Lil Kim is having a busy year hosting a TV series, appearing in a movie and publishing her autobiography. The Queen Bee reveals that the man behind her career now is also a versatile entertainer: Nick Cannon.
The “Magic Stick” rapper made the revelation during the latest episode of Complex’s interview series Hiking with Rappers.
“Nick Cannon, people don’t even know, like he’s one of my best friends. We’ve been best friends for years,” Kim says. “We just shot a movie called Miracle Across 125th Street. I really did that movie for Nick, but I love doing movies.”
“It’s part of my next level,” she added. “Nick is convincing me.”
The Christmas film was shot during the summer and features gospel artists Fred Hammond, Karen Clark Sheard and Kierra Sheard, plus comedians Marsha Warfield, Lunell and Bruce Bruce. Cannon stars in Miracle Across 125th Street as well as serving as executive producer.
Kim has appeared in several films during her 25-year career, including She’s All That, You Got Served, and Zoolander. Currently, she’s hosting the BET+ series American Gangster: Trap Queens, and she’s featured on the Legendz of the Streez tour headlined by Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Jeezy and Gucci Mane.
The Grammy winner has also written her autobiography, The Queen Bee, which will be published November 2.
It took just five hours for Adele‘s new single, “Easy on Me,” to make an impact on the Billboard charts.
Since the cutoff for this week’s Billboard charts was at midnight on October 14, and “Easy on Me” debuted at 7 p.m. ET on Thursday night, the airplay, downloads and sales it received only counted for the five hours prior to midnight.
Still, that was enough for “Easy on Me” to debut at #68 on the Billboard Hot 100, based on five hours’ worth of streaming, radio airplay and sales. Following its first full week of data tracking, the song is expected to soar to number one, which would make it her fifth career chart-topper.
Meanwhile, Billboard‘s charts that only measure airplay kept on tallying data through the 17th. As a result,”Easy on Me” debuted at number 14 on the Adult Pop Airplay chart and number 21 on Pop Airplay.
Most impressively, the song debuted at number six on Billboard‘s Adult Contemporary chart. It’s the first time that a non-Christmas song debuted in the top 10 on that chart since 1993.
“Easy on Me” is the lead single from Adele’s new album 30, due out November 29.
Kanye West gave a rare performance Saturday in Italy, and his audience included Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
Kanye’s mini-concert in Venice was at the wedding of D’Estree founder Geraldine Guiotte and Tiffany & Co EVP Alexander Arnault, according to TMZ. West performed “Runaway,” “Flashing Lights,” “Come to Life,” and “Believe What I Say.” He was wearing a mask as he did previously during his Donda listening events in the United States, and his voice was muffled during his songs.
One of Kanye’s nicknames is Yeezy, of course, and he’s now legally shortened his name, Deadline reports. After filing on August 24 to change his name, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michelle Williams Court approved his petition to switch his name to, simply, Ye, with no middle or last name.
His eighth studio album, released in 2018, was titled, Ye.
Disney is bumping some of its biggest releases along in its 2022 schedule — and some into 2023.
Marvel Studios, which is also owned by ABC News’ parent company, has shifted Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness from March 25 to May 6 of 2022. In turn, Thor: Love and Thunder, which had been scheduled to open on May 6, now will premiere on July 8. Meanwhile, the opening of Black Panther‘s sequel, Wakanda Forever, has been moved from July 8 to November 11.
The changes have carried into 2023, as well.
The Marvels, a sequel to Captain Marvel, was bumped from November 11, 2022, to early 2023; Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will now open on July 28, 2023; and the fifth Indiana Jones movie, which had been set to open on July 29, 2022, will now debut on June 30, 2023 — nearly in time for Harrison Ford‘s 81st birthday in July of that year.
Then again, as Indy himself has said, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”
The upcoming Starz limited-series The Continental, about the hitman hotel as seen in the John Wick movies, has booked its first big name.
Mel Gibson has joined the cast of the series, ABC Audio has confirmed. The show is set decades before Keanu Reeves came out of retirement to avenge the death of his puppy.
The fourth chapter of the blockbuster Wick franchise is currently in production, as previously reported.
As the series has progressed, it has expanded on the history of The Continental, where contract killers can grab a drink and rest their bleeding heads — provided they don’t kill on company property.
While Ian McShane plays the New York City location’s classy owner Winston Scott in the films, his character will reportedly be re-cast with a younger actor central to the 70s-set series.
According to Lionsgate TV, the show will follow the origins of the hotel, “through the eyes and actions of a young Winston Scott…dragged into the Hell-scape of a 1975 New York City to face a past he thought he’d left behind.” The studio continues, “Winston charts a deadly course through the New York’s mysterious underworld in a harrowing attempt to seize the iconic hotel, which serves as the meeting point for the world’s most dangerous criminals.”
Oscar-winning Braveheart director Gibson will reportedly play a character named Cormac in the show. It’s his first foray on series TV since the American ex-pat started his acting career in Australia in 1976.
Gibson will next be seen in theaters and on demand November 5 in the thriller Dangerous for Lionsgate, the studio behind the Wick movies and The Continental show.
Coinciding with what would’ve been legendary rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry‘s 95th today comes word that an archival concert album titled Live from Blueberry Hillwill be released on December 17 on CD and digital formats.
The album features performances of 10 songs recorded between July 2005 and January 2006 at the shows that Berry played regularly at the Blueberry Hill restaurant and music club near his hometown of St. Louis.
Live from Blueberry Hill boasts renditions of Berry classics including “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Around and Around,” “Nadine” and, of course, “Johnny B. Goode.”
During his later years, Berry performed 209 times at Blueberry Hill’s The Duck Room, named after Chuck’s famous “duckwalk” stage move. Berry’s backing group for the shows became known as the Blueberry Hill Band, and the lineup for the concerts recorded for the upcoming album included his daughter Ingrid Berry on harmonica, his son Charles Berry Jr. on guitar, bassist and band leader Jimmy Marsala, pianist Robert Lohr and drummer Keith Robinson.
Live from Blueberry Hill can be pre-ordered now. Vinyl versions of the album, pressed either on black vinyl or limited-edition colored vinyl, are due out in Arpil 2022.
In other news, Gibson has marked Berry’s 95th birthday by releasing a new signature Chuck Berry electric guitar that replicates his favorite go-to a 1978 Gibson ES-355 model. The instrument, which is available now, has a list price of $6,999.
Berry died on March 18, 2017, at age 90. His final studio album, Chuck, was issued posthumously that June.
Here’s the Live from Blueberry Hill track list:
“Roll Over Beethoven”
“Rock and Roll Music”
“Let It Rock”
“Carol”/”Little Queenie”
“Sweet Little Sixteen”
“Around and Around”
“Nadine”
“Bio”
“Mean Old World”
“Johnny B. Goode”
(NEW YORK) — The United States has been facing a COVID-19 surge as the more contagious delta variant continues to spread.
More than 722,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 while over 4.8 million people have died from the disease worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 66.5% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the CDC.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Oct 18, 3:24 pm
CDC now counts those with AstraZeneca, Novavax shots as ‘fully vaccinated’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its definition of what it means to be “fully vaccinated” to include people who got the AstraZeneca and Novavax doses in clinical trials.
A person also should be considered fully immunized even if they mix their vaccines, the CDC announced Monday.
In general, people are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose in a two-dose series, such as the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after a single-dose vaccine, such as Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine
The new guidance applies to COVID-19 vaccines currently approved or authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson — and can be applied to COVID-19 vaccines that have been listed for emergency use by the World Health Organization, such as AstraZeneca and Oxford.
The CDC is not recommending vaccines that are not FDA-authorized and has not yet made a decision on official guidelines for mixing doses.
The new guidance on interpreting vaccine records does not impact CDC recommendations on primary series vaccination and should not guide clinical practice, according to the CDC.
ABC News’ Anne Flaherty
Oct 18, 1:45 pm
US sees 50% drop in daily cases
Coronavirus infections are steadily falling across the country, thanks to significant declines in highly populated states such as Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
The number of daily cases in the U.S. has dropped 50% since Sept. 1, with a 43% drop in hospitalizations and a 21% drop in daily deaths.
However, an uptick in cases in Northern states is causing some concern.
In recent weeks, coronavirus infections have been creeping up in several states in the Upper Midwest and the Northeast. Eight states — Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Vermont — have seen notable jumps in their case averages.
Experts have been warning for weeks that Northern states could begin to see upticks in the coming weeks as winter approaches, and people start to head indoors.
Alaska currently has the country’s highest case rate, followed by Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, West Virginia, and North Dakota, which all with case rates above 400 per 100,000 people.
Daily deaths are slowly falling, but remain persistently high. The nation is still reporting an average of 1,250 new deaths each day, and over the last four days alone, the U.S. reported just under 7,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths.
The death average is still about 6.5 times higher than in mid-July, when the national average had dropped to a near pandemic low of 192 deaths reported each day.
Nationally, hospitalization numbers have dropped to under 60,000 patients with COVID-19 currently receiving care, down from 104,000 patients in late August. Hospital admissions have also fallen by about 10.4% in the last week.
Approximately 113.5 million Americans remain completely unvaccinated. Just under 65.2 million of those people are over the age of 12. The other 48 million unvaccinated people are children under the age of 12.
(NEW YORK) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers is accusing Amazon leadership — including former CEO Jeff Bezos — of misleading or lying to Congress in the wake of reports from media outlets that they say “directly contradicts the sworn testimony and representations” from Amazon about its business practices.
In a letter sent to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Monday, lawmakers on the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee are asking the e-commerce giant to correct the record and provide “exculpatory evidence” to corroborate prior testimony and statements made to the committee.
The lawmakers reference investigative journalism pieces from Reuters and The Markup that alleged Amazon used data from individual sellers to create similar items and boost its own products in India, and that Amazon places products from its own brand ahead of those from competitors even on the U.S. site.
“At best, this reporting confirms that Amazon’s representatives misled the Committee,” the letter, signed by Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., David N. Cicilline, D-R.I., Ken Buck, R-Colo., Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., states. “At worst, it demonstrates that they may have lied to Congress in possible violation of federal criminal law.”
“In light of the serious nature of this matter, we are providing you with a final opportunity to provide exculpatory evidence to corroborate the prior testimony and statements on behalf of Amazon to the Committee,” the lawmakers added. “We strongly encourage you to make use of this opportunity to correct the record and provide the Committee with sworn, truthful, and accurate responses to this request as we consider whether a referral of this matter to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation is appropriate.”
An Amazon spokesperson denied the allegations raised in the letter, and called the media articles in question “inaccurate.”
“Amazon and its executives did not mislead the committee, and we have denied and sought to correct the record on the inaccurate media articles in question,” a company spokesperson told ABC News in a statement Monday. “As we have previously stated, we have an internal policy, which goes beyond that of any other retailer’s policy that we’re aware of that prohibits the use of individual seller data to develop Amazon private label products.”
“We investigate any allegations that this policy may have been violated and take appropriate action,” the statement added. “In addition, we design our search experience to feature the items customers will want to purchase, regardless of whether they are offered by Amazon or one of our selling partners.”
The lawmakers, meanwhile, point to the “credible reporting” in Reuters and The Markup. The lawmakers said the claims made in the recent articles are at odds with the July 16, 2019 testimony from Nate Sutton, Amazon’s Associate General Counsel, who told them that Amazon does “not use any seller data for — to compete with them” and that Amazon does not “use any of that specific data in creating our own private brand products.” Moreover, Sutton also testified that Amazon’s search rankings are not designed to favor its own products.
The lawmakers also pointed to a July 29, 2020, testimony from then-CEO Jeff Bezos, who said that Amazon enforces a policy against using seller-specific data to develop competing products, but that Amazon considers seller data from more than a single seller to be “aggregate” for the purpose of this policy. Bezos claimed in response to post-hearing questions that this policy “prohibits the use of anonymized data, if related to a single seller, when making decisions to launch private brand products,” the lawmakers added.
The representatives are asking Amazon to provide a sworn response to clarify the record as to how Amazon uses non-public individual seller data to develop and market its own line of products, as well as a sworn response to clarify how Amazon advantages its own products over products from other sellers in its search rankings. Finally, the lawmakers are seeking all documents and communications relating to its internal inquiry into violations of its Seller Data Protection Policy, as well as documents and responses referred to in the Reuters and Markup reports.
An Amazon spokesperson told the Markup that there is a difference between search results and merchandising placements, but that it does not favor its own brands in the search tool.
“We do not favor our store brand products through search. There is a difference between search results and the placements [the Markup] is referring to – ‘Featured from our brands’ – which are merchandising placements. As [The Markup] notes, these placements are clearly labeled to distinguish them from search results,” a company spokesperson said. “These merchandising placements are optimized for a customer’s experience and are shown based on a variety of signals, starting with relevance to the customer’s shopping query.”
The company spokesperson added that they look at sales and store data to enhance customer experience, “However, we strictly prohibit our employees from using non-public, seller-specific data to determine which store brand products to launch.”
An Amazon spokesperson told Reuters, meanwhile, that “these allegations are incorrect and unsubstantiated” and that it “does not give preferential treatment to any seller” on its marketplace. In addition, the company reiterated that it displays search results “based on relevance to customers, irrespective of whether such products are private brands offered by sellers or not.”
Musician and director Rob Zombie has revealed the first cast members of his upcoming The Munsters film.
Sherri Moon Zombie and Jeff Daniel Phillips will be playing Lily and Herman Munster, respectively. Moon, who is Zombie’s wife, has starred in several of the “Dragula” rocker’s films, including the Firefly trilogy, 31 and his Halloween films. Phillips, meanwhile, is also a Zombie regular, but you may know him best as one of the cavemen in those old GEICO commercials.
Additionally, Zombie has announced that Matlock and Lost alum Daniel Roebuck will play Grandpa Munster, aka The Count.
The Munsters, of course, was originally a 1960s TV comedy show depicting a family of lovable monsters. It was briefly rebooted for the 2012 NBC special Mockingbird Lane, but was never picked up for a full series.
Just as the Pulp Fiction director has claimed that he’ll retire after 10 films, Chris Martin tells NME that the “Viva la Vida” outfit will stop making studio albums once they hit 12.
“It’s a lot to pour everything into making [albums],” Martin explains. “I love it and it’s amazing, but it’s very intense too.”
He adds, “I feel like because I know that challenge is finite, making this music doesn’t feel difficult, it feels like, ‘This is what we’re supposed to be doing.'”
For what it’s worth, Martin has made declarations like this in the past. In 2014, he told BBC Radio 1 that Coldplay’s then-upcoming seventh album, A Head Full of Dreams, felt like “the completion of something,” comparing it to the seventh and final Harry Potter book. Of course, Coldplay has since followed A Head Full of Dreams with two more albums, though Martin does seem a bit more sure of his plan this time around.
“I don’t think that’s what we’ll do,” Martin tells NME when asked to clarify Coldplay’s 12-album plan. “I know that’s what we’ll do in terms of studio albums.”
Coldplay just dropped their ninth album, Music of the Spheres, last Friday.
