David Byrne’s American Utopia, the Spike Lee-directed TV special presenting former Talking Heads singer David Byrne‘s critically acclaimed Broadway show of the same name, will vie for honors in six categories at the 2021 primetime Emmy Awards.
The program, which premiered on HBO and HBO Max in October 2020, has been nominated for trophies for Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded), Outstanding Directing for a Variety Special, Outstanding Musical Direction, and in three technical categories.
The American Utopia show features Byrne accompanied by 11 musicians, dancers and singers who move freely about an almost-empty stage. The production includes monologues by David connecting performances of songs from his 2018 American Utopia album, as well as Talking Heads songs and several other Byrne solo tunes.
The TV shows receiving the most Emmy nods this year are Netflix’s The Crown and the Disney+ Star Wars series The Mandalorian, which both scored 24 nominations.
You can find the full list of nominees at Emmys.com.
The 73rd Emmys will be held live and in person on Sunday, September 19, airing at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.
(MINNEAPOLIS) — The Minnesota Wild has announced they have bought out forward Zach Parise and defenseman Ryan Sutter.
Both signed identical 13-year, 98 million dollar contracts in July 2012.
“Zach and Ryan have been an integral part of the Wild’s success over the past nine years and we’ll always be grateful for their many contributions,” said general manager Bill Guerin. “There were numerous factors that entered into the difficult decision to buy out their contracts, but primarily these moves are a continuation of the transformation of our roster aimed at the eventual goal of winning a Stanley Cup.”
The buyouts will cost the Wild $1.66 million per year for the next eight years, according to CapFriendly.
Prior to today the #MNWild did not have any dead cap hits, this is how their dead cap hit section is now updated with the buyouts pic.twitter.com/YMl6gj4Az2
The moves save the Wild $10.3 million this season and $2.3 million next season.
Parise recorded scored 199 goals and recorded 201 assists in 558 regular-season games. He is the franchise leader in power-play goals and ranks third in goals and total scoring. This past season, Parise finished with seven goals and 11 assists in 45 games.
Sutter scored 55 goals and assisted on another 314 in 656 regular-season games. He is the franchise leader in assists and total scoring for a defenseman. Sutter finished with three goals and 16 assists in 56 games.
The pair will become unrestricted free agents on July 28.
The awards show isn’t until September, but Pose star Mj Rodriguez has already made Emmys history.
The actress was nominated for best actress in a drama series Tuesday morning, becoming the first trans actress to ever garner an Emmy nod in a leading acting category.
In 2014, Orange Is the New Black actress Laverne Cox became the first transgender person to ever be nominated for an acting Emmy; Rain Valdez, creator and star of the short Razor Tongue, became the second last year. Neither Cox nor Valdez won.
Last year, Pose fans voiced their frustrations that the series’ transgender stars were snubbed on Emmy nominations day. Pose actor Billy Porter, however, was nominated for best actor in a drama series; Jeremy Strong of Succession went on to win the category.
Rodriguez has not yet commented on her groundbreaking nomination, though GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis called it “a long-overdue recognition for her groundbreaking performance.”
Ellis continued, “Additionally, the show’s nomination for outstanding drama series, as well as Billy Porter’s third nomination for outstanding lead actor in a drama series, mark a historic show that undoubtedly raised the bar for trans representation on television and changed the way viewers around the world understand the trans community.”
“As over 40 leading LGBTQ organizations pointed out in our open letter about Pose to Emmy Award voters [last month], representation matters. Congratulations, Michaela Jaé, Billy Porter, and the entire Pose team — the world is standing with you and applauding your talents.”
Killswitch Engage has announced a streaming concert taking place August 6.
The virtual show, which will be filmed at the Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts, will feature full album performances of KsE’s latest effort, 2019’s Atonement, as well as their 2000 self-titled debut. A press release promises that the concert will also feature “a few surprises along the way.”
“I hope everyone who watches enjoys this as much as we did making it,” says frontman Jesse Leach. “Aside from the music, the laughter and funny moments were an equal part of the experience. The whole package really feels like a Killswitch experience and we’re stoked for everyone to see and hear it.”
Meanwhile, Leach and Killswitch guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz are releasing a new album with their side project Times of Grace called Songs of Loss and Separation this Friday, July 16.
Death Cab for Cutie frontman Benjamin Gibbard has united with electronic artist Tycho for a new song called “Only Love.”
“Ben’s voice was a very inspiring element to work with from a production standpoint, I felt it really meshed well with the kinds of sounds and instrumentation I gravitate towards,” Tycho says.
“‘Only Love’ started life as an instrumental, but something was missing,” he explains. “I sent a rough demo to Ben and he recorded some vocals over it. The first time I heard the rough vocals the whole song suddenly made sense and the arrangement flowed out of that.”
You can listen to “Only Love” now via digital outlets.
Notably, “Only Love” marks Gibbard’s first “major electronic collaboration” since The Postal Service.
Death Cab’s most recent album is 2018’s Thank You for Today. In the past year, they’ve released a covers EP, as well as a live album.
(MOSCOW) — Alena Denisavets said she had been looking for her husband for more than a day when she got a text message from a lawyer who she believed was working for Belarus’ feared security services, still known today as the KGB.
Her husband Youras Ziankovich had vanished while on a trip to Moscow in April. She said she learned from the hotel where he was staying that unknown men had taken him. Now, she was hearing from the place she had never wanted him to be.
“I kind of tried to calm down and to understand what happened; why he’s in Minsk, [Belarus], why this person is contacting me from the KGB; [and] who is this person,” Denisavets told ABC News from Texas last week. “I was shocked, I was shaking, I was crying.”
Belarus’ KGB later announced it had taken Ziankovich. The men who took him filmed the abduction and it was later aired on Belarusian state television. As Ziankovich approached his hotel in Moscow, three men grabbed him and forced him into a van.
Ziankovich is a lawyer with U.S. citizenship and a long-time opponent of Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader of his native Belarus. For more than a decade, Ziankovich had lived in the United States, where he gained political asylum and then citizenship, and ran a law practice from Texas.
After he was seized in Moscow, he was driven nearly 700 miles across the border to Belarus and placed in a KGB jail in Minsk, according to Belarusian authorities. His wife has not been able to speak with him since, nor have the United States consular staff, despite requests to do so.
Zianokovich was grabbed that day in Moscow along with another Belarusian opponent of Lukashenko, Alexander Feduta, shortly after the two had eaten lunch together. Feduta, who more than a decade ago served as spokesman for Lukashenko, is a literary critic and now a vocal critic of his former boss.
About a week after the men were taken, Lukashenko announced to journalists that Belarusian security forces had thwarted a supposed coup attempt against him and accused Ziankovich and Feduta of planning it.
Belarus’ KGB claimed the two men were part of a U.S.-backed plot to assassinate the Belarusian authoritarian leader and abduct his children.
“We have seized them in Moscow,” Lukashenko told reporters. “They flew from the U.S. His last name is Ziankovich.”
The U.S. State Department responded quickly to Lukashenko’s claim, saying that “any suggestion that the U.S. government was behind or involved in an assassination attempt on Lukashenko is absolutely untrue.”
Denisavets said the coup claims against her husband were ridiculous, invented by the Lukashenko regime to create a justification for repression in the country, where he is currently straining to crush a protest movement that broke out against him last year.
“They need a story, kind of a very loud story,” Denisavets said. “Everyone is a terrorist, a potential terrorist, if he is against the government.”
She accused Belarus and Russia of collaborating to kidnap her husband.
Belarusian state television aired a lengthy report on the supposed coup attempt several days after he was taken. It included hidden camera footage showing Ziankovich and Feduta meeting in a Belarusian-themed restaurant in central Moscow with some unknown men.
The surveillance footage had been released by Russia’s Federal Security Service or FSB, its powerful domestic intelligence agency.
The FSB later said Ziankovich’s seizure had been a joint operation with the KGB. And president Vladimir Putin has since supported Lukashenko’s claim of the coup plot, criticising the West in his annual state of the nation address for not condemning it.
Most outside experts have expressed scepticism about the coup allegations, noting the improbable way in which it was supposedly planned and that those involved have no connections with the military or significant influence.
To back up the claims about the coup, Belarusian state television aired video from a Zoom call, where it alleged Ziankovich and the others were discussing their plans.
But Alexander Perepechko, a political analyst who participated in the Zoom call, said that claim was preposterous and that in reality the call had just been an academic discussion.
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve seen people like us playing quote-un-quote ‘coup d’etat’ using Zoom,” Perepechko, who lives in exile in the U.S., told ABC News. “There was no secrecy, there was no conspiracy. It was an academic conversation.”
Perepechko said the call had been a “war gaming” exercise where the participants had discussed different possibilities for how Belarus’ political crisis might end. Although he and others present were passionate to see the end of Lukashenko’s rule, he said, they had no means or experience for organizing a coup.
“We just became part of a big game,” he said. “And we were just kind of unlucky those people … are in KGB prison in Minsk now because we talked about a sensitive topic.”
Hanna Liubakova, a journalist and Atlantic Council non-resident fellow, said she did not believe the coup allegations were real.
“I don’t really think a coup d’etat might be planned by Zoom,” she said. “I think that’s another kind of fairy tale, another story that the regime tries to show.”
Liubakova said she believed it was possible that Ziankovich and Feduata might have been tricked into going to Moscow on false promises about possible assistance against Lukashenko, but that the idea they might have orchestrated a real coup was not credible.
“It’s all being kind of presented in this way because Lukashenko needs to justify repressions,” she said.
The mass protests that broke out following the contested election in August 2020 came close to toppling Lukashenko at the time. But he has since gradually strangled the protest movement through continuous repression, and in recent months, has gone on the offensive.
This week the regime moved to close down several popular independent media organizations. At the same time, it has aggressively targeted its opponents in exile. In May, Belarus forced down a Ryanair passenger flight with another opposition blogger onboard, Roman Protasevich.
Since then, Protasevich has repeatedly been paraded in front of journalists and publicly recanted his former opposition to Lukashenko under what his family and other opposition figueres say is intense pressure and likely torture.
Ziankovich and Feduata have both been shown appearing to admit guilt in videos aired on state television.
“When you are taken as a prisoner, you say whatever they want you to say to save your life and not to make things worse,” said Perepechko.
The democratic opposition estimates there are at least 500 political prisoners currently in Belarus and thousands have been detained since last August.
It is unclear when Ziankovich might be placed on trial. Aside from the denial of any conspiracy to assassinate the Belarus leader, the U.S. State Department has issued only curt statements on his detention, saying it is aware of it and trying to assist him.
Denisavets says she has written about her husband’s case to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as her local senator and Congressional representatives. But she said that so far she had only received one response from the office of Sen. Ted Cruz.
Denisavets said she had to keep hoping that he would be freed. She believes the current situation in Belarus cannot last.
“I just want to say to him if he sees me, that I love him. … I wait for him here and I will do whatever is possible to release him, to help him,” she said, holding back tears. “It’s an occupation of the country and it will not last such a long time. The regime will not stay on the blood of people. It will end, and very soon.”
In an Instagram post, DiRito, who’s played with Pop Evil since 2007, writes that “time has come for me to part ways” with the Michigan rockers.
“The decision has been made that I will not be joining them on their upcoming tour, or any future tours,” he says. “Walking away from something I’ve helped build is not easy — but it is the best thing for the band, myself and our respective futures.”
As for why he’s leaving Pop Evil, DiRito is keeping that close the vest, writing, “The details surrounding my departure are only known by a few people, and respectfully it will remain that way.”
“I would like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your endless support and love,” he concludes. “I wish Pop Evil nothing but success in all of their future endeavors and I am thankful for the time that I was able to be part of it.”
Meanwhile, DiRito won’t be the only Pop Evil member missing from the band’s upcoming tour, which kicks off this week. Drummer Hayley Cramer, who’s based in the U.K., will be unable to make the beginning of the outing, as she’s still stuck across the pond due to travel issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. She hopes to rejoin the band on the road in August.
Pop Evil released their new album, Versatile, in May.
Jimmie Allen’s first-ever children’s book, My Voice Is a Trumpet, is out now.
Illustrated by Cathy Ann Johnson, the book celebrates how every voice — from the roar of a lion to the buzz of a bee — has the power to enact change. That’s a message that’s especially important to Jimmie, both as a country musician and as a father.
“It’s very important to me that kids learn at a young age that they have a voice, and that it is powerful. It is up to us adults to teach them to use their voice to encourage and show love,” Jimmie explains. “Being a father of two kids, I try to encourage them to be themselves and love everyone around them. I’m hoping this book inspires at least one child and they always remember their voice is a trumpet.”
Jimmie is dad to 7-year-old Aadyn; he and his wife, Alexis, also share 1-year-old daughter Naomi. The couple will soon add a third child to the mix, as they’re expecting another baby — a girl — later this year.
In musical news, Jimmie’s current single, a duet with Brad Paisley, called “Freedom Is a Highway,” is rising at radio. He’ll join Brad on tour later this summer.
After fans hounded her on social media, Cardi B shared photos from the princess-themed party she and Offset threw for Kulture’s third birthday last weekend.
“Ok, I’m [going to] post all Kulture birthday pic ….Give me a second. It’s like three thousand to choose [from],” Cardi tweeted Monday night.
The guest of honor showed up to her party in a horse-drawn carriage accompanied by her happy parents. “You know the entrance gotta be extra honey,” Cardi wrote on Instagram, sharing photos from Saturday’s party.
Cardi and Kulture wore matching pink dresses and made their grand entrance with Offset through a tunnel of balloons. The party had everything a girl could dream of in her own whimsical world: a Cinderella cake, a dance floor, colorful balloons, and a petting zoo. There were also performers dressed as Disney princesses Cinderella, Belle, Aurora, and Tiana.
Soon the party of three will become four, since Cardi and Offset are expecting their second child together. Cardi revealed her pregnancy during their performance with Migos at the 2021 BET Awards in June.
