.
Ogwumike, who is also the president of the WNBA Players Association, previously expressed concerns over Griner’s wellbeing in Russian detention and voiced her support for her fellow WNBA player in an interview with “Good Morning America.”
“It’s tough — that could have been us,” Ogwumike said in April, who has also played overseas during the off-season. “We’re really most concerned about her health and safety. Especially her mental health.”
WNBA player Breanna Stewart, who has been tweeting about Griner’s case every day since May and urging action from the White House, celebrated Griner’s release in a tweet on Thursday.
“BG is FREE!!! 294 days and she is coming home!!!” she tweeted, along with thankful hands emoji.
Griner, a Phoenix Mercury player who was visiting Russia in the offseason to play basketball, was arrested in February at the Sheremetyevo International Airport near Moscow for allegedly having vape cartridges in her luggage that contained hashish oil — an illegal substance in Russia. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced in August to nine years in prison.
Griner’s detention took an emotional and physical toll on her, her attorney previously told ABC News, and there were times when she lost hope that she could be released and felt isolated and she faced difficulties that prevented her from staying in touch over the phone with her family.
But her wife Cherelle Griner previously told “Good Morning America” that the support that Griner got from her fellow athletes and the WNBA has brought her “comfort” during difficult times.
The WNBA kept the campaign to “free BG” front and center during the 2022 season on and off the court.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced in May that the WNBA, which kicked off its 2022 season on May 6, would be honoring Griner with a floor decal bearing her initials and jersey number (42) on the sideline of all 12 WNBA teams.
“Things like that matter, like, it has her hopeful,” Cherelle Griner told “GMA” in May. “It lets her know she’s not forgotten.”
Engelbert hailed Griner’s “extraordinary courage and dignity in the face of enormous adversity” in a statement on Thursday and thanked the Biden administration for securing her freedom.
“There has not been a day over the past ten months where we all haven’t had Brittney Griner on our minds and in our hearts and that has now turned into a collective wave of joy and relief knowing that she will soon be reunited with her family, the WNBA player community, and her friends,” Engelbert said.
NBA stars — from Steph Curry to LeBron James — also raised awareness by speaking out on Griner’s case, notably bringing attention to it as the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors faced off in the 2022 NBA Finals.
The Boston Celtics also raised awareness about Griner’s case on the court in June by wearing “We Are BG” T-shirts — a slogan that has become a rallying cry in the WNBA and beyond to show support for the Phoenix Mercury star.
The Phoenix Mercury and the Phoenix Suns released a joint statement on Thursday, thanking the Biden administration, the athletes, the fans and everyone who kept Griner’s “story top-of-mind.”
“The fight to bring her home has illustrated the power of the WNBA, its players, platform and mission,” the statement said. “We no longer have to bring BG home — she’s on her way.”
(NEW YORK) — Steve, 18, first felt the thrill of gambling at the age of 15.
His “first high” came when he won a couple hundred dollars while playing dice, he told ABC News. To speak candidly, he’s asked to be in shadow, to use a different name and alter his voice.
Between 60% to 80% of high schoolers say they’ve gambled for money in the past year, and up to 6% are addicted to gambling, according to the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-Risk Behaviors.
“Young people are significantly at higher risk of developing gambling disorder than adults, in part because their brains are not fully developed. Their ability to evaluate risk, their ability to handle loss, isn’t as secure as an adult,” Dr. Timothy Fong, co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, told ABC News.
Steve says that his love of playing basketball and baseball morphed from a sports obsession into a gambling obsession, which soon grew into a full-blown addiction.
“I kind of used gambling as an escape from simple things like boredom, sadness, anger, even joy. Just like, you know, drugs and alcohol for some people,” Steve said.
In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down the federal ban on sports betting, paving the way for at least 30 states and Washington, D.C. to legalize the practice.
The legal age to gamble in the U.S. is either 18 or 21, depending on the state and type of gambling, but experts warn that young people are still finding ways to place bets.
“The casino is available in many people’s homes, in their pocket on their smartphone,” Fong said.
Steve said he was able to illegally gamble by accessing legal sports betting sites using other people’s accounts who were of age. He also used unregulated offshore, illegal websites.
Steve racked up thousands of dollars in debt. Bookies started to call him in the middle of school, he said. It became a fulltime job, isolating him from his friends and family and keeping him up all night. He even began stealing money to pay back his debts.
At first, Steve’s parents failed to fully grasp how destructive his son’s gambling addiction had become, Steve’s dad told ABC News.
“I had to confront him about what was going on, how bad was it. It was very difficult to get truthful responses from him, because he was very protective of that behavior,” Steve’s dad said.
With his family’s support, Steve joined a 12-step program. He briefly relapsed, went to rehab and is now in recovery. Watching sports is still a trigger for him, he said.
Steve’s sponsor, Gary Schneider, said he, too, was once addicted to gambling.
“I believe they’re targeting the young,” said Schneider, who is also a national board member of Stop Predatory Gambling. “They want the next generation. They label it gaming, because now it’s a game that they go on and do that. It’s really gambling.”
Legal gaming companies refute that claim.
“The U.S. gaming industry invests hundreds of millions of dollars annually in consumer education, employee training, research and support. Our collective responsible gaming commitment includes comprehensive protocols in place to verify the identity and age of customers. It’s our priority that gaming remains entertainment strictly for adults,” Bill Miller, president and CEO of the American Gaming Association, told ABC News in September.
FanDuel, a betting platform that often advertises during major sporting events, owns nearly half the online legal sports betting market in the U.S.
In a statement from September, they told ABC News that “FanDuel strictly prohibits wagering by minors…[and] employs a strict identity authentication process at sign-up with information that’s validated by independent verification services before an account is permitted to place a wager.”
But Steve’s dad said it’s not enough.
“It’s in every sporting event. There’s advertisements constantly. We don’t sit and watch a game together like we might have done when he was younger. It has been hard to have removed that from our relationship. There’s just not that level of education and there’s just not that level of awareness of it as a problem,” he said.
Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Mighty Dream Forum
Pharrell Williams is on a mission to save the polar bears. The entrepreneur and his Icecream design label have teamed up with MINI USA for an exclusive merch collection that will help raise money for the white bears.
Set to launch December 15 on NTWRK, the collection will feature a variety of products, including a keychain, hoodie and T-shirt, which retail for $150. The price point is meant to bring attention to the 150 billion tons of ice that Antartica, the polar bear’s habitat, is losing every year.
The MINI x ICECREAM collection goes on sale on December 15 at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT. Proceeds will go toward Polar Bears International, which, according to a press release, “works to inspire people to care about the Arctic, the urgent threats to its future, and the connection between this remote region and our global climate.”
Wednesday night was the New York City premiere ofIf These Walls Could Sing, a documentary about London’s Abbey Road Studios directed by Mary McCartney that will premiere on Disney+ on December 16. For some inside information, the filmmaker, photographer and cookbook author turned to one of Abbey Road’s most well-known regulars: her dad, Paul McCartney.
Speaking to People, Mary says, “I was with him and I was like, ‘I’m going to make this documentary about the history of Abbey Road,’ and he would just sort of give me little tips. It was good! He was mulling it over and he sort of told me little anecdotes.” What Paul wanted to stress, she says, is how important the people who worked there were to the Beatles’ career.
“He was keen to talk about how the people there had helped them—staff, people behind the scenes, engineers,” Mary explains. “He feels passionate about it. I think in the documentary you see how passionate he is about it.”
Mary says her inspiration for the film was a photo taken of her parents in 1977 which shows them walking across the famous crosswalk seen on the cover of the Abbey Road album with a pony.
“I love the picture of my mom going over the zebra crossing. She had a little pony in London … she’s my inspiration,” Mary tells People of Linda McCartney, Paul’s first wife, who died in 1998. While researching the film, Mary says she learned that her mom would “apparently would come around to [Abbey Road] and be like, ‘Could somebody babysit the kids tonight?’ It shows how I grew up there.”
Jhené Aiko‘s back to making music, but this go-round, her project aligns with her role as mother to newborn son Noah Hasani.
The singer is releasing her own installment of Sleep Soul, which, according to YouTube, is sleep music that consists of “R&B melodies combined with white, brown and pink noise.” Jhené’s Sleep Soul Volume 2is slated for a December 9 release.
“2 more sleeps until volume 2 is out!” she captioned the announcement. “don’t forget to pre-save. link in bio [teddy bear, cloud, zzz emojis].”
As reported, Jhené welcomed Noah, her son with Big Sean, last month. She’s also a mother to Namiko Love from a previous relationship.
Her upcoming project, as its name implies, is the second of the Sleep Soul albums. The first, Sleep Soul Volume 1, is a 20-track project with R&B-inspired lullabies.
(DALLAS) — The prosecution rested its case late Wednesday, three days into the trial of now-former police officer Aaron Dean in the 2019 fatal shooting of Atatiana Jefferson.
Dean is charged with murder in the death of Jefferson, a Black woman who was allegedly fatally shot by Dean inside her Fort Worth, Texas, home on Oct. 12, 2019.
His trial began on Monday, Dec. 5. Court will resume Monday, Dec. 12.
Opening statements
Prosecutors began their opening statements Monday by telling jurors about who Jefferson was. She was a 28-year-old woman who was living with her mother to take care of her, as well as address her own “severe health issues with her heart,” according to prosecutors. In that house, she helped raise Zion Carr, her then-8-year-old nephew who was present when she was fatally shot by police. She was “helping raise Zion, teaching him the responsibilities, day-to-day chores,” prosecutors said.
On that night, “[Zion] sees his aunt Tay — which is what he calls her — still playing video games and she’s up so, 8-year-old says ‘I want to play too.’ So, he gets up and he starts playing video games with her so they’re laughing, having a good time. Tatianna and Zion had no idea what was coming,” prosecutor Ashlea Deener said.
The defense began Monday’s hearing arguing for a motion to change the venue in which the trial is held because almost all of the potential jurors during jury selection had heard of the case. Judge George Gallagher denied the motion.
During opening statements, the defense focused on the gun in Jefferson’s hand in the moments before she was shot. The prosecution argued that Dean shot Jefferson before Dean could see a gun and before Jefferson could follow his commands.
“As soon as Aaron enters into the backyard, he sees a silhouette at the window,” Dean’s defense attorney Miles Brissette said. “Aaron sees that silhouette in the window and that silhouette has a firearm. That silhouette has a firearm with a green laser mounted on the front rail of that firearm pointed directly at Aaron, closer than me to you to the window.”
“The evidence will support he did not see the gun in her hand,” Deener said. “This is not a justification. This is not a self-defense case. This is murder.”
There were concerns the trial would be delayed after Dean’s lead attorney, Jim Lane, died on Nov. 27, according to Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA, just one day before the jury selection in the case began. Lane had been ill and two other lawyers took over as lead attorneys in May, according to WFAA.
Monday’s court proceedings only lasted half a day because of Lane’s funeral.
Jefferson’s nephew testifies
On the stand, now-11-year-old Zion told the court that he and Jefferson burned the hamburgers they were making that night, which is why they opened the door. They left the screen door open to let the smoke out, according to Zion and prosecutors.
He was the first and only witness to take the stand on the first day of the trial.
Police said they received a call just before 2:30 a.m. to respond to Jefferson’s home on East Allen Avenue after a neighbor called to say the front door was open.
Two officers arrived at the house shortly after and parked near Jefferson’s home, but not in front of the residence, according to officials.
The front door appears open in the body-camera footage, but a screen door looks to be closed in front of it. The officer doesn’t appear to knock.
Officials said the officers walked around the back of the house and that one of the officers observed a person through the rear window of the home and opened fire.
Zion said his aunt heard a noise, asked him about it and went to get a handgun from her purse. She walked toward the window, and then he said he saw her fall to the ground.
“She started crying and then two police officers came and got me,” Zion said.
Zion said his aunt did not raise her gun when she approached the window, however the defense attorney kept asking Zion questions about his recollection of an interview he did the night after his aunt was shot.
Zion had allegedly said during that interview that Jefferson had at one point raised the gun from her side, but Zion said he didn’t remember the details of what he did or said during the interview in response to the questions, visibly frustrated on the stand.
Other officer on the scene testifies
Officer Carol Darch, Dean’s former partner in the Fort Worth Police Department, took the stand Tuesday for cross-examination.
In her testimony, Darch said messiness inside the home made it look like there had been a home invasion of some sort, “like someone had methodically gone through that house looking for something.”
She said she and Dean didn’t announce themselves because of their own safety, as well as based on “open structure” procedure that trains officers to reduce the possibility that they might give an intruder into the home a chance to escape by alerting them of their presence.
Darch described the call as an “open structure” call, which refers to a call about a structure with an open door or window.
She later was asked to describe the “pyramid” style “Use-of-Force Continuum,” which calls for deadly force to be the last resort in addressing a threat. However, training does not require officers to take all steps before using deadly force if met with a deadly force.
“Deadly force is always met with deadly force,” Darch said. “We’re trained to stop the threat.”
Darch told the jury that she never saw Jefferson’s gun on the scene and never heard Dean announce that he saw a gun on Jefferson himself.
“I heard him give commands, I started turning. I was halfway through my turn and I heard the shot,” Darch said.
She later added, “The only thing I could see [through the window] was eyes, really. I couldn’t make out if it was a male or a female. I just saw someone in the window and I saw their eyes — as big as saucers.”
Darch got emotional on the stand when Zion came up in questioning. She said she was concerned about his well-being, as she said she tended to Zion’s care following the shooting.
Body camera footage released by the department shows the officer approaching a rear window of the home with his gun drawn. The officer shouts, “Put your hands up, show me your hands,” and fires one shot through the window.
The video seems to confirm the officer never identified himself as police before he opened fire.
Police officials said Jefferson was within her rights to protect herself and her nephew when she heard noises in her backyard and went to the window to investigate.
The 911 call
Abriel Talbert, the call center employee who took the 911 call from Jefferson’s neighbor, told the jury that she included details about the house for police answering the call.
In her description to police, she included information that the caller shared that “both neighbors’ vehicles are in the driveway … and neighbors are usually home but never have a door open.”
She included those details “so the officer knows what’s supposed to be at the address, nothing out of the ordinary, other than the open door.”
She classified the call as an open structure call because of the open doors.
James Smith, who made the call to the city’s non-emergency line, had asked responders for a “welfare check” on Jefferson’s home because he was concerned about his neighbors with whom he’s friends with. However, they responded to the call instead as an open structure call.
3rd day of testimony
Richard Fries, the deputy medical examiner in Tarrant County, took the stand to describe the process of examining Jefferson’s body at the scene. He described the gunshot wound to her chest and the glass fragments that had embedded in her skin from the window she was shot through.
He said the bullet pierced Jefferson’s heart and that he would not “expect somebody to survive” her wounds.
On the third day of witness testimony, jurors also heard from Fort Worth officer James Van Gorkom, Fort Worth major case unit detective Doug Rohloff and another Fort Worth police officer to describe the aftermath of the shooting and their analysis of the scene.
In a lengthy Twitter thread Thursday, James Gunn responded to a widely covered Hollywood Reporter story about his and partner Peter Safran‘s reported “blueprint” for getting Warner Bros. Discovery’s DC Comics-based universe back on track.
The trade put forth that a third Wonder Woman film from director Patty Jenkins had been scrapped. While the 2017 original starring Gal Gadot was a hit, its 2020 follow-up, Wonder Woman 1984, was decidedly not, both with critics and at the box office.
The trade also hinted a sequel to 2013’s Man of Steel, including a much-hyped return of Henry Cavill as Superman, might not take flight after all. Its ties to the disappointing receipts for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson‘s Black Adam — which teased Cavill’s return — were cited.
Guardians of the Galaxy veteran Gunn began by saying of the story, “… some of it is true, some of it is half-true, some of it is not true, & some of it we haven’t decided yet whether it’s true or not.”
He continues, “Peter & I chose to helm DC Studios knowing we were coming into a fractious environment, both in the stories being told & in the audience itself & there would be an unavoidable transitional period…But, in the end, the drawbacks of that…were dwarfed by the creative possibilities & the opportunity to build upon what has worked in DC so far & to help rectify what has not.”
Gunn added, “We know we are not going to make every single person happy every step of the way, but we can promise everything we do is done in the service of the STORY & in the service of the DC CHARACTERS we know you cherish and we have cherished our whole lives.”
The Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach has released a new song with his side project, The Arcs.
The track is called “Eyez” and is available now via digital outlets. It’ll appear on The Arcs’ upcoming album, Electrophonic Chronic, the sophomore follow-up to 2015’s Yours, Dreamily.
Electrophonic Chronic is due out January 27 and is being released as a tribute to late band member Richard Swift, who died in 2018. Much of the album was recorded prior to Swift’s passing.
“Eyez” is the third track to be released from Electrophonic Chronic, following “Keep on Dreamin'” and “Heaven Is a Place.”
The Black Keys’ most recent album is this year’s Dropout Boogie.
Kenny Chesney is currently mourning the loss of his rescue pit bull mix, Ruby — aka Da Ruba Girl — but he has found a way to make her memory larger than life.
The singer announced this week that he’s releasing an official version of “Da Ruba Girl,” a song he routinely aired on his SiriusXM channel, No Shoes Radio. Fans have long been asking for Kenny to make the song officially available to download or stream on demand; on Friday, “Da Ruba Girl” will be out on iTunes and all streaming platforms.
“No one had a bigger, bolder heart than Da Ruba Girl, whose name was Ruby,” the singer says. “She was a rescue my friend Mary brought into our lives, and she was the most loving, gentle soul. It’s why she inspired the song, and truly how she showed us better ways to be human.”
But Kenny’s new song will do more than just honor Ruby’s memory — it will also help other dogs find homes.
All proceeds from “Da Ruba Girl” will benefit Stray Rescue of St. Louis, which finds homes for dogs who have a harder time being adopted, such as pit mixes, older dogs and bigger dogs.
“While she was a rescue, she truly rescued every single person who came in contact with her,” Kenny continues. “To honor her life, I wanted that love and her ability to rescue people to continue. I wanted to do something that embodied what she was, and that would also help people know these dogs can save you.”
