Tory Lanez claims he rejected a plea deal in his Megan Thee Stallion assault case, and now he will go to trial.
Lanez’s lawyer, Shawn Holley, appeared in a Los Angeles court Wednesday, and a preliminary hearing in the case was set for December 14, according to NME.
“They offered what they offered so I wouldn’t go to TRIAL and I DECLINED,” Lanez wrote Thursday in a since-deleted tweet in response to XXL magazine’s report titled “Tory Lanez unable to reach plea deal in alleged Megan Thee Stallion shooting case, will have to give live testimony.” He added, “I will not be giving any live testimony.”
As previously reported, the “Talk to Me” rapper is currently out on $250,000 bail and is facing a felony assault charge for allegedly shooting Megan in the foot in July 2020 in Hollywood Hills. He was charged with one felony count each of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, personal use of a firearm, and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle.
Lanez also faces a charge that he personally inflicted great bodily injury. If convicted, he faces a maximum state prison sentence of 22 years and eight months. He’s pleaded not guilty.
Megan had an order of protection against Lanez, which he violated on July 25 when he made a surprise appearance at the Rolling Loud Miami festival and joined DaBaby onstage, right after the “Hot Girl Summer” singer performed.
Metallica is helping to introduce a new combat sport to the world.
The metal legends are performing ahead of the debut of Triad Combat, a team-based fighting competition that combines the rules of boxing and MMA. Produced by Triller Fight Club, the event will take place November 27 in Arlington, Texas.
“Here’s something different for you and is definitely a first for us!” Metallica says of the show.
Tickets go on sale Friday, November 5, at 10 a.m. CT. You’ll also be able to watch live at home via pay-per-view.
(WASHINGTON) — With the nation’s top public health officials as their audience, Senate Republicans on Thursday aired complaints about a new wide-reaching vaccine mandate for large businesses being implemented by the Biden administration.
“I’m just telling you it’s a hard sell to tell people who have had COVID that they’re now under a mandate — a mandate by the federal government — to be vaccinated. I think you’ve got an extremely tough sell,” Sen. Richard Burr, the top Republican on the Senate Health Committee, told the heads of the Biden White House COVID response team, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky and chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a hearing.
The new mandate, announced in September but finalized Thursday, will apply to nearly 100 million U.S. workers and require them to either get vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID tests. The mandate will take effect on Jan. 4, after the holidays.
Both Fauci and Walensky were supportive of the mandate, pointing to 745,000 American deaths and thousands more each week, the vast majority of which are among the unvaccinated.
Burr was one of several Republicans who made the case during the hearing that unvaccinated Americans who have had COVID-19 should be exempt from the new mandate because they would now have “natural” immunity to the virus, an argument made by business organizations that oppose the mandate.
While studies have shown that people still carry immune response to the virus after recovery, it’s not clear how long that immunity lasts and it doesn’t appear to be as robust as immunity from vaccination. One recent CDC study found that people with “natural” immunity through infection were five times more likely to develop COVID-19 compared to people who were fully vaccinated, something Wallensky and Fauci pointed out.
Still, Burr argued that health care professionals were already suffering from worker shortages and couldn’t afford to lose more people because they refused to comply with mandates. Under the mandate for health care workers, which applies to any place receiving federal funding through Medicare or Medicaid, workers are required to get vaccinated without an option to do weekly tests instead.
“You start doing this to people, Medicare, Medicaid providers, community health centers, we’re not going to have the people to surge,” Burr said, referring to surge responses to states that need more doctors and nurses when COVID cases spike.
He called the decision not to allow for “natural” immunity qualifiers “confusing.”
“There’s every reason to believe that people can look at this and say, ‘What the hell are you guys doing? What are you judging this based on?’ It’s not common sense and it’s certainly not science.”
Walensky said the data on how natural immunity lasts is “murkier” but the CDC can track with certainty how long vaccines work, and referenced the recent study showing more infections in people who have had COVID than in those who are vaccinated.
“CDC recommendations suggest that you have more both more durable and robust and known immune response if you are vaccinated after you’ve been previously infected, and those are our recommendation,” Walensky said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, also told the public health officials that she was worried about worker shortages.
“When we’re talking about vaccine and vaccine hesitancy, we need to be talking to those who are putting in place some of these standards that in my state are causing an extraordinary issue and problem within our workforce,” Murkowski said.
Both Fauci and Walensky defended the mandates, which the Biden administration hopes will stifle COVID cases that have disrupted everything from education systems to supply chain and the economy.
“We’ve had 745,000 deaths from this disease and we’re continuing to have about 75,000 cases every single day,” Walensky said.
“We know the most disruptive thing in our workforce is to have a COVID outbreak and to have workers in that workforce come down with COVID infection, severe disease, and in some cases death. Vaccination as we’ve seen, decreases your risk of infection by sixfold, decreases your risk of hospitalization and death by tenfold even during this delta surge. So there’s absolutely a public health priority to get people vaccinated and to continue the important prevention and mitigation strategies including masking to keep them safe,” she said.
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, asked Fauci, “If we do have a mandate, will it save lives? And is there an estimate of, of the number of lives that might be saved by virtue of having our private companies that have over 100 employees, either having their employees receive a vaccination or get a weekly test? If that occurs, will it save lives and you have an estimate of the number of lives that might save?”
Fauci said he did not have a model on hand, but had “a very firm and confident answer” to the first question.
“We know that vaccines absolutely save lives. And we know that mandates work,” he said.
December is gearing up to be a big month for Gorillaz.
The cartoon band’s self-titled debut album will be reissued as a massive vinyl box set on December 10. The eight-LP collection includes various B-sides and demos — or, as they’re referred to here, G-sides and Demoz — as well as the 2002 remix album Laika Comes Home and a live recording of a 2001 London concert.
The first pressing will be limited to 4,000 copies, and a second edition release will arrive in the fall of 2022. You can pre-order your copy now via the Gorillaz web store.
Meanwhile, Gorillaz has also announced the theatrical premiere of the Song Machine Livefrom Kong concert film. It’ll screen in cinemas worldwide for one night only on December 8.
Even though Dickinson‘s third and final season takes place during the Civil War, series creator Alena Smith and her cast found some eerie parallels from that time to our pandemic times.
Like many shows, the cast and crew of Dickinson eventually returned to work following the industry-wide COVID-19 production shutdown, but like it did for everyone, the world they’d left behind was forever changed.
Shooting this season in 2020 amid the pandemic, racial tensions and a contentious election called to mind the strife going on in America during the time the show’s final season is set, Jane Krakowski tells ABC Audio. “I can certainly say I never saw any of that coming,” laughs the Emmy nominated 30 Rock vet, who plays Emily Dickinson‘s mother, Emily Norcross. “Nor did I ever think that Alena’s trajectory could be so timely to flow alongside of what’s happening in the world today.”
Krakowski explains that going through the pandemic, and the strict COVID-19 protocols when they returned to work, really turned up the volume for her performance. “I think it was interesting for me as an actor, I felt like the emotions felt almost stronger inside of me because we didn’t get to film anything for 18 months,” she says. “And so when you had a scene of sorrow, the sorrow felt quite real and quite deep, obviously reflecting the times that we had just gone through.”
She continues, “And when there was joy, the joy felt a higher sense of relief and joy because we were able to feel joy for a little bit of time. And so it was very interesting to film something at this time in the world.”
Executive-produced by and starring Hailee Steinfeld as the titular rebel poet, Dickinson returns to Apple TV+ Friday.
Gabby Barrett might be a country superstar, but she’s been influenced by musical legends from all kinds of genres — including late pop artist Michael Jackson. Now, Gabby finds ways to tribute the “Billy Jean” star with her own performances, including her stage outfits.
In fact, Jackson has part of the reason why she wears special gloves onstage when she performs her biggest hit, “I Hope.” Like Michael did, Gabby includes a flair for the dramatic in her music, she recounts to Kelleigh Bannen on Apple Music’s Today’s Country Radio.
She initially planned to wear the gloves during a performance at the 2020 CMA Awards, and although she wound up not including them as part of her outfit, she always hoped to be able to find a chance to wear them onstage.
“I’m so specific about my colors of gold and stuff matching that the gloves did not match to the chains on [my] outfit. So I was like, ‘I can’t wear them,'” she recalls. “And so I always saved those gloves and I wanted to wear them for something, but I wanted to wear them at the CMAs as a nod to Michael Jackson. And I just love the glove, and all of that. And so I kept them and I was like, ‘We need to use them for tour.'”
Gabby will also return to the stage of the CMAs this year. She’s set to perform her hit “The Good Ones,” which is nominated for two awards at this year’s show.
Your weekend is about to get a lot heavier, courtesy of Slipknot.
Following a tease earlier this week, the masked metallers have announced that they’ll be releasing a new song called “The Chapeltown Rag” this Friday, November 5. They’ll also be debuting it live during their headlining set at Knotfest Los Angeles tomorrow.
Speaking with Knotfest.com, frontman Corey Taylor describes “The Chapeltown Rag” as “frenetic,” a “punisher” and “classic Slipknot.”
“Lyrically, it’s coming from a point of talking about the various manipulations that can happen when social media meets media itself,” Taylor explains. “And the different ways that these manipulations can try to pull us in different directions, in the fact that we’re all becoming addicts to it, which is very, very dangerous.”
The title “The Chapeltown Rag” references the English town victimized by serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, aka the “Yorkshire Ripper,” in the 1970s. Taylor came up with the title after watching a Netflix documentary about Sutcliffe, after which the streaming service kept suggesting he should watch more serial killer docs.
“At that moment, everything was just kind of steering towards violence, or a history of violence,” Taylor says. “And it was just such a weird echo of social media. And the fact that social media tries to steer you towards violence or steer you towards the most toxic thing — the most toxic moment. So I looked at it from that standpoint.”
“The Chapeltown Rag” is the first new Slipknot song to follow the band’s 2019 album, We Are Not Your Kind.
The latest installment of ABC’s Family Singalong franchise airs tonight. The Queen Family Singalongpays tribute to the iconic British rock group via songs belted out by a variety of music stars, including the band’s current lead singer, Adam Lambert.
Sharing some details about the special, Lambert says, “[Y]ou’re going to hear Queen songs in new and different ways that you’ve not heard them before, sung by some of your favorites and I think there’s a lotta surprises in there as well. I’m really happy to be a part of it and I can’t wait for people to see it.”
Lambert will be featured singing “Show Must Go On” on the special, which is hosted by former Glee star Darren Criss. Other artists who will perform on the show include Fall Out Boy, former Alice Cooper guitarist Orianthi, Alessia Cara, Jimmie Allen, Miss Piggy, JoJo Siwa, OneRepublic and Pentatonix.
Previous installments of ABC’s Singalong specials have focused on Disney music, so perhaps it’s not surprising that the Queen-themed show also will feature the casts of the Broadway productions of Disney’s The Lion King and Aladdin.
The Queen Family Singalong airs tonight at 8 p.m ET on ABC.
Here’s a select list of performances from the special:
Adam Lambert –- “The Show Must Go On”
Derek Hough featuring Alexander Jean -– “Another One Bites the Dust”
Fall Out Boy -– “Under Pressure”
Jimmie Allen featuring Miss Piggy -– “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”
JoJo Siwa and Orianthi -– “We Will Rock You”
OneRepublic -– “We Are the Champions”
Pentatonix –- “Somebody to Love”
The casts of Disney’s The Lion King and Aladdin — “Don’t Stop Me Now”
Alessia Cara — “We Are the Champions”
Jimmy Fallon has revealed that Taylor Swift will appear on The Tonight Show on Thursday, November 11, the day before she releases Red (Taylor’s Version).
Jimmy broke the news by tweeting a video of himself pinning a card with Taylor’s name on it onto his bulletin board showing his upcoming guests. Actually, he first pins up the card using a clear pushpin, then takes it down and tacks it back up with a red pushpin, as one of Taylor’s hits from Red, “I Knew You Were Trouble,” plays.
One Swiftie pointed out that the video is 13 seconds long — with 13, of course, being Taylor’s lucky number.
Taylor is doing something of an NBC takeover next week: In addition to appearing on The Tonight Show on November 11, she’ll also be on Late Night with Seth Meyers that same evening. Then, on November 13, she’ll be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live.
Red (Taylor’s Version) is the second re-recorded album that Taylor’s released, following Fearless (Taylor’s Version), which came out back in April and hit number one.
Adele makes it look effortless in the video for “Easy on Me,” but in a new bloopers video she shows what was really going on behind the scenes.
“It’s all smoke and mirrors!” the singer captions in the hilarious compilation. “Here’s all the bloopers from the Easy On Me video.”
The clip features Adele struggling to insert a cassette tape into the car’s cassette player over multiple takes, dealing with a coat that won’t cooperate, and being hit in the face with flying sheet music.
