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Taylor Swift Breaks Top 10 Billboard Records

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Taylor Swift became the first artist to hold all ten Hot 100 positions, as “Midnights” sold over 1.5 million copies to top our Billboard 200 albums chart.

The singer is reacting to news that her latest studio album, released on October 21, is smashing records. She is the only artist in history to hold the top ten spots on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in the same week. This has never happened in the 64-year history of the chart.

“10 out of 10 on the Hot 100?” tweeted the “Anti-Hero” singer on Monday. “On my tenth album?” “I AM NOW IN SHAMBLES.”

According to the site, Swift’s dominance of the top 10 for the November 5, 2022-dated Billboard chart has pushed her beyond Madonna for the most top 10 hits among women.

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All 20 of Taylor Swift’s Midnights album songs are in the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

“Anti-Hero” No. 1

“Lavender Haze,” No. 2

“Maroon,” No. 3

“Snow on the Beach,” No. 4 (with Lana Del Rey),

“Midnight Rain,” No. 5

“Bejeweled,” No. 6

“Question…” No. 7

“You’re on Your Own, Kid,” No. 8

“Karma,” No. 9

“Vigilante Shit,” No. 10

“Mastermind,” No. 13

“Labyrinth,” No. 14

Sweet Nothing, No. 15

“Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” No. 20

“Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” No. 21

“The Great War,” No. 26

“Paris,” No. 32

“High Infidelity,” No. 33

“Glitch,” No. 41

“Dear Reader,” No. 45

According to the tracking firm Luminate, which tracks streaming, sales, and downloads, Midnights recorded 1.578 million sales in its first week of release in the United States. This is the highest one-week total since Adele dropped 25 in 2015, reaching 3.482 million in its first week.

Midnights sold 1.578 million copies, 1.140 of which were album purchases. It’s also worth noting that this is her fifth album to sell at least a million copies in a single week, with no album by any artist selling more in a single week since her 2017 album Reputation, which debuted with 1.216 million.

Midnights also debuted at number one on Billboard’s most recent album chart. It is her 11th best-selling album, tying her with Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, and Drake. Jay-Z, with 14, and the Beatles, with 19, have the most No. 1 singles.

Swift announced the release of Midnights in October in August. On social media, she described it as “the story of 13 sleepless nights strewn throughout my life.” She claimed she wrote the songs “in the middle of the night” while ” travelling between terrors and pleasant dreams.”

taylor swift

Taylor Swift published a special 3am edition with seven more tracks on its launch.

She’s been releasing videos, even creating an edit to “Anti-Hero” in response to the fatphobic backlash. “Bejeweled” was released last week, and the Cinderella-with-a-twist-themed video included Laura Dern, the HAIM sisters, and Dita Von Teese. Swifties, the singer’s admirers, have speculated about who the songs are about, including ex-John Mayer on “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve.”

Swift hinted at a new tour last week on The Tonight Show, saying, “I believe I should do it.” We’ll do it when the time comes. It’s something I miss.”)

She also commented on the album’s phenomenal performance, particularly how it became the year’s best-selling album in just one day. It also shattered Spotify’s record for the most streams in a single day. In its 5-star review, Rolling Stone labelled it an “instant classic.” “I’m beside myself,” she said to Fallon.

Swift has been a music-making machine, re-recording her past albums beginning in 2021 with Fearless and Red. The new versions allow her to own her masters – the original recordings of the songs.

She’s been doing so because her former record label, Big Machine Records, owned her masters since she was 15 and sold them to Scooter Braun, sparking a legal battle because Swift claimed she had attempted for years to obtain her own masters. Braun has resold them for a profit but has expressed sorrow for purchasing them.

Source: Yahoo News, VOR News

Business

United CEO Tries To Reassure Customers Following Multiple Safety Incidents

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United Airlines is attempting to reassure passengers following a spate of accidents on its Boeing jets this year. In a statement to customers, the airline states that safety is “at the center of everything that we do.”

“While they are all unrelated, I want you to know that these incidents have captured our attention and sharpened our focus,” CEO Scott Kirby wrote in a Monday morning statement to customers.

united

United CEO Tries To Reassure Customers Following Multiple Safety Incidents

On Friday, a United Boeing 737-800 landed in Medford, Oregon, missing an underside fuselage panel.

Earlier this month, United experienced four mishaps, all involving Boeing jets. A United Boeing 737-900ER blew flames from its engine after takeoff from Houston, a Boeing 777 lost a wheel during takeoff from San Francisco, a Boeing 737 Max slipped off a runway in Houston, and a United Boeing 777 trailed hydraulic fluid as it left Sydney.

“Our team is reviewing the details of each case to understand what happened and using those insights to inform our safety training and procedures across all employee groups,” Kirby continued.

The airline is extending pilot training by one day, retooling training for new mechanics, and “dedicating more resources to supplier network management.”

Passengers witnessing a run of negative articles about the airline and its Boeing jets may consider booking elsewhere. In its letter, the airline is attempting to keep consumers from departing. As of the end of last year, 81% of the jets used on United’s mainline operations were manufactured by Boeing, compared to little more than half of the jets in rivals Delta and American Airlines’ mainline fleets.

Aside from the problems on  flights, the most dramatic Boeing incident this year featured an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9, which lost a door stopper on a January 5 flight, resulting in a gaping hole in the plane’s side. And last week, a Latam Airlines flight from Sydney, Australia, to Auckland, New Zealand, fell unexpectedly, throwing some passengers to the cabin ceiling.

united

United CEO Tries To Reassure Customers Following Multiple Safety Incidents

Investigators are still investigating the causes of both events, but a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board showed Boeing left the bolts required to keep the door plug in place on the 10-week-old Alaska Air jet. Boeing asserted that an incident in the cockpit rather than a problem with the aircraft’s systems may have caused the Latam accident.

The age of the aircraft in the United incidents suggests that the problem could be with their staff rather than Boeing’s well-documented quality faults. For example, Boeing purchased the jet that lost its panel on a Friday trip in 1998. So, Boeing’s quality difficulties are likely unrelated to that occurrence.

However, Boeing’s issues have impeded United’s operations. Due to the FAA’s production slowdown, it has halted hiring a new class of pilots since it will receive fewer new planes from Boeing this year, as previously promised. In January, the Alaska Air incident grounded its 737 Max 9 jets for three weeks.

united

United CEO Tries To Reassure Customers Following Multiple Safety Incidents

Furthermore, approval of a new generation of Boeing jets, the 737 Max 10, ordered by United, has been delayed due to the company’s quality and safety issues.

Kirby told investors last week that United is considering purchasing more jets from Boeing competitor Airbus. He also stated earlier this year that the Alaska Air incident was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” on United’s plans to receive deliveries of the Max 10 in the near future.’

SOURCE – (CNN)

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For The Past Year, Global Ocean Temperatures Has Set New Records On A Daily Basis.

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According to new data, the world’s oceans have now been subjected to an unprecedented year of heat, with new temperature records being smashed every day.

Global water surface temperatures began breaking daily records in mid-March last year, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, raising fears about marine life and extreme weather worldwide.

ocean

For The Past Year, Global Ocean Temperatures Has Set New Records On A Daily Basis.

“The amplitude by which previous sea surface temperature records were beaten in 2023, and now again in 2024, is remarkable,” said Joel Hirschi, associate head of marine systems modelling at the National Oceanography Centre in the United Kingdom.

Gregory C. Johnson, a NOAA oceanographer, reported that the global average ocean temperature in 2023 was 0.25 degrees Celsius higher than the previous year. That increase “is equivalent to about two decades’ worth of warming in a single year,” he told CNN. “So it is quite large, quite significant, and a bit surprising.”

According to scientists, human-caused global warming, along with El Niño, a natural climate trend characterized by higher-than-average water temperatures, is accelerating  heat.

The biggest repercussions are for marine life and global weather. As the global waterwarms, hurricanes and other extreme weather phenomena, such as blistering heat waves and heavy rains, may gain more force.

High temperatures are already wreaking havoc on coral. In March, based on aerial observations, authorities declared that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is witnessing its seventh mass bleaching episode.

Bleaching happens when heat-stressed corals release the algae that dwell in their tissue and serve as a food supply. If water temperatures continue too high for too long, corals will starve and die.

ocean

For The Past Year, Global Ocean Temperatures Has Set New Records On A Daily Basis.

Data from NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program suggest that the crisis extends far beyond Australia, with the world potentially facing a fourth worldwide mass coral bleaching event in the coming months.

Ocean heat creates the conditions for more powerful hurricanes. “The warmer the ocean, the more energy to fuel storms is available,” said Karina von Schuckmann, an oceanographer at Mercator Ocean International in France.

Temperatures in the North Atlantic, an water area important for storm generation, have been unusual, startling some scientists who are still investigating the specific causes.

“At times, the records (in the North Atlantic) have been broken by margins that are virtually statistically impossible,” Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School, said to CNN.

If water temperatures remain high in the second half of 2024 and a La Niña event intensifies the Atlantic hurricane season, “this would increase the risk of a very active hurricane season,” Hirschi explained.

The oceans contain around 90% of the world’s excess heat generated by burning planet-heating fossil fuels. “Measuring water warming allows us to track the status and evolution of planetary warming,” Schuckmann stated in an interview with CNN. “The ocean is the sentinel for global warming.”

El Niño is expected to weaken and fade in the coming months, perhaps reducing record water temperatures if La Niña replaces it.

ocean

For The Past Year, Global Ocean Temperatures Has Set New Records On A Daily Basis.

“In the past, surface temperature values have decreased after the passage of El Niño,” Schuckmann said. However, she cautioned that it is now hard to forecast when water temperatures will fall below record levels.

While natural climatic variability will cause water temperatures to vary, NOAA’s Johnson predicts that in the long run, they will “continue to break records as long as greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere rise.”

SOURCE – (CNN)

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Reactions As Vladimir Putin Secures A Fifth Term As Russia’s President After Tightly Controlled Vote

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putin charged with war crimes

Vladimir Putin won a historic fifth term as Russia’s president on Monday, as the electoral commission announced the results of a referendum in which he faced no serious challenges and took place amid the toughest crackdown on dissent and free speech since Soviet times.

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Reactions As Vladimir Putin Secures A Fifth Term As Russia’s President After Tightly Controlled Vote

Putin claimed that the landslide majority demonstrated Russians’ “trust” and “hopes” in him, while lawmakers throughout Europe blasted the vote as a hoax and Russia’s efforts to conduct elections in seized portions of Ukraine that it claims as its territory.

Here’s what Putin, European leaders, and others say:

“Of course, we have a lot of work ahead. But I’d like to clarify one thing: no one has ever been able to intimidate or stifle our will or self-conscience since our consolidation. They have failed in the past and will fail in the future. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.

“The elections took place in an ever-shrinking political space, which has resulted in an alarming increase of violations of civil and political rights, and precluded many candidates from running, including all those opposed to Russia’s illegal war of aggression.” – Statement from the European Union.

“These Russian elections highlight the intensity of repression under President Putin’s administration, which tries to stifle all dissent to his illegal war. Putin eliminates his political opponents, controls the media, and declares himself the winner. “This is not a democracy.” — David Cameron, UK Foreign Secretary.

putin

Reactions As Vladimir Putin Secures A Fifth Term As Russia’s President After Tightly Controlled Vote

“Searches at voting stations’ entrances, attempts to examine ballots before voters place them in ballot boxes, and detentions of voters who arrived at noon. According to reports, at one voting location in Moscow, police asked that the chairman of a commission (of poll workers) unlock a ballot box and hand them a ballot with anything inscribed on it. This is the first time in my life that I have witnessed such ridiculousness.” — Stanislav Andreychuk, co-chair of Golos, the independent election watchdog, on Telegram.

putin

Reactions As Vladimir Putin Secures A Fifth Term As Russia’s President After Tightly Controlled Vote

“The Russian election was one without a choice. Holding so-called elections in portions of Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia violates international law. It is all the more amazing that so many Russians made it known over the weekend that they do not agree with this Russian president. That you go to a polling station even if you’re surrounded by military earns me the highest respect.” — German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

SOURCE – (AP)

 

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