Fresh off the finale of her Las Vegas residency, Shania Twain returns this week with “Waking Up Dreaming,” her first new single since 2017’s Now.
The new song delivers Shania’s patented blend of uptempo country and feel-good, irrepressible pop. “So let’s start waking up dreaming / And dress up crazy like superstars / There ain’t no shaking this feeling / Tonight we’re making our way to Mars,” she sings in the chorus.
Speaking of “dressing up crazy like superstars,” Shania also dropped a music video to go along with her new song, and it features her playing the role of a retro glam rocker as she parties in a green room with a handful of her equally glamorous pals.
The singer dons a variety of glittery outfits and colorful wigs in the various scenes of the clip, which takes her onstage for an epic performance then out of the venue to greet her fans and hop in a car at the end of the night.
The song is a fresh start for Shania, as it’s her first release on her new label home, the recently-formed Republic Nashville.
“I couldn’t think of a better partner than Republic Nashville. I’m honored and excited to be the label’s first artist and lead the charge of this new and exciting chapter,” the singer says in a statement. “In this respect, it feels like a new beginning all around, and I’m embracing it wholeheartedly.”
Billy Idol‘s recently announced EP, The Cage, got its release Friday, September 23.
The EP is available on CD, digitally, and as a standard black-vinyl disc and a limited-edition red-vinyl disc.
The Cage features four new songs on which the veteran pop-punk rocker collaborated with his longtime guitarist, Steve Stevens.
Fans got their first taste of the record last month, when Idol released the track “Cage,” along with a companion music video.
The Cage‘s other songs are “Running from the Ghost,” which focuses on Billy overcoming drug addiction; “Rebel Like You,” a blues-rock tune that pays tribute to his 2-year-old granddaughter; and “Miss Nobody,” a spoken-word rap/R&B/funk-influenced track inspired by a feisty homeless woman he crossed paths with near the studio where he was working on the EP.
“These new songs are celebratory because Steve and I are enjoying ourselves,” Idol recently told Variety. “It’s kind of wild to still be making music we’re excited about.”
Meanwhile, Billy kicks off a new European tour Friday night in Halle, Germany. The trek is mapped out through an October 25 show in Leeds, England. When Idol returns to the U.S., he’ll launch a five-date Las Vegas residency at The Cosmopolitan that runs from November 11 through November 19.
(NEW YORK) — The Adams County Coroner’s Office in Colorado is set to release Elijah McClain’s amended autopsy report after several news organizations sued for its release on Friday.
The report was amended based on confidential grand jury information, according to the chief coroner for Adams County.
The release comes before the arraignment of five former Aurora police officers and paramedics in McClain’s 2019 death.
McClain, a Black 23-year-old massage therapist, died following an encounter with police in August 2019 while he was walking home from a convenience store.
A passerby had called 911 to report McClain was acting “sketchy” since he was wearing a ski mask on a warm night. The lawyer for the McClain family attributed this to the fact that McClain was anemic, which made him feel cold more easily.
Aurora police officers responded to the scene and confronted McClain. An officer can be heard saying in body camera footage that they put him into a carotid chokehold, which restricts the carotid artery and cuts off blood to the brain, according to the Department of Justice. McClain can be heard saying, “I can’t breathe,” in police body camera footage.
Paramedics arrived, giving McClain an “excessive” dose of ketamine, according to McCain’s lawyer, and McClain suffered from cardiac arrest shortly after in an ambulance, according to officials. McClain was pronounced dead three days later.
Former Aurora Police Officers Jason Rosenblatt, Nathan Woodyard and Randy Roedema as well as paramedics Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper were charged with 32 criminal counts, including manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and assault charges.
Their arraignment is set for November.
CPR News filed a lawsuit against the Adams County Coroner’s Office on Sept. 1, arguing for the autopsy report to be released. Several other local news organizations joined the effort after open records requests to obtain the report were denied.
(WASHINGTON) — Democrat Stacey Abrams knows by exactly how many votes she narrowly lost to Republican Brian Kemp in the Georgia governor’s race four years ago — and, to hear her tell it, she knows exactly who can help her win in their rematch this fall.
“One-point-six million new voters are added to the rolls after 2018. The margin in the 2018 election was … 54,723 votes. We’ve got 1.6 million opportunities to cover a 54,000 vote spread,” Abrams told reporters at a campaign stop in Athens on Saturday.
As Abrams — a former state lawmaker-turned-voting rights advocate who would be the first Black woman governor in the country’s history — works to mobilize Georgians, she is focusing, she has said, on untapped communities: Asian Americans, Latinos and more.
She has also increasingly emphasized outreach to Black voters, particularly Black male voters, whose crucial support has been wavering, according to some polls.
“If Black men turned out in their numbers and support me at the level they are capable of, I can win this election,” Abrams said at an event in Atlanta earlier this month alongside popular radio host Charlamagne tha God, rapper 21 Savage and civil rights attorney Francys Johnson.
Before her event with Charlamagne and 21 Savage, Abrams campaigned at a Caribbean restaurant with Atlanta-native rapper Yung Joc.
“If you wanted a group of Black man to mobilize, you would not only want to kind of reach out to him and mobilize him but you want to also reach out to the people around him who are his kind of people,” Chryl Laird, an associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland at College Park, told ABC News.
In 2018, Abrams won 93% of Black voters, who make up 30% of the Georgia electorate. Black men comprised 14% of voters and chose Abrams over Kemp 88% to 11%, according to exit polling data from ABC News.
Black women made up 16% of Georgia voters and went for Abrams 97% to 2%.
That pattern may not repeat in November — a shift that, given Abrams’ close defeat in 2018, could be decisive.
Kemp led Abrams 50% to 48% according to a poll last week of likely voters conducted by Quinnipiac University. Quinnipiac found that Black men supported Abrams over Kemp 87% to 12%, a 1-point shift, and Black women backed Abrams 94% to 5%, a 3-point drop.
Black conservatives say the reason for the change is clear: They cite Kemp’s COVID-19 response and the state’s economic performance.
“For the Black Georgians who vote and have watched [Kemp] over his last four years, they understand that he’s been a good governor. And if it’s not broke, why do you need to fix it?” Camilla Moore, chairman of the Georgia Black Republican Council, told ABC News.
Out on the campaign trail, Kemp emphasizes that history in his appeal to voters of color.
“I told people from day one what I was gonna do when I ran in 2018. A lot of people didn’t really know who I was then. I got defined by a candidate that had twice as much money as I did, had the national media in her back pocket and never could really fight through that. And it’s a different story now. Because I have a great record that I think resonates with all Georgians,” Kemp said at a campaign stop at the University of Georgia on Sep. 10.
Abrams downplayed concerns about the polling while at an event over the weekend, arguing that the disengaged and newly registered voters were key to persuade.
Still, she acknowledged there was space to drive up Black voter turnout — and she linked their potential apathy to the state’s recent decades under GOP leadership.
“We know that there are still thousands and thousands of voters who are not engaged, especially Black voters. And we know that that is in part because of 20 years of Republican rule convincing Black voters that we’ve gotten everything we’re going to get,” she said.
‘If you show up, things really will change’
In recent weeks, as Abrams works to expand her base of support, she has hosted events with Asian-Americans, Latinos and voters with disabilities, among others.
“I’m not going to leave any community untouched and unconnected with,” she told reporters at the event with Charlamagne that was geared toward Black men.
On Sunday, Abrams led a fireside chat focused on gun violence in the Asian community, a group that has become the fastest-growing population of eligible voters in the country.
She was joined alongside families who’ve lost loved ones to gun violence, with much of the event centered around the Georgia spa mass shootings in March 2021.
“What is dismissed as a cultural conversation but must be understood as an issue of health care, of economics, of morality. We have the responsibility in the state to protect our people, and that protection should not be limited,” she said.
Abrams also spoke at Atlanta’s yearly celebration of Mexican Independence Day, attended the Asian Student Alliance Conference and has hosted several Latino-owned small business roundtables across Georgia.
Her campaign plans to use these events as an opportunity to earn the votes of communities that they feel have been left out of the political conversation, treating them as persuasion communities which, speaking to the 19th at the Buckhead Theater, Abrams described as people who need to be convinced to show up to the polls — not who to vote for.
“If you show up, things really will change,” Abrams said Monday.
She is right on the reality of Georgia’s changing electorate, which has given her campaign an opportunity to court new or infrequent voters.
Though Black voters still make up a significant share of voters, the number of active voters who are Hispanic and Asian grew in recent years to 4% and 3%, respectively, according to a report from Georgia’s secretary of state.
In the upcoming weeks, Abrams plans to hold a reproductive rights event focused on AAPI women, a Vietnamese roundtable, and speak at the Georgia Latino Film Festival.
“This is one of the first times that we’ve really had an opportunity to sit down with someone who was running for a major seat and talk about these issues,” Rhea Wunsch, a Georgia college student and gun reform activist told ABC News, during Abrams’ event with Asian Americans on Sunday.
While Abrams may downplay the polling, surveys show her push to persuade voters has some limits that Kemp doesn’t face: A Monmouth University poll released Thursday found that she has a smaller ceiling to gain swayable voters’ support compared to her opponent. Kemp had a lower unfavorable rating, according to Monmouth, and more Georgia voters had definitely ruled out voting for her (46%) over him (37%).
However, that poll showed Abrams has greater support from her party than Kemp does form his: 83% of Democrats said they will definitely vote for Abrams while 73% of Republicans said they will definitely back Kemp.
Abrams also sees a pathway to victory through infrequent voters and has been working for years on the ground to register voters — efforts that other Democrats have credited, in part, with driving up turnout in the 2020 election cycle that saw both Senate seats flip blue.
“It’s not about whether they’re voting Republican or Democrat. It’s whether they believe voting can work for them. And I want them to know that if they vote for me for governor, things that are going to be different,” Abrams said Saturday.
Low-propensity voters are who, some experts say, will make the difference in the gubernatorial election, and it’s a bloc that may not be reflected in polls.
“This race is going to come down to a few thousand votes. And so when you look at which candidate is going granular and finding — literally meeting — every eligible voter, it is Stacey. And the polls aren’t going to represent that granularity,” said Hillary Holley, executive director of Care in Action, a nonpartisan group advocating for domestic workers.
But Black voters — and Black male voters — remain key
Some advocates emphasize that courting Black voters will also be crucial for Abrams
“I don’t want voters of color, Black voters and brown voters, to carry that weight by ourselves like the fate of democracy is just on Black voters here in Georgia,” Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told ABC News.
“You could not have seen the ‘Georgia miracle’ in the last election cycle without the turnout and participation from Black voters,” Albright said, referring to the victory of Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
“It’s going to take Black voters to have large turnout in order for this state to continue on the Democratic path,” he said.
Throughout her campaign, Abrams has sought to energize Black male support through “Stacey and the Fellas” events and by touting policies geared toward them such as expanding Medicaid and establishing a small business investment fund in her “Black Men’s Agenda.” (The campaign also plans in the coming weeks to release agendas for Georgia’s Latino and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.)
At Abrams’ event with Charlamagne and others, a crowd of mostly Black men packed a production studio warehouse, filled with food, music and apparel. Community members cheered Abrams as she discussed a host of topics, from free technical college to supporting Georgia’s booming entertainment industry.
“What Stacey has done as far as mobilizing people and bringing people together to come out and vote has been incredible,” Charlamagne said.
Some voters said they, too, were encouraged.
“She understands the challenges of Black men in America but especially here in Georgia,” said Paul Grant, a teacher in Lawrenceville. “And I think of all the candidates running, I don’t know of anyone who will have a better understanding of what’s needed to help Black men in Georgia. I know it’s a priority.”
Dontay Palmer, a nursing student at Georgia State University, agreed in lauding Abrams’ efforts but noted that it may not translate to more ballots bearing her name.
“I like it. I think it’s really cool. It’s just getting everybody out,” Palmer told ABC News of the outreach.
“We just don’t have the information or access,” Palmer continued. “So I love it that even if they’re not going to vote for her, she’s like, ‘Hey, get information about the election.'”
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Dua Lipa‘s At Your Service podcast returned Friday with Monica Lewinsky as the first guest of the new season.
The women discussed a myriad of topics, including public shaming, the #MeToo movement and former President Bill Clinton.
News broke in January 1998, when Dua was only 2, that then-President Clinton engaged in an extramarital affair with Lewinsky, who was 24 at the time.
Lewinsky revealed her parents experienced intense pain and fear that she was “being publicly humiliated to death.”
The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal became the focus of American Crime Story: Impeachment, of which Lewinsky served as a producer. As for why she decided to be a part of the production, Lewinsky explained, “When you’ve gone through the kinds of things I’ve gone through, you come to recognize that any input in something around your narrative is better than nothing… [My] goal was really to shift a collective consciousness in a way that this couldn’t happen to another young person again.”
The two discussed feminism and why the idea of a “perfect victim” is harming the cause. Lewinsky said feminists tend to attack and “dehumanize” women who don’t “tick every box” because they think that makes it harder “to know what the right course of action is.”
“No matter what, somehow we managed to always point fingers at the woman, whether there was a mistake that happened there or not” Dua agreed. “We’re always found with the woman picking up the pieces.”
Both expressed optimism that progress is being made but were unsure if it’s happening quickly enough. Dua cited the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which she says created “a really scary time” because women’s rights have gone “10 steps backwards.”
Lewinsky expressed hope that Dua’s generation will stay informed and committed to change things for the better.
The Pretty Reckless has premiered an acoustic version of “Harley Darling,” a track off their latest album, 2021’s Death By Rock and Roll.
In a statement, frontwoman Taylor Momsen calls “Harley Darling” a “love letter” to frequent Pretty Reckless producer Kato Khandwala, who died in 2018 from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident.
“So many of us have stories of losing loved ones, especially now, and I hope this song can be used in other’s healing as it was in my own,” Momsen says.
The acoustic “Harley Darling” is available now via digital outlets. It will also appear on The Pretty Reckless’ upcoming Other Worlds compilation, which will feature various remixes, covers and unplugged recordings.
Ghost‘s Tobias Forge traded his mic for a baseball mitt when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Chicago White Sox’s game Thursday against the visiting Cleveland Guardians.
Forge took the mound as his character Papa Emeritus IV, complete with his signature face paint. He did dress up for the occasion, though, trading his occult robes for a White Sox jersey.
Forge’s stop in Chicago comes as he and Ghost wrap up their U.S. tour behind their new album, Impera. The outing concludes Friday in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Disturbed has announced a new album called Divisive.
The eighth studio effort from the “Down with the Sickness” metallers — and the first since 2018’s Evolution — will arrive on November 18.
“Partisan tribal warfare has become a part of our regular existence nowadays,” says frontman David Draiman. “It’s one big battle of the cliques. The whole idea of the record is to be a wakeup call for everyone.”
“Our society has become addicted to outrage,” he adds. “Music is the best cure for what ails us though. If only everyone reached out and used it. There’s no better environment to forget about all of this s*** than live music. We can be together and realize we have more in common than not. Recognize what’s happening and let’s make a change for the better.”
Divisive features the previously released track “Hey You.” A second single, titled “Unstoppable,” is out now via digital outlets.
The album also includes a duet with Heart‘s Ann Wilson called “Don’t Tell Me.”
Here’s the Divisive track list:
“Hey You”
“Bad Man”
“Divisive”
“Unstoppable”
“Love to Hate”
“Feeding the Fire”
“Don’t Tell Me” feat. Ann Wilson
“Take Back Your Life”
“Part of Me”
“Won’t Back Down”
Actress and director Bryce Dallas Howard says Universal execs wanted her to lose weight before she starred again as Claire Dearing in the hit threequel Jurassic World: Dominion, but director Colin Trevorrow wasn’t having it.
“…How do I say this…[I’ve] been asked to not use my natural body in cinema,” Howard said in a video interview with U.K.’s Metro. “On the third movie, it was actually because there were so many women cast, it was something that Colin felt very strongly about in terms of protecting me…because the conversation came up again, ‘We need to ask Bryce to lose weight.'”
Bryce says the director maintained, “There are lots of different kinds of women on this planet and there are lots of different kinds of women in our film.'”
She added, “I got to do so many stunts that wouldn’t have been possible if I had been dieting. I’m really thrilled [at] all the action I got to do, and I got to do it with my body, she was at her maximum strength, and I hope it is just yet another indication of what’s possible.”
Recently, Howard explained she was paid “so much less” than her Jurassic World co-star Chris Pratt, who was coming into the franchise with Marvel movie blockbusters under his belt. But, she found support from her Jurassic family.
“…Chris and I have discussed it, and whenever there was an opportunity…like a game or a ride, he literally told me, ‘You guys don’t even have to do anything. I’m gonna do all the negotiating. We’re gonna be paid the same, and you don’t have to think about this, Bryce,'” Howard said.
Jurassic World: Dominion is now streaming on Peacock.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
Earlier this week, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame posted an “In Memoriam” tribute to original Doobie Brothers drummer John Hartman — though oddly, according to a Hall of Fame rep, his family confirmed that he actually died on December 29, 2021. Now, his bandmates have acknowledged Hartman’s passing on their official Facebook page.
Hartman, who was 72, co-founded the Doobie Brothers and played on all their ’70s-era hits; the band added a second drummer in 1971. Hartman left after 1978’s Minute by Minute album but rejoined twelve other Doobies alumni for a 1987 benefit tour.
He was subsequently part of the reunited Doobies lineup that recorded 1989’s Cycles and 1991’s Brotherhood, but retired permanently from the band in 1992. In 2020, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with eight other Doobie Brothers members.
On the band’s Facebook page, they wrote, “Today we are thinking of John Hartman, or Little John, to us. John was a wild spirit, great drummer and showman during his time in the Doobies. He was also a close friend for many years and an intricate part of the band personality! We send our condolences to all his loved ones at this difficult time. Rest In Peace, John.”
It’s unclear why nobody in the band seemed to be aware of Hartman’s passing prior to the Rock Hall’s posting. Doobie Brothers drummers Keith Knudsen and Michael Hossack died in 2005 and 2012, respectively.
