The Weeknd announces he'll boycott the Grammys
The Weeknd announces he'll boycott the Grammys from now on
Going into this Sunday night's Grammy Awards, it's hard not to think of the artist many assumed would be a leading nominee this year, but who instead came up empty handed: The Weeknd.
Despite releasing one of the most acclaimed and successful albums of the year, After Hours, as well as "Blinding Lights," a single so popular it's still in the top 10 after an entire year, The Weeknd received exactly zero Grammy nominations. As a result, the star, born Abel Tesfaye, tells the New York Times in a statement, "I will no longer allow my label to submit my music to the Grammys.”
The reason, Weeknd added, is "because of the secret committees." He's referring to the anonymous Grammy committees who review the thousands of votes from all the Recording Academy members, and then make the final determination regarding who gets nominated in most of the categories. They can also, except for the top four categories, add names that were not selected by voters.
Nobody seems to know how The Weeknd got snubbed, but former Grammys head Deborah Dugan, who was removed after five months on the job, has maintained she was fired because she accused the committees, and the Academy, of conflicts of interest and voting improprieties. Her case is now in arbitration.
Asked about the snub earlier this week by Variety, interim Grammy chief Harvey Mason Jr. said, "It’s unfortunate...It’s not something any of us are happy about.”
The committees were established in 1989, reportedly to prevent the kind of embarrassment that happened in 1988. That's when veteran progressive rock band Jethro Tull, who are decidedly not a metal band, won the very first Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental Grammy over AC/DC, Iggy Pop, Jane's Addiction and Metallica.
Source-ABC
Huawei set to skip Android altogether
Huawei has completed the testing period of running HarmonyOS and is moving to Beta 3. The P50 will be the first phone to come with HarmonyOS pre-installed, skipping Android entirely.
There will be a mass migration to HarmonyOS starting in April, with high-end Huawei phones leading the way. Harmony could power some 300-400 million devices by the end of the year. Huawei is also expanding its Petal line of alternative services. The list includes Petal Search, Petal Maps and Docs, Petal Assistant, a Petal keyboard and Petal Vision.
These moves are a major step to building Huawei's ecosystem since they can no longer have access to Google Mobile Services (GMS). The company made huge investments in core components, as well as added titles to their AppGallery, long available to Chinese users who did not have access to the Google Play.
Merrick Garland confirmed as attorney general
Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden's nominee for attorney general was confirmed Wednesday by the U.S. Senate.
His confirmation comes nearly five years to the day since he was nominated by President Barack Obama to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court. He was never given a confirmation hearing by Senate Republicans who said Scalia's successor should be picked by the winner of the 2016 presidential election.
Garland will assume leadership of a department, and its more than 115,000-strong federal workforce, emerging from four years of being at the center of multiple politically charged controversies during the Trump administration -- in addition to being the target of a barrage of attacks from former President Donald Trump himself.
Garland, who has been serving as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, also worked in the Clinton Justice Department, overseeing the prosecution of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in the 1990s. Chief among Garland's initial priorities will be a briefing on the department's sprawling investigation into the pro-Trump rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
As of this week, more than 300 suspects have been federally charged related to their role in the riot with more than 285 individuals arrested.
Source-ABC
ILLEGAL VESSEL MAKES LANDFALL SATURDAY
US visa applicants denied under Trump's travel ban can reapply
U.S. visa applicants whose requests were denied under former President Donald Trump's controversial ban on travelers from 13 mostly Muslim-majority and African nations can now seek new decisions or submit new applications, the U.S. Department of State announced Monday evening.
President Joe Biden overturned Trump's travel ban on his first day in office and gave the State Department 45 days to come up with a plan that would allow individuals from the affected countries to have their U.S. visa applications reconsidered.
Following a legal review, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Monday that those whose immigrant visa applications received a final refusal on or after January 20, 2020, due to Trump's travel ban "may seek re-adjudication without resubmitting their application forms or paying any additional fees, provided the underlying visa petitions remain valid."
Those who were refused visas prior to January 20, 2020, "may also be reconsidered, but these individuals must submit new applications and pay a new application fee," according to Price. An applicant's previous denial under Trump's travel ban will not be held against them.
However, Price said that those who were selected in the diversity visa lottery during the fiscal years of the Trump administration are still barred from being issued visas if they haven't gotten them already, because "the deadlines for visa issuance in those fiscal years have expired."
Source-ABC
TCI WEATHER FOR WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY MARCH 10th &11th,2021
WEATHER: MOSTLY CLOUDY, WINDY AND A BIT WARM WITH A FEW PASSING SHOWERS IN THE NORTHWEST AND CENTRAL BAHAMAS…
ISOLATED SHOWERS AND THE SLIGHT CHANCE OF AN ISOLATED THUNDERSTORM IN THE SOUTHEAST BAHAMAS.
ADVISORY: SMALL CRAFT OPERATORS SHOULD REMAIN IN PORT.
WINDS: NORTHEAST TO EAST AT 20 TO 25 KNOTS IN THE NORTHWEST BAHAMAS…
NORTHEAST TO EAST AT 20 TO 30 KNOTS IN THE CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST BAHAMAS.
SEAS: 7 TO 10 FEET IN THE NORTHWEST BAHAMAS, AND 8 TO 12 FEET, BUT SLIGHTLY HIGHER IN LARGE NORTHEASTERLY SWELLS IN THE TCI, CENTRAL AND SOUTHEAST BAHAMAS.
TODAY’S HIGH TEMPERATURE: 77°F / 25°C
TONIGHT’S LOW TEMPERATURE: 66°F / 19°C
SUNRISE: 6:24 AM
SUNSET: 6:15 PM
MOONSET: 3:54 PM
MOONRISE: 5:32 AM THU.
LOW TIDE: 12:02 PM
HIGH TIDE: 5:56 PM
LOW TIDE: 12:05 AM THU.
HIGH TIDE: 6:23 AM THU.
EXTENDED FORECAST (FOR THE NEXT TWO DAYS): HIGH PRESSURE WILL CONTINUE TO MAINTAIN BREEZY TO WINDY CONDITIONS OVER THE BAHAMAS, SUPPORTING HAZARDOUS MARINE CONDITIONS INTO THE WEEKEND.
FORECAST FOR THURSDAY
WEATHER: PARTLY TO MOSTLY SUNNY, WARM, AND WINDY WITH FEW QUICKLY PASSING
SHOWERS.
WINDS: NORTHEAST TO EAST AT 20 TO 25 KNOTS.
SEAS: 7 TO 10 FEET, BUT UP TO 12 FEET IN LARGE NORTHEASTERLY SWELLS.
Russia blames Google outage on data centre fire
Russian authorities have blamed problems accessing Google and YouTube on a fire at a data centre in Strasbourg.
The country's media watchdog Roskomnadzor tweeted that the disruption was due to the incident.
The data centre belongs to French cloud service provider OVH, which runs 32 such sites in Europe, America and Asia.
No-one was injured in the fire, which was declared a major incident.
It is not clear how the blaze started.
OVH's chief executive Octave Klaba tweeted early this morning to say that fire had destroyed one of the data centres and a part of a second. He asked customers to "activate your disaster recovery plan".
The fire is believed to have affected several major online services, including the French government, cryptocurrency exchange Deribit and the Pompidou Centre in Paris.
Source-BBC
'200 jobs to go' at Aston Martin
About 200 workers are being made redundant at the Aston Martin car plant in the Vale of Glamorgan, according to the union Unite.
The St Athan plant opened in 2018, near Cardiff Airport, with plans to employ 300 by 2019 and 700 by spring 2020.
Unite said the car maker was seeking 95 job losses among its staff, with 100-plus jobs at an on-site agency that supplies workers also set to go.
Aston Martin confirmed it had issued redundancy notices at the site.
The luxury car manufacturer added it was "also looking to release contractors", a spokeswoman added.
In a statement, Unite said the scale of the losses was "extremely concerning", adding: "[It] raises serious questions regarding Aston Martins employment practices and its wider commitment to south Wales."
When announcing its plans in 2018, the company said it would produce its first electric car, the Rapide E, in St Athan.
It also said it wanted to make the site near Llantwit Major its "home of electrification" and make their luxury Lagona car there.
The first Wales-made vehicle to come out of its workforce in St Athan, the DBX sport utility vehicle, was unveiled in November 2019.
Source-BBC
$1.9tn Covid relief bill passes US Congress
President Joe Biden's $1.9tn (£1.4tn) relief bill to help Americans deal with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has cleared its final hurdle in Congress.
The House of Representatives approved the massive economic aid plan 220-211 on Wednesday along partisan lines, with no Republicans voting in favour.
Having already passed through the Senate, the relief package now heads to Mr Biden's desk to be signed into law.
This sixth Covid-19 relief bill is a major legislative win for Mr Biden.
The bill passed with all but one House Democrat voting in favour.
White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said the president will sign the bill into law on Friday.
The bill "is about giving the backbone of this nation - the essential workers, the working people who built this country, the people who keep this country going - a fighting chance" Mr Biden said.
He later vowed to share any surplus Covid-19 vaccines globally after ensuring that Americans are immunised. "If we have a surplus, we're going to share it with the rest of the world," he said.
The final bill includes one-off direct payments worth $1,400 to be sent off to most Americans.
It extends weekly jobless benefit payments of $300 until September.
It also allocates $350bn to state and local governments, some $130bn to school reopening, $49bn for expanded Covid-19 testing and research, as well as $14bn for vaccine distribution.
A proposal to raise the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour became a sticking point in the Senate and did not make it into the final version of the bill.
The package has been broadly popular among Americans.
A March Pew Research Center poll found that 70% of US adults surveyed expressed support for the bill, including 41% of Republicans.
Democrats - who control both chambers of Congress by narrow margins - largely stuck together and managed to retain most of what was initially proposed.
When announcing the so-called American Rescue Plan in January, Mr Biden said the government needed to "go big" in order to boost the flagging economy.
America's worst public health crisis in a century has left more than 527,000 people dead and over 29 million infected.
Unemployment skyrocketed over the last year, with a current rate of 6.2%, according to the US Labor Department.
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Don Cheadle talks working "the latest GOAT" LeBron James on Space Jam: A New Legacy
Don Cheadle says he couldn't pass up the opportunity to star in the upcoming film Space Jam: A New Legacy. The 56-year-old actor plays Al-G Rhythm in the sequel to the animated 1996 classic, opposite LeBron James.
Cheadle told Entertainment Weekly that he was immediately drawn to his "character, what was going to happen with LeBron, the [concept] of the film and the opportunity to take a classic title like that and do another spin on it with the latest GOAT, being LeBron."
"I just thought, "Hey, this is cool. To get to play this really innovative character," Cheadle said. "I just thought it was going to be a cool family story with LeBron and a cool character to play opposite him."
Cheadle said in some ways his character Al-G "is LeBron's nemesis, but I don't think he sees himself in that way."
"A lot of what is happening inside the movie is about what it means to be in a family, what it means to be yourself, and what identity is about," he continued. "A lot of people can connect to all of those things, not just kids that are trying to figure that out for themselves."
After working closely with the NBA star, Cheadle believes LeBron has what it takes to pursue a career as an actor.
"I think he's absolutely down for it and wants to work hard at it. I would tell him if he got too good at it, he needs to stay in his own lane," Cheadle joked. "He's got enough shine."
Space Jam: A New Legacy premieres July 16 in theaters and on HBO Max
Source-ABC