“A People’s Tribute to the Queen,” a concert honoring Aretha Franklin has started at Chene Park Ampitheater in Detroit.
The Four Tops and Johnny Gill headline a list of more than 40 artists expected to perform at the three-hour concert. The show, organized by Franklin’s family, will include R&B, jazz and gospel tributes, a dance sequence and a special family tribute featuring the singer’s son Eddie Franklin and her grandchildren. The finale will be an all-star performance of “Respect.”
“The Queen of Soul” died on Aug. 16 of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. She was 76.
Freep.com is providing live coverage of the concert. You can watch live in the player above starting at 6 p.m. ET Thursday.
Multiple people were killed and others were seriously injured Thursday in a crash involving a commercial passenger bus and a semi-truck along Interstate 40 in New Mexico, near the Arizona border, authorities said. (Aug. 30) AP
A horrific collision between a Greyhound bus and a semi-truck on an interstate in New Mexico killed several passengers and sent scores of others to area hospitals, authorities reported Thursday.
Officers and rescue workers were on scene but did not provide details about how many people were killed or injured, or what caused the crash. Television footage of the crash site on Interstate 40 showed the front of the bus had crumpled after impact.
The truck was on its side with debris scattered over the highway and a nearby median.
Greyhound said the bus was heading from Albuquerque to Phoenix with 47 passengers.
“We are fully cooperating with local authorities and will also complete an investigation of our own,” Greyhound spokeswoman Crystal Booker said in a statement.
The crash occurred near the town of Thoreau. It forced the closure of the westbound lanes of the interstate and traffic was backing up as travelers were diverted.
More than 33 patients have been transported to local area hospitals with injuries, some are said to be in critical condition, ABC News reported, quoting authorities.
Christopher Jones said he got to the accident site just after the crash.
“I saw the tractor trailer flipped upside down the driver of the tractor trailer was on the shoulder just sitting there. So I grabbed my medical kit and grabbed a bunch of my gloves and got out there and just started helping people and it was a pretty rough site,” Jones told ABC News.
Jones, who said he used to be a volunteer firefighter and EMT, described the scene as “one of the hardest” he’s ever had to see.
Leigh Griffiths’ 100th goal for Celtic opened the scoring in the first half
Celtic salved some of their European disappointment by easing into the group stage of the Europa League.
The Scottish champions dropped into the continent’s second-tier competition after being knocked out of Champions League qualifying by AEK Athens.
But Leigh Griffiths’ 100th goal for the club, and strikes by Callum McGregor and Kristoffer Ajer, secured a 4-1 aggregate win over Lithuania’s Suduva.
Celtic will join Rangers in Friday’s group stage draw (12:00 BST).
This season will be the first time in over a decade that there have been two Scottish clubs in the league section of a European competition – the Old Firm clubs were both in the Champions League in 2007/08.
The Glasgow sides will meet on Sunday in their first derby of the campaign.
Revived Griffiths joins feted list
This always promised to be a comfortable night for Celtic – and so it proved.
The hubbub over striker Moussa Dembele – absent as he ponders life in the wake of Lyon’s rejected bid – was put to one side and his team-mates put the Lithuanian champions away without any fuss.
Having fallen down the pecking order, Griffiths hasn’t had the easiest time of it of late at Celtic, but his free-kick just before the half hour was the Griffiths of old.
He actually had two decent chances just before, but when he sized-up the dead ball it was Hampden versus England all over again. Up and over and in.
It earned Griffiths a place in the pantheon of Celtic’s goalscoring centurions. Some list, that. Jimmy McGrory, Bobby Lennox, Stevie Chalmers, Henrik Larsson and Kenny Dalglish to name just five.
Suduva tried to keep the score down, but couldn’t. McGregor, for one, was too much for them. Celtic wasted a few chances, but when Scott Sinclair squared for McGregor early in the second half, the midfielder all but guaranteed Celtic’s progress.
Ajer’s angled header made it three, a goal that did something to reflect Celtic’s total domination.
There could have been more – the impressive replacement Ryan Christie, Mikey Johnston, Sinclair and Ajer all went close – but this was a stroll for Celtic. The Europa League beckons.
Striking comparisons as derby looms – analysis
All thoughts now turn to Sunday and the much-anticipated meeting of Rodgers’ Celtic and Steven Gerrard’s Rangers.
There were signs here that Celtic are beginning to find their attacking mojo. And they’ll need it. Rangers are not the pushovers of last season. They look well-organised and robust in defence where previously they were accident-prone and demoralised even before they got off the bus at Celtic Park.
Rodgers and Gerrard have some decisions to make, principally up front. Can Gerrard trust Alfredo Morales, big on goal threat but woefully short in the fuse department, in the white heat of Parkhead?
The Celtic manager has a conundrum, too. Will Dembele still be a Celtic player? And if he is still in Glasgow what will his mood be like?
Questions about Dembele and about Odsonne Edouard. Is he fit enough to make it? In most of his marquee wins, Rodgers has one of the two Frenchmen starting. They’ve delivered them and again.
What now? Griffiths didn’t look pin-sharp against Suduva, but he got his goal and regained some confidence. The tale of the Old Firm strikers will be a big theme in the coming days.
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First, there was Dallas and Los Angeles. Now Uber wants a third city to fly its air taxi service, and it’s looking internationally.
In what feels like Amazon’s search for a second headquarters location, Uber this week announced its shortlist for countries the ride-hailing app would work with to launch its aviation project UberAir, a flight-sharing network with electric vertical take-off and landing (e-VTOLs) aircraft. The planes are expected to cruise at about 150 mph and reach about 2,000 feet. The electric planes will go 60 miles on a charge.
The countries were announced during the Uber Elevate Asia Pacific Expo in Japan. The list includes Japan and the cities of Tokyo and Osaka; India with Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore; Australia in Melbourne or Sydney; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Paris, France, where Uber already announced an Advanced Technologies Center to study and develop flying cars.
Uber already announced that Los Angeles and Dallas would be the first American cities to demo its flying taxi system in 2020, with flights expected to be offered to commercial fliers by 2023. Last year, Uber produced a slick, futuristic video (above) to preview what that might look like.
But first, Uber has to determine which international city will join in the company’s ambitious plans.
During the expo in Japan, Uber presented potential flight paths for cities to show what it could look like when a customer orders a short plane ride from an app.
Here’s a proposed trip near Tokyo from Haneda to Narita airports:
What a flight with UberAir in Japan could look like.
Uber says its e-VTOLs would take under 20 minutes to cover about 40 miles (what is usually nearly two hours by car). Uber also showed potential routes in Delhi, Mumbai, Seoul, Sydney, and Taipei.
Here’s what the Sydney route could look like:
Preference is being given to high density metro areas with more than 2 million people so that pooled flights make sense. Uber says it also wants “polycentric” regions (urban areas made up of multiple cities), and would rather work with cities that already cooperate smoothly with Uber on the street. Uber has a full list that goes deep into its criteria.
Separate from Uber’s search, Bloomberg reports that Japanese government officials are moving ahead to develop a flying car system. The country is in talks with Uber and other aviation companies to bring short-haul, commuter flights to the country within the next 10 years.
No word yet on when the UberAir finalist cities will be announced, but if it’s anything like the Amazon search for a second headquarters, this might take a while.
When The Little Stranger star Domhnall Gleeson first received the script for the gothic thriller, it wasn’t for the principal role.
“Originally, Lenny [Abrahamson, of Room] sent me the script to play a different character, and I said, ‘I’ll do anything you want me to do in any project, but would you mind considering me for the character Faraday?’” Gleeson, who previously worked with the director on 2014’s Frank, tells EW. “There’s such a change in him over the course of the film, and it’s so dark and unlike anything I’ve ever played before.”
Nicole Dove/Focus Features
Yes, Dr. Faraday is more than a little bit of an oddball. Adapted by Lucinda Coxon from Sarah Waters’ novel and set during the summer of 1948, the story tells of the (initially) good doctor’s visits to Hundreds Hall — the two-century-old, once prestigious, now dilapidated home of the Ayres family. But creaking floorboards and incessant dust are far from the Ayres’ biggest problem. “People talk about it like it’s the weird Downton Abbey cousins down the road, who they don’t talk to anymore because they started falling apart,” Gleeson jokes.
As Faraday spends more time with the family, he begins to realize the past haunts them, perhaps literally. It’s not long before the doctor, eager to shake off his working-class beginnings, becomes entwined in the once-aristocratic family’s life and home, starting a romantic dalliance with daughter Caroline (played by The Affair’s Ruth Wilson) and inserting himself into the house’s daily goings-on — unnerving and otherwise.
Nicole Dove/Focus Features
“He’s got a lot of anger and bitterness bottled up, and yet he’s a good man,” explains Gleeson. “Lenny gave me this phrase early on, and I wrote it on the front of my script: ‘If you’re carrying something explosive, you walk carefully.’ He’s maneuvering himself through his life carefully because he’s aware that there’s something inside of him. As it goes on, you begin to feel the house is sick, the people are sick. As the doctor, he tries to cure them, and then he gets sick himself. You ask, ‘Where is this all coming from?’”
Where this is all coming from forms the mystery at the center of the story. Caroline and her brother, Roderick (Will Poulter), lost a young sister, Suki, and their mother (Charlotte Rampling) a daughter. While Mrs. Ayres still mourns and clings to the memory of Suki, Faraday’s grief is directed at the loss of the ruling-class’ position and the general demise of that social hierarchy, despite never being part of it himself.
“He wants something that he can’t have,” says Gleeson. “He wants to be of the house, he wants to be of those people, he wants to be thought of as their level of society. But even with all the money in the world, he would never be thought of at their level. He will always be from a working-class background. He will also be new money, the help. He just burns with shame of it all, and you don’t get rid of that. You carry that for the rest of your life. It’s like a disease that eats away at you as you realize that you’ll never get what you want.”
For a moment, it seems that a relationship with Caroline will be his permanent ticket into the house, but she, disillusioned with how her once-promising future is panning out, sees Faraday as a way out of her stale existence at Hundred Halls. “What they find in each other feels destined to fail,” says Gleeson. “The back-and-forth on whether that relationship is good for them is endlessly interesting. Ruth did such a beautiful job. We used to laugh about Caroline between takes. She would be like, ‘Jesus Christ, why would she do that?’ And then she found herself making her worse during the scene: a little bit more snooty or a little bit more desperate or a little bit more sexual. Working with her was wonderful.”
As Faraday and Caroline struggle to agree on their relationship status, strange and violent incidents start occurring in the stately home, caused by the lingering anger of young Suki — or something else completely. “You don’t know who is behind what is happening,” Gleeson says. “You don’t know who’s to blame for the deterioration of these people’s minds as the film progresses. Are they doing it to themselves? Is he to blame? Is she to blame? Is the maid to blame? The energy in the house starts feeding Faraday, and Faraday starts feeding the energy. Things start happening that amount to giving him what he wants, or what he thinks he wants, but ultimately none of them can get out of the house. They’re all stuck.”
The Little Stranger’s potentially paranormal activity aside, does its star believe in such things? “People always ask me if I believe in ghosts and all that sort of stuff, because that’s the center of the story — this child who died who may be haunting them,” he says. “I’ve never believed in ghosts, but I’ve been terrified in the middle of the night sometimes and I don’t know why. And I think that’s scarier: Your mind only gives you things that are useful.”
The Little Stranger starts haunting theaters Aug. 31.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said he would freeze the pay of federal workers next year, saying the nation can’t afford the 2.1% raises that would have gone into effect without presidential action.
In a notice to Congress Thursday, Trump cited “serious economic conditions” in cutting pay to civilian workers. “We must maintain efforts to put our nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases,” Trump said.
It would be the first pay freeze for civilian federal workers since 2011 to 2013, when President Barack Obama instituted a three-year pay freeze as the nation recovered from the recession.
Under federal law, federal employees get cost-of-living raises every new year – in addition to specific increases in high-cost cities called “locality pay” – unless the president determines those raises would be “inappropriate.”
Among the factors the president can consider: economic growth, unemployment, various measures of inflation and the budget deficit.
The federal budget deficit has grown 16 percent this fiscal year, the result of a combination of Trump-supported tax cuts and military spending, as well as increases in mandatory spending programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The national debt – the accumulation of those budget deficits – has increased nearly $1.6 trillion over the past year, to $21.4 trillion.
Congress can override the president’s pay freeze through legislation. This month, the Senate voted of 96-2 to approve its version of a spending bill that would fix across-the-board civilian raises next year at 1.9 percent.
Tony Reardon, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, called Trump’s move “deeply disappointing” and an indication that the Trump administration “simply does not respect its own workforce.”
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said Trump didn’t have the power to force changes to union contracts because they would violate the collective bargaining rights federal employees have under the law.
The Miss America Organization says contestants will no longer be judged on outward appearance. USA TODAY
We live in a divided America these days so, of course, we’re divided over Miss America, too, even as antiquated notions of “beauty” lose their cultural significance. Maybe because of that.
So here we are again, back in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where 51 women from the states and the District of Columbia arrived to “compete” for the title of Miss America even as the people running the show carry on their combat behind the scenes, on social media or even in the streets.
On the surface, the conflict is about whether contestants should compete in skimpy swimsuits, long a part of pageant protocol. Below the surface, it’s about who controls the 97-year-old Miss America brand. And deeper still, it’s about America’s latest wrestling match over the meaning of feminism and female empowerment in the 21st century.
It’s all a deadly serious matter to critics, defenders and fervent fans of these annual displays of comely young women parading down runways in gowns and crowns.
The 2019 Miss America Competition will be broadcast live on Sept. 9 on ABC (9 p.m. EDT/PDT), co-hosted by “Dancing With the Stars” judge Carrie Ann Inaba and Ross Mathews, a panelist from “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
“We will no longer judge our candidates on their outward physical appearance. That means we will no longer have a swimsuit competition,” Carlson said on “Good Morning America.”
She said she was left out of interviews and not invited to meetings and that her televised farewell speech was cut to 30 seconds after she indirectly hinted at trouble with pageant leadership in a media interview.
“Our chair and CEO have systematically silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me, and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis,” she lamented in a letter she wrote to former Miss Americas. “…The sheer accumulation of the disrespect, passive-aggressive behavior, belittlement, and outright exclusion has taken a serious toll.”
She and Carlson have since feuded on social media and in the press about who bullied who and who should have reached out to the other first before going to the media.
In response, 30 Miss America winners issued their own letter, saying they “fully support Gretchen Carlson (and) our unified board who are and have been working tirelessly to move our program forward.”
Origins of the dispute …
Miss America has been embroiled in drama since December 2017, when CEO Sam Haskell and several other board members abruptly departed following the leak of vulgar and sexist emails denigrating the appearance, intellect and sex lives of former Miss Americas.
As the #MeToo movement to call out sexual abuse and harassment took flight, Carlson, who left Fox after she successfully sued the network accusing the late Roger Ailes of sexual harassment, became the new face of Miss America, while Hopper became the new CEO.
Why a swimsuit isn’t just a swimsuit
Carlson has argued that it’s more important to judge women on what comes out of their mouths instead of what they wear or don’t wear. She said it’s “disturbing” to assume viewers might be “bored” by a pageant that celebrates women’s talents, ideas and personalities without the usual jiggle and wriggle.
“We’ve heard from a lot of young women who say, ‘We’d love to be a part of your program, but we don’t want to be out there in high heels and a swimsuit,’ ” she said when she announced the swimsuit decision. “So guess what? You don’t have to do that anymore. You’re welcome. Please come join us.”
“I thought it would be like, ‘Hey, what’s y’all’s opinion?’ ” she said. “But, no. It was, ‘I have taken away swimsuit and we expect your support.’ If they had taken a poll, they would have gotten a resounding ‘no.’ “
Taking it personally
Some critics have taken to op-ed pages to protest that the changes are an implicit dismissal of all the thousands who competed in the past under the old traditions – and what was so wrong with those traditions anyway?
“With this change, is it saying that I’m not good enough? That my swimsuit win negates everything else on that ballot where I scored? I guess I’m not smart or talented because I have a trophy. Girls like me don’t belong anymore.”
On the other hand, Jennifer Aniston – who plays an ex-pageant queen in her upcoming movie, “Dumplin,’ ” – is thrilled about the swimsuit ban. In an interview with InStyle, she questioned how a swimsuit could be a considered a valid measure of a woman’s worth.
“You know, a swimsuit body is a body in a swimsuit, no matter what that body is. It’s time to just stop thinking beauty is in the shape of a size 4, and the right butt size, and the right waist size, and the right measurements. It’s just old. We’ve done it. We’ve been there. Let’s move on,” she declared.
The scholarship money
After Mund went public with her complaints, Carlson took to Twitter to deny she bullied Mund and to claim that Mund’s actions had cost Miss America $75,000 in scholarship money. “We are already seeing a negative ripple effect across the entire organization,” she said.
Mund pooh-poohed that. “Sending out this letter, I’ve had so much support, and two of our top sponsors actually messaged me directly and told me they were proud of the courage to stand up for what’s right.”
Hopper told The Associated Press that at least as much would be given out in scholarship funds this year as last year: around $500,000 from the Miss America Organization and the Miss America Foundation.
Talk about healing
On Aug. 8, in an interview with AP that Carlson said would be her last on the subject, she said she hoped for healing and unity by the time the next Miss America is crowned.
“It would be important that we all try to come together and have a healing process,” she said. At the same time, she dismissed her critics as “a noisy minority” mostly unhappy about the elimination of the swimsuit competition.
But the conflict was far from over as contestants begin arriving in Atlantic City. It might even get worse, at least in public.
Some of the critics told the AP they planned to make a public stink during the week leading up to the show, including filing lawsuits, holding news conferences and mounting demonstrations outside Boardwalk Hall where the pageant will take place.
Four of the last five English sides to take part in Europa League qualification have failed to reach the main stage of the tournament (also West Ham in 16-17 & 15-16, and Southampton in 15-16)
Burnley rediscovered their identity despite crashing out of the Europa League, says manager Sean Dyche.
The Clarets failed to make it through to Friday’s group stage draw after wasting a string of chances in their play-off round second leg against Olympiakos at Turf Moor.
Trailing 3-1 from the first leg in Greece, Sam Vokes spurned two great goalscoring opportunities before hitting the post, while Ashley Barnes and 18-year-old Dwight McNeil also went close.
The hosts were punished when Daniel Podence fired into the roof of the net after a counter-attack before substitute Matej Vydra scrambled an equaliser.
However, Burnley lost on 4-2 on aggregate and, after securing a return to European football for the first time in 51 years, are out after just 36 days and six games.
Dyche, who has seen his side make a stuttering start to the Premier League season, preferred to concentrate on the positives afterwards and insisted the club would learn from the experience.
“That performance was back to where we belong, it’s back to everything we are about,” he added.
“I wanted our team to get back to their identify and I felt that was clearly on show from the first whistle to the last.
“We mixed our play well, we created chances, there was energy – all the things you want from a performance.
“The result doesn’t get us through but it could have easily have turned our way.”
Clarets pay for first leg defeat
Burnley will be kicking themselves they will not be joining Arsenal, Chelsea, Rangers and Celtic in the group stage draw.
It was a case of so close yet so far as they created enough chances to turn the tie on its head inside the opening 45 minutes alone.
After the full-time whistle, Dyche applauded home fans who had encouraged their team throughout the tie, while Olympiakos’ players celebrated in front of their small band of travelling supporters.
Burnley dominated from start to finish but it was not to be.
Vokes was unfortunate to see his curling attempt rebound off a post early in the second half having earlier missed two golden opportunities.
He headed agonisingly wide after a super cross from the impressive McNeil, making his first competitive start, before putting a header from point-blank range over the bar.
Barnes saw a deflected first-time shot roll wide while McNeil, who was brought up in Manchester United’s youth academy, forced a one-handed save from Andreas Gianniotis.
Olympiakos used their vast European experience to progress, Podence’s away goal seven minutes from time making it 4-1 on aggregate to end Burnley’s realistic hopes of going through.
Czech Republic forward Vydra did manage to mark his first appearance since signing from Derby with a goal after a scramble inside the Olympiakos penalty area.
However, the goal came too late to prove significant.
Dyche’s side had overcome Aberdeen and Istanbul Basaksehir to reach the play-off round but their European adventure is over and Burnley are left to focus on the Premier League, where they are yet to win and host Manchester United (16:00 BST) on Sunday.
“The whole club will learn from this experience,” added Dyche. “It bodes well for the future but we have got to use it wisely because we want these players to continue growing and we want to get stronger as the season progresses.”
Why McNeil impressed – the stats
Dwight McNeil created more chances than other Burnley player against Olympiakos (four), on what was his first senior start aged 18 years and 281 days.
Excluding own goals, seven different players have already found the net for Burnley in all competitions this season (10 goals). The 40 goals they scored in 2017-18 were spread across just 11 players.
Olympiakos have now successfully qualified for the main tournament on each of their last two attempts (also 16-17), failing only in 2010-11.
Olympiakos midfielder Kostas Fortounis was directly involved in all four of Olympiakos’ goals over the two legs, scoring twice and assisting once in Greece, before setting up Daniel Podence’s opener at Turf Moor.
The gaming community has rallied together following the shooting at a Madden event in Jacksonville, and now Electronic Arts has made a sizeable monetary contribution.
EA will donate $1 million to support the victims of Sunday’s tragedy, which it’s called the Jacksonville Tribute.
“We’re also working to set up a fund where others can contribute alongside our donation, and we will come back very soon with further details,” the statement reads.
“Contributions will go to the victims, including the families of Taylor Robertson, Elijah Clayton, and all those who were affected.”
EA will also host a livestream in tribute on Sep. 6, allowing the wider community to join together and unite in play.
On Tuesday, EA cancelled three remaining qualifier events which were scheduled as part of the Madden Classic tournament. EA CEO Andrew Wilson said it would run “a comprehensive review of safety protocols for competitors and spectators.”
“We will work with our partners and our internal teams to establish a consistent level of security at all of our competitive gaming events,” the statement added.
Competitors Taylor “SpotMePlzzz” Robertson and Elijah “TrueBoy” Clayton died at the Jacksonville event, while 11 others were injured in the incident.
For nine seasons, Emmy Rossum has played the fierce, loyal, and strong Fiona Gallagher. But now, the 31-year-old actress is saying goodbye to Shameless, an announcement she made on Thursday. Only hours after sharing an emotional post on social media, Rossum chatted with EW about her difficult decision.
“I will never be saying goodbye to Fiona,” she exclusively tells EW. “Fiona is a part of me and has been like every character is a part of you and you are a little bit part of them. My Shameless family is really my second family and I’ve spent so much time with them — 10,000 hours — that it really feels like we’ve all grown up together. I started on the show when I was 23 and now I’m not. [Laughs.] And it’s a wonderful, wonderful amount of time and I feel incredibly proud of everything we have created. I’m just filled with gratitude for everyone’s hard work.”
While Shameless is an ensemble drama featuring a large cast, including frequent Emmy-nominee William H. Macy, Rossum is the de facto lead, as Fiona, the oldest Gallagher sibling, has served as the matriarch of the family from the beginning. But despite Fiona’s prominence and her departure at the end of the upcoming ninth season, Rossum sees no end in sight for Shameless.
“We feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to investigate these characters and to continue to do so — and everyone will continue to do so until whenever the audience decides that they’ve had enough,” she shared. “I think the show could quite honestly go on forever, because the family is dynamic and the kids grow up and they have their own story lines and they branch out and they are fully-realized actors and human beings and they have opinions. I think there is so much to be mined here. There are so few shows on television that are showing what it’s like to live in America and struggle right now. There are so many shows on TV that are aspirational, that are about vampires or zombies, that are escapist in someway, or just about plain rich people. So to have a show that’s doing what other shows aren’t and to have the audience stick with it is such a privilege.”
Read Rossum’s initial post about her departure below.
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