One sign that Adele’s relationship with sports agent Rich Paul isn’t just a passing phase is the fact that the two recently went Instagram official. But according to a source, their romance is much deeper than that.
A source close to Adele tells E! News, “Adele is very much in love with Rich and their relationship has become more serious in the last few months. They have both met each other’s kids, but have been keeping it low-key around them.”
Adele shares son Angelo with her ex-husband Simon Konecki. According to The New Yorker, Paul, who’s never been married, has three children.
“They both stay at each other’s places in L.A., and are pretty much inseparable,” adds the source, noting that Adele has been enjoying hanging out with Rich, who reps LeBron James, and his friends.
“She feels really comfortable around him and is in a good headspace right now,” the insider continues. “She is all about having fun and being in good company and Rich definitely provides that.”
The source also claims that Adele, who hosted SNL last October, is planning to release new songs later this year, hopefully “in December before the holidays.”
As for performing live, the insider claims, “She would love to…go back on tour, but is being cautious of COVID and doesn’t have concrete plans yet.”
Sony Music Entertainment/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
In July, the popular Bruce Springsteen fan site Backstreets.com reported that an archival film focusing on the performances that The Boss and his E Street Band gave at the historic 1979 “No Nukes” concerts would be coming out later this year. Now official details about the release have been announced.
The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts will be released digitally on November 16 and on DVD, Blu-ray and audio formats on November 19.
The film and companion audio feature Springsteen and the E Street Band playing 13 songs at two of the MUSE benefit concerts, aka the “No Nukes” concerts, a star-studded series of shows that took place in September 1979 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Ten of the performances are previously unreleased.
The movie was edited by longtime Springsteen collaborator Thom Zimny using the original 16-millimeter film, and the audio was remixed by lauded engineer Bob Clearmountain.
Springsteen’s set list included renditions of two songs from his then-upcoming album The River — the title track and “Sherry Darling” — as well as covers of Buddy Holly‘s “Rave On” and Maurice Williams‘ “Stay,” the latter of which featured guest appearances from Jackson Browne and Tom Petty.
“A few years ago, I started re-examining the filmed archives for Bruce and the Band’s appearances at the No Nukes concerts of 1979,” says Zimny in a statement. “I quickly realized that these were the best performances and best filming from the Band’s legendary Seventies, and dedicated myself to bringing out the full potential of the footage.”
The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts, which you can pre-order now, is available as a two-CD/DVD or two-CD/Blu-Ray set, a two-LP vinyl package, and on digital audio and video formats.
Here’s the full track list:
“Prove It All Night”
“Badlands”
“The Promised Land”
“The River”
“Sherry Darling”
“Thunder Road”
“Jungleland”
“Rosalita Come Out Tonight”
“Born to Run”
“Stay”
“Detroit Medley”
“Quarter to Three”
“Rave On”
(WASHINGTON) — Democratic House and Senate leaders on Thursday announced they and the White House have reached agreement on a “framework” that will pay for most, if not all, of the massive $3.5 trillion human infrastructure bill — a move meant to mitigate concerns from moderate and centrist Democrats opposed to the hefty price tag.
But the leaders provided very little details on the framework a day after President Joe Biden met with Democratic leaders, moderates and progressives at the White House in an effort to save his agenda from Democratic infighting.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also did not provide a clear outline about when the reconciliation bill will be ready for a vote.
She also did not commit to putting the bipartisan infrastructure bill on the floor for a vote next Monday, which she had promised moderates would happen.
Pelosi was joined by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen at her weekly press conference, as Democrats also face a looming possible government shutdown on Oct. 1 and still need to deal with the debt ceiling, which Republicans will not support.
“The White House, the House and the Senate have reached agreement on a framework that will pay for any final negotiated agreement. So, the revenue side of this, we have an agreement on,” Schumer told reporters.
“We know that we can cover the provisions the president has put forward,” Pelosi added. “It’s all good.”
This announcement is meant to provide some relief to those moderate, centrist Democrats like Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who do not support that $3.5 trillion number.
But Pelosi and Schumer provided very little on actual details. As of right now, leaders are no closer to having a reconciliation bill — which means the fate of the bipartisan infrastructure bill hangs in the balance.
“We came to terms as to a framework of an array of agreements that we have, depending on what the need is. Now at the same time, we’re finalizing on the outlay side, so if we need more, we need less — that will impact the choices we make there,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi also did not commit to putting the bipartisan infrastructure bill that has already passed in the Senate on the floor next week.
“We take it one day at time,” Pelosi told reporters. “I am confident that we will pass both bills.”
Pelosi also did not make clear if $3.5 trillion will remain the topline, or if that figure could change and drop lower.
“This is not about price tag. This is about what is in the bill,” Pelosi said.
Following the press conference, reporters caught up with Pelosi and pressed for more details on the framework.
When reporters suggested they had too few details, Pelosi responded, “well that’s your problem, not mine.”
Following the press conference, many senators close to the negotiation table say they are in the dark about the new framework agreement.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders said he has “no idea” what the agreement is. He told reporters he hopes to be briefed on it soon “if there is a framework.”
“We’ve been through this a million times. There are many many approaches as to how you can raise money in a fair and progressive way and raise at least 3.5 trillion dollars,” Sanders said. “If that’s what the menu is there is nothing then nothing particularly new I think.”
Sen. Mark Warner, a moderate Democrat on the Budget committee who has been intimately involved in negotiations with the president on the reconciliation plan told reporters he has not the “foggiest idea” what is in the framework.
Warner told reporters he was “as interested in getting those details as you are.”
Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said he was in meetings over the framework, but declined to give many details about what was discussed or decided upon.
“It went right to the heart of what we need in terms of tax fairness in America and that’s where we are this morning,” Wyden said while dodging questions about a topline or any agreed to “payfors.”
Senators said they expected to receive more information from leadership Thursday on what the framework is.
Democratic leaders also have to contend with a potential shutdown on Oct. 1, but Pelosi insisted a shutdown would be avoided.
Pelosi told reporters Republicans could cave on raising the debt ceiling because “public sentiment is everything.”
But she indicated that both chambers will do everything they can to keep the government open via a so-called “continuing resolution” that maintains current funding levels, which may mean they will have to deal with the debt ceiling at a later time.
“We will keep the government open by September 30 … and continue the conversation about the debt ceiling. Whatever it is, we will have a CR that passes both houses by September 30,” Pelosi said.
After promising to announce his tour, Shawn Mendes has done just that.
Shawn’s Wonder: The World Tour will get underway in the U.K. and Europe in March of 2022, with opening act King Princess. The tour arrives in North America on June 27, 2022 with opening act Dermot Kennedy through an August date in Brooklyn, NY, and then Tate McRae takes over on the second leg, which starts September 7 in Arizona.
The tour is currently set to conclude October 26, 2022 in Newark, NJ. It’s Shawn’s first trek since the release of his most recent album, Wonder.
The public onsale date for the North American tour starts October 7 at 10 a.m. local time, though there are American Express and Fan presales prior to that. All the details and tour dates are available at WondertheTour.com.
American Express card members will be able to access tickets in a special front-of-stage pit, and also purchase tickets that include limited edition merchandise, while supplies last.
More tour dates for other regions will be announced soon.
Fugees kicked off their reunion tour Wednesday night with a free concert in New York City for fans who earned tickets for their humanitarian work.
The show at Pier 17 in Manhattan was part of the Global Citizen Live global series of concerts, which will continue with numerous stars performing around the world on Saturday, September 25. Fans received tickets through the Global Citizen website by taking action to end the hunger crisis and protect the planet
Ms. Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their landmark 1996 album, The Score. Accompanied by a live band, the trio kicked off Wednesday’s concert with the title song of the album, according to Billboard. The performance also featured “Ready or Not,” “Zealots,” “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” and “Fu-Gee-La.”
Hill discussed the group’s breakup following the release of The Score and explained that money and success caused the dissension. Then she asked the crowd to “respect the miracle” of them finally coming back together.
Wyclef, who was born in Haiti, addressed the migrant crisis in his country. He criticized President Biden for the way Haitian migrants are being treated.
The Fugees reunion tour will continue November 2 in Chicago and will make stops in Oakland, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Newark, and Washington, D.C. The group will then travel abroad to Paris, London, Nigeria and Ghana.
The Score has sold over 12 million copies and earned two Grammy Awards: Best Rap Album, and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, for “Killing Me Softly.”
Tickets for the Fugees tour go on sale Friday, September 24 at 10 a.m. local time on LiveNation.com.
The Pretty Reckless‘ latest number-one Billboard hit features some hard-rocking friends.
“Only Love Can Save Me Now,” the current single from Taylor Momsen and company, has hit the top of Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. The song features Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron, who now have their first number-one singles as “individually billed solo artists.”
Thayil and Cameron previously notched six number-one Mainstream Rock Airplay hits as members of Soundgarden. Fittingly, “Only Love Can Save Me Now” is The Pretty Reckless’ seventh leader on that particular chart, breaking a tie with one of Momsen’s musical heroes.
“Only Love Can Save Me Now” is featured on the new Pretty Reckless album Death by Rock and Roll, which dropped in February. Both of the record’s previous two singles, the title track and the Tom Morello-featuring “And So It Went,” also hit number one on Mainstream Rock Airplay.
As The Rolling Stones prepare to launch the 2021 leg of their No Filter Tour this Sunday in St. Louis, the band’s main members have shared a new official interview in which they chat about plan for the trek — their first without longtime drummer Charlie Watts, who died on August 24 at age 80.
In the conversation, which was conducted by acclaimed rock journalist David Fricke, frontman Mick Jagger talks about how rehearsals have been going with Watts’ handpicked replacement, Steve Jordan.
“It’s gone well. We all knew [Steve], and I’d played with him before. He’s very respectful of Charlie,” Jagger says. “He played with Keith [Richards] before we started the rehearsals, and then he did homework, listening to the tunes. When we talk about what Charlie did on this one, we listen to the original record, and then we listen to the live versions. There’s certain licks that we want to do, that Charlie did.”
Jagger reveals that The Stones have rehearsed “80 to 90 songs” for the trek, adding, “We’ve got tons of numbers from most eras. So we have a big set list. We can certainly change up the set list.”
Richards reveals that among the songs the band will be playing are two of the bonus tracks from the group’s upcoming Tattoo You reissue — “Living in the Heart of Love” and a cover of The Chi-Lites‘ “Troubles A’ Comin'” — as well as the 2020 Stones single “Living in a Ghost Town” and the 1976 gem “Hand of Fate.”
Regarding how Jordan has been fitting in with the band, Keith notes, “Steve brings with him a lot of knowledge about the Stones. He’ll say, ‘No, Charlie plays like this.’ Steve is so meticulous, so aware of the seat he’s sitting in.”
In a stylish new trailer, Netflix is revealing a series of upcoming documentaries, welcoming viewers to “The Home of True Crime.”
The trailer from the streaming service that launched the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer, and other true crime docs like Cocaine Cowboys, shows glimpses of sure-to-be bingeable titles, including a sequel to that pandemic smash Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness.
Here’s the lineup, and descriptions from Netflix:
Tiger King 2 (debuting this year)
The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman — (January 2022)
“From the acclaimed filmmakers behind The Imposter, this three-part series tells the jaw-dropping story of one of the world’s most audacious conmen who was convicted in 2005 for stealing fortunes and destroying multiple lives. But now, in an incredible twist, the story reaches into the present day, with a desperate family who fear for their mother’s safety.”
The Tinder Swindler — (February 2022)
Centering on “a prolific conman who posed as a billionaire playboy on Tinder, and the women who set out to bring him down.”
Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King — (2022)
“Follow a group of investors turned sleuths as they try to unlock the suspicious death of cryptocurrency multimillionaire Gerry Cotten and the missing $250 million they believe he stole from them.”
Bad Vegan — (2022)
“Celebrity restaurateur Sarma Melngailis becomes the ‘Vegan Fugitive’ when she’s conned out of millions by a man who convinces her that he can expand her food empire and make her beloved pit bull immortal — as long as she never questions his increasingly bizarre requests.”
Ahead of Sunday’s season finale of Raising Kanan, Tony Award winner Patina Miller is explaining why taking on the challenging role of Kanan’s mother Raquel has been a godsend for her as an actor.
“Raquel is so many different things,” Miller tells ABC Audio of the fierce and gritty character. “The opportunity to really dig deep, go dark, explore many different things was… exciting to me. And it wasn’t a hard thing.”
Miller, who came off of a six-year run on Madame Secretary as press secretary Daisy Grant, says jumping from a political drama to a crime drama wasn’t seamless, but thankfully she “loves a challenge.”
“I love being able to show different sides of my craft of what I can do,” Miller shares. “And I love being able to bring my experiences, the things that I know, to each character. And so this just really fit for me because I was able to call on a lot of my past experience to help inform who my character was.”
Miller, along with star Mekai Curtis, return Sunday, September 26 at 8 p.m. ET for the season finale of Starz’s Power Book III: Raising Kanan.
(MICHIGAN) — Michigan football fans are not conditioned in their modern state to feel anything good. The sport so many of them live and die with has burned them too often over the past 20 years for many Wolverines fans to feel truly excited as the calendar flips from month to month in the fall.
This September has put these fans in a tough spot. Michigan football is off to a 3-0 start, and if you’ve watched the games or looked at the numbers, you know it’s been a crisp 3-0. The Wolverines have beaten Western Michigan, Washington and Northern Illinois by a combined 107 points, the largest cumulative margin of victory among Football Bowl Subdivision teams. Michigan was supposed to win all of these games, but there is winning and then there is covering the spread by nearly 19 points per game. Save for losing star receiver Ronnie Bell to a right knee injury for the year, it would be tough to imagine Jim Harbaugh having a smoother first three weeks of a season.
Yet Michigan fans understand how this goes. Harbaugh was 18-3 in August and September since his takeover of the program in 2015 through last season (though there were no such games for the team in 2020). That was the seventh-best winning percentage in FBS in the season’s opening stretch during those years. The problem was October and November, months in which Harbaugh has gone 30-15 — a nice enough record for most teams but not nearly enough to get Michigan over the Big Ten East hump. Many are understandably circumspect about what lies in store for 2021.
Before we go further, it’s worth doing the necessary Michigan-related hedging. The Wolverines might fall apart and lose three to five games, as they’ve done several times in recent years. They might be great but fall short in their regular-season finale against Ohio State, which is now an annual bit of misery (save for 2020) no matter what’s happened up to that point. In short, Michigan could do what Michigan has done too many times before. These potential outcomes all point to fans shielding their hearts from vulnerability. Why get too serious with a team that has hurt you? But if Michigan fans can stomach it, they should let themselves live a little bit. Three games into 2021, there is no reason Michigan won’t have Harbaugh’s big breakthrough this year.
In Harbaugh’s first six years, his offenses were good, but not great, and “good” does not win the Wolverines’ division, much less anything beyond that. From 2015 to 2020, Michigan was 19th in FBS in expected points added per game on offense, adjusted for opponent quality. The results varied a bit by year, but its most productive offense by far was in 2016, when Michigan came a J.T. Barrett fourth-down spot away from making the Big Ten Championship. That team produced an adjusted offensive EPA of 15.16 per game. That was the best college offense Harbaugh has ever fielded, save for the 2010 Stanford outfit that had Andrew Luck and various NFL pass-catchers and produced a figure of 20.19.
The Wolverines have been unable to approach their 2016 level over the last four years. But this year, Michigan leads all of FBS in adjusted offensive EPA and is tracking, at this early date, to produce the most efficient offense by EPA of Harbaugh’s career. Adjusted EPA flattens out the results some, since it accounts for the competition level faced, which means the computers aren’t calling fraud on Michigan’s excellent start.
Along the same line, Michigan’s September success looks like a shift upward even when compared only with its previous nonconference schedules. In strictly regular-season, nonconference games in Harbaugh’s first six years, Michigan’s offense was a combined 44th in adjusted EPA per game. This year, Michigan is second. And again, that’s an opponent-adjusted stat, which suggests that Michigan’s leap can’t be chalked up totally to a schedule that lacks a team like Florida or Notre Dame, two recent season-opener foes for Harbaugh’s teams.
Harbaugh’s new starting quarterback, Cade McNamara, is outdoing his predecessors in a similar way. The junior, a former four-star recruit, threw for 10 yards per attempt in nonconference games and posted a 60.5 Total QBR. Both figures put him ahead of Harbaugh’s previous starting QBs in the same situations: Jake Rudock, Wilton Speight and Shea Patterson. And Michigan’s lead tailback, Blake Corum, has blown away Harbaugh’s previous primary running backs in both yards per attempt (8.5) and missed tackles generated per touch (0.3) against teams outside the Big Ten. In various offensive areas, Michigan is lapping its old self.
On defense, the Wolverines are under new management this fall. First-year coordinator Mike Macdonald arrived in the offseason from the Baltimore Ravens, where he had worked since 2014 for Harbaugh’s brother, John. (Macdonald was going to be co-defensive coordinator with fellow new hire Maurice Linguist, but Linguist left to take the top job at Buffalo before the season.) Macdonald replaced Don Brown, who’d been Michigan’s defensive coordinator since 2016 and had a reputation for his infatuation with two things: blitzes and man coverage. During Brown’s time in charge, the Michigan defense played man-to-man coverages on 48 percent of opposing dropbacks, the ninth-highest rate in the country. (The average was 33 percent.) In front of all coverages, Michigan blitzed 12.6 times a game, 10th-most in FBS. So far in 2021, the Wolverines have kept playing a lot of man coverage, though less than before — 40.7 percent of the time, which still ranks ninth. Their blitzing has also eased up a bit, to 10.33 times per game (tied for 46th-most).
It’s a little early to know what shape Macdonald’s defense will take the rest of the way, but it looks like his plan is working. In nonconference, regular-season games under Brown, Michigan was fifth in adjusted defensive EPA per game. Under Macdonald, Michigan is 19th in the same situations — a step back overall, but not compared to Brown’s most recent work. There’s no way to make an apples-to-apples comparison from last year to this year because there were no nonconference Big Ten games last fall. But the early returns say Michigan’s defense has cleaned up a 2020 mess where the Wolverines finished the season an ugly 109th in adjusted defensive EPA per game overall. This year, Michigan is 16th, and its straightforward yards allowed per play are down at this point from 5.6 to 4.5. Even if the defense regresses significantly in Big Ten play, it looks like the bleeding from 2020 has slowed.
Michigan has played what looks like a light schedule, but it’s not that hard to look at it in the right light and see something decent. WMU beat Pitt, NIU beat a Georgia Tech team that is probably bad but almost beat Clemson, and Washington looked dysfunctional but has one of the more talented rosters in college football.1
Whatever you think of this schedule, Michigan has pulverized it to an unusual extent. Forward-looking projection systems tend to believe, even if lots of humans aren’t there yet. Bill Connelly’s SP+ and ESPN’s FPI, two opponent-adjusted systems, each have Michigan No. 6 overall. In SP+, the Wolverines rank 12th on offense, eighth on defense and second on special teams. In the AP Top 25, Michigan is 19th, which is fair for now and may turn out to look low.
The Big Ten might be ripe for the picking, too, or at least more so than usual. The conference has a lot of interesting teams that weren’t at all interesting last year. Penn State looks like a serious contender. Iowa has a punishing defense, Michigan State seems to be getting back to some of its mid-2010s ways, and even Maryland and Rutgers are presently undefeated. But the league’s biggest hoss looks more vulnerable than usual. Ohio State is 37th in Defensive SP+ and has already taken play-calling responsibilities away from its defensive coordinator.
The Game is in Ann Arbor this year, and that combined with a slightly reduced OSU gives Michigan one of its best chances in a while. Predicting a Michigan win would be foolish, but for a rare change, so would be dismissing the possibility out of hand that the Wolverines give their much more successful rival a lot to handle.
