Things have not gone so fab for the recently launched “It Was Fifty Years Ago Today: A Tribute to The Beatles” tour: Five consecutive shows have been postponed after someone associated with the participating musicians tested positive for COVID-19.
As previously reported, the trek features Todd Rundgren, Christopher Cross, founding Moody Blues and Wings member Denny Laine, Badfinger‘s Joey Molland, and former Chicago singer/bassist Jason Scheff performing songs from The Beatles‘ Rubber Soul and Revolver albums, as well as select tunes from their own careers.
According to a post on Rundgren’s Facebook page, the concerts were postponed “out of an abundance of caution…due to an individual on the band’s team having tested positive for COVID.”
The affected shows had been scheduled for March 5 in Westbury, New York; March 7 in Red Bank, New Jersey; March 8 in Annapolis, Maryland; March 9 in Medford, Massachusetts; and March 10 in Derry, New Hampshire.
The concerts will be rescheduled and tickets that have been already purchased will be honored for the new dates. More details will be announced soon.
The next scheduled date on the tour is a March 11 show in Staten Island, New York. The trek currently is slated to wrap up on March 27 in Kansas, City, Missouri.
(WASHINGTON) — Trucker protesters against COVID vaccine mandates and restrictions met Tuesday with a pair of Republican lawmakers for two hours on Capitol Hill.
Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Ted Cruz of Texas spoke with a small group of protesters from “The People’s Convoy,” who said they won’t end their now three-day long circuit along the D.C. beltway — traveling around 55-60 miles per hour along the often congested corridors of Maryland and Virginia — until they sit down with other members of Congress and their demands for the rollbacks of a national state of emergency and vaccine mandates are met.
Convoy truckers are also asking for congressional hearings on the origins of the pandemic along with an investigation into state and federal COVID responses.
“We’re gonna keep looping the beltway until heard,” said convoy organizer Brian Brase. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re not gonna leave. We’re gonna keep doing what we’re doing until we start getting more meetings like we just had today.”
Most COVID restrictions have been lifted across the country, with Washington D.C. last week eliminating vaccine and mask mandates in the city. New York City on Monday dropped its mask and vaccine requirements.
Still, the convoy, attempting to emulate the trucker convoy that shut down a major bridge in Ontario, Canada, has been traveling cross-country from California since late February.
“‘The People’s Convoy’ continues that legacy,” said Cruz, who is fully vaccinated. “They want government to leave them the hell alone.”
One point of contention for protestors who spoke during a roundtable discussion is that while COVID mandates are being rolled back, health care workers and members of the military have already been dismissed and discharged for refusing to get vaccinated.
“This is how it’s affecting our communities, our loved ones back home and we’re on the road working,” Brase said.
The convoy aimed to reach the nation’s capital last week. After adding participants and gaining national attention, it stopped 70 miles outside the city at the Hagerstown Speedway in Maryland.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told ABC News that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved requests from Capitol Police and Homeland Security to extend National Guard support at traffic control points in D.C. through Wednesday.
“These are people that are fighting for freedom. It’s just that simple,” Johnson said. “We’ve already seen tears here. I didn’t expect that, it doesn’t surprise me at all.”
Later on Tuesday, Florida Republican Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, along with Thomas Massie, R-Ky., hosted an invitation-only discussion with a separate group of around 100 truckers.
“The People’s Convoy” also met with Republican lawmakers for an additional roundtable discussion with Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., and a handful of other members of the House Transportation Committee.
“I’ve cried multiple times through this journey. I lost my son in September and I’m still a part of this because that’s how much I believe in this, even though I didn’t want to get out of bed,” Brase said through tears.
Tears for Fears previously topped the Billboard 200 in 1985 with Songs from the Big Chair, while their 1989 album The Seeds of Love also peaked at #8.
The Tipping Point also bowed at #1 on a number of Billboard charts, including the Top Album Sales tally, which is based on traditional album sales. The album sold 29,000 copies during the week ending March 3, according to MRC data. Of that 29,000 figure, 12,000 sales were for CDs and 9,500 were for vinyl LPs.
In addition, The Tipping Point currently is #1 on Billboard‘s Top Rock Albums, Top Alternative Albums, Top Album Sales and Top Current Album Sales charts.
Tears for Fears will launch a U.S. tour in support of The Tipping Point on May 20 in Cincinnati. The trek, which will feature veteran alt-rockers Garbage as the opening act, is mapped out through a June 25 show in Wantagh, New York.
Oscar-nominated Dune director Denis Villeneuve is apparently looking at Academy Award-nominated Little Women star-turned-Marvel movie heroine Florence Pugh for the sci-fi epic’s sequel.
According to Variety, Pugh could play Princess Irulan Corrino, a royal character from Frank Herbert‘s seminal science-fiction novel who forms a relationship with young leader Paul Atreides, who was played by Timothée Chalamet in Villeneuve’s version.
Pugh was recently seen in the Marvel Studios small-screen series Hawkeye, reprising her Black Widow role of assassin Yelena, the adoptive sister of Scarlett Johansson‘s Natasha Romanoff.
Dune: Part 2, which will star original cast members Chalamet, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Stellan Skarsgård, Javier Bardem, Dave Bautista and Zendaya, is slated for an October 2023 release.
Dune earned more than $400 million worldwide, and has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
(NOTE LANGUAGE) In a recent interview with entertainment interviewer DJ Vlad, actor and comedian D.L. Hughley offered up his thoughts on Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s divorce.
DJ Vlad kicked off the Kanye/Kim portion of the chat by mentioning how he initially found humor in Kanye’s response to the divorce. But Hughley shook his head in disagreement before responding, “It’s never been funny.”
“He is stalking her,” Hughley said. “You can think it’s cute. If it was my daughter, I’d do something about it. I don’t think it’s funny.” He added that the “difference between [Kanye] and a restraining order is about 20 hits and a couple of hundred million dollars.”
R&B singer Keyshia Cole opened up about romantic relationships, past friendships and her late mother’s battle with addiction on Sunday’s premiere episode of TVOne’s #Uncensored. In the hour-long special, the 40-year-old Oakland, California native recounted the events that led to a fallout between her and rapper Eve.
“We’re walking out, and somebody grabbed her bag or something like that and I kind of turned around and slapped the girl,” Cole started to explain. “And Eve is really pissed off about that, like, we stopped hanging out.”
Cole said she was confused, telling Eve, “I slapped somebody for you, what the f*** is this?”
The premiere episode of #Uncensored, directed by TV personality Tami Roman, garnered kudos by fans who commended Cole for her transparency and openness.
Lastly, Will Smith and Michael B. Jordan are set to star in the upcoming I Am Legend sequel, I Am Legend 2. According to Variety, the film is in the works at Warner Bros. and will be produced by Smith’s Westbrook Studios as well as Jordan’s Outlier Society.
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images; Francis Specker/CBS via Getty Images
Many fans know that Stevie Nicks is very close with pop star Harry Styles, but now Harry has tapped one of Stevie’s Fleetwood Mac‘s band mates to star in the new campaign for his beauty and lifestyle brand, Pleasing.
Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood, 74, is starring in the campaign for Pleasing’s new Shroom Bloom line of products, out on March 15. According to Vogue, the line features face and nail products, including four new shades of polish, as well as limited-edition apparel. The campaign was shot at Fleetwood’s home in Maui, Hawaii, and even includes a guest appearance from his pet pig, Tilly.
Mick and Harry first met eight years ago when the drummer took his twin daughters, who were 12 at the time, to see One Direction and then backstage for a meet-and-greet. But since Mick is six-foot-five, he wasn’t exactly fading into the background, and Harry, a huge Fleetwood Mac, noticed him. That’s how their friendship started.
In the photos, Fleetwood is wearing theatrical, colorful outfits and different colors of nail polish. “Oh, I loved that. I kept the varnish on for two weeks!” Mick tells Vogue. “Back in the day in London, I used to wear nail polish and all sorts of stuff, and the attitude was, ‘so what?’ It didn’t have anything to do with sexuality. It’s not about that. It’s about having fun.”
As for why Styles chose Fleetwood for the campaign, he tells Vogue that the drummer “is a magical man,” adding, “Mick is someone who brings me — and countless others — great joy.” He continues, “I felt there couldn’t be a better embodiment of Pleasing, or a person who could so naturally capture the wizardry that we love.”
After a record 59-week climb, Glass Animals have finally topped the Billboard Hot 100 with their song “Heat Waves.” So how did they celebrate? Well, since they were on their tour bus when they got the news, their options were limited.
“We were all in the bus, and our bass player has the bunk above me. And he shouted, “F**KING NO. 1!!” And that’s what woke me up in the morning,” frontman Dave Bayley, who wrote and produced “Heat Waves,” tells Billboard.
“I jumped out of bed…and we were in our underpants, and we gave each other a hug. And we couldn’t believe it. That was how we celebrated,” he continues. “And then we woke up the whole bus, and everyone had a bit of a hug in our pajamas.”
Then, when the tour bus arrived in Portland, Oregon, Dave says, “I went to my favorite deli, [which] is here. So…I got a bagel, and it was awesome. It was the best bagel I ever had in my life.”
Dave says he’s also receiving tons of congratulations from all over. “I’m getting phone calls from people I haven’t spoken to in years,” he reveals. “And other artists, my favorite artists in the world, people I’ve, like, looked up to for decades, are sending messages in.”
When “Heat Waves” hit number one, it knocked out “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” the viral hit from Encanto, which had held the top spot for weeks. So, is Dave a fan?
“It’s a great movie! Lin-Manuel Miranda is brilliant, and I’m a big fan of the film, a big fan of the song,” Dave says. “The music in that movie in general is brilliant. But, uh, sorry Lin-Manuel Miranda.”
Bob Dylan undoubtedly knows a thing or two about writing songs, having composed hundreds during his 60-plus-year career. Now the folk-rock legend will publish a new book later this year in which he examines what he’s learned about the craft.
The Philosophy of Modern Song, which will be released on November 8, will feature Dylan’s musings about various aspects of writing tunes, reflections on various musical genres, and more than 60 essays about songs written by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello.
Topics Dylan touches on in the book include the use of easy rhymes, how adding a syllable can affect an entire tune and much more. The Philosophy of Modern Song also will include more than 150 photos.
The book, which Dylan began writing in 2010, is a follow-up to his best-selling 2004 memoir, Chronicles, Volume One, and is his first book since he became the first songwriter to be honored with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016.
“The publication of Bob Dylan’s kaleidoscopically brilliant work will be an international celebration of songs by one of the greatest artists of our time,” says Simon & Schuster president and CEO Jonathan Karp. “The Philosophy of Modern Song could only have been written by Bob Dylan. His voice is unique, and his work conveys his deep appreciation and understanding of songs, the people who bring those songs to life, and what songs mean to all of us.”
An audiobook version of the publication will be partly narrated by Dylan, along with a mix of other readers.
The Philosophy of Modern Song can be pre-ordered now. For more information, visit SimonandSchuster.com.
Meanwhile, Dylan recently launched a spring U.S. tour that runs through an April 14 show in Oklahoma City.
(NEW YORK) — Before Russian attacks on Ukraine led to mass displacement, Europe was already grappling with the Syrian refugee crisis – an issue that had bitterly divided European Union nations in recent years over what to do with the 1.1 million Syrians who sought refuge in Europe.
Meanwhile, neighboring European nations have swiftly met the influx of more than 2 million Ukrainian refugees since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 with a united show of solidarity.
Although it is unclear if disagreements over burden-sharing will follow, according to those who study migration in Europe, experts say Ukrainian refugees face a more welcoming environment because they are white.
Andrew Geddes, Director of the Migration Policy Centre, told ABC News that there’s a stark contrast between Europe’s “very warm welcome” of Ukrainian refugees, compared to the largely “hostile” response to Syrians and other asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East.
“It’s night and day,” Geddes said.
“I think the strongest contrast is with a bunch of central European countries that were very hostile to Syrian refugees, and are now quite much more favorable to Ukrainian refugees,” Geddes added, referencing Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic — European Union members that were “the most resistant” to welcoming Syrian refugees.
Meanwhile, many nonwhite refugees fleeing Ukraine, including students from Asia and Africa, have reported instances of discrimination on the borders of Ukraine, with some telling ABC News that differential treatment based on race led to difficulties in crossing into countries like Poland. But others from Africans and the Middle East have said they crossed into Poland without any issues.
United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees Filippo Grandi confirmed during a press conference last Tuesday that “there are instances” of differentiation of treatment at the borders based on race, but said he was assured that “these are not state policies.”
Grandi said he met with Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau last Wednesday, who “affirmed Poland’s commitment to continue receiving all those fleeing, without distinction.” Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba responded to reports of discrimination last Tuesday, tweeting that “Ukraine’s government spares no effort to solve the problem.” He also added that Ukraine set up an emergency hotline to assist African, Asian and other students seeking to leave Ukraine.
‘Exclusionary’ asylum policies
European countries host over 1 million of the 6.6 million Syrian asylum-seekers and refugees, but the vast majority are hosted by only two countries – 59% in Germany and 11% in Sweden, according to United Nations High Commission on Refugees data.
But according to Kelly Petillo, coordinator of the Middle East and North Africa programme and the European Council on Foreign Relations, this “didn’t come immediately.”
“It came after quite a bit of internal back and forth and lack of disagreement,” Petillo said, adding that the majority of Syrian refugees were allowed to enter Europe in 2016 — four years after the war in Syria began — only after the European Union struck a deal with Turkey, which was facing immense pressure at the time from the surge of migrants and asylum seekers.
The Europe Union provided financial support to Turkey to slow the flow of migrants and asylum seekers crossing into Europe by returning “irregular migrants” attempting to enter Europe through Greece to Turkey, as Turkey works “to prevent new migratory routes from opening,” according to the Migration Policy Centre.
As part of the deal, which was intended to slow migration to Europe, “the European Union agreed to resettle Syrian refugees from Turkey on a one-to-one basis,” per MPC, and the European Union also paid 6 billion euros to aid Turkey’s Syrian migrant communities.
“Since the Syria crisis erupted more than 10 years ago, we’ve seen that there was a high level of reluctancy from Europeans to share the burden amongst themselves,” Petillo said.
Austria, Greece, the Netherlands and France host between 2 to 5% of Syrian refugees in Europe, and other countries host below 2%, according to UNHCR.
Some of the Eastern European countries that largely rejected Syrian refugees have been at the forefront of welcoming Ukrainians, Geddes said, pointing to Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
“For migrants from outside of Europe … it’s a very, very powerful, exclusionary approach,” Geddes said.
“The EU is much more willing to internalize a refugee situation where the people who are being forced to flee are white Europeans, and has been much more reluctant to offer protection for people who are from Africa and the Middle East,” he added.
And that “double standard,” Petillo said, is not only shaped by race, religion and culture, but also by politics.
Poland received 1.2 million of those fleeing Ukraine, according to UNHCR data, and on Friday Polish President Andrzej Duda toured a border crossing facility in Korczowa, where he met with Ukrainian refugees and told reporters that Poland would welcome them with open hearts.
Geddes said that Poland’s handling of the Syrian refugee crisis was the “opposite.”
As Poland continued to push back against pressure from the European Union to take in asylum seekers from Syria, Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of Poland’s rightwing party and current Deputy Prime Minister, argued in 2017 that doing so would be “dangerous” and would “completely change our culture and radically lower the level of safety in our country.”
The European Union’s top court ruled in April 2020 that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic broke EU law by refusing to host refugees to relieve some of the burden from countries like Turkey and Greece.
And in November 2021, Poland was “involved in a military standoff” with Belarus to prevent asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East from crossing the Polish border, Geddes said.
More than 2,000 people were trapped in a makeshift camp on the Belarusian side as Poland blocked aid. At least 15 died in the cold last year.
And in January, Poland began building a metal wall on the border of Belarus to block migrants.
“When it comes down to it, Ukrainians are seen as European,” Geddes said, saying that there are “very strong” historical and cultural links between Poland and Ukraine — Many refugees from Ukraine have family and friends in Poland who have taken them in.
Meanwhile, asylum seekers from Africa and the Middle East “are fundamentally seen as being different, racially, socially, culturally,” he added.
Islamophobia and politics
Those sentiments, which Petillo described as “othering,” were evident over the past week in the rhetoric of several prominent political leaders and various Western media figures, who made controversial statements that went viral on social media.
One journalist described Ukrainians as “civilized” in an attempt to differentiate them from other refugees and others suggested that it’s more difficult to witness the plight of Ukrainians because they “look like us.”
In the wake of the global War on Terror following the 9/11 terror attacks, Petillo said that Islamophobic language that “linked terrorism to Islam” became common in a “dangerous” political discourse regarding refugees from the Middle East.
Geddes said those anti-immigrant sentiments have been weaponized by various leaders of “the radical right” in Europe and “played a part in this exclusionary approach to migration.”
At the height of the refugee crisis in 2015, Czech President Milos Zeman referred to the influx of Syrian and Iraqi refugees seeking asylum in Europe as “an organized invasion.”
Meanwhile, the Czech Republic has so far welcomed tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees, per UNHCR.
In a historic vote, the European Union agreed on Thursday to give Ukrainians immediate temporary protective status that allows them to work and live in EU countries and provides them with access to health care and other social services. This marks the first time that the EU has invoked this protection since it became a part of EU law two decades ago, Geddes said.
Although Germany and Sweden have made some efforts to provide protections for Syrian refugees, many remain “stuck in limbo” without access to employment, education or other social services, Petillo said.
“[They’re] not coming out officially with policies saying we want Syrians to return, but they’re doing anything they can to disincentivize Syrian refugees from staying,” Petillo said, adding that ongoing humanitarian crises have led to an ongoing flow of refugees to Europe.
Since 2014, more than 20,000 asylum seekers from the Middle East, Asia and Africa arriving to the Mediterranean by land or by sea in hopes of crossing into Europe have died – some drowning – or gone missing, per UNHCR data, including 154 so far in 2022.
