Rich Fury/Getty Images for U.N. World Food Programme
After taking a break from touring amid the global pandemic, The Weeknd will return will a vengeance with his first-ever worldwide stadium tour. He also unveiled his opener: his “You Right” collaborator, Doja Cat.
The After Hours Til Dawn stadium tour begins this summer, with the first pit stop set in The Weeknd’s hometown of Toronto, Canada, on July 8. The tour, which wraps September 2 in Los Angeles, combines the two albums he issued during the pandemic, marking the first time he gets to perform After Hours and DAWN FM live before fans.
Tickets for the North American trek go on sale next Thursday, March 10 and 10 a.m. ET on TheWeeknd.com/tour. However, those lucky fans who scored tickets to The Weeknd’s After Hours arena tour will be able to cut the line and access a special pre-sale starting Friday, March 4 via a web link that’ll be emailed directly to them.
In addition, Verizon subscribers will also be able to access a pre-sale of their own for select shows starting Monday, March 7, at 10 a.m. local time through the customer loyalty program Verizon Up. That pre-sale expires on Wednesday, March 9 at 10 p.m. local time.
The Weeknd will also offer a pre-sale opportunity for the Spotify users who stream his music the most via Spotify Fans First; that’ll begin Tuesday, March 8.
One dollar from each ticket sold will benefit The Weeknd’s newly launched XO HUMANITARIAN FUND, which is part of the United Nations World Food Programme to fight world hunger, for which he serves as goodwill ambassador.
The Weeknd plans to launch additional tour legs in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and South America. Those dates are forthcoming.
Slipknot and Iron Maiden have joined the growing list of rock artists canceling shows in Russia due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
The affected Knot dates include their headlining set at Moscow’s Park Live festival this summer, which has already seen a number of acts drop off the lineup, as well as shows in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Minsk, Belarus.
“We had looked forward to reuniting with our fans in these incredible cites, coming back together after global lockdown,” Slipknot writes in a statement. “But we take this step in support of our community and in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, for whom the struggle continues, in a new and more terrible form.”
The masked metallers add, “We also acknowledge that our Russian and Belarusian fans are overwhelmingly united with the Ukrainians in their fight for peace.”
Maiden, meanwhile, has scrapped shows in Kyiv and Moscow scheduled for May 29 and June 1, respectively. In their statement, the metal legends write, “Our priority is, and will always be, the safety of our fans.”
Jackson, “Force” star Joseph Sikora — Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for STARZ
(NOTE LANGUAGE)Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson — rapper, actor, and executive producer of Starz’ hit Power franchise — is not happy with the cable network, again.
In a series of Instagram posts, Fiddy showed himself stuffing clothes into suitcases, noting, with some colorful emoji use, “This is me packing my stuff, STARZ…Sucks, my deal is up over here I’m out.”
At issue was the network’s decision to grant another season to another series, Hightown, while remaining mum about the fate of his so-called Power Universe.
“They Renewed High town [sic] and FORCE is the highest rated show they have it sitting in limbo,” Jackson griped, referring to Power Book IV: Force. “If I told you how much dumb sh** I deal with over here,” he vented, with the facepalm emoji.
As previously reported, Force launched on February 6 to Starz’ highest ratings ever, and bested high-profile premieres like The White Lotus on HBO and Showtime’s Dexter: New Blood.
Force wraps up on March 27, but with Fiddy’s G Unit production deal set to expire, as he alluded to, it looks like the rapper’s already calling it a wrap with Starz. The fate of Book V: Influence remains unclear.
When ABC Audio recently spoke with Fiddy for Force, he didn’t hold back as to how the network treated him, initially passing on Power and then allegedly underpaying him before the original show launched a successful franchise.
“I was getting paid seventeen thousand dollars per episode to be a producer, act on the show, and to be the marketing…” he admitted. “[I]n the beginning, I’m looking at it like, ‘Bro, I coulda went to the nightclub and waved.’ I would have got paid more to go to a nightclub and waved. Like, you know what I’m saying?”
2022 marks Madonna‘s 40th year as a recording artist, and she’s kicking off the celebration with a new take on one of her classic hits.
Madonna’s dropped a new remix of her 1998 song “Frozen,” based on the viral version by producer Sickick that took over TikTok last year, soundtracking more than 100,000 videos. It’s called “Frozen (Fireboy DML Remix),” and is credited to Madonna, Sickick and Fireboy DML, a Nigerian singer who’s currently on the charts with an Ed Sheeran collaboration called “Peru.” A video for the remix is coming “soon,” according to Madonna.
In other Madonna news, The Hollywood Reporter has more information on the casting process for the Queen of Pop’s upcoming biopic, which she co-wrote and is directing. The publication says Ozark‘s Julia Garner, Black Widow‘s Florence Pugh, Euphoria star Alexa Demie, indie-film star Odessa Young and Mayor of Kingstown actress Emma Laird are in the running to play Madonna, and even pop star Bebe Rexha has been part of the search.
The audition process is described as “grueling,” involving 11-hour-a-day choreography sessions with Madonna’s choreographer and then with Madonna herself. The callbacks consist of readings and singing auditions, again with Madonna — so, no pressure, right? One insider tells The Hollywood Reporter, “You have to be able to do everything.” Just like Madonna.
In October, Madonna told Jimmy Fallon that she’s so involved in the project because “A bunch of people have tried to write movies about me, but they’re always men.”
Robert Pattinson had a lot of preparation ahead of him when he signed on to play the iconic Caped Crusader in The Batman — including about 80 years’ worth of reading material.
At Tuesday’s New York City premiere of the film, the actor detailed the daunting process to ABC Audio.
“A year just working on the script and then probably three months just physically training, and then fight choreography and then reading probably a trillion Batman graphic novels,” Pattinson admitted on the red carpet.
“[I] didn’t really think about the fact that you got a character that’s been around for 80 years, there’s quite a lot of comics you’ve got to read, so I had a whole suitcase full of them.”
Pattinson wasn’t the only cast member who came prepared. Paul Dano, whose villain Riddler takes heavy cues from the Zodiac Killer, told ABC Audio he practiced extensively with the creepy mask he wears for much of the film.
He also noted that in trying to put his stamp on the Riddler he focused on, “going as deep as I can into that character and bringing the history with me but going in a new direction.”
Darker in tone even than Christopher Nolan‘s Oscar winning The Dark Knight, director Matt Reeves‘ The Batman dives into the psychology of its titular character and his iconic nemesis.
In addition to Dano’s Riddler, admitted Bat-fan Colin Farrell is unrecognizable as a sleazy Penguin, and Pattinson’s hero tangles, and teams up, with Zoë Kravitz‘ Selena Kyle/Catwoman.
On how Gotham has changed in Reeves’ reboot, Pattinson said, “It’s very much about the corruptions of the institutions. The bad guys are not fantastical at all, and Batman is not fantastical at all in this movie. He’s not even known as Batman in this movie yet…he’s just a guy in a suit of armor.”
Shonda Rhimes transformed television with her hit shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, and now the five-time Emmy nominee wants to transform something else — the “dream gap.”
Rhimes teamed with Barbie to close the “dream gap,” a “heartbreaking” phenomenon where are girls as young as five are led to believe they aren’t as smart or as capable as their male counterparts. In order to break this “widespread… problem,” she says parents need to stop limiting their expectations for their daughters.
“Overcoming the dream gap has to do with your parents and how you’re raised,” Rhimes explained. “My parents never allowed me to think that there was a dream gap for me. Their dreams for me were as big as their dreams were for my brothers or for anybody else.”
“I was lucky enough to be raised in a household where I was expected to be president of the United States… My father literally used to say to me, ‘If you can believe it, you can achieve it,'” she continued.
Rhimes understands not everyone was raised by supportive parents, which is why she hopes her new partnership will inspire more female role models to step up and encourage girls to embrace their full potential.
As for the advice she has for those who have been tricked by the dream gap, she says, “There’s absolutely no evidence or reason why you should be settling for less than your greatest or your best or anything that you want to have happen… Nobody asked men to settle, so I don’t think anybody should be asking a woman to settle.”
Barbie is honoring the Shondaland CEO with her own one-of-a-kind Barbie doll, as part of their Role Models line that highlights 11 other women, which you can see here.
The official trailer for Hulu’s The Girl from Plainville, starring Elle Fanning, dropped on Wednesday. The miniseries, inspired by the true story of Michelle Carter‘s unprecedented “texting suicide” case, is based on Jesse Barron‘s Esquire article of the same name and explores the relationship between Carter and Conrad Roy III — played respectively by Fanning and Colton Ryan — and the events that led to his death and, later, Carter’s conviction of involuntary manslaughter. The series also stars Chloë Sevigny, Cara Buono, Kai Lennox and Norbert Leo Butz. The Girl from Plainville premieres on Hulu with three episodes March 29…
Apple TV+ announced on Wednesday that it has renewed the Tiffany Haddish-led murder-mystery comedy, The Afterparty, for a second season ahead of Friday’s season-one finale. The series follows Haddish’s Detective Danner as she searches for a killer during a house party following a high school reunion. The first season stars Haddish, Sam Richardson, Zoë Chao, Ben Schwartz, Ike Barinholtz, Ilana Glazer, Jamie Demetriou and Dave Franco…
CBS has picked up two additional seasons of the long-running soap The Bold and the Beautiful through the 2023-2024 broadcast season. The announcement comes three weeks before the daytime drama celebrates its 35th anniversary on March 23. “For 35 years, The Bold and the Beautiful has been a cornerstone of our #1 daytime lineup,” said Margot Wain, senior vice president, daytime programs, CBS Entertainment. “Congratulations to our talented cast and crew, as well as Bradley Bell, who have made this show a creative and ratings success, and thank you to B&B’s dedicated fans, whose passion for these characters and stories is unrivaled.” The Bold and the Beautiful debuted in 1987 and has won 100 Daytime Emmys…
The Shubert Organization announced on Wednesday that Broadway’s 110-year-old Cort Theater will become the James Earl Jones Theatre “in recognition of Mr. Jones’s lifetime of immense contributions to Broadway and the entire artistic community.” In a statement, 91-year-old Jones said, “For me standing in this very building sixty-four years ago at the start of my Broadway career, it would have been inconceivable that my name would be on the building today. Let my journey from then to now be an inspiration for all aspiring actors.” Jones has been seen on Broadway in The Great White Hope, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Fences, Driving Miss Daisy, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, You Can’t Take It with You and The Gin Game, among others. He has won three Tony awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 2017…
Jennifer Hudson, will make her daytime TV debut this fall with the launch of The Jennifer Hudson Show on Fox Television stations.
“I have experienced so much in my life; I’ve seen the highest of the highs, the lowest of the lows, and just about everything in between, but as my mother always told me, ‘Once you think you’ve seen it all, just keep on living,’” Hudson said in a statement obtained by Variety on Wednesday.
“People from around the world have been a part of my journey from the beginning — twenty years ago — and I’m so ready to join their journey as we sit down and talk about the things that inspire and move us all,” the statement continued. “I have always loved people, and I cannot wait to connect on a deeper level and let audiences see the different sides of who I am, the human being, in return. And I couldn’t be more thrilled to do it alongside this incredible team. We’re about to have a lot of fun and shake things up a little bit!”
Hudson first rose to fame as a contestant on American Idol in 2004. In addition to releasing several albums, she went on to star as Effie White in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Dreamgirls, for which she won an Oscar, appeared in dozens of TV and film projects and starred on Broadway in The Color Purple.
Most recently, Hudson portrayed Aretha Franklin in the biopic, Respect, which earned her another Oscar nomination and the award for outstanding actress in a motion picture at the Sunday’s NAACP Image Awards, along with the entertainer of the year award.
(NEW YORK) — The United States marked a new stage in the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic when President Joe Biden announced in his State of the Union address Tuesday that “COVID-19 no longer need control our lives.”
The World Health Organization declared a global pandemic in March 2020 due to rapid spread of COVID-19 all across the globe.
However, as many experts believe the virus that causes COVID-19 will never be eradicated, the world must at some point transition away from “pandemic” and toward an “endemic” phase.
Pandemics are a widespread, rapid spread of disease, with exponentially rising cases over a large area. Endemic viruses, meanwhile, are constantly present and have a fairly predictable spread. That predictability allows health care systems and doctors to prepare and adapt, reducing loss of life.
For a pandemic to reach an endemic phase, it would need to be “a situation where you have a background level” of disease, said Dr. Daniel McQuillen, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and a senior physician in the division of infectious diseases at Beth Israel Lahey Health in Massachusetts.
This means that, while some people would still get infected, it wouldn’t be an unbearable number with devastating consequences that overwhelms the public, hospital systems and providers.
The seasonal flu, or influenza, is an example of an endemic virus. H1N1 influenza has had pandemic spread of variants in the past, such as the Spanish flu in 1918 and swine flu in 2009. Variants of these are now part of respiratory viruses that we encounter regularly.
“There’s not a hard and fast rule for when a pandemic becomes an endemic,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, a professor of medicine in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s division of infectious diseases.
Without knowing if there may be another variant on the horizon and without a predictable pattern of disease, it’s still too soon to tell if the nation has reached an endemic phase.
That’s why many Americans are concerned it’s too soon to lift mask mandates. There is still a lot of transmission, and young children and immunocompromised people are still vulnerable.
However, McQuillen said the new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are a reasonable shift, as they focus on local transmission and capacity.
“We’re going from trying to prevent disease completely to going more to how do we deal with preventing severe illness and hospitalizations and how do we prevent our health care system from getting so swamped that we can’t take care of even normal problems,” he said.
This must be determined at a local level.
“I think [the new CDC guidance] reflects this need to be flexible in how to respond to the pandemic,” said Dr. Natasha Chida, assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University.
Pandemics are “not a static experience,” she said. Some places in the country still have very low hospital capacity, so they would struggle to handle additional cases and thus would benefit from masking. But when numbers are low, we should “be able to have a normal type of experience,” she said.
Despite the new guidelines, many experts are hesitant to say the nation has entered an endemic phase just yet, as only time will tell if a new variant will arise and cause similar upheaval.
“Endemic is where you are seeing consistently low numbers, the health care system is able to manage it [and] people are able to get the care they need,” Chida said.
While the U.S. is getting close, numbers have dropped before and then new variants emerged, so it’s “too soon to say” if we are in this phase yet, she said.
To prepare for and prevent another wave, McQuillen, Goepfert and Chida each emphasized the importance of building better infrastructure for public health initiatives. This includes equitable vaccine distribution across the globe and increasing supply of treatments and testing — items currently outlined in the White House’s new pandemic policy agenda.
Goepfert also noted the importance of supporting primary care providers, both in allowing them to administer vaccines in their clinics and ease of access to treatment.
“What the pandemic laid bare was that public health has been massively under-resourced for decades, and people suffered because of that,” Chida said.
Now, with more than 75% of Americans vaccinated, experts are hopeful that the country can move toward better control of the disease and toward a new endemic phase — where we can control the disease, and it doesn’t control us.
(NEW YORK) — Russian forces are continuing their attempted push through Ukraine from multiple directions, while Ukrainians, led by President Volodymr Zelenskyy, are putting up “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The attack began Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation.”
Russian forces moving from neighboring Belarus toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, don’t appear to have advanced closer to the city since coming within about 20 miles, although smaller advanced groups have been fighting gun battles with Ukrainian forces inside the capital since at least Friday.
Russia has been met by sanctions from the United States, Canada and countries throughout Europe, targeting the Russian economy as well as Putin himself.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Mar 03, 6:50 am
Russian foreign minister declines to comment on civilian deaths in Ukraine
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wouldn’t comment on civilian deaths from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when pressed during an interview Thursday with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America.
“I cannot comment,” Lavrov said, adding that there are “a great deal” of “conjectures.”
Mar 03, 6:36 am
Russia says talks with Ukraine will resume Thursday
A second round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators will be held at the previously planned venue in neighboring Belarus on Thursday at around 3 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET), according to Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation and aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The talks will take place — we are now in contact with the Ukrainian side — at the same venue where they were planned, on the territory of the Brest region of Belarus,” Medinsky told reporters Thursday, adding that Russian negotiators are “waiting calmly.”
“I think the talks will begin at 3 p.m.,” he said.
Mar 03, 6:08 am
Ukraine claims to have raised flag over town outside Kyiv
Ukraine claimed Thursday to have raised its flag over the town of Bucha, close to the Ukrainian capital where some of the most intense fighting has been taking place in recent days and where Russia’s push south on Kyiv appears to have stalled.
A video posted on the official Facebook page of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ ground troops purportedly shows soldiers hoisting the national flag outside Bucha’s town hall. The town is just a few miles north of the edge of Kyiv and about 15 miles from the center of the capital. Fighting is reported to be ongoing nearby and, in the video, an explosion can be heard in the distance as they raise the blue and yellow flag.
Mar 03, 5:34 am
Ukraine requests no-fly zone over Chernobyl
Ukraine is asking the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to call on NATO to close access to the airspace over the country’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the surrounding exclusion zone.
The deserted exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, where the world’s worst nuclear accident took place in 1986, was seized by Russian forces last week.
A joint appeal to the IAEA was signed Wednesday by Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko, Oleh Korikov, head of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine, and Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom.
“The fact of the seizure of the world-famous Chernobyl nuclear power plant has all the hallmarks of an act of nuclear terrorism committed against Chernobyl nuclear facilities and its personnel by Russian military units,” they said in the appeal.
Mar 03, 5:06 am
Russia claims to have hit another TV tower in Kyiv
Russia claimed Thursday that its forces have “disabled” another television tower in Ukraine’s capital.
Russian troops fired precision-guided weapons at a TV and radio center in the Lysa Hora region of Kyiv, according to Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
“A strike delivered by a long-range precision-guided weapon disabled a reserve TV and radio center in the Lysa Hora area in Kyiv which the Ukrainian Security Service has been using for psychological operations against Russia,” Konashenkov said at a press briefing Thursday. “There are no casualties and there is no damage done to residential buildings.”
There were reports of more explosions in Kyiv on Thursday morning, but Ukrainian officials have yet to confirm that a second TV tower was hit.
A Russian missile struck Kyiv’s main TV tower in the heart of the capital on Tuesday.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov has said that Russia is aiming to cut off a large part of Ukraine from the internet and communications.
Mar 03, 4:37 am
Russia claims to have seized eastern Ukrainian city
Russia claimed Thursday that its forces have seized the eastern Ukrainian city of Balakliya.
Russian troops worked together with Russia-backed separatist forces on the “successful offensive,” according to Russian Ministry of Defense spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
“The city of Balakliya has been freed from nationalist battalions,” Konashenkov said at a press briefing Thursday.
Balakliya is about 55 miles southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, where heavy shelling continued Thursday.
Mar 02, 11:25 pm
US condemns Kremlin’s ‘full assault’ on ‘truth’ in media
The U.S. State Department is condemning Moscow’s attack on the media, saying the Kremlin “is engaged in a full assault on media freedom and the truth, and Moscow’s efforts to mislead and suppress the truth of the brutal invasion are intensifying.”
“The people of Russia did not choose this war. Putin did,” Ned Price, State Department spokesman, said in a statement. “They have a right to know about the death, suffering and destruction being inflicted by their government on the people of Ukraine. The people of Russia also have a right to know about the human costs of this senseless war to their own soldiers.”
The statement comes 24 hours after the Russian government blocked the country’s only two major independent news broadcasters, Dozhd TV and Radio Ekho Moskvy, accusing them of spreading “false information” about Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Ekho Moskvy has been respected for its even-handed treatment of breaking news since its founding 32 years ago, and, until yesterday, its broadcasts reached some 1.8 million daily listeners throughout Russia and beyond,” the State Department said in a statement Wednesday night. “Dozhd, which has been operating for more than a decade, is similarly known for high-quality reporting.”
Russian state channels, such as RT and Sputnik, are banned from using the word “war” or “invasion” in relation to Russia’s assault on Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin instead has referred to it as a “special military operation.”
The State Department said the Russian Parliament will consider a bill Friday to make “unofficial” reporting on the invasion punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
