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DC5m music in english 42 articles, created at 2016-12-08 11:14 articles set mostly positive rate 6.0

1 3.0 ' Live!' has infectious beat on NBC Since NBC revived the live musical, the irony has been that lesser shows sometimes (7.99/8) meet the demands of leaping to this considerably different medium more successfully. 2016-12-08 01:02 3KB rss.cnn.com

2 0.9 Remembering the Oakland Ghost Ship fire victims 'You don't forget people like that' (7.99/8) The stories of the victims of the Ghost Ship warehouse fire extend beyond their work. Kiyomi Tanouye was a music manager at Shazam and friends say she was much more: 'open and willing,' and 'absolutely inspiring.' 2016-12-08 00:20 2KB abc7news.com

3 0.0 Review: ‘Hairspray Live!’ Had Power Voices but Still Lacked Power (6.67/8) The latest live musical from NBC sabotaged itself with distracting side business. 2016-12-08 01:17 3KB www.nytimes.com

4 2.7 People are seeing horns on Donald Trump's TIME cover

(3.20/8) If you weren’t a fan of Donald Trump being named as TIME’s Person of the Year, you weren’t alone—and it seems like some staffers at the magazine weren’t either. 2016-12-08 02:38 1KB www.independent.ie

5 2.4 Sia announces she and husband Erik Anders Lang have split after just over two years of marriage (3.14/8) Australian singer Sia has announced she has split with her husband of two years years, Erik Anders Lang 2016-12-07 19:10 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk

6 0.4 Jennifer Hudson leaves cast in tears with racial equality anthem I Know Where I've Been on Hairspray Live! (2.16/8) The 35-year-old singer appeared to leave some of her cast mates in tears with a stunning performance on Wednesday during NBC's spectacular Hairspray Live!. 2016-12-08 02:18 8KB www.dailymail.co.uk

7 3.7 Dolly Parton organizes musical telethon for Tenn. wildfire victims (2.06/8) Dolly Parton has organized a musical telethon to raise money for victims of the Tennessee wildfires with performances by Reba McEntire, Kenny Rogers, Alison Krauss 2016-12-08 02:23 4KB www.cbsnews.com 8 4.5 ‘It’s a home-grown film’: Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge dominates Australian film awards (2.06/8) Gongs included best film and best director for Gibson, while actors Andrew Garfield and Hugo Weaving also won 2016-12-07 20:18 2KB www.scmp.com

9 4.0 GET READY! Justin Bieber is headed to Mzansi It has on Thursday morning been announced that singing sensation Justin Bieber is headed to SA in May next year. 2016-12-08 03:56 1KB www.timeslive.co.za (1.02/8)

10 0.0 Tony Bennett sings for the Saenger in New Orleans The crooner made a stop on his most recent tour. 2016-12-08 00:38 1KB www.nola.com

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11 1.1 AP Source: Grammy country committee rejects Beyonce song Beyonce earned a whopping nine Grammy nominations Tuesday, including best rock (1.02/8) performance, but the singer's twangy song "Daddy Lessons" was rejected by the Recording Academy's country... 2016-12-07 20:02 3KB www.cbs46.com

12 5.9 The top 10 music videos on YouTube of 2016 Plug in your headphones and get ready to hear the trendiness. 2016-12-07 19:30 877Bytes

(1.02/8) www.nola.com

13 0.0 Time Warner Facing Class Action Discrimination Suit In addition to "glass ceilings" for advancement, the complaint also says there are (1.02/8) "glass walls" that segregate the company into divisions in which black leadership is acceptable and divisions in which it is not. 2016-12-07 18:51 3KB feedproxy.google.com

14 4.8 Sing along to 'Hometown Family Christmas' All are welcome to celebrate the season during America's Hometown Band's 2016 holiday concert on Dec. 17 at Emens. 2016-12-07 18:16 1KB rssfeeds.thestarpress.com (1.02/8)

15 1.9 Hackel touts Macomb marketing tool Blue Economy, Green Macomb, economy, recreation expected to be topics of sixth annual speech 2016-12-07 20:00 1KB rssfeeds.detroitnews.com (0.04/8)

16 1.5 Emmy Rossum goes for a low-key look in all black as she arrives at LAX airport (0.01/8) The 30-year-old Shameless actress dressed in mostly all black and kept concealed behind dark shades as she made her way through the Los Angeles terminal on Wednesday. 2016-12-07 22:23 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk 17 0.9 Watch ‘Hairspray Live!’ Online If You Missed It Streaming On NBC, Check Out Original 1988 ‘Hairspray’ Movie [Video] Watch Hairspray Live! online! Streaming NBC coverage and watch full musical on Hulu! Don’t miss the original Waters’ movie Hairspray on Netflix! 2016-12-08 03:01 1KB www.inquisitr.com

18 3.4 Nikkei closes over 11-mth high on upbeat China data TOKYO, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei share average closed at the highest level since last December on Thursday as upbeat Chinese trade data boosted sentim... 2016-12-08 02:23 1KB www.dailymail.co.uk

19 0.0 Sophie Monk jokes she's not releasing another racy carol rendition this year for pop diva's sake The charismatic radio host made a comedic return to music last year in a sexy carol parody of Drummer Boy. And Sophie Monk claims she's steering clear of another racy rendition for Mariah Carey's sake. 2016-12-08 01:55 1KB www.dailymail.co.uk

20 4.2 Atlanta's own Kenny Leon helps make live musical magic NBC brought the excitement of live theater right into your living room. But what exactly did it take to successfully pull off the live production? 2016-12-08 01:35 1KB rssfeeds.11alive.com

21 0.0 ‘Ok Go’ Features Chicago-Based Organization And Students In New Video Grammy-nominated band “OK Go” is teaching the kids the chords to their latest song and features a Chicago-based organization giving back in a loud way. 2016-12-08 01:07 2KB chicago.cbslocal.com

22 1.7 Dami Im says she will no longer be pushed around by makeup artists who would alter her natural complexion to 'look darker' in Australia and 'white and pale' in Korea She's the Korean-Australian singer who has previously voiced concerns about makeup artists altering her natural complexion. 2016-12-08 00:58 1KB www.dailymail.co.uk

23 0.6 Mad Solutions Launches Innovative Arab Cinema Incubator in Dubai DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An innovative incubator for Arab movies is being launched by Cairo-based marketing and distribution company Mad Solutions at the Dubai Film Market where footage … 2016-12-08 00:22 3KB variety.com 24 2.6 Dallas Summer Musicals to shutter academy Dec. 31, but DSM High School Musical Theatre Awards will continue After 17 years, the DSM Academy of Performing Arts will close Dec. 31. Dallas Summer Musicals' interim managing director David Hyslop and DSM... 2016-12-07 23:13 2KB www.dallasnews.com

25 0.0 Are Britney Spears And Christina Aguilera Finally Ending Feud And Recording A Duet? Britney Forgets Where Own Catchphrase Began It’s been more than 15 years since Britney Spears and Christian Aguilera owned the pop star spotlight and battled it out for the princess title. The two former 2016-12-07 22:59 2KB www.inquisitr.com

26 2.7 ‘Pete’s Dragon’ Tops Disney Trio of Best-Selling Discs After two weeks at No. 1, Walt Disney Studios’ “Finding Dory” finally slipped a notch on the national home video sales charts – replaced at the top by another Disney film, “Pete’s Dragon,” a remake… 2016-12-07 21:49 4KB variety.com

27 0.8 State removes 10 children from Fife couple who have raised more than 70 After earlier removing two children, the state on Wednesday took eight children from the Fife home of a couple who have been caregivers for dozens, including many disabled children and adults. 2016-12-07 21:45 3KB www.thenewstribune.com

28 2.4 The internet is really pumped about this teen's quinceañera There's one event this year you just can't miss. Thanks to a viral video invitation, a teenage girl in rural Mexico is going to have the quinceañera of a lifetime. With a guest list of more than 1 million people for the 15th birthday party... 2016-12-07 21:39 1KB article.wn.com

29 0.7 It's over! Musicians and management reach a new four-year deal, snapping the Fort Worth Symphony strike Thanks to a generous, anonymous donor, the bitter Fort Worth Symphony strike that had lingered for almost three months came to an end Wednesday... 2016-12-07 21:39 5KB www.dallasnews.com

30 2.4 Schramm resigns as director of French Quarter Festival French Quarter Festivals Inc., the nonprofit group that produces the French Quarter Festival, Satchmo Summerfest and Christmas New Orleans Style, is looking for a new executive director. 2016-12-07 20:51 1KB www.washingtontimes.com 31 2.4 Pink often jokes about a split with Carey Hart and now laughs off rumors of divorce The singer took a photo of the cover of a tabloid this week which featured her image with the headline 'Pregnant Pink marriage split' and shared it on Instagram with a tongue-in-cheek message. 2016-12-07 20:22 2KB www.dailymail.co.uk

32 1.8 Kylie Minogue dazzles in sequinned trouser suit as she prepares for intimate festive show with fiancé Joshua Sasse The singer was joined by handsome fiancé Joshua Sasse ahead of a much anticipated appearance at lavish West End restaurant The Ivy, where a handful of celebrity fans prepared for an exclusive live set. 2016-12-07 20:19 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk

33 0.0 Developer wants to make southern Greensboro a destination GREENSBORO, N. C. -- Rolling into the Gate City from South Elm Street, your eyes meet the shells of factories built a century ago. Some have been left hollow, crumbling over the years, but others have been repurposed. The Old... 2016-12-07 19:46 2KB myfox8.com

34 2.7 Renowned jazz bassist Rufus Reid joins high school ensembles for Ann Arbor show Reid, the MSUFCU Guest Artist in Residence, is joining the Michigan State University Be-Bop Spartans during the concert, which takes place at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, at Pioneer High School. 2016-12-07 19:33 1KB www.mlive.com

35 2.8 Interview: Country singer Alex Smith talks 'Load It Up' single (Includes first-hand account) Country singer Alex Smith chatted with Digital Journal about his single "Load It Up. " He also revealed his Top 3 dream female country duet picks. 2016-12-07 19:29 3KB www.digitaljournal.com

36 0.5 New Zealand upbeat about economic future, but with risks New Zealand's central bank governor painted a glowing picture of the economy Thursday just days after Prime Minister John Key resigned, but warned of uncerta... 2016-12-07 19:20 3KB www.dailymail.co.uk

37 1.2 Outlook upbeat for national and local economy, analyst says Both the United States and Utah are on solid economic footing despite some initial concern following the presidential election, and what lies ahead in the New Year could also be promising, analysts sa 2016-12-07 19:03 4KB www.deseretnews.com 38 2.9 ATF: ‘Jimami Tofu’ Gobbled up by iHQ, Viki, Encore SINGAPORE — “Jimami Tofu,” written, produced, directed and produced by Jason Chan and Christian Lee has entered intoW pre-sales agreements with Korea’s iHQ, global television platform Viki, a… 2016-12-07 19:00 1KB variety.com

39 0.6 ’s Revealing Portrayal of Racism in America The 1988 John Waters film, newly adapted into an NBC live musical, presents a view of racial discrimination that’s by turns naïve and enlightening. 2016-12-07 18:48 10KB www.theatlantic.com

40 2.8 : ‘I Get Better Treatment’ Than My ‘’ Costars Farrah Abraham spoke exclusively with Us Weekly and revealed why she believes she gets preferential treatment from MTV over her ‘Teen Mom OG’ costars — see what she said 2016-12-07 18:37 3KB www.usmagazine.com

41 3.7 The Edge District is Getting a Little Greener The Edge District is getting a little triangle of green space to call their own, thanks to efforts made to enhance a city-owned public space... 2016-12-07 18:24 2KB www.memphisflyer.com

42 0.9 Trop’s Holiday Craft Fair returns with unique shopping experience, choir fundraiser Returning this year, the Trop’s Holiday Craft Fair will take place over three weekends at Trop’s Chocolates this holiday season bringing a unique shopping experience and gifts to the Gig Harbor community. The fair features vendors carrying a range of items from knitted items to pottery, stained... 2016-12-07 18:21 3KB www.thenewstribune.com Articles

DC5m United States music in english 42 articles, created at 2016-12-08 11:14

1 /42 (7.99/8) 3.0 'Hairspray Live!' has infectious beat on NBC NBC clearly took the lessons of Fox's rightfully well-regarded production of "Grease" to heart. Indeed, if imitation is the sincerest form of television, "Hairspray" was inordinately sincere toward that other high-school-set musical -- opening up the song-and-dance numbers to the streets, providing real-time looks behind the scenes and incorporating a live audience component that "The Sound of Music" and "Peter Pan" sorely lacked.

The main drawback, frankly, was that the network and producers went a bit overboard with the "live" aspect, featuring ear-splitting cut-ins from affiliate viewing parties around the U. S., including (where else?) , where the story takes place. Having "Glee" alum Darren Criss essentially serve as the evening's too-giddy emcee also felt like overt pandering to social media while squandering his considerable talents.

Still, that's largely quibbling about a presentation that came about as close as TV can to conveying the allure of a live theatrical experience. Nor did the casting hurt, with show-stopping performances by the likes of Jennifer Hudson and Kristin Chenoweth , as well as a host of young performers -- foremost among them newcomer Maddie Baillio in the pivotal role of Tracy Turnblad.

It's Tracy, of course, who, in 1962, dreams of stardom on an afternoon dance show, despite a heavy-set frame that hardly mirrors the physiques of its snotty standouts. Once in the fold, she labors to integrate the program -- which relegates African-Americans to "Negro Day" -- a reminder of a segregated past that's largely resolved here by the shared love of music and dance.

The uplifting nature of "Hairspray's" message -- embodied in musical form by songs like "Welcome to the '60s" and "You Can't Stop the Beat" -- might have originated in a 1988 John Waters film, but that sense of optimism and harmony felt particularly timely.

On a crass commercial level, NBC was also enterprising in incorporating sponsors for the TV show-within-the-show to essentially create live commercials -- a gimmick that proved less irritating than one might expect.

That said, following Oreo's product placement with an ad for the cookies was a bit too on the nose. The elaborate production did contain a few modest glitches, among them an unseen voice that said "30 seconds" -- apparently warning of an upcoming ad break -- during one of the numbers; and cutting away from Chenoweth rather awkwardly and rudely during the curtain calls.

Then again, the whole point of "live" is the aura of unpredictability that it brings, so even a minor mix-up merely adds to the fun. And by the time the credits rolled, "Hairspray Live! " had delivered more than enough in that department to hold up quite well.

Why John Waters Wasn’t TV Review: NBC’s Review: 'Hairspray' has ‘Hairspray Live’: Jennifer On ‘Hairspray Live,’ And ‘Hairspray Live!’ plenty of luster as NBC's Hudson, Ariana Grande Why He Hasn’t Watched It variety.com best live musical Draw Raves in NBC’s Yet rssfeeds.usatoday.com Musical inquisitr.com variety.com

‘Hairspray Live’: the best Derek Hough as Corny Garrett Clayton as Link ‘Hairspray Live!’ Live Blog, and the worst of the NBC Collins in ‘Hairspray Live!’ Larkin in ‘Hairspray Live!’ Recap & Review live musical heavy.com heavy.com heavy.com feeds.nydailynews.com

2016-12-08 01:02 Brian Lowry rss.cnn.com

2 /42 0.9 Remembering the Oakland Ghost Ship fire victims 'You don't forget people like that' (7.99/8) We're learning more about the victims in the warehouse fire. Many who died were talented artists who passed before their time. Hanna Ruax was a yoga instructor and jewelry maker who had just relocated to Oakland from Finland. She was engaged to Alex Ghassan, a filmmaker. They weren't the only couple who passed away in the Ghost Ship fire. Alex Vega and his high school sweetheart Michela Gregory also spent their final moments together. "They loved each other very much," said Lucero Govea, a Capuchino High School wellness counselor. "It's just very tragic for them to just have been taken from us so soon. It just really hits close to home. "Vega made quite the impression on his former counselor, who says he was a creative and gentle soul. "There's just something about him, his presence that definitely sticks out to me. You don't forget people like that, you just don't forget," said Govea. Sonia Kominek-Adachi says her friend Amanda Kershaw was also memorable. "She's an infectious personality and she comes in and she's a firecracker," she said. Kominek-Adachi got to know Kershaw as her hairdresser before encouraging her to share her photography in the salon she worked at. "She has grown so much personally, professionally and artistically in the five years that I've known her," Kominek-Adachi told ABC7 News. These young people represent many artists in their prime whose lives ended too soon.to donate and help the families of the victims.

Raging Oakland warehouse LA artist colonies brace for Raging Oakland warehouse College roommates among fire trapped victims in backlash from Oakland’s fire trapped victims in heavy Oakland warehouse fire smoke tragic Ghost Ship warehouse smoke, investigators say victims post-gazette.com fire presstelegram.com charlotteobserver.com presstelegram.com

Wolfgang Renner, 61, was Raging Oakland warehouse House of Representatives to Ghost Ship fire from the oldest victim of Oakland fire fire trapped victims in hold moment of silence for eyes of an ever-present sfgate.com smoke, investigators say Oakland fire victims chaplain foxnews.com sfexaminer.com sfgate.com

2016-12-08 00:20 (Copyright abc7news.com

3 /42 0.0 Review: ‘Hairspray Live!’ Had Power Voices but Still Lacked Power (6.67/8) For “Hairspray Live!” on Wednesday night, NBC lassoed some talented performers with fine singing voices but sacrificed cohesion by cramming the evening with too much interstitial fluff.

Based on the 1988 John Waters film, the musical’s story of social outcasts and racial barriers is set in 1962, and it should amaze and distress us with its continued relevance in 2016. The broadcast, though, didn’t generate as much power it could have because of all the shots of the cast members golf-carting from one set to another, of viewing parties in various cities and so on. Only Jennifer Hudson, who played Motormouth Maybelle, found the real strength of this Tony-winning musical, delivering a knockout rendition of “I Know Where I’ve Been,” a gospel-infused power number, late in the show.

The production , directed by Kenny Leon, was the fourth installment of what has become a December tradition for NBC. (“The Sound of Music,” “Peter Pan” and “” preceded it.) Maddie Baillio , a newcomer selected from an open casting call, played Tracy Turnblad, the plump teenager who becomes a dance-show sensation and helps bring down racial divides.

She did pretty well, though no novice is going to compete with voices like those of Ms. Hudson and Kristin Chenoweth , who portrayed Velma Von Tussle, the Turnblad family’s nemesis. Harvey Fierstein growled his way through the role of Tracy’s mother, Edna, which he played on Broadway. He’s probably more entertaining in a theater than he proved to be over the air; John Travolta, in the 2007 film version of the musical, made better use of the close-ups the TV cameras make possible.

The secondary players included Martin Short as Edna’s husband, Ariana Grande as Tracy’s friend Penny and Andrea Martin as Penny’s overly protective mother. The standout in the supporting cast, though, was Ephraim Sykes, a veteran of Broadway’s “Hamilton,” who put an athletic charge into the role of Seaweed, Penny’s love interest. It’s too he wasn’t around more.

Mr. Leon moved his cast all over the place, both on studio sets and outdoors, a technique that is becoming the norm for these television-stage show hybrids. He made especially good use of the medium on a number early in the show, “Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now,” mixing split-screen moments with traditional stagecraft.

The ancillary nonsense, though, sapped the momentum of the show, which ran three hours and somehow still didn’t have room for “The New Girl in Town,” a smart, punchy number from the film version. Happily, though, it did fit in another song from the movie, “Ladies’ Choice,” albeit giving it to Corny Collins (Derek Hough) rather than Link Larkin (Garrett Clayton).

All in all, it wasn’t an unpleasant revisiting of a great musical; it just wasn’t a particularly coherent or revelatory one. Now someone just needs to mount a Broadway revival and cast Ms. Hudson in it.

Review: 'Hairspray Live!' TV Review: NBC’s Review: ‘Hairspray Live!’ Review: 'Hairspray' has pushes the boundaries and ‘Hairspray Live!’ pushes the boundaries and plenty of luster as NBC's wins big variety.com wins big best live musical dailymail.co.uk wtop.com rssfeeds.usatoday.com ‘Hairspray Live!’ Live Blog, 'Hairspray Live!' Review Recap & Review feedproxy.google.com heavy.com

2016-12-08 01:17 NEIL GENZLINGER www.nytimes.com

4 /42 2.7 People are seeing horns on Donald Trump's TIME cover

(3.20/8) If you weren’t a fan of Donald Trump being named as TIME’s Person of the Year, you weren’t alone—and it seems like some staffers at the magazine weren’t either.

A closer look at the cover and the giant letter “M” masterfully placed behind the president elect’s dome, reveals what looks like horns protruding from his unusually thin, cornstalk-colored hair.

TIME has somewhat responded to the cover by recirculating past covers that appeared to give subjects the aforementioned devil horns. Unfortunately, whether they like it or not, this particular cover perfectly predicts the next four years of hell on the horizon. And while TIME has stoked the fears of everyone working against the normalization of the president-elect, the reality is that they chose the man who arguably has made the biggest impact on our culture in 2016. This is why you see suspects running around Manhattan screaming his name while threatening to cut Muslim women’s throats, push them down the stairs, and rip the hijabs off their heads.

So whether or not the devil horns were intentional, they’ll remind readers of the spike in hate crimes (nearly 900) he’s inspired since he won the election.

Trump named Time's Donald Trump named TIME Dems Can't Help But 'Person of the Year' Person of the Year Compare Trump Hitler After article.wn.com rssfeeds.wusa9.com TIME Cover dailycaller.com

2016-12-08 02:38 Independent News www.independent.ie

5 /42 2.4 Sia announces she and husband Erik Anders Lang have split after just over two years of marriage (3.14/8) Australian singer Sia has announced she has split with her husband of two years years, Erik Anders Lang. The 40-year-old hit maker and her filmmaker partner revealed the shock news to PEOPLE. In a statement, the pair said they took time making their decision, but are 'dedicated to remaining friends.' Scroll down for video 'After much soul searching and consideration we have made the decision to separate as a couple,' the statement read. 'We are, however, dedicated to remaining friends.' 'There will be no further comment.' Sia - who is known for covering her face with dramatic wigs and headpieces - married American Erik in August 2014, at her home in California. In June that year, it was revealed that the pair were engaged. Sia - who hails from South Australia and whose full name is Sia Furler - only confirmed their marriage eight months after they wed. When congratulated on her new relationship status on Nova 96.9 in April last year, the blonde beauty replied simply with, 'thanks.' At the time, despite being married for over half-a-year, Sia revealed during the chat that Erik had only just visited Australia, where he met her parents for the first time. She admitted during an interview with Fitzy and Wippa: 'He's met mum. He met dad for the first time yesterday. They actually fell in love with one another and that was awesome. It's pretty cute.' Sia was also keen to show Eric some of the stunning sites in Sydney but had found it difficult to get out and about without being bombarded by adoring fans. When asked about her trip to Australia, Sia said: 'It's kind of disappointing because we can't do anything. I'm kind of a bit famous. I didn't realise I'm so famous.' The shy singer went on to say she penned an emotional song about Erik when they first met and has been trying to pitch it to Bruno Mars and Maroon 5. Asked if she's written a track about the moment she and Eric locked lips for the first time, she said: 'It's not really my jam although I did write one right before we got together like to say is about us.' She added: 'I'm trying to pitch that to Maroon 5 or Bruno Mars. It's called Step By Step.' Sia has previously stated she's bisexual and has previously dated Jocelyn 'JD' Sampson, a DJ and member of the band Le Tigre, though the couple broke up in 2011.

Sia Separates From Sia splits from husband Erik Singer Sia and filmmaker- Husband Erik Anders Lang Anders Lang after two years husband Erik Anders Lang usmagazine.com feeds.nydailynews.com separate cbs46.com

2016-12-07 19:10 Chloe-lee www.dailymail.co.uk

6 /42 6 /42 0.4 Jennifer Hudson leaves cast in tears with racial equality anthem I Know Where I've Been on Hairspray Live!

(2.16/8) Jennifer Hudson appeared to leave some of her cast mates in tears with a stunning performance on Wednesday during NBC's spectacular Hairspray Live!. The 35-year- old performer was one of the most eagerly-awaited star in the three-hour show appearing as 1960's singer Motormouth Maybelle. The live production — which went off with only minor technical glitches — was the leading trending topic on Twitter during its live broadcast and West Coast replay. The Dreamgirls star's show-stopping performance of I Know Where I've Been in the final hour prompted a rush of tearful memes on social media. The powerful rendition left Maddie Baillio, the 20-year-old newcomer playing lead role Tracy Turnblad, with visible tears rolling down her cheek as she stood beside her. 'Did anyone else notice the (what I can only assume to be real) tear on Maddie's cheek at the end of that song?' wrote Kaitlyn Lane, one of many Twitter users to spot the emotional moment, with another writing: '”I Know Where I've Been" is so impactful because even the actors were crying. We need this song more than ever.' Jennifer - who wore a blonde 60's-style wig as well as a gold jumpsuit at the end of the show - sent social media on fire with the performance, with one fan, Hallie Quinn, writing: 'I am not ok. Jen messed me UP. One of the best live performances I have ever witnessed. Wow.' 'Awestruck, emotional, floored,' another fan wrote, while another, Daniel Burko, said: 'OMG Jennifer Hudson is giving me chills. Get this woman a fire extinguisher. I mean seriously that was unbelievable!' Dana Ernest, meanwhile, joked: 'Guys remember when a**hat Simon Cowell told Jennifer Hudson she wasn't good enough? Hahahahahahahaha.' The song carried extra power as it summed up the play's message of fighting for racial equality - a message that did not fail to touch a nerve with viewers feeling the same message is just as important as ever five decades later. Alex Goldschmidt pointed out that 'integration issues in the 60s is way too relevant in 2016,' while a Twitter user named Nicole added: 'I hope people are carefully paying attention to the very relevant lyrics of most of the songs in this musical.' 'Honestly, the messages of #HairsprayLive are SO relevant right now. It's fun to watch but also so important,' @yankeeclassic46 added. Others, meanwhile, made more direct references to president-elect Donald Trump - especially because his biggest celebrity nemesis, Rosie O'Donnell, was one of the star's to make a guest appearance, playing the tough Gym Teacher. 'I wonder if Trump will make it through today without tweeting about #HairsprayLive,' Brittany Ramsey tweeted, adding: 'Has two things he loves to hate: civil rights and Rosie.' A user called Danielle made a similar point, writing: 'This show has everything Trump hates. Singing, dancing, joy, black people, and Rosie O'Donnell.' Along with Jennifer and Rosie, other stars included Dancing With The Stars fan-favorite Derek Hough - who sang as well as danced - Kristin Chenoweth, Will & Grace star Sean Hayes and even a quick cameo by the actresses best known for previously playing the lead role of Tracy, Ricki Lake and Nikki Blonksy. The original Dynamites also came back to sing Welcome To The 60's, and Hamilton star Ephraim Sykes played a key role, with some fans picking up on a Hamilton line added in. Chart- topper Ariana Grande also had a key role as Penny Pingleton and got to close out the night with a special duet with Jennifer. But while her brother Frankie James Grande gushed that she was 'SLAYING,' the singer got a lot harsher judgment from most viewers who took to social media. 'Arianna Grande is out of her league. She's got a good voice but not for show tunes. She can't compete,' Frank Tierney wrote on Twitter. Ben Habegger felt the same, writing: 'Ariana Grande has a good voice, but she just doesn't have the comedic timing for Penny. Glossing over so many great lines.' Sophia Ash was even harsher, insisting: 'My goodness.... Ariana. Well my parents taught me if you can't say anything nice don't say it all. I'm trying.' Kristin Chenoweth as Velma Von Tussle had a far better response, with Randi Wallace writing: 'Miss Baltimore Crabs herself, @KChenoweth, is about to give me a heart attack with that INCOMPARABLE voice!' 'Kristen Chenoweth is the greatest thing in this entire live production/world/universe,' Mollie Goldstein insisted, albeit before Jennifer Hudson's appearance. The production took a risk getting a newcomer to take the lead role, and Maddie initially appeared to let her nerves get to her a little, struggling to hold back giggles in her opening number. But she soon settled and was widely praised for her role - including by two of the most important people who count. Early in the night, someone had asked Ricki Lake - who played Tracy in the 1988 John Waters film - what she thought of Maddie, and the actress gushed on Twitter: 'I love her!!!!' along with a heart emoji. She then made a quick cameo along with Nikki Blonsky, who played her in the 2007 remake, with the two women briefly pausing either side of Maddie onscreen. They were then shown backstage during a break from the production, with Ricki saying proudly: 'I think it's safe to say from one Tracy to another to another - Maddie you're killing it!' 'You're killing it, you're wonderful,' Nikki agreed with a huge smile. The sight of the actresses together was a thrill for fans, too, including Bravo host Andy Cohen who wrote: 'Seeing @RickiLake and @MarissaJWinokur is giving me a big HeartBoner.' Cohen had tweeted excitedly throughout the show, gushing early on: 'This is so freaking good. What a cast! What a score!! What a show!' Later, he added: 'PURE JOY! Thank you #HairsprayLive! We needed that'. Maddie also had another glowing review - from a former teacher at a special viewing party at her old school, Falls High School in Houston, saying during one of the breaks: 'We couldn't be more proud - we always knew she was gonna be amazing.' The show had an extra layer where fans watching it being filmed live also then became a part of the show, with the actors running past host Darren Criss while still pretending to be in character as he gave commentary about the production itself. The audience also ended up being the audience on the show at the end of the musical, with the audience watching the Corny Collins Show ending up being in Hairspray Live! itself, cheering as the actors took a final curtain call and bowing for the cameras. The ad breaks were even part of the live experience, too, with many of them being acted out before going to regular ads, something not all viewers appreciated while others called it a 'very clever $$ scheme.' While the show mostly went smoothly, a few glitches happened with mics going quiet for a second, and a crew member heard giving a 30-second call warning during a quiet moment. Ariane Rinehart also asked online: 'Is the steady cam guy also step touching?' Other viewers were less than impressed when, during the final musical number, a hand kept on showing right in front of the camera, with Chris Hill writing: 'Nice choreographer in the front showing them the moves... RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA. It's like a 2nd grade dance recital.' Others, meanwhile, poked fun at Jennifer Hudson singing a song about being overweight - despite showing off her slim figure. 'It's a little ironic for Jennifer Hudson to be singing "Big Blond and Beautiful" when she's SO TINY,' Elizabeth Maxman wrote, while another user said: 'Jhud.. you not big no more tho'. But overall the show seemed to have thrilled viewers, such as Theresa J. Reed who gushed: 'AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, BREATHTAKING, IRRESITIBLE! Not enough words to describe #HairsprayLive.' Kyler G, meanwhile, asked: 'Is it too early to state that #HairsprayLive is the best live musical NBC has done since re-inventing the live TV musical?' ‘Hairspray Live’: Jennifer Jennifer Hudson as Hudson, Ariana Grande Motormouth Maybelle in Draw Raves in NBC’s ‘Hairspray Live!’ Musical heavy.com variety.com

2016-12-08 02:18 Dailymail.com www.dailymail.co.uk

7 /42 3.7 Dolly Parton organizes musical telethon for Tenn. wildfire victims (2.06/8) NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Country icon Dolly Parton has organized a musical telethon to raise money for victims of the Tennessee wildfires that destroyed more than 1,700 homes in the resort town of Gatlinburg. The event, which will air Dec. 13 on Great American Country, will include performances by Reba McEntire, Kenny Rogers, Alison Krauss and Parton, whose Dollywood theme park in neighboring Pigeon Forge escaped damage from the fires. Proceeds from the telethon will go to the Dollywood Foundation My People Fund, which was created to provide $1,000 each month to Sevier County families whose homes were damaged or destroyed by the wildfires.

Investigators in Tennessee said the fire that swept through the Great Smoky Mountains last week was arson. Two juveniles have been charged in rel...

Officials say 14 people have died and more than 145 others were injured in the fire that spread from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Authorities on Wednesday charged two juveniles in an East Tennessee wildfire. Officials offered few other specifics about how they think the two started a fire that leveled buildings into charred scraps, carving a deadly path through the Gatlinburg area. People scrambled in terror to try to flee on foot or drive out of the inferno that often cloaked them from all sides, shooting hot embers through the winds. Some spent days hoping for good news about their missing loved ones. Many learned they would soon be planning funerals. The juveniles face aggravated arson charges in the fire in the Chimney Tops area of Great Smoky Mountains National Park on Nov. 23. That fire grew amid drought conditions and ultimately rode winds exceeding 87 miles per hour into the Gatlinburg area early last week. Authorities have not yet announced a dollar amount on the damaged caused by the wildfire. Wildfires in Tennessee have destroyed hundreds of buildings in the Gatlinburg area, where the death toll has risen to 11. CBS News' DeMarco Morga...

The two are being held in the Sevier County juvenile detention center. “Our promise is that we will do every effort to help bring closure to those who have lost so much,” said Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn. The juveniles are from Tennessee, but not Sevier County, where the fires spread. Otherwise, officials said state law prevents releasing more information about them. Karyssa Dalton, a 19-year-old whose grandmother Pamela Johnson remains missing in the blaze, said the two should be held accountable, even though they’re young. “I mean, what if somebody came through their town, and set their town on fire, and lost their loved ones, and lost all their homes?” Dalton said. “It’s not fair.”

Thousands forced to evacuate resort town of Gatlinburg, as drought conditions and high winds help fire spread through the foothills of the Great ...

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Chief Ranger Steve Kloster said the public was “critical” in offering investigators information through a tip line. Previously, the National Park Service said it believed the fire was human caused, and set up a tip line for people to call if they hiked that trail on Nov. 23, or knew anyone who did. The investigation is ongoing and more charges could come. It’s also possible that the case could be transferred to an adult criminal court, said local District Attorney General James Dunn. The juveniles are entitled to a detention hearing within 72 hours in which a juvenile court judge will decide to hold them without bond, hold them with bond, or release them, Dunn said. Dunn constantly said everything was “part of the investigation” when asked for details. Asked if others could be charged in the fire, Dunn repeated that “everything’s on the table.” “We don’t know,” he said. On Wednesday, Gatlinburg residents and business owners were allowed to move back into homes and establishments permanently. They had been allowed to visit during daytime hours since last Friday. The city is slated to open to the public on Friday morning. Though swaths of the city were decimated, the main downtown strip appears to have been spared.

Dolly lines up Reba, Kenny, Dolly Parton organizing others for wildfires telethon telethon for Tenn. wildfire rssfeeds.usatoday.com victims article.wn.com

2016-12-08 02:23 AP www.cbsnews.com

8 /42 4.5 ‘It’s a home-grown film’: Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge dominates Australian film awards (2.06/8) Mel Gibson and his new movie have swept the board at the Australian film awards in a return from the wilderness for the “choked up” Oscar-winner. Gibson returned to his Australian roots to direct his first film in a decade, the true story of a conscientious objector who saved 75 men during the Battle of Okinawa in the second world war. It tells of Desmond Doss who enlists and is determined to save lives on the front line as a medic, but refuses to carry a gun on moral grounds. Since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Hacksaw Ridge has generated Oscars buzz and was recognised by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts with nine gongs at their annual awards ceremony in Sydney late on Wednesday. They included best film and best director for Gibson, while the movie’s lead and supporting actors, Andrew Garfield and Hugo Weaving, also won. “All the way up and down it’s a home-grown film,” said an emotional Gibson, who shot it in New South Wales state. “I’m really honoured and choked up I can’t even talk. Filming in Australia was fantastic, it was like the old days.” Gibson’s family moved to Sydney from New York when he was 12. He learned his trade at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in the city before making his name with in 1979 and two years later, helping propel him into Hollywood. Further success came with the series before Oscar success with. It made Gibson one of the most sought-after names in Hollywood, before being ostracised by Tinseltown after an anti-Semitic tirade captured on tape during a 2006 drunk-driving arrest. The actor-director has since had to make do with a handful of parts in obscure or poorly received films. Among other gongs, star Paul Hogan was given one of the night’s highest honours – the Longford Lyell Award – for outstanding contribution to the Australian screen. Previous winners have included Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, and director Peter Weir.

Mel Gibson's ‘Hacksaw Gibson and Hacksaw Ridge Ridge’ Sweeps Australian dominate Aussie film awards Academy Awards dailymail.co.uk feedproxy.google.com

2016-12-07 20:18 Agence France www.scmp.com

9 /42 (1.02/8) 4.0 GET READY! Justin Bieber is headed to Mzansi The announcement, which was made by Big Concerts and Discovery this morning to much excitement from Bieber fans.

Bieber's visit to the country is part of his Purpose World Tour.

The global superstar will perform at two shows in the country, one in Cape Town and one in Johannesburg.

Here are the details:

Tickets go on sale on 15 December at 9 am and range from R350 to R1260 in Cape Town, and R410 to R1540 in Johannesburg. Ever since the announcement was made fans have inundated Twitter with excitement.

It is part of my Christian duty to attend Justin Bieber's Purpose concert — Caryn Welby-Solomon (@carrieanne07) December 8, 2016

Justin Bieber is returning to SA! channel24.co.za

2016-12-08 03:56 TshisaLIVE www.timeslive.co.za

10 /42 0.0 Tony Bennett sings for the Saenger in New Orleans

(1.02/8) Tony Bennett sang for the Saenger Theatre crowd Wednesday (Dec. 7), stopping by in New Orleans on his current tour.

The New York-born crooner was last in town with Lady Gaga for a delightful stop at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell. That partnership spawned both a live and a studio album.

Bennett's other recent projects include a 2015 album of Jerome Kern songs and a new book, "Just Getting Started," which examines the people who influenced his life, from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Amy Winehouse and his own mother.

New Orleans Saints see playoff chances slipping away upi.com 2016-12-08 00:38 Chelsea Brasted www.nola.com

11 /42 1.1 AP Source: Grammy country committee rejects Beyonce song (1.02/8) NEW YORK (AP) - Beyonce earned a whopping nine Grammy nominations Tuesday, including best rock performance, but the singer's twangy song "Daddy Lessons" was rejected by the Recording Academy's country music committee. A person familiar with the Grammy nomination process told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Beyonce submitted "Daddy Lessons" - from her album "Lemonade" - to the country category. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to speak publicly about the topic, said the country music committee rejected the song. If Beyonce's song had made it through, it would have been eligible for honors such as best country song and country solo performance. Representatives for Beyonce and the Grammys didn't immediately reply to emails seeking comment. "Daddy Lessons" highlights the Houston native's Southern music roots, incorporating horns, acoustic guitar and hand claps as Beyonce sings about lessons she learned from her father and former manager. The lyrics include references to the Second Amendment, the Bible and shooting guns. Beyonce performed the track at last month's Country Music Association Awards alongside the Dixie Chicks, and later released a version of the song featuring the country trio. Earlier in the year, the Chicks covered the song on their tour, and others in the country genre welcomed the tune, including Blake Shelton, who defended the song from critics who say it's not country. Country star Dierks Bentley told the AP, "There is just something intangible about it that it feels like a country song. " Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town said, "(Beyonce) has some stories to tell - that's clear on 'Lemonade.' And that's what makes country music great. " Beyonce, still, impressed the music world by earning Grammy nominations in the rock, pop, R&B and rap categories - becoming the first artist to earn nominations in those fields in the same year. Paul McCartney and Janet Jackson have also received Grammy nominations in pop, rock, R&B and rap, but not in the same year. Beyonce's nine nominations include the big three: album of the year for "Lemonade" and song, and record of the year for "Formation. " She is also competing for best rock performance ("Don't Hurt Yourself" with Jack White), pop solo performance ("Hold Up"), rap/sung performance ("Freedom" with Kendrick Lamar) and urban contemporary album ("Lemonade"). She has won 20 Grammy Awards and is the most-nominated woman in Grammy history with 62 nominations. Beyonce is also competing for best music film with "Lemonade" and music video with "Formation. " Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Grammy country committee rejects Beyonce song dailymail.co.uk

2016-12-07 20:02 www.cbs46.com

12 /42 (1.02/8) 5.9 The top 10 music videos on YouTube of 2016 Grab those headphones, because YouTube has released its top 10 music videos for 2016.

The streaming website, which already released its top 10 viral videos of the year, ranks the videos in question by considering views, shares, comments and likes for each one.

With that, swipe through to see -- and hear -- the most popular music videos of the year. Note that some use explicit language.

Behind the scenes with #YouTubeRewind: We reveal the top videos of 2016 including James Corden's Carpool Karaoke and the Mannequin Challenge dailymail.co.uk

2016-12-07 19:30 Chelsea Brasted www.nola.com

13 /42 0.0 Time Warner Facing Class Action Discrimination Suit

(1.02/8) Sign up for our Newsletters.

Login to download An ex-CNN and current TBS employee are spearheading a class action lawsuit against Time Warner, claiming its companies have been mistreating black managers since the late 1990s.

Celeslie Henley and Ernest Colbert Jr. are suing CNN, along with Turner Broadcasting and Time Warner, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Georgia federal court.

Henley says she worked for CNN for seven years as an executive administrative assistant and was fired five days after she emailed human resources about discriminatory treatment. Colbert works for TBS and claims that he is underpaid compared to his white peers.

Their suit claims the internal policies ensure black employees aren't promoted as often or to positions as high as are white employees.

"As a result, jobs are filled without being posted, candidates are handpicked in advance, and supervisors who make hiring decisions have implemented 'preferred qualifications' to mask the prejudicial preference in their candidate selection," writes attorney Daniel Meachum in the complaint. "Indeed, although African-Americans make up about 30-35 percent of the employees in the mid-level managerial and staffing positions, they are extremely under-represented at higher pay grades and senior positions. "

In addition to "glass ceilings" for advancement, the complaint also says there are "glass walls" that segregate the company into divisions in which black leadership is acceptable and divisions in which it is not.

Henley and Colbert also claim a lack of meaningful oversight in performance reviews allows managers to make evaluations and leads to African-Americans receiving lower scores.

"Upon information and belief, African-American employees have had to endure racial slurs and prejudicial biases from their superiors such as, 'it's hard to manage black people' and 'who would be worth more: black slaves from times past, or new slaves," writes Meachum.

According to the complaint, high-level officials at the company are aware of the problems but look the other way.

Time Warner has not yet responded to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

Henley and Colbert are asking the court for an injunction preventing the alleged discriminatory conduct, the award of lost wages and compensatory and punitive damages.

The proposed class is defined as: "All African-American persons employed by Defendants in salaried positions and mid-level managerial positions (specifically, managerial positions inferior to the Director, Vice President, Senior Vice President positions) in the United States at any time from April of 1997, to the present, who are subject to Defendants' employment and human resources policies and practices, including, but not limited to, current or former salaried employees of Turner Broadcasting Systems, including Turner's subsidiaries, Time Warner, Inc., and Turner Services, Inc. and who have been, continue to be, or may in the future be, adversely affected by Defendants' racially discriminatory employment policies and practices. "

Temp agency faces discrimination suit from African-American job seekers cbsnews.com

2016-12-07 18:51 Ashley Cullins feedproxy.google.com

14 /42 (1.02/8) 4.8 Sing along to 'Hometown Family Christmas' MUNCIE, Ind. — Happy holiday tunes will fill Emens Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17 during America's Hometown Band's "A Hometown Family Christmas" 2016 holiday concert.

It's a chance for family and friends to enjoy the sounds of the holiday season and to support and show appreciation for our hometown musicians.

Tickets are $10 adult, $8 seniors and free for children, available at the Emens box office.

This sparkling event delivers a “Holiday Spirit Tune-up” to every audience member. The program schedule is set to feature the band in a variety of groups including the full concert band, the Big Band jazz band, the Clarinet Choir, and the East Central Indiana Flute Choir. AHB Vocalist Diana Guinn and AHB xylophonist David Robbins are soloists for the evening. The AHB Board president Dr. Charles Routh will conduct the full band in a new holiday medley called Christmas Spectacular.

Special guest performers this year are the members of Muncie's Westview Elementary School Choir and its director Tiffany Ingles.

And for all to enjoy, guest narrator John Emert recites the best-loved Clement Moore poem for the piece, "The Night Before Christmas. "

There will be free parking at Emens and Sursa Parking structures nearby.

More information: amhometownband.org . Home for Christmas thanks to a stranger's air miles bbc.co.uk

2016-12-07 18:16 The Star rssfeeds.thestarpress.com

15 /42 (0.04/8) 1.9 Hackel touts Macomb marketing tool He launched a joke about Oakland County traffic and those who may have had trouble getting to the Macomb address, and then gave a wink and a nod to his Oakland County counterpart, L. Brook Patterson, who was sitting in the audience.

“Six great years of big accomplishments are thanks to many individuals and organizations,” he posted to his Twitter account.

“Make Macomb Your Home — four words that evolved into a distinctive brand to promote & celebrate all things Macomb County,” he said, highlighting a county marketing tool that he said more than 1.6 million people “from around the world” have viewed digitally.

He touched on the Blue Economy, which “enabled us to convene partnerships with agencies at all levels of government and private (the) sector,” and Green Macomb programs in his address, improved parks and recreation assets, job growth and economic development, according to highlights of the speech released ahead of the event.

The invitation-only address is not open to the public and began at 6 p.m. at Macomb Community College.

It is livestreamed on Macomb County’s home page at www.macombgov.org and broadcast on a tape delay at 8 p.m. on WDET-FM (101.9). [email protected]

(313) 222-6793

Hackel touts population, Hackel delivers State of economic growth in county Macomb County address rssfeeds.detroitnews.com rssfeeds.detroitnews.com

2016-12-07 20:00 Nicquel Terry rssfeeds.detroitnews.com

16 /42 16 /42 1.5 Emmy Rossum goes for a low-key look in all black as she arrives at LAX airport (0.01/8) She made a showstopping appearance while honoring Carolina Herrera in New York City the night before. But on Wednesday Emmy Rossum opted for a low-key look when she was spotted arriving at LAX airport. The 30-year-old actress dressed in all black and kept concealed behind dark shades as she made her way through the terminal. Despite her attempts to lay low, the Shameless star looked chic nonetheless in a black wool double-breasted coat. She layered the jacket over a black and white striped turtleneck top. A pair of relaxed-fitting dark trousers and polished black leather ankle boots completed the New York native's ensemble. The beauty - who scored a Golden Globe nomination at just 17 for her role in Phantom of the Opera - added a pop of colour with a bright blue leather designer handbag. The brunette stunner stayed glued to her phone as she chatted while being escorted to her ride home. Meanwhile on Tuesday night Emmy attended An Evening Honoring Carolina Herrera in the Big Apple. During the event where the celebrity designer was presented with the Women's Leadership Award, Emmy revealed that her wedding dress will be designed by Herrera. 'Yeah, she’ll be making it. That’s all I’ll say!' Rossum told E! News. The actress is engaged to Mr. creator Sam Esmail, 39, after accepting his proposal in August 2015.

Camila Alves dons cheeky Christmas sweater as she arrives at LAX airport dailymail.co.uk

2016-12-07 22:23 Sarah Jones www.dailymail.co.uk

17 /42 0.9 Watch ‘Hairspray Live!’ Online If You Missed It Streaming On NBC, Check Out Original 1988 ‘Hairspray’ Movie [Video] Amazon Prime members with unlimited streaming can listen to the Hairspray Live! soundtrack for free. The track listing is as follows.

There was so much social buzz during the live show, that Twitter Moments might be the best way to relive the excitement. If you haven’t watched the show and are going to watch on Hulu video Dec. 8, 2016, you might not want to check out the videos below as they might spoil the show.

Hairspray Live brought the 60s to life again????

[Featured Image by Brian Bowen Smith/NBC (used with permission)]

2016-12-08 03:01 Charisse Van www.inquisitr.com

18 /42 3.4 Nikkei closes over 11-mth high on upbeat China data TOKYO, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei share average closed at the highest level since last December on Thursday as upbeat Chinese trade data boosted sentiment, while Tepco shares soared on news Japan will increase an interest-free loan related to its Fukushima costs. The Nikkei ended 1.5 percent higher at 18,765.47, the highest level since December 2015. Risk appetite got a boost after China reported upbeat trade figures with exports and imports both beating forecasts. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc jumped 18 percent after a source said Japan will increase an interest-free loan by more than a third to 14 trillion yen ($123 billion). The broader Topix gained 1.5 percent to 1,512.69, while the JPX-Nikkei Index 400 also added 1.5 percent to 13,545.11. (Reporting by Ayai Tomisawa; Editing by Vyas Mohan)

2016-12-08 02:23 Reuters www.dailymail.co.uk

19 /42 0.0 Sophie Monk jokes she's not releasing another racy carol rendition this year for pop diva's sake Scroll down for video The conversation began when Channel Nine hosts asked whether she would be transforming another festive classic this year, to which she denied. 'I don't want to make Mariah Carey jealous with my amazing music. I'm not sure. I don't think this year we're doing one,' the singer said.

2016-12-08 01:55 Candice Jackson www.dailymail.co.uk

20 /42 20 /42 4.2 Atlanta's own Kenny Leon helps make live musical magic Singing, dancing and drama – all unfolding live!

It took a lot of moving parts, and hands, to pull off the show. “It takes a village,” Atlanta- based director Kenny Leon said. “Hairspray Live! takes a village.”

So how exactly does this show compare? Think of it as the Super Bowl of theater – on TV.

(© 2016 WXIA)

WXIA

Your guide to NBC's 'Hairspray LIVE!'

WXIA

Listen to the soundtrack for 'Hairspray Live!' now

2016-12-08 01:35 Shiba Russell rssfeeds.11alive.com

21 /42 0.0 ‘Ok Go’ Features Chicago-Based Organization And Students In New Video CHICAGO (CBS) — Here they go again, “OK GO” the Grammy-nominated band, famous for their treadmill music video is back again with a new single and eye-catching video with strong ties to Chicago.

Their latest video features a Chicago-based organization giving back in a loud way. CBS 2’s Charlie De Mar has the original report.

At Benito Jaurez High School, four substitutes took over music class.

Grammy-nominated band “OK Go” is teaching the kids the chords to their latest song. The video for, moment, a chaotic series of explosions and blasts shot in about four seconds, then given a new meaning when slowed down.

“It’s about how sad and how beautiful it is that our lives are so temporary,” said Damian Kulash, OK Go. “Within those few moments we get, only a few of them really matter.”

Wednesday’s visit inspired by Chicago-based charity ‘Music Unites’ is also featured in the new video, giving underserved students instruments and exposure to music.

“Music programs throughout the city are amazingly advantageous,” said Joe Passi, teacher. “Especially to high risk youth who may not have resources and opportunities.”

“To sit down with people and really see their lives changing is so much more meaningful,” Kulash said.

There’s another Chicago connection in all of this, OK Go teamed up with Chicago-based Morton Salt to create the music video, who provided all the salt seen in the video’s explosions.

2016-12-08 01:07 chicago.cbslocal.com

22 /42 1.7 Dami Im says she will no longer be pushed around by makeup artists who would alter her natural complexion to 'look darker' in Australia and 'white and pale' in Korea The 28-year-old said she's figured out a lot about herself over the years, including her choice of makeup tones, during an interview with Yahoo!7on Wednesday. 'After some of those years, you figure out what you want and who you want to be and you don't get pushed around as much,' she said with an air of confidence. The dark-haired beauty insists she requests looks that suit her style better, 'instead of being pushed around by different people who have different ideas of what you should and shouldn't look like.' She added that over the last three years in the spotlight she came to terms with how she wanted to present herself and what type of makeup she wanted to wear. 2016-12-08 00:58 Candice Jackson www.dailymail.co.uk

23 /42 0.6 Mad Solutions Launches Innovative Arab Cinema Incubator in Dubai DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An innovative incubator for Arab movies is being launched by Cairo-based marketing and distribution company Mad Solutions at the Dubai Film Market where footage of eight hotly anticipated projects from the region will unspool.

Called Arab Cinema Lab, the new initiative for film development and financing will be a mix of sneak peeks and keynote presentations from leading industry figures focussed on “fast-tracking a sustainable, self-sufficient ecosystem for Arab filmmakers,” says Mad Solutions CEO Alaa Karkouti.

Projects set to be showcased on December 12 at the Arena Theatre in Madinat Jumeirah, the fest’s main venue, include “Sheikh Jackson,” about an Egyptian Islamic fundamentalist cleric with a secret passion for the music of Jackson, directed by Amr Salama, known for Aids drama “Asmaa” and black comedy “Excuse my French”; Palestinian auteur Rashid Masharawi’s “Writing on Snow,” on the roots of different sub-groups in Palestinian society and how these divisions contribute to religious extremism; big-budget “Man of the Impossible,” based on a bestseller about an Egyptian super spy, Egypt’s attempt to emulate James Bond; and soccer- themed “Shoot,” by Saudi director Aymen Khouja, produced under his Khoja Bros production shingle and touted as the first Saudi-U. S. film.

Besides Karkouti, other speakers will comprise: Mohamed Hefzy, who heads Egypt’s leading indie Film Clinic; Gianluca Chakra, chief of Dubai-based distributor Front Row Filmed Entertainment; Jacques Kruger, general manager of the VOX Cinemas chain; Vincenzo Bugno, manager of the Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund Project; and Frank Albers Film Prize Program Officer at Germany’s Robert Bosch Stiftung foundation.

“Like the best laboratories, Arab Cinema Lab has been designed as both a testing ground and launch-pad for what’s next,” says Colin Brown, managing partner and director of international operations at MAD Solutions. “When you examine the risk/reward profile for Arab feature films on a macro level you see a golden opportunity for private financiers – if only there was a more user-friendly business environment through which to invest and lend with greater confidence.”

The initiative takes to the next level the work of the Arab Cinema Center launched last year by MAD Solutions as a promotional platform for Arab filmmakers at major festivals and markets worldwide.

2016-12-08 00:22 Nick Vivarelli variety.com

24 /42 24 /42 2.6 Dallas Summer Musicals to shutter academy Dec. 31, but DSM High School Musical Theatre Awards will continue After 17 years, the DSM Academy of Performing Arts will close Dec. 31.

Dallas Summer Musicals' interim managing director David Hyslop and DSM Director of Education Kevin Cook sent out a letter to DSM Academy parents notifying them of the end of the program. The final youth shows were presented in November.

It's the second big departure from local control for the 77-year-old company since the Board of Directors ousted longtime president Michael A. Jenkins in May. The first move was to outsource the booking of its shows by signing a 10-year contract in September with Broadway Across America to select the seasons for Fair Park Music Hall and to end its own investments in Broadway productions. The new selections will begin in the 2017-18 season.

DSM's other educational programs, including the DSM High School Musical Theatre Awards, College Audition Prep Weekend and Kids Club, will continue, according to the letter. Kids Club, a free pre-show event offered for kids before one matinee performance of many shows, will partner with Big Thought for more activities, starting with the Kids Club for Broadway Christmas Wonderland on Saturday.

DSM decided to move its organizing and fundraising efforts to its other programs, the letter noted.

"Dallas is a competitive market for arts programs and for philanthropic donors to support programs like the DSM Academy. "

2016-12-07 23:13 Theater Critic www.dallasnews.com

25 /42 0.0 Are Britney Spears And Christina Aguilera Finally Ending Feud And Recording A Duet? Britney Forgets Where Own Catchphrase Began #Boatoney Do You Wanna Come Over? feat. Christina Aguilera! https://t.co/qFIrlHYsTa pic.twitter.com/5PwDJs0kXm

— Britney Spears BR (@BritneySite) December 7, 2016

The publication notes details of the discovery and why it is that fans believe Brit and Christina are ready to make music together after all these years.

“The just-turned -35-year- old cannot remember where the iconic phrase originated from. In a radio interview with 99.7 Now Britney credited her 2012 collaboration with will.i.am as the origin of ‘It’s Britney, B*tch’ — when in fact it had been around for five years before that.”

The publication reminds that the phrase was first uttered in her 2007 hit “Gimme More,” after Spears had connected it to a performance with will.i.am in 2012. However, perhaps Brit can be cut a bit of slack seeing as the year the catch phrase became a thing for the diva was the same year that she had her infamous meltdown. It’s likely that Spears has simply tried to forget that difficult time in her life.

Happy birthday to an artist that always makes amazing music, @britneyspears !???? pic.twitter.com/YxMmfzxCU0

— Taylor Swift Updates (@1989TUpdates) December 3, 2016

Did Britney really forget meeting Taylor or is she following suit behind ultra diva Mariah Carey who has cheekily denied meeting or knowing Jennifer Lopez and a number of other female artists on various occasions? Nope, Spears likely just forgot.

[Feature Image by Christopher Polk/Getty Images for iHeartMedia]

2016-12-07 22:59 Jessica Dafoe www.inquisitr.com

26 /42 2.7 ‘Pete’s Dragon’ Tops Disney Trio of Best-Selling Discs After two weeks at No. 1, Walt Disney Studios’ “ Finding Dory ” finally slipped a notch on the national home video sales charts – replaced at the top by another Disney film, “Pete’s Dragon,” a remake of the 1977 musical that earned nearly $77 million in U. S. theaters.

Disney also claimed the No. 3 spot, with “ The BFG ,” on both the NPD VideoScan overall disc sales chart, which tracks combined Blu-ray Disc and DVD sales, and the dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart.

A theatrical underperformer with a domestic gross of less than $56 million, “The BFG” is a fantasy about an orphan girl who befriends a kindly giant, known as the “Big Friendly Giant.” It was directed and coproduced by Steven Spielberg and is based on the 1982 children’s book of the same name by the late Roald Dahl.

Rounding out the top five were the Sony Pictures horror film “Don’t Breathe,” about three friends who break into, and get trapped inside, a blind man’s house, and “Harry Potter: Complete 8-Film Collection,” from Warner.

“Don’t Breathe” debuted at No. 4 on the overall disc sales chart, with the “Harry Potter” set – which was originally released in November 2011 – returning to the chart at No. 5. On the Blu-ray Disc sales chart, the order was reversed.

Several classic holiday movies have also returned to the top 20 in recent weeks, including the Warner titles “ Elf ” (No. 6), “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (No. 9), “ The Polar Express ” (No. 11), “ A Christmas Story ” (No. 19), and the original animated “ How the Grinch Stole Christmas ” (No. 20).

Twentieth Century’s original “ Home Alone ,” released theatrically in 1990, came in at No. 12. Universal Pictures’ live-action “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” with Jim Carrey in the title role, also soared back into the top 20, finishing the week at No. 14.

On Home Media Magazine ’s rental chart, the top three remain unchanged from the previous week: Universal Pictures’ “ Bad Moms ” at No. 1, Lionsgate’s “Mechanic: Resurrection” at No. 2 and “Finding Dory” at No. 3.

Rounding out the top five on Home Media Magazine’s rental chart were the 20th Century Fox family film “Nine Lives” at No. 4 (now that its 28-day holdback from Redbox is over) and “Independence Day: Resurgence” at No. 5.

Thomas K. Arnold is Editorial Director of Home Media Magazine.

Top 20 NPD VideoScan First Alert, powered by Nielsen, chart for the week ended 12/4/16:

1. Pete’s Dragon (new)

2. Finding Dory

3. The BFG (new)

4. Don’t Breathe (new)

5. Harry Potter Eight-Film Collection

6. Elf

7. Star Trek Beyond

8. Captain America: Civil War

9. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 10. Mechanic: Resurrection

11. The Polar Express

12. Home Alone

13. Kubo and the Two Strings

14. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (live action)

15. War Dogs

16. Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season

17. Deadpool

18. Independence Day: Resurgence

19. A Christmas Story

20. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (cartoon)

Top 10 Home Media Magazine rental chart for the week ended 12/4/16:

1. Bad Moms

2. Mechanic: Resurrection

3. Finding Dory

4. Nine Lives

5. Independence Day: Resurgence

6. Hell or High Water

7. Sausage Party

8. The Legend of Tarzan

9. Lights Out

10. The Wild Life (new)

For complete sales and rental charts, visit HomeMediaMagazine.com .

2016-12-07 21:49 Thomas K variety.com

27 /42 0.8 State removes 10 children from Fife couple who have raised more than 70 A Fife couple who have given temporary and permanent homes to scores of children since the 1970s lost custody Wednesday of eight children between ages 8 and 16 they had been sheltering. Bob and Linda Cornyn, who live in a 21-bedroom home presented to them by federal officials in 1988 — when they were raising 28 children, three of whom were biologically theirs — said the state Department of Social and Health Services removed all their current charges Wednesday under a court order.

Two other children in the home were removed in a related action in November, Bob Cornyn said.

A DSHS spokeswoman would not confirm the situation, citing confidentiality laws.

Bob Cornyn, 71, said he and his wife have taken care of more than 70 children since 1979, when they adopted five children from a South Korean orphanage while overseas on U. S. Army duty.

All of the children have been placed with the Cornyns by their families, he said, and “35 or 40, perhaps” eventually were formally adopted by the Cornyns over the years.

He said a large percentage of the children have had physical or mental handicaps their biological parents were unable to cope with.

“We fought with the school district to get the right placements for them,” Bob Cornyn said. “That’s what we do. That’s what we spend our time doing.”

He said DSHS began an investigation in early November that led to the removal of the 10 children from the Cornyns’ home, where they also house 16 disabled adults and three adopted 17-year-olds.

He said that among the couple’s current children was a 13-year-old girl who told a doctor of sexual contact with another teenager. Cornyn said he doubted the story, because the girl had difficulties differentiating between reality and fiction.

The doctor reported the allegation, and child protection officials interviewed the other children in the home. Among them was an autistic 8-year-old who allegedly mentioned other inappropriate contact.

Those two children were placed in foster custody in November, he said.

Cornyn said investigators cited a court order Wednesday without giving him a copy and removed the remaining eight children to temporary placements. The children removed include four the couple have adopted, he said.

Cornyn said he has a hearing with state officials Friday. He said this is the first time in the couple’s decades of taking in children that any have been removed from their custody. He said three previous investigations of their family have been found without merit.

2016-12-07 21:45 By Derrick www.thenewstribune.com

28 /42 2.4 The internet is really pumped about this teen's quinceañera There's one event this year you just can't miss. Thanks to a viral video invitation, a teenage girl in rural Mexico is going to have the quinceañera of a lifetime. With a guest list of more than 1 million people for the 15th birthday party, BBC reports, Mexican police are expected to deploy to the bash for security reasons. Such a huge turnout would easily dwarf the extravagance of any ridiculously expensive Super Sweet 16 party on MTV. In the video invite, 14-year-old Rubi Ibarra Garcia stands smiling in a cheetah-print dress and tiara, as her father opens the December party to everyone who can come.

2016-12-07 21:39 system article.wn.com

29 /42 0.7 It's over! Musicians and management reach a new four- year deal, snapping the Fort Worth Symphony strike Thanks to a generous anonymous donor, the bitter Fort Worth Symphony strike that had lingered for almost three months finally ended Wednesday night.

The musicians voted to accept the agreement negotiators hammered out with management over the weekend, bringing to a halt the first strike in the orchestra's history, one that began Sept. 28 and one that had sharply divided the two sides during its 70-day stalemate.

The result is a new four-year deal, which required two days of federal mediation and what the union called "more than a year of good faith bargaining. " The new contract runs through July 31, 2020.

Management had continually cited as a deal-breaking sticking point a projected $700,000 budget deficit. The deficit, symphony president and CEO Amy Adkins argued for months, was why orchestra members had to accept a pay cut. But the musicians wouldn't budge.

"Bridging the gap which existed between the proposals of the association and the musicians, an anonymous donor stepped forward on Thursday of last week with a gift of $700,000 which led to a breakthrough in negotiations," the players said in a statement released Wednesday night. "This generous gift provided the association the necessary financial relief to offer musicians a two-year pay freeze followed by two years of small increases. "

Adkins issued her own statement Wednesday night:

"It has been the collective goal of the management and the board of directors of the Fort Worth Symphony to financially stabilize the organization to secure the orchestra's short-term survival and long-term health. This agreement addresses this goal while enabling the orchestra to return to its mission of enriching this community and state with the beauty and power of symphonic music. "

This "generous donation," Adkins added, "provides the necessary stability for the next several years as we continue to implement plans to increase both earned and contributed revenue, including the ever-important growth of our endowment fund. We are also grateful to the musicians for their shared sacrifice by accepting wage freezes as we work together to find a new path forward for this great orchestra. "

Union president Stewart Williams said the contract represents a "hopeful new beginning," adding: "We have believed all along that our community had the strength and desire to move the orchestra forward with growth, not cuts. Our faith has been confirmed by this wonderful gift which exemplifies the spirit of a thriving city which loves its musicians. "

Under the terms of the new agreement, wages will remain at their current levels for years one and two. In year three, musicians will receive a weekly pay increase of 2 percent, followed by 2.5 percent in year four. Vacation will be reduced from 35 to 28 days to enable the association to secure additional revenue-generating opportunities. The musicians' first paid week back will begin on Dec. 26.

"We are incredibly moved by the generosity which has made this agreement possible," said Dan Sigale, symphony violist and chair man of the musicians ' negotiating committee. " W e also thank all our supporters who have stood by us during these past several months. We look forward to returning to our regular performances and sharing great music with our great city. "

In its official statement, the musicians said, "the anonymous contribution substantially reduces the FWSO's annual projected shortfall for the next few seasons. The remainder of the solution relies upon increased fundraising and audience development efforts. "

"All of us who serve on the board of directors are greatly pleased that these negotiations have reached a positive resolution so that our musicians can return to the stage," said symphony board chairwoman Mercedes Bass. "We deeply appreciate the patience and generosity of our patrons and supporters during this difficult chapter. Now it is time for our community to join together to support the future of the magnificent orchestra. " The symphony's first performance following the work stoppage will take place New Year's Eve in a concert conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya at Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth.

"I'm thrilled the strike is resolved," Harth-Bedoya said in a statement. "I can't think of a more fitting way to celebrate the new year than with the return of the orchestra and its wonderful musicians. I will be proud to conduct its return concert on New Year's Eve. I would like to take this opportunity to say to our community: This orchestra belongs to all of us; it raises our quality of life, it impacts our economy directly and indirectly. I'd like to ask the people of Fort Worth to help the orchestra come back not only strong, but stronger than ever. "

2016-12-07 21:39 Michael Granberry www.dallasnews.com

30 /42 2.4 Schramm resigns as director of French Quarter Festival NEW ORLEANS (AP) - French Quarter Festivals Inc., the nonprofit group that produces the French Quarter Festival, Satchmo Summerfest and Christmas New Orleans Style, is looking for a new executive director.

The New Orleans Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/2gWhJZc ) Marci Schramm has resigned after leading the organization for nine years.

In an emailed statement, Schramm said she resigned to spend more time with her two young daughters and to assist her husband, Scott Campbell, in running his publishing business, River Road Press.

Under Schramm’s leadership, the 33-year-old French Quarter Festival has continued to expand its footprint and increase attendance. The free festival, staged throughout the French Quarter in April, draws hundreds of thousands of attendees for a program of mostly local music.

___

Information from: The New Orleans Advocate, http://www.neworleansadvocate.com

2016-12-07 20:51 By www.washingtontimes.com

31 /42 2.4 Pink often jokes about a split with Carey Hart and now laughs off rumors of divorce Pink is laughing off speculation that her marriage is in trouble. The singer took a photo of the cover of a tabloid this week which featured her image with the headline 'Pregnant Pink marriage split' and shared it on Instagram with a tongue-in-cheek message. 'Apparently @hartluck I HAVE HAD IT!!!!!!! So you better fix this s**t, whatever it is, cause it's obviously BAD. Just s****y!' the 37- year-old star joked while tagging her husband Carey Hart. 'And before you leave can you please teach me how to set the alarm? I can't wait to take over your closet!!!!!! #moreclothes #ivehaditwiththiss**t.' she added, clearly seeing the humour in the situation. The star is currently pregnant with her second child and just earlier this week Carey opened up to People about how excited the couple are to be expanding their family. 'We got one princess, so hopefully we'll have a little guy coming. I don't want any competition for my daughter. I'm nervous for what it's going to be.' The former motocross pro said the couple are waiting until the delivery to find out the sex. 'It’s been a while since we’ve had a baby around the house. It’s going to be really fun.' The couple are already parents to five-year- old Willow. 'Carey Hart is an awesome husband and a really good dad.' Not to be too serious for too long, she added: 'But he's also like a second child [...] I feel like I have two kids right now. I would like a third.'

2016-12-07 20:22 Dailymail.com www.dailymail.co.uk

32 /42 1.8 Kylie Minogue dazzles in sequinned trouser suit as she prepares for intimate festive show with fiancé Joshua Sasse With last year’s hit Christmas album in line for seasonal revamp it was a reinvigorated Kylie Minogue who prepared for an intimate performance in London on Wednesday evening. The Australian singer was joined by handsome fiancé Joshua Sasse ahead of a much anticipated appearance at lavish West End restaurant The Ivy, where a handful of celebrity fans prepared for an exclusive live set. Catching the eye in a sequinned trouser suit and breezy cream blouse, Kylie, 48, looked typically stylish as she made her way inside. Scroll down for video Silver peep-toe heels completed a highly distinctive ensemble, while tasteful chandelier earrings proved to be the only visible accessory. Showing off a newly fringed and layered hairstyle, the singer belied her age as she prepared to entertain fans with live renditions of some of her biggest hits alongside a selection of Christmas classics. Accompanying his stunning fiancée, actor Joshua, 28, dressed for the occasion in a stylish double breasted suit and brown leather dress shoes. The bearded star, best known for his role in American fantasy drama Galavant, rounded off his dapper wardrobe with a fitted blue shirt and tastefully folded pocket square. The couple were hand in hand while making their way past a gathering of photographers as Kylie readied herself for her festive show. Those on hand to watch the gig included actresses Dame Kristen Scott Thomas, and Elizabeth Hurley - who stunned in an intricately designed semi-sheer lace dress. Welsh actor Luke Evans looked equally stylish in a white blazer and high-slung dress trousers as he mingled with guests including celebrated fashion designer Patrick Cox, veteran Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and his wife, theatre producer Sally Humphreys. Comedian Alan Carr was also in attendance on Wednesday evening, and he was in characteristically high spirits as he left the event later that night. Kylie's performance comes after she announced plans to revamp her popular 2015 Christmas album, for release this year. The Snow Queen edition of Kylie Christmas, which reached number seven on the album charts last year, features six new tracks The album will contain a number of classic Christmas covers as well as a handful of original tracks. Festive favourites Santa Baby, Let It Snow, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town and Winter Wonderland are on the track list once again, while Kylie will also include a cover of East 17's Stay Another Day. The most surprising offering on the album is an off-beat cover of Rozalla's 1992 house classic Everybody's Free (To Feel Good).

2016-12-07 20:19 Jason Chester www.dailymail.co.uk

33 /42 0.0 Developer wants to make southern Greensboro a destination GREENSBORO, N. C. -- Rolling into the Gate City from South Elm Street, your eyes meet the shells of factories built a century ago. Some have been left hollow, crumbling over the years, but others have been repurposed.

The Old Greensborough Gateway Center, which was once the Blue Bell building, has been used as office spaces since the 1980s. Now transformation is happening brick by brick.

“My goal is to try to attract an anchor tenant to downtown Greensboro,” said project developer Andy Zimmerman.

He’s trying to pull in a major retailer like Mast General Store or a VF Outlet to the space in southern Greensboro. If no big retailers bite, then he will turn the space into a similar incubator as one of his previous project: HQ Greensboro.

“The building was a manufacturing space, so we’ve got to add some elements that are going to attract people to this space,” Zimmerman said. “I want to do outdoor patios, I want to do great landscaping around.”

The first step involves revealing the windows on the first and second floor of the building that have been sealed in by brick for decades.

Current tenants were once nervous, but now excited for the change.

“Any time you’re going from old to new, there’s always gonna be a transformation. Sometimes it’s not always gonna be smooth, but it’ll be for the better,” said UThant Devlin, who runs a shoe shinning business in the building.

2016-12-07 19:46 Alex Rose myfox8.com

34 /42 2.7 Renowned jazz bassist Rufus Reid joins high school ensembles for Ann Arbor show ANN ARBOR, MI - Community High School's annual "PS Tonight We Swing IV" jazz concert features special guest and renowned jazz bassist Rufus Reid.

Reid, the MSUFCU Guest Artist in Residence, is joining the Michigan State University Be-Bop Spartans during the concert, which takes place at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, at Pioneer High School.

Rufus has toured and recorded with a number of jazz legends including Eddie Harris, Nancy Wilson, Harold Land & Bobby Hutcherson, Lee Konitz, The Thad Jones & Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, Dexter Gordon, J. Johnson, Art Farmer, Stan Getz, Kenny Burrell and Kenny Barron.

He continues to record adding to his extensive discography, with 18 recordings under his own name. In 2014, Reid paid tribute to African-American sculptor and civil rights activist Elizabeth Catlett on his album "Quiet Pride - The Elizabeth Catlett," which earned two Grammy Award nominations.

In addition to the performance by Reid and the Michigan State University Be-Bop Spartans, performances include the Community High School's Jazz Combo "Cold Tone Dreamery," the Louis Smith Jazz Orchestra from the Southeastern Music Academy and the Pioneer High School's Jazz Band.

2016-12-07 19:33 Martin Slagter www.mlive.com

35 /42 2.8 Interview: Country singer Alex Smith talks 'Load It Up' single (Includes first-hand account) Country singer Alex Smith chatted with Digital Journal about his single "Load It Up. " He also revealed his Top 3 dream female country duet picks. On his motivations, he said, "Music in general is in my family. It was always in me, and I will always be playing music. It is something I can't help. Even if I'm in a bad mood, I will sit and play the guitar and it will make me feel better. Music is therapeutic to the core. I love writing and I love performing. It is always interesting and amazing to see people singing your songs. If you write it and get to perform it, you get to see that live and you see people singing along, and it's crazy. " Smith listed Carrie Underwood, Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris as his dream female duet choices in country music. "Carrie Underwood would be my first pick. I would love to have Kelsea Ballerini on a song. That's one I would love to do, and if I were to do something edgy, I would pick Maren Morris. Those are my current Top 3 for sure," he said. His Fear of Missing Out EP is available on To learn more about country singer Alex Smith and his music, check out his Regarding his single, " Load It Up ," Smith said, "I started playing music in Louisiana, and I ended up writing a song about college life and going out. I was going to a bar in Louisiana, and that was what I had in mind when I wrote 'Load It Up.' It was a good party atmosphere type of song, and that's how it came about when I wrote it. I wrote it while I was at my mom's house during Christmas break. "On his motivations, he said, "Music in general is in my family. It was always in me, and I will always be playing music. It is something I can't help. Even if I'm in a bad mood, I will sit and play the guitar and it will make me feel better. Music is therapeutic to the core. I love writing and I love performing. It is always interesting and amazing to see people singing your songs. If you write it and get to perform it, you get to see that live and you see people singing along, and it's crazy. "Smith listed Carrie Underwood, Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris as his dream female duet choices in country music. "Carrie Underwood would be my first pick. I would love to have Kelsea Ballerini on a song. That's one I would love to do, and if I were to do something edgy, I would pick Maren Morris. Those are my current Top 3 for sure," he said. His Fear of Missing Out EP is available on iTunes To learn more about country singer Alex Smith and his music, check out his official website

2016-12-07 19:29 www.digitaljournal.com

36 /42 0.5 New Zealand upbeat about economic future, but with risks New Zealand's central bank governor painted a glowing picture of the economy Thursday just days after Prime Minister John Key resigned, but warned of uncertainties ahead. In a speech to an economic development conference, Graeme Wheeler said that "in many respects the economy is performing well". "Relative to the trends over the past two decades, we are experiencing stronger economic growth, lower inflation, and a lower unemployment rate. " His forecast came as the country prepares for the election of a new prime minister following Key's sudden departure this week for family reasons. Current Finance Minister Bill English, who guided New Zealand through the global financial crisis, is expected to replace him and maintain current economic policies. Wheeler said that in the absence of major unanticipated shocks, "prospects look good for continued strong growth over the next 18 months", driven by construction spending, migration, tourism and "and accommodative monetary policy". But while the Achilles heel of many New Zealand expansions -- a large current account deficit -- has not eventuated, Wheeler cautioned that not everything was positive. Economic growth, now entering its eighth year, was weaker than other post World War II expansions, gross domestic product growth on a per capita basis was slow and labour productivity growth disappointing, he said. "House price inflation is much higher than desirable and poses concerns for financial stability, and the exchange rate is higher than the economic fundamentals would suggest is appropriate," he added. The central bank last month cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low of 1.75 percent, citing New Zealand's stubbornly low inflation as a key reason. Inflation has been below the bank's 1.0-3.0 percent target for the past two years. New Zealand's economic growth remained strong at 3.6 percent in 2015/16, despite an international downturn in dairy, one of its major exports. Wheeler said the low point for inflation "has probably passed" and he expected figures due next week would show it moving back within the target band. However, New Zealand would enter 2017 with considerable political and economic uncertainties, he warned. "The greatest threat to the expansion lies in possible international political and economic developments and their implications for the global trading environment," he said. "The main domestic risk -- and one that could be triggered by developments offshore -- is a significant correction in the housing market. " He said monetary policy had been made more challenging by low global inflation and zero or negative interest rates in several major economies. "This has put downward pressure on our interest rate structure and contributed to asset price inflation and upward pressure on the New Zealand dollar. This trend may finally be turning. "

2016-12-07 19:20 Afp www.dailymail.co.uk

37 /42 1.2 Outlook upbeat for national and local economy, analyst says SALT LAKE CITY — Both the United States and Utah are on solid economic footing despite some initial concern following the presidential election, and what lies ahead in the New Year could also be promising, analysts say.

Spencer Levy, Americas head of research for real estate firm CBRE, said prospects for economic growth nationally are trending upward now that the "dust has settled" from the presidential race, and he says that should continue in the first few months of 2017.

“I expect there to be modestly more job growth and modestly more (commercial) tenant demand in the next six months because sentiment is modestly better,” Levy said Wednesday, speaking to an audience of commercial real estate professionals at the Grand America Hotel. “Longer term, after that six-month period, the proof is in the pudding," he said.

That proof will be determined by policy changes proposed by President-elect Donald Trump and whether they have the intended “stimulative effect,” said Levy, a native New Yorker who worked with Trump briefly as a young lawyer.

A potential "wild card," he said, could be possible restrictions on international trade or immigration that could change the trajectory of the overall economy. Also, the nation’s aging demographic, the national debt, political intransigence and automation could all be major issues that present significant concern for the new president that are not within governmental control, Levy said.

“Those are the issues that could push back hard” against otherwise strong economic progress, he said.

Local economist Darin Mellott, southwest region director of research and analysis for CBRE, noted that in the early months of 2107, the new president will likely find some opportunities to negotiate political positions that serve the country’s long-term vested interests.

“For things like tax policy and other types of fiscal policy and budgetary matters, (the majority party) can use a process called 'reconciliation' that requires a simple majority of votes in the Senate to close debate and override a filibuster,” Mellott explained. “They can use these kinds of maneuvers to push through the fiscal policies that the president-elect has advocated.”

Having that power would allow Republican leaders to move ahead with their long-range agenda, he said.

Levy said that while Trump may not be particularly well-versed in traditional political policies and etiquette, he speaks his mind and is able to connect with the electorate in a ways others have not — something that may serve him well in office.

“You may not like him, you may love him, but (either way) you understand him and what his point of view is,” he said. “It’s refreshing from a communications standpoint that you know where he stands, but the other wild card is that we have this international order of how things have been done.”

Levy said the president-elect tends to look at situations “transactionally” rather than with a historic or traditional approach, so he may not follow usual formalities regarding global politics.

From a broad economic perspective, Levy said he believes Trump understands the advantages of having positive relations with countries such as Mexico and China, so he will try to figure out a way to maintain the stability of those relationships.

“He’s going to want to increase the positives and lose some of the negatives,” he said.

Levy added that what Trump says in public will now have more impact than some of the policies that are eventually implemented.

“His voice is going to matter more and influence corporations perhaps even more than his policies, with the possible exception of tax and regulatory policy,” he said.

Meanwhile, on the subject of the local economy, Levy is "bullish" about the state’s near-term future.

“This is a very pro-business environment state,” he said. “And Salt Lake City is one of the best ‘live, work, play’ cities in the world. It’s a wonderful place to live in addition to work. "

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: JasenLee1

2016-12-07 19:03 Jasen Lee www.deseretnews.com

38 /42 2.9 ATF: ‘Jimami Tofu’ Gobbled up by iHQ, Viki, Encore SINGAPORE — “ Jimami Tofu ,” written, produced, directed and produced by Jason Chan and Christian Lee has entered intoW pre-sales agreements with Korea’s iHQ , global television platform Viki , and Encore Inflight. It will complete principal photography in December.

The film is produced by Chan and Lee’s Singapore-based outfit BananaMana Films with the support of the Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Okinawa Prefecture’s Film Tourism Promotion Project.

“Jimami Tofu” follows a Chinese Singaporean chef who is in Okinawa learning to cook traditional Okinawan food. A top Japanese food critic finds herself in Singapore on discovery of South East Asian cuisine. They are both looking for each other after an emotional breakup years ago when she left him without a trace.

The cast includes Jason Chan, Mari Yamamoto, Rino Nakasone and Masane Tsukayama.

BananaMana is focused on creating English-language Asian content for global distribution. Its most prominent production to date has been 2014 short “Perfect Girl” that achieved global distribution this year when it was picked up by Netflix, Viki and Korea’s Naver TVcast and D’Live.

The agreement was announced Wednesday at the ATF, part of the Singapore Media Festival .

2016-12-07 19:00 Naman Ramachandran variety.com

39 /42 0.6 ’s Revealing Portrayal of Racism in America In December 1963, producers at Baltimore’s WJZ-TV cancelled the Buddy Deane Show rather than integrate the popular teen dance program. This move would have been a footnote in the annals of television if not for the director and Baltimore native John Waters, whose 1988 film Hairspray offered up an alternate history, with its fictional Corny Collins Show and rose-tinted, let’s-all-dance-together ending. Hairspray , which started as a camp film with a modest $2.7 million budget, grew into a popular and commercially successful Broadway musical and movie. On Wednesday, NBC is broadcasting Hairspray Live! as its newest live- television musical adaptation.

Hairspray is firmly rooted in 1960s America, but it offers both sophisticated and (tellingly) simplistic ways of understanding racism today. On the one hand, the story’s feel-good conclusion implies that colorblindness is the silver bullet that ends racial discrimination, that good intentions and individual acts of bravery are enough to bring about harmony. On the other, Hairspray Live! has the chance to resurface a forgotten history of how discrimination in pop culture intimately shaped the lives of young people 50 years ago.

An Updated Company for an Era of Single Women

From 1957 to 1963, only white teens were allowed to attend the weekday broadcasts of the Buddy Deane Show, with the exception of one Monday each month when black teenagers filled the studio (the so-called “Black Monday”). In 1963, the Civic Interest Group, an student integrationist group founded at Morgan State University, challenged this policy by obtaining tickets for black and white teens to attend the show on a day reserved for black teenagers. After a surprise interracial broadcast, WJZ-TV received bomb and arson threats, hate mail, and complaints from white parents. Facing controversy over the possibility of more integrated broadcasts, the station canceled the program.

A devoted fan of the Buddy Deane Show , Waters drew on this history to write and direct the original film version of Hairspray. Unlike the tensions that followed the real integration of the Buddy Deane Show , Waters’s Hairspray ends with the protesters triumphing. The television news reporter covering the Corny Collins Show in the film sums up the climactic scene: “You’re seeing history being made today. Black and white together on local TV. The Corny Collins Show is now integrated!” Waters himself commented on the film’s revisionist history, “I gave it a happy ending that it didn’t have.”

Hairspray ’s happy ending gave the story an arc that appealed to Broadway and Hollywood producers. NBC’s Hairspray Live! maintains the basic of Waters’s story, but like the Broadway version and musical film, it features more than a dozen songs that help to convey the hopeful narrative. “You Can’t Stop the Beat,” for example, is an upbeat dance number that resolves the issue of segregation on the Corny Collins Show . “What’s great about the choreography in [“You Can’t Stop the Beat”] is that, subtly, the black dancers and the white dancers have the same choreography,” the executive producer Neil Meron said in the DVD commentary for the 2007 film. “All the choreography in the movie prior to this was segregated by race, and now it’s all together, which is a very, very subtle reference to the theme of this movie.”

This sentiment carries through to the song’s lyrics. Motormouth Maybelle, a fictional black deejay and civil-rights activist played in the NBC version by Jennifer Hudson, sings: “You can’t stop today as it comes speeding down the track / Child, yesterday is history and it’s never coming back / ’Cause tomorrow is a brand new day and it don’t know white from black.” In the film’s narrative, this utopian vision of a colorblind future solves the problem of segregation and racial injustice.

The Hairspray Live! producers hope this story of interracial unity will be appealing to television audiences in 2016. “People already were excited about it, but after the election they were saying, ‘Boy, do we need this now,’” Meron said while promoting the new television musical. With the nation in a “divisive place,” he argued, viewers are looking for entertainment “that can be really healing.” The New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani saw a similar dynamic at play when Hairspray , the musical, debuting shortly after 9/11, won over fans: “Hollywood and Broadway producers have decided [what] Americans want is nostalgia—the logic being that people in times of trouble will gravitate toward comfort entertainment that reminds them of simpler, happier times [such as] … the candy-colored Broadway musical Hairspray .’”

Hairspray ’s history of race in America suggests that racism is an issue of attitudes rather than of policies. In its version of 1960s Baltimore, teenagers sing and dance their way past race. The story also locates racial prejudice in a single character, Velma Von Tussle (played in the live musical by Kristin Chenoweth), which enables the other white characters to remain largely innocent bystanders to the discrimination faced by the program’s black teenagers. It suggests a way of understanding race that allows viewers to disavow bigotry—framed in the story as the belief that white and black Americans should live in separate spheres—without acknowledging, confronting, or seeking to overturn the actual structures of discrimination. This sort of nearsighted, if not disingenuous, framing persists today, whether in affluent parents in New York City insisting their opposition to school rezoning proposals is not about race, or in arguments suggesting that the best way to address racism is to stop accusing people of being “racists.”

Still, as an historian of the television era that Hairspray so lovingly recreates, I believe the story also presents a more nuanced vision of how popular culture helped to educate white and black teenagers about racial hierarchies. Seeing Hairspray as more than simply a post-racial American fantasy requires taking the story’s teen dance show setting seriously. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to what it meant for young black people to be excluded from entertainment spaces like the Buddy Deane Show. In a long list of reasons why “we find it difficult to wait” for freedom, King writes:

When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky … then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

King’s mention of “Funtown” is preceded by references to lynch mobs, police brutality, and the “airtight cage of poverty,” and followed by references to hotel segregation and racial slurs. The “Funtown” reference is powerful because it captures one of the ways that Jim Crow segregation and white supremacy played out for children and teenagers. For many young people, being blocked from swimming pools, skating rinks, or dance shows like the Buddy Deane Show would be one of their first exposures to what King calls the feeling of “forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness.’”

The Buddy Deane Show was a highly visible regional program that asserted a racially segregated public culture. And it was not unique: Dick Reid’s Record Hop in Charleston, West Virginia; Ginny Pace’s Saturday Hop in Houston, Texas; John Dixon’s Dixon on Disc in Mobile, Alabama; Bill Sanders’s show in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Dewey Phillips’s Pop Shop in Memphis, Tennessee; and Chuck Allen’s Teen Tempo in Jackson, Mississippi, were all segregated dance shows. In Little Rock, white teens went from protesting integration at Central High School to dancing in the afternoon on Steve’s Show. Nationally, blocked black teens from entering the studio during its years in , despite host ’s claims to the contrary. Every weekday afternoon, in each of these broadcast markets, these shows presented images of exclusively white dancers and rendered black youth as second-class teenagers. This discrimination was explicitly or tacitly supported by an array of advertisers, television stations, music producers, city authorities, and federal communications officials.

By representing this reality—in bubble-gum, technicolor clarity— Hairspray does something that pure documentation, at times, can’t: It makes a difficult part of a nation’s history accessible (and entertaining) to millions of viewers. Hairspray encourages its audience to take the fight to integrate a teenage TV show seriously, but it does so through songs, dances, and costumes that celebrate and satirize the ’60s. The film’s executive producer Craig Zadan argued that what makes Hairspray work is, “you never feel like we’re on a soap box, or we’re preaching to you, or we’re saying this is a lesson you need to learn... and yet, hopefully, you come away from it with something serious to talk about afterwards.” There is no guarantee that viewers will take up these discussions, but Hairspray offers plenty of material for those who choose to do so.

Perhaps the last thing 2016 needs is a star-studded, light-hearted musical endorsement of colorblindness—though, viewed holistically, Hairspray is more than that. Its fairly neat, commercialized, and revisionist portrayal of 1960s Baltimore sharply contrasts with the current messy, national discussion of identity politics—a disjunction that could prompt new audiences to reevaluate their assumptions about how racism operates. But Hairspray also resonates for at least one of the same reasons it did in the ’80s: It shows how seemingly innocent moments in popular culture were also sites of struggle over who was worthy of being a counted as a somebody in America.

2016-12-07 18:48 Matthew Delmont www.theatlantic.com

40 /42 2.8 Farrah Abraham: ‘I Get Better Treatment’ Than My ‘Teen Mom’ Costars Calling it like she sees it. Farrah Abraham spoke exclusively with Us Weekly and revealed why she believes she gets preferential treatment from MTV over her Teen Mom OG costars Amber Portwood , Maci Bookout and Catelynn Lowell.

“I get better treatment because I'm a hardworking business mogul and amazing mother who holds herself with respect and keeps production accountable and always goes above and beyond what is asked,” the TV personality, 25, tells Us . “And I stay above the trash they have on the show. Sadly, the girls are not taken seriously because of how they conduct themselves, and they're to blame, not me. "

The 16 and Pregnant alum — who is the mom of Sophia, 7 — adds: "Maci, Catelynn and Amber conduct themselves unprofessionally, disrespectfully and immaturely. Since 16 and Pregnant , Amber has tried to fight me, and Maci and Catelynn have been jealous. "

Abraham’s comments are in response to remarks made by Bookout, 25, during the dramatic TMOG season 6 reunion special, which aired on Monday, December 5. When the women — sans Abraham — joined host Dr. Drew Pinsky on stage at the end of the show, Bookout calmly explained that she had come in early to take Abraham’s filming spot because the former adult film actress had a “bitch fit” and ended up leaving.

In regard to Bookout's "bitch fit" claims, Abraham tells Us : "I don't ever have 'bitch fits.' It's clear only Maci, Amber and Catelynn do about me. "

The Bulletproof author also lamented that she, Portwood, 26, and Lowell, 24, had worked harder for the show, while Abraham did whatever she wanted for the past eight years. After sharing her thoughts, Bookout and the others removed their mics and walked off the set in protest of the network’s seemingly favorable treatment of Abraham.

Earlier in the show, Portwood pointed out that Dr. Drew never called Abraham out on her “bulls-- t,” while he does throw harder-hitting questions at the other three cast members.

Prior to Bookout’s criticism, Abraham and Portwood — who for years has defended the young businesswoman from the criticism of the rest of the cast — got into a heated screaming match that turned physical after the budding entrepreneur and her on-and-off beau, Simon Saran , suggested that the Never Too Late author’s fiancé, Matt Baier , looked like a “pedophile.”

Abraham previously claimed to Us that Baier broke her father’s hearing aids during the brawl. “MTV is covering the costs to fix my dad's hearing aids, as well as all leg injuries and other bills and casts that were requested by my dad's lawyer since MTV knew and put my family around criminals and the instigated fight,” she said . “MTV is diligently keeping my dad happy, so they hope my dad won't press charges but has every right to.”

MTV had no comment when Us Weekly reached out.

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2016-12-07 18:37 Us Weekly www.usmagazine.com

41 /42 3.7 The Edge District is Getting a Little Greener The Edge District is getting a little triangle of green space to call their own, thanks to efforts made to enhance a city-owned public space that had previously stood neglected for years. The small parcel of public land that sits snugly between Monroe Avenue, Madison Avenue, and South Orleans Street was once blighted by overgrowth and trash, and hosted some unsavory activities according to area residents. Now, the space has been cleaned up and beautified with art installations, walking paths, and fresh landscaping. Even the gargantuan generator that sits in the space got a mural- makeover. The restoration is a result of combined efforts between the UMDC, the Memphis Medical District Collaborative, and the Memphis College of Art. For Andy Kitsinger, interim director of the UMDC, it's a testament to what collaboration and community input can accomplish on a shoestring budget. "The great thing about this project was the design phase that incorporated community input," said Kitsinger. "We had a small budget, so we had to get creative. Some of our installations are temporary, some are more permanent, but the great thing is we can upgrade any of them if the community likes them. The Edge Triangle Celebration starts tomorrow at 4:00p.m. and lasts until 7:00p.m. and will feature live jazz music. Though temperatures are expected to be on the chilly side, Kitsinger and the team behind the effort will be combating the temperatures with hot chocolate and fire pits.

2016-12-07 18:24 Micaela Watts www.memphisflyer.com

42 /42 0.9 Trop’s Holiday Craft Fair returns with unique shopping experience, choir fundraiser Returning this year, the Trop’s Holiday Craft Fair will take place over three weekends at Trop’s Chocolates this holiday season bringing a unique shopping experience and gifts to the Gig Harbor community.

The fair features vendors carrying a range of items from knitted items to pottery, stained glass to ornaments and at price points for every shopper, said Heather Trop, co-owner with her husband, Larry.

“There’s going to be different vendors here every weekend,” she said. “We’re going to be rotating a lot of our vendors. You never know who’s going to be here.”

The first weekend of the fair was held Saturday and Sunday , with two more weekends taking place before Christmas.

Trop said that the idea of a craft fair was first presented to her family last year as a way to raise money after a house fire destroyed the family’s home and belongings.

Because of the popularity last year, the Trops decided to bring the craft fair back again to feature local artists and help other small businesses. “What we really wanted was to give small businesses a chance to sell their products before Christmas,” Trop said.

Booth fees for the event were set very low to minimize overhead cost for the vendors, but remain high enough that they were still invested in attending the event.

“The crafters take their total profit. I’m not touching that,” Trop said. “All we wanted was people to commit to being here.”

Another reason for the fair is to provide a way for her daughter, Emily, to raise money for an upcoming choir trip to New York to sing at Carnegie Hall with her choir at Gig Harbor High School.

To raise money for the trip, Emily, 17 and a senior at GHHS, will be selling Riverdance Soap Works at a booth in the craft fair, including some specialty lotion made from the Trop’s own cocoa butter.

Also fundraising for the trip are silent auction items, which remain on display and available for bids at the store during the week.

Entertainment at the fair is scheduled with the GHHS choir and the Peninsula High School choir, who performed last weekend. The GHHS choir is scheduled to perform this weekend.

The community involvement and connection is one of the favorite parts of the event for Trop, who said watching the PHS choir invite her daughter to sing with them was particularly rewarding.

“There wasn’t a rivalry,” she said. “It was just really sweet, really great kids.”

2016-12-07 18:21 By Andrea www.thenewstribune.com

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Created at 2016-12-08 11:14