(WASHINGTON) — The Census Bureau on Thursday released the first district-level 2020 census results, setting off redistricting battles that could help determine whether Republicans or Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections.
The data will not only trigger a rush to redraw congressional and state legislative districts across the country, amid voting rights fights, but also are expected to show how the United States has grown more diverse.
Populations of people of color have grown, while the white population of the United States has shrunk, according to the Washington Post’s preview of the data. Six states and the District of Columbia may now have majority-minority populations.
“Republicans enter this redistricting cycle with the power to redraw 187 congressional districts to Democrats’ 75, which means redistricting could hand control of the House of Representatives back to Republicans in 2022 all by itself,” FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich writes.
Many state legislatures and commissions have already begun to discuss the maps of new congressional and legislative districts, but were waiting for the census data — delayed by the pandemic — before drawing maps.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s redistricting tracker, developed in conjunction with ABC News, at least nine states have upcoming preliminary or final deadlines in fall 2021 for either drafts of or final congressional district maps.
Six states are set to add congressional seats, seven states will each lose one seat and the remaining 37 states will keep the same number of congressional districts, the Census Bureau’s acting director announced in April.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan and Rick Klein to this report.
(YAKUTSK, Russia) — Gigantic wildfires are burning across Siberia on a record scale that is larger than all the fires raging this summer around the world combined.
The massive blazes in Russia are fueled in part by extreme heat waves and record droughts that scientists are blaming on warmer temperatures linked to climate change.
The worst hit region is Yakutia, a vast semi-autonomous republic around 3,000 miles east of Moscow that in winter is one of the coldest inhabited places on Earth. The fires have been burning since late spring in Yakutia and are already among the largest ever recorded.
The region is enduring a historic drought that is feeding the fires. The huge quantities of smoke has drifted as far as Alaska and the North Pole. Local authorities are struggling to contain the infernos, saying they have only a fraction of the manpower and equipment needed.
In the region’s capital Yakutsk last week, in an office cluttered with equipment, Sviatoslav Kolesov looked short of sleep as he showed the latest situation on a map marked with bright orange patches marking the miles of land burning.
A senior pilot-observer with Yakutia’s branch of the federal Aerial Forest Protection Service, Kolesov has been directing his small teams to contain the titanic fires and keep them away from villages outside Yakutsk.
“I’ve been working since 1988 and I have never seen such a summer,” Kolesov said. “Now is crazy. There are too many fires and pretty much all of them are major.”
A state of emergency has been declared in Yakutia over the fires that are estimated by local authorities to cover around 1.5 million hectares. For over a month, thick, acrid smog has hung over hundreds of miles over the region, frequently blanketing the capital and in places blocking out the sun.
Siberia’s warm summers and forest fires are part of life here but not on this magnitude. Since 2017, the region has had unusually dry summers and last year saw record temperatures, including the highest ever recorded in the Arctic.
Until 2017 the republic could expect one or two major fires a year, said Pavel Arzhakov, an instructor from the Aerial Forest Protection Service, who was overseeing efforts at a large fire about 150 miles west of Yakutsk.
But this year, he said, there are 30 to 40 major fires.
Greenpeace Russia estimates the fires have burned around 62,000 square miles across Russia since the start of the year. The current fires are larger than the wildfires in Greece, Turkey, Canada and the United States.
Russia’s emergency services says it is fighting nearly 200 fires across the country. But there are also dozens more that the agency is leaving to burn because they are not deemed a risk to population centers.
This year may pass Russia’s worst fire season in 2012 and Greenpeace has warned the biggest fire in Yakutia alone threatens to become unprecedented in scale.
“It’s possible it will be the biggest fire in the whole history of mankind. For now it’s competing with several famous historic fires in the U.S. in the 19th century,” he told Euronews.
The fire teams in Yakutia are in a vastly unequal fight with the blazes. Teams from the Aerial Forest Protection Service set up camps in the taiga and are trying to contain the fires with trenches and controlled burns. They have little equipment and firefighting planes are used only rarely.
Authorities have sent some reinforcements from other regions. At one camp, a team had flown around 2,000 miles from Khanty-Mansiyisk and have now been in Yakutia’s forest about a month.
“We’re putting the kraken back in the cage,” joked one fire fighter, Yura Revnivik as his team set a controlled burn, trying to direct a fire toward a nearby lake.
But there are nowhere near enough people for the scale of the fires, local firefighters said. Hundreds of local people have volunteered to try to fill the gap. Afanasy Yefremov, a teacher from Yakutsk, said he was spending his weekends trying to help.
“I have lived 40 years and I don’t remember such fires,” he said. “Everywhere is burning and there aren’t enough people.”
Local firefighters in Yakutia in part blamed the scale of the fires on authorities’ failure to extinguish the blazes early on, a consequence they said in part of cuts to the federal forestry fire service.
The fires are worrisome far beyond Russia. They are releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Yakutia’s fires have already produced a record amount of carbon emissions, according to the European Union’s Copernicus satellite monitoring unit.
The 505 megatons of emissions released since June would be more than Britain’s entire carbon dioxide emissions for the whole of 2019.
The July 28 death of ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill apparently has spurred fans to revisit the Texas trio’s catalog and has driven a number of their recordings back up the Billboard charts.
The band’s 1974 hit “La Grange” lands at the top of Billboard‘s latest Hard Rock Digital Song Sales, with 1,600 units sold during the most recent week-long tracking period, according to MRC Data. The track becomes ZZ Top’s first song to hit #1 on the list. The previous week, shortly after Hill’s passing, “La Grange” reached #2 on the chart.
Three other ZZ Top songs currently are in the top 10 of the Hard Rock Digital Song Sales — 1983’s “Sharp Dressed Man” at #2, 1975’s “Tush” at #5, and 1983’s “Gimme All Your Lovin'” at #6.
“La Grange” also sits at #6 on the general Rock Digital Song Sales tally, while the other aforementioned tunes all are in that chart’s top 20.
Meanwhile, ZZ Top’s 2019 hits compilation Goin’ 50 entered Billboard‘s Hard Rock Albums chart at #5 and the Top Rock Albums tally at #20 after accruing 8,400 album-equivalent units.
Overall, the band’s catalog was streamed 12.7 million times in the U.S. during the most recent tracking period, while notching 8,000 in album sales and 14,000 digital downloads of its songs.
Hill died suddenly at his home in Houston at the age of 72. He had been taking a break from the group’s current tour to seek treatment for a number of medical issues. No cause of death has been announced.
The CW’s live-action Powerpuff Girls has suffered another setback.
After the network decided to redo the initial pilot, Entertainment Weekly confirms that one of the stars — Chloe Bennet — has exited the project.
The former Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. actress had been set to play Blossom alongside Dove Cameron’s Bubbles and Yana Perrault’s Buttercup.
EW reports that Bennet had to step away due to scheduling conflicts after it was decided the pilot would be reworked and reshot. Casting for a new Blossom will begin this fall.
Cake Boss star Buddy Valastro is almost completely healed from a freak bowling accident that nearly cost him the use of his right hand.
Speaking to ABC Audio, the acclaimed baker assured, “I would say that I’m about 90 percent back with my strength and my dexterity… So I feel pretty confident that I’m as good as I ever was!”
Valastro, 44, was injured last September and required multiple surgeries to repair the damage caused by a malfunction in his personal bowling pinsetter machine. Before he began filming the third season of the Food Network show Buddy vs. Duff, Valastro thought his cake-making days were finished.
“Laying in the hospital, I said to myself, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make these cakes again,” he revealed. “We started filming in April. Before then, I could not bend my [middle and ring] fingers… So, the doctor went in and released the tendons and cut out scar tissue so that I could do it.”
Because he went into this season not knowing “what my capabilities were going to be,” Valastro said he didn’t “really care about winning or losing. I just want to be able to make cakes… So the fact that I was able to was amazing.”
Now that he’s back to creating jaw-dropping cake creations that can “spin,” and “jump” or “fly,” Valastro is thrilled he is once again inspiring the next generation of bakers.
“No matter how crazy it was or how outlandish or what it took to [make these cakes,] I always took the challenge because I always thought, ‘Hey, there’s a little kid out there who’s going to be inspired from what I’m doing,” he grinned.
The updated recording, dubbed the “Man of Fire Remix,” surrounds the beloved masked MC’s lyrics with electronic elements that wouldn’t sound out of place on Kid A. You can download it now via digital outlets.
Yorke has actually remixed “Gazzillion Ear” once before, as a bonus track for Doom’s 2009 album Born Like This. In fact, both remixes were recorded around the same time 12 years ago, though the “Man on Fire Remix” has never been released until now.
While the released piece was simply titled the “Thom Yorke Remix” when it dropped, Yorke himself personally referred to it as the “Monkey Hustle Remix.” Both the “Monkey Hustle” and “Man on Fire” titles reference lyrics from the original song.
Yorke is a big fan of Doom, and collaborated with him multiple times throughout his life. After news broke of his death late last year, Yorke called Doom a “massive inspiration.”
Country star Chris Stapleton has released his cover of “Nothing Else Matters” for the upcoming Metallica Blacklist tribute album.
At eight minutes and 14 seconds, Stapleton’s version is even longer than the original, and includes extra guitar solos and an overall vibe perfect for a twilight journey across the American West. You can download the cover now via digital outlets.
Stapleton’s “Nothing Else Matters” follows Phoebe Bridgers‘ rendition, which was released earlier this week, as well as the Miley Cyrus-led recording also featuring Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Elton John, guitarist/producer Andrew Watt, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
The Metallica Blacklist, which features 53 artists in total, is due out September 10. It’s being released to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Metallica’s 1991 self-titled record, aka The Black Album, which, fittingly, is today.
Meanwhile, Metallica has released an alternative version of “Nothing Else Matters,” featuring only the orchestra, clean guitar and vocals mixes. It’s one of many bonus tracks included on the upcoming deluxe Black Album 30th anniversary reissue. That’ll be released September 10, as well.
A jury has been set for the New York sex trafficking trial of R. Kelly.
The jury is comprised of seven men and five women, with six alternates. Judge Ann Donnelly swore in the jurors on Wednesday. The trial, set for August 18, will begin with opening statements.
Kelly, 34, whose birth name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, faces state and federal charges for sex trafficking, racketeering, coercion and other charges related to the alleged abuse and exploitation of six women over the course of 25 years. He could be sentenced up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Kelly’s Brooklyn trial has been postponed at least five times because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the most recent delay was for Kelly to review his case materials with his new legal team. As previously reported, two of Kelly’s top lawyers withdrew from the case in June.
Kelly also faces a separate indictment in Chicago for allegations regarding child pornography. That trial is scheduled to begin in September.
Dua Lipa with Truly Strawberry Lemonade Hard Seltzer/Courtesy Truly Hard Seltzer
Dua Lipa sure knows how to keep busy. A day after announcing a joint single with Elton John, she’s now announcing a virtual concert series.
Dua has teamed with Truly Hard Seltzer for the series, called Truly Inspired. She personally selected the three acts who’ll perform on the series: Irish singer/songwriter Dermot Kennedy, U.S. hip-hop duo EARTHGANG, and Yaeji, a Korean-American singer, DJ and producer. Their shows will stream on the Live Nation Channel on Twitch.
“Each of these artists represents an individual perspective, a distinctive part of the world, an original corner of music, and they all inspire me uniquely,” Dua says in a statement.
She adds, “In addition to the performances, I will be sitting down with each artist, and together we’ll chat, have some fun and maybe even have a couple of drinks, as we explore how” — as Truly’s slogan says — “No One Is Just One Flavor.”
EARTHGANG’s appearance will stream on August 24 at 9:30pm E.T. Dermot Kennedy appears September 9 at 4 p.m. ET, and Yaeji will play September 21, at a time to be determined.
As the frontman of one of the ‘90s biggest rock bands, Hootie & the Blowfish, singer Darius Rucker has had to deal with his fair share of the backlash that comes along with being hugely popular.
“That’s a problem you have when things get so big, when you get something that’s selling a million records a week, people have to hate it. Or they’re not cool,” the singer explains in a new episode of People’s PEOPLE in the ‘90s podcast.
For example, Darius once saw a bumper sticker that read “F*** Hootie” while driving down the highway — but the singer says he took it in stride.
“I laughed my a** off,” he recalls. “I was driving my brand-new truck to my brand-new house and was playing in front of 20,000 people that weekend.”
A bumper sticker with a mean message directed his way was the least of his worries. “I’m good!” he added.
Since those early days, Darius has racked up lots more experience in making career decisions based on what he wants to do, and ignoring naysayers in the process.
His move from Hootie & the Blowfish frontman to solo country act surprised many, but he got the last laugh. As a country artist, he’s scored nine chart-topping hits, including his most recent number-one, “Beers and Sunshine.”
