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☆ 4 Hermès Birkin collectors cracked the code to getting their hands on the coveted bag
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Amanda Krause | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

But of course, Birkins, Kelly bags, and other Hermès pieces are nothing new. Jasmine Rasco and one of her Birkin bags. Richard Rodriguez/Stringer/Getty ImagesName: Tiffany MoonAdvertisementAge: 39Her first Birkin: Moon's first Birkin bag was a celebratory purchase. "I see these huge, palatial closets filled with lots of different Hermès bags. Why she loves them: The exclusivity factor plays a part in Millen's love for Hermès bags, but for her, it's about the quality.

Persons: Hermès, Birkin, Kelly, —, Thierry Hermès, Robert Dumas —, Émile Hermès —, He's, They're, Jasmine Rasco, Rasco, Sellier, Azalee, Roscoe, it's, I'm, Tiffany Moon, Richard Rodriguez, Stringer, Tiffany, Moon's, Birkin —, Dallas, We're, I've, Lydia Millen, Joe Giddens, Millen, who's, slouchy Birkin, they're, Tania Antonenkova, Antonenkova, she's Organizations: Service, Hermès, Business, Epsom, Housewives Locations: Birkins, Paris, Hermès, Togo, Texas, San Fransisco, San Francisco, London, Faubourg, Versailles

☆ Beyoncé's country songs are bringing new listeners to the genre, boosting streams for Black artists
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-16 | by ( Micah Washington | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

While some music critics praised Knowles' country tracks, other fans of the genre refrained from a warm welcome. Beyond just radio, Black artists and artists of color represented less than 4% of country songs played on the radio, airplay, charting songs, artists signed to major labels and award nominations, according to SongData. One such fan, Tenley Patterson, 26, said she didn't bother listening to country music before Beyoncé's releases, but was impressed with the country tracks. Rachel Whitney, head of editorial for the Nashville team, said playlists outside of the country genre are playing Knowles' country tracks, broadening its reach. The Beyoncé draw is also boosting exposure for other artists on some lists, like Lainey Wilson and Cody Johnson, who have more "traditional" country songs, Whitney said.

Persons: Beyonce, James Devaney, Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé Knowles, Tanner Adell, Mickey Guyton, Reyna Roberts, Knowles, Alice Randall, Randall, —, Rhiannon Giddens, hasn't, Jocelyn Neal, Maren Morris, Luke Combs, Kacey, Lil Nas, Nas X, Tim Mosenfelder, Neal, Knowles —, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, George Bush, Tenley Patterson, I've, Patterson, It's, there's, Z, Rachel Whitney, Lainey Wilson, Cody Johnson, Whitney, Kevin Mazur Organizations: Scott, New York, Spotify, The New York Times, Radio, University of North, NBC, Houston, CMA, Republican, Nashville, Crypto.com Arena, The Recording Academy Locations: Brooklyn, New, New York City, U.S, Texas, an Oklahoma, University of North Carolina, San Francisco , California, Iraq, Los Angeles , California

☆ Beyoncé Fan’s Radio Request Reignites Country Music Debate
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-14 | by ( Emily Schmall | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In Oklahoma, a small country music station that refused a listener’s request to play a new song by Beyoncé was forced to change its tune after an uproar from fans who say that Black artists are too often excluded from the genre. On Tuesday morning, Justin McGowan requested that the D.J.s at KYKC, a country music radio station in Ada, play “Texas Hold ’Em,” one of two new songs Beyoncé released as announced in a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday. Beyoncé, who grew up in Houston, sings about hoedowns, and the twangy song also features a fellow Black Grammy winner, Rhiannon Giddens, on banjo and viola. The station manager, Roger Harris, emailed Mr. McGowan back with a concise rejection: “We do not play Beyoncé at KYKC as we are a country music station.” In sending the email, Mr. Harris unwittingly ignited a new flame in a long-simmering debate over how Black artists fit into a genre that has Black music at its roots.

Persons: Beyoncé, Justin McGowan, Rhiannon Giddens, Roger Harris, McGowan, Harris Locations: Oklahoma, KYKC, Ada, Houston

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Country music singer Chris Stapleton, Foo Fighters, Queen Latifah and New Orleans' own Jon Batiste are among the star power set to join The Rolling Stones as headliners of this year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, organizers announced Thursday. The event will take place over two weekends, starting April 25 and ending May 5. Organizers announced last fall that The Rolling Stones would headline the festival on Thursday, May 2, as part of the group's North American tour. Because they're appearing on what would traditionally have been “Locals Thursday” at the festival, Jazz Fest added a day to the beginning of this year’s event. At the Cultural Exchange Pavilion this year, Jazz Fest will highlight the music and culture of Colombia with 17 bands performing Colombian salsa, cumbia, champeta and other regional genres.

Persons: Chris Stapleton, Queen Latifah, Jon Batiste, Anderson, Paak, Bonnie Raitt, Rhiannon Giddens, Fantasia, Irma Thomas, Jeffrey Osborne, Big Freedia, Shorty, Jimmy Buffett Organizations: ORLEANS, Foo Fighters, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, The Free Nationals, Boys, Orleans, Coral Reefer, Cultural, Jazz Locations: New Orleans, Louisiana, Colombia, Colombian

☆ Black Folk Musicians Are Reclaiming the Genre
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-10 | by ( Adam Bradley | Justin French | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

[GUITAR PLAYING] I really think folk music can find its origins in all Black music. [BANJO PLAYING] The main thing about folk is it is a storytelling genre. So any genre that conveys a story to the audience I would consider folk music. [FOLK MUSIC PLAYING] There was a particular act called the Carolina Chocolate Drops. I’m also trying to lift up all the different voices so that we have a more well-rounded picture of African-American folk music traditions.

Persons: Gibson, Rhiannon Giddens, Justin Robinson, Joe Thompson, ”, Gwendolyn Brooks, darlin ’ Corey, ’ Corey, ” I’ve, I’m, —, I’ve, We’re, ” “ Organizations: Music, East Tennessee State University, West Locations: Johnson City, That’s, New Orleans, West African, Holbrook

☆ EU's von der Leyen visits Kyiv ahead of report on accession progress
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen attends the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Britain November 2, 2023. Joe Giddens/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsKYIV, Nov 4 (Reuters) - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrived in Kyiv on Saturday ahead of a report the European Union is expected to present next week about Ukraine's progress in its membership bid, a Ukrainian lawmaker said. Parliamentary deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak said on his Telegram channel that von der Leyen was expected to speak in the Ukrainian parliament. Ukraine, which applied to join the European Union days after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, sees joining the trade bloc as a top priority. Von der Leyen's visit comes at a difficult moment for Ukraine as its troops battle fatigue and concerns swirl over the future of vital U.S. military assistance which Kyiv relies on heavily.

Persons: Ursula von der Leyen, Joe Giddens, Yaroslav Zheleznyak, der Leyen, Ukraine's, Annalena Baerbock, Von der, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Olena, Tom Balmforth Organizations: Artificial Intelligence, Bletchley, Rights, European, German, Thomson Locations: Milton Keynes , Buckinghamshire, Britain, Kyiv, European Union, Ukrainian, Ukraine, European

☆ Rhiannon Giddens Is a Songwriter, Too
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-07 | by ( Jon Pareles | More About Jon Pareles | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Giddens amassed the songs on “You’re the One” over more than a decade, channeling and mixing favorite styles, mingling homages and hybrids. Its oldest song is “Hen in the Foxhouse,” a cheerful yet pointedly feminist funky blues — with a scat-singing bridge — that she wrote 14 years ago. “In terms of my own songwriting lineage, my lyricist lineage, it’s a through line: Stephen Sondheim, Tom Lehrer, Tin Pan Alley. “She wanted this new album to be brighter and lighter and open and colorful,” Jack Splash said in a phone interview, and she wanted all of her musical influences to come into play. It has a large room where a band of a dozen musicians — merging Giddens’s folky regulars with Jack Splash’s R&B experts — could record together live.

Persons: Giddens, “, ”, Stephen Sondheim, Tom Lehrer, Tin, Jack Splash, Valerie June, Kendrick Lamar, CeeLo, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, Allman, Jack Splash’s, — Organizations: Bee Locations: Miami, Louisiana

☆ These are the states in America that are the least prepared for extreme weather
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-28 | by ( Scott Cohn | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

Some states are in good shape to handle whatever the climate throws at them, but these are the states most at risk. 2023 Infrastructure score: 228 out of 390 points (Top States grade: B) Climate Extremes Index: 21.16% Properties at risk: 45.2% Renewable energy: 10.6%9. 2023 Infrastructure score: 165 out of 390 points (Top States grade: D) Climate Extremes Index: 8.7% Properties at risk: 2.8% Renewable energy: 12%8. Connecticut is home to the nation's first "green bank," which uses public dollars to leverage private investment in renewable energy. 2023 Infrastructure score: 227 out of 390 points (Top States grade: B) Climate Extremes Index: 21.16% Properties at risk: 61% Renewable energy: 12.5%1.

Persons: Jeremy Porter, York Snow, Joed Viera, Kelly Giddens, Daniel Hinton, Jessica Mcgowan, wades, Tim Boyle, Tony Evers, Scott Olson, Josh Edelson, Gavin Newsom, —, Marcellus, Tom Wolf, Josh Shapiro, Ida, Brendan McDermid, Hurricane Ida, Richard Bunting, Alex Hamilton, Hurricane Irene, Mark Wilson, Joe Biden's, Ted Shaffrey, Hurricane Nicole, Paul Hennessy, Marco Bello Organizations: Street Foundation, CNBC, Business, First, Oceanic, Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, U.S, Department of Energy, Afp, Getty, National Weather Service, Micron Technology, Alabama, University of Alabama, Illinois —, Badger State, Gov, Carolina, Carolinas, AFP, EQT Corp, Bloomberg, Reuters, Garden, State, Anadolu Agency, Sunshine State, Farmers Insurance, AAA Locations: States, York, Buffalo , New York, Empire, New York, Syracuse, Alabama TUSCALOOSA, AL, Cedar, Tuscaloosa , Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Gulf, Wisconsin, Prairie du Chien , WI, Hurricane, Charleston , South Carolina, Florida, Georgetown , South Carolina, South Carolina, California, Oroville, Oroville , California, , California, Pennsylvania, Washington Township , Pennsylvania, U.S, Jersey, Oakwood, Elizabeth , New Jersey, Garden State , New Jersey, New Jersey, Delaware, Lewes , Delaware, Rhode, Connecticut, New Haven , Connecticut, Wilbur, , Florida, Louisiana, Kenner , Louisiana

☆ Bad news for nervous flyers: Turbulence is getting worse as the planet warms
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( Anmar Frangoul | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

In addition, moderate turbulence jumped from 70.0 to 96.1 hours, while light turbulence hit 546.8 hours, up from 466.5. "[This] doesn't necessarily mean planes are encountering turbulence, clear air turbulence, 55% more often because, of course, planes try and avoid it and they've been getting very good at avoiding it," he said. "Although the radar on the flight deck can't see … clear air turbulence, there's a related technology called LIDAR that stands for light detection and ranging," Williams said. "By using that different wavelength of light, we can see invisible clear air turbulence ahead," he said. "Unfortunately it's very expensive and also comes in a big heavy box, which you don't want really to go on a plane to add weight onto the aircraft," Williams said.

Persons: Joe Giddens, Paul Williams, they've, Williams, Mark Prosser, Prosser, LIDAR, it's Organizations: Research, World Meteorological Organization, University of Reading, Atlantic, CAT, Aircraft, Istock, Getty, CNBC Locations: Northamptonshire, England, USA

☆ The Los Angeles Opera, Post-Plácido Domingo
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Adam Nagourney | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

It survived the downturn without running a deficit, relying on salary reductions, a handful of layoffs, a $5 million five-year loan against the endowment, and federal aid. Domingo’s downfall stunned Los Angeles and its opera company, which had been so closely identified with the star tenor, who had been singing there since the 1960s and was instrumental in the creation of the company. It is difficult to say precisely whether attendance was affected by the departure of Domingo, given that the coronavirus shutdown followed so soon afterward. For many years his performances had drawn the biggest crowds, and his image was as integral to the company’s marketing as Gustavo Dudamel’s is for its neighbor, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. “It is unmistakably a loss because he’s such a titanic figure in the world,” Koelsch said.

☆ Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels Win the Pulitzer Prize for Music
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Joshua Barone | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“Nobody has the lock on being a composer,” she said. “We’ve got to stop with separation and who gets to be called a composer. RHIANNON GIDDENS It feels amazing, because Michael and I just put into this what we know. I’ve just come from seeing a couple of the shows in Boston, where it was playing to sold-out houses [at Boston Lyric Opera]. In each city, you’ve seen people who have never come to the opera before, feeling seen and feeling moved and being welcomed into an artistic space where they haven’t felt welcomed before.

The contracted use of hotels was envisioned as a temporary measure, but adds strain to the asylum accommodation system. The cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels has increased over the past year, now exceeding £6 million ($7.4 million) a day, the Home Office told CNN in a statement. On Tuesday, the UK Home Office also said Afghans who have been living in temporary UK accommodation for 18 months will be given three months’ notice to move out of so-called bridging hotels. There are currently around 8,000 Afghans living in 59 bridging hotels in the UK, according to the Home Office. But campaigners also warned that the plan could exacerbate the trauma experienced by people displaced by political strife and conflict in Afghanistan.

☆ A reality TV star who posted an explicit video of him and his ex-girlfriend on OnlyFans without her permission was jailed for almost 2 years
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

OnlyFans and reality TV star Stephen Bear was sentenced to 21 months in prison for "revenge porn." The "Ex on the Beach" contestant shared an explicit video of his ex-girlfriend without her consent. The video was filmed on CCTV at his home without her knowledge and was later posted on OnlyFans. The platform deactivated his account the day after Harrison reported the video, per The Sun. Users can report if explicit content of them has been shared online and ask the center to remove it.

☆ Three Years Into Covid, We Still Don’t Know How to Talk About It
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Jon Mooallem | Photographs Ashley Gilbertson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +53 min

It will play out and reverberate for years or decades, Hagen told me. “The pathological normal,” Hagen calls it: a patchwork of homespun, bespoke realities, each one invested in a different story about what exactly happened when Covid ruptured the story of our lives. garb.”More than once, life seemed to be attaining “an uncanny resemblance to normal life,” as one man put it. But because we don’t totally understand where that experience has delivered us, we don’t know the right gloss to give it. “The days are strange,” one public-school teacher told Milstein toward the end of his first interview, in May 2020.

Less than three years later on Wednesday, tens of thousands of nurses in England are estimated to have walked off work as part of an unprecedented strike shaking the country’s much-loved but troubled National Health Service. They are also striking to highlight the long-term deterioration of the service amid a chronic shortage of health care staff and ballooning living costs. Meanwhile, the health service, normally a huge source of pride for Britons, has spiraled into crisis due to long- and short-term factors including the fallout of the pandemic. As of September, there were a record 132,000 unfilled health service jobs — almost 10% of the total workforce of more than 1.3 million — according to figures released by NHS England. She described one shift in which three nurses and two student nurses looked after 15 patients.

TOKYO/LONDON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Japan, Britain and Italy are merging their next-generation jet fighter projects in a bridge between Europe and Asia that marks Japan's first major industrial defence collaboration beyond the United States since World War Two. Britain also wants Japan to improve how it provides security clearances to contractors, sources with knowledge of the discussions told Reuters. The two new platforms would compete head-on with each other and the United States in the global fighter market. "There is going to be a Battle Royal in the next 10-15 years in positioning the various players," said UK defence analyst Francis Tusa. The United States, which has pledged to defend all three countries through NATO and a separate security pact with Japan, welcomed the new Europe-Japan agreement.

☆ After 14 years, Lehman Brothers' brokerage ends liquidation
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Jonathan Stempel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

NEW YORK, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The liquidation of Lehman Brothers' brokerage unit has ended, 14 years and 13 days after its parent's bankruptcy helped trigger a market freefall and global financial crisis. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman in Manhattan closed the brokerage's estate on Wednesday and awarded final payments to the trustee who oversaw its liquidation and his law firm. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterLehman's 111,000 customers received all $106 billion they were owed, and secured creditors also received full payouts. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, the brokerage's parent, had been Wall Street's fourth-largest investment bank before filing what remains by far the largest U.S. bankruptcy on Sept. 15, 2008. Giddens' law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed was awarded $424 million as final compensation for 14 years of work on the case.

☆ Notable quotes of Britain's Queen Elizabeth
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations." - First televised Christmas broadcast in 1957. "We cheered the king and the queen on the balcony and then walked miles through the streets. Throughout all my life and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of your trust." - Christmas broadcast in 2017.

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