Jason Aldean is beginning to tease new songs off his spring 2022 album, Georgia, and one of the tracks on the project will be a song about his mom, called “Your Mama.” His relationship with his mother is a subject near and dear to his heart, Jason explains in a new video posted to his social media.
“My parents got divorced when I was three, and my mom, she was very instrumental in raising me,” the singer reflects. “I was her only child, so everything she did sort of revolved around me and what I was doing.”
Jason says his mom always supported him, whether he was pursuing music or other interests, such as baseball. The singer remembers how his mom used to take him to baseball card shows, where they’d wait in line together so that Jason could get his cards autographed.
“I’ve always been super, super close with my mom,” he continues. “It’s taught me how to be like that with my kids, and I give her a lot of credit for me being the way I am.”
In addition to the personal backstory behind the song, Jason also shared a snippet of “Your Mama” in the video.
The full Georgia album will be out next April. It’s the second half of a double album project that began with the release of Macon last month; together, the discs make up Jason’s 10th album to date.
Glass Animals and Tame Impala will be playing the 2022 BUKU Music + Art Project festival, held March 25-26 in New Orleans.
The bill also includes Kennyhoopla and Taking Back Sunday. For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit TheBUKUProject.com.
Both Glass Animals and Tame Impala will also be launching their own headlining tours in 2022 in continued support of their respective 2020 albums, Dreamland and The Slow Rush.
Mark your calendars for January 10 because Katy Perry aims to start off 2022 with a roar. The singer teased she has something big planned and wants her fans to be ready for it.
Taking to Instagram on Wednesday, Katy shared her upcoming song collaboration with Alesso, “When I’m Gone,” that is due out December 29, the same day she kicks off her PLAY Las Vegas residency. She also appeared to reveal a small teaser of its music video, which features the two discussing an even bigger announcement.
“Don’t worry y’all, you’ll still be able to #PLAY along with me on December 29th, because #WHENIMGONE with @alesso will be coming,” she captioned the post, and urged fans to pre-save the single now.
However, all eyes fell to the latter half of the caption, which featured the cryptic message, “…And mark ur calendars for January 10th, as it will be the day im give the [Katycats] everything they want.”
That caption matches the words Katy speaks in the video teaser, which shows her talking into a payphone as Alesso listens in at the end of the line, and agrees, “Let’s do it!”
“When I’m Gone’s” official music video drops January 10 exclusively on ESPN during the 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship halftime show, according to a press release.
While some fans may be scratching their heads over Katy putting that much hype behind a single music video, it’s also causing others to wildly speculate that the clip might contain a special surprise. The singer has yet to interact with any of the theories her fans have left in the comment section, so we have to wait to see if there’s a separate reason why Katy’s so excited.
The O’Jays in 1965, Frankie Little not pictured; Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Human remains discovered in 1982 in the Cleveland suburb of Twinsburg, Ohio, have been identified as Frank “Frankie” Little Jr., a one-time guitarist and songwriter for legendary soul/R&B group The O’Jays.
ABC TV affiliate News 5 Cleveland reports that Little was identified thanks to genealogical research conducted by the DNA Doe Project. In 1982, an unidentified skull and, separately, a bag containing additional body parts were discovered behind a closed business in Twinsburg, and the cause of death was determined to be homicide.
Born in Cleveland in 1943 and raised there, Little played guitar and toured with The O’Jays during the mid-1960s, and also co-wrote some of the band’s songs.
O’Jays lead singer Eddie Levert said Little was a sentimental, loving and passionate person. He recalled that Frankie moved with the group to the West Coast, but eventually decided to return to his hometown.
“He could have been a great entity in the music business, but he was in love and love drove him back to Cleveland,” Levert maintained.
While it’s unclear when Little died, detectives believe he was last seen alive around the mid-1970s. DNA from his remains were used to track down potential relatives, and one of those contacted was a cousin named Margaret O’Sullivan, who informed investigators that Frankie had gone missing years ago.
Little’s brother then was contacted, and he supplied a DNA sample that helped confirm the remains’ identity.
Frankie had a daughter who died in 2021, and there’s also a son who hasn’t been located or identified yet, police told News 5.
Twinsburg Detective Eric Hendershott, who has worked on Little’s case, says the next step is to try to figure out details of Little’s murder.
Ten days after the passing of his five-month-son, Nick Cannon has shared fond memories of Zen.
“We had a short time with a true angel,” Cannon tells People in this week’s cover story. “My heart is shattered. I wish I could have done more, spent more time with him, taken more pictures. I wish I could have hugged him longer.”
Zen died on December 5 from a brain tumor, four months after he was diagnosed. Cannon, and Zen’s mother, Alyssa Scott, then worked to make every day special with their son.
“We focused on Disneyland, our favorite place,” explains the 41-year-old entertainer. “Every month we would celebrate his birthday, just really seeing it as a victory every time he had a milestone that he was still here with us.”
Zen’s illness became more serious over the Thanksgiving weekend, when he had trouble breathing.
“He was gasping for air. We’d wake up, and he wouldn’t be breathing for maybe five to 10 seconds at a time, and then he’d let out a huge gasp,” the TV talk show host recalls. ”You could see it frightened him. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Anticipating that Zen was dying, Cannon and Scott made the decision to spend the day with their son at the beach.
“I was like, ‘We have to watch the sun rise and just be here with him one last time,'” he says. “It was beautiful.”
“He was the most loving baby,” says Cannon. “I look at being his father as a great privilege.”
Here’s wishing a speedy recovery to KISS frontman Paul Stanley, who revealed in a Twitter post that he’s having an operation on his shoulder today.
According to the message, this will be the latest in a series of surgical procedures on his shoulder.
“SHOULDER SURGERY TODAY! How many show related surgeries have I had?? I lost count at EIGHT!!” writes Stanley. “Was it worth it?!? ABSOLUTELY! Judge the value of what of you have by what you sacrificed to achieve that goal. This was a joy-filled BARGAIN.”
Earlier this year, the singer/guitarist weathered a bout with COVID-19 that briefly sidelined KISS’ End of the Road farewell tour. The trek is scheduled to resume next year with an Australian leg that kicks off March 19 in Melbourne.
(HONG KONG) — Scores of people were trapped in a Hong Kong skyscraper on Wednesday after a major fire broke out, authorities said.
Flames ignited at the World Trade Centre in Hong Kong’s bustling Causeway Bay shopping district at around noon local time, setting scaffolding ablaze and forcing many people inside to flee to higher floors, where they awaited rescue, authorities said.
At least 13 people were injured, mostly due to smoke inhalation, during the incident. One of the people suffering from smoke inhalation was hospitalized in serious condition, according to authorities.
Authorities said they believe the blaze emerged from electrical cables on the first or second level of a shopping mall inside the 38-story complex, which is under renovation. The Hong Kong Fire Services Department had received a notice that the World Trade Centre’s fire safety system, including alarms and sprinklers, were shut off due to the construction, authorities said.
More than 150 firefighters were deployed to the scene, according to authorities. Thick smoke was seen billowing out from the building’s entrance as firefighters used a crane to rescue people trapped on the rooftop.
By 4:30 p.m. local time, firefighters had extinguished the flames and evacuated everyone from the building. Some 770 people were evacuated by rescuers, while 40 others evacuated from the building themselves, authorities said.
The World Trade Centre complex houses offices, restaurants and a mall, but the shops were all closed due to the ongoing renovations.
(WASHINGTON) — Five Federal Bureau of Investigation officials “solicited” prostitutes while on an overseas trip, the Department of Justice inspector general said in a two-page report.
Four of the officials “solicited, procured, and accepted commercial sex overseas.”
“The OIG investigation also found that four of those officials lacked candor about their interactions with prostitutes and other misconduct during OIG compelled interviews and compelled polygraph examinations, in violation of FBI policies, and that one of those officials made false statements in an OIG compelled interview and compelled polygraph examination in violation of federal law, when the official denied having engaged in sex acts with a prostitute,” Inspector General Michael Horowitz wrote.
Soliciting a prostitute overseas while working for the FBI is a violation of FBI and DOJ policy.
One FBI official “lacked candor” to the Inspector General “when the official denied observing or placing pills in a package to be delivered to a foreign law enforcement officer and that another of the officials failed to report having been provided such a package.”
The inspector general says there were about 100 white pills that were seen being given to a foreign official.
A sixth FBI official did not report the misconduct in violation of DOJ policy.
The inspector general said of the five who solicited prostitutes two resigned, two retired, and one was removed. The report said three of the individuals also failed to report their interactions with foreign nationals.
There are no details in the report about where the prostitution solicitation occurred or the names of the officials involved.
Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
(LOS ANGELES) — The Los Angeles public school district’s board of education has approved delaying enforcement of its COVID-19 vaccine mandate to the fall, as thousands of students at the nation’s second-largest school district remain non-compliant.
Under the mandate, which the board passed in September, all students ages 12 and up were required to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 10, 2022, to be allowed on school campuses for the second semester, unless they had an approved exemption or deadline extension.
Currently, over 87% of eligible students are in compliance with the mandate, Los Angeles Unified Interim Superintendent Megan Reilly said during Tuesday’s board meeting, calling it a “major milestone.”
Some 27,000 students are not in compliance with the mandate, as it’s too late to complete the two-dose vaccine series to be fully vaccinated by the January deadline.
Under Reilly’s proposal, the transfer of non-compliant students to the remote program will be delayed until the beginning of the fall 2022 semester.
“It allows more time for families to get this vaccine,” Reilly said ahead of the board’s vote. “This effort remains a top priority for Los Angeles Unified. We will continue to engage students and families around the importance of vaccines and the deadlines to participate for in-person learning. We will improve vaccination rates for eligible students and we will continue to provide a consistent, stable learning environment and access to vital resources.”
Most board members said they were reluctant to vote in favor of delaying enforcement of the vaccine mandate, though did so to limit disruption to in-person learning in the middle of the school year.
“I will support this because it keeps our promise to the vaccinated students in our district that we would not disrupt their education needlessly,” board member Jackie Goldberg said. “To be clear, we are not moving one inch from the mandate. Not one inch, not a centimeter. We are simply saying you now have more time to do it because we want all of you to be vaccinated and safe. And also we do not want your not being vaccinated to disrupt the education of those who have complied.”
Board president Kelly Gonez said voting in favor of the delay “is not a decision I am happy to make.”
“But like my fellow board members, I am very enthusiastic about our vaccination progress,” she continued. “I believe that this board unequivocally made the right decision in September, and it has made our schools safer, it has made our communities as a whole safer and it has saved lives.”
The vote came a day after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied two parent groups’ bid for a preliminary injunction against the student vaccine mandate, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.
The school district had also mandated that staff get both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by Nov. 15, barring exemptions due to disability or religious belief.
During its meeting Tuesday, board members also approved extending the district’s student and employee vaccination policy to all district-authorized charter schools to maintain a consistent vaccine policy.
The school district is one of the few nationwide that has implemented vaccine mandates. The policies came ahead of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement in October that the state will require COVID-19 vaccines for all school children ages 12-17 once the Federal Drug Administration grants full approval. The state policy includes personal exemptions, not just religious or medical.
“So there’s plenty of latitude for families to make decisions,” Newsom told Good Morning America last week. “LA is slightly different, and we’re going to obviously have to work through that with that district.”
“You have to work to accommodate, and I have all the confidence in the world the school board will work to accommodate,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — Kroger, one of the largest employers in the U.S. with 500,000 workers, announced that it will pull paid emergency COVID leave for unvaccinated employees.
The grocery chain is also adding a $50 monthly insurance surcharge for salaried associates who are unvaccinated.
The new rules will take effect starting Jan. 1, 2022.
Kroger said this is a necessary step to protect its employees and customers.
“We have been navigating the COVID-19 pandemic for almost two years and in line with our values, the safety of our associates and customers has remained our top priority,” Kroger said in a statement about the policy shift.
The supermarket chain said employees who are fully vaccinated will still be entitled to paid leave and the new policy does not apply to workers with medical or religious accommodations.
Kroger will continue to pay $100 to workers who choose to get vaccinated.
