Cher arrives at the premiere of "Chevalier" in Los Angeles on April 16, 2023. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, Filer)
By Mark Kennedy
Cher is obviously a superstar but even a superstar can be the opening act when it comes to Santa.
Organizers of this year's Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade have nabbed the Oscar-, Emmy- and Grammy Award-winner for their 97th annual event. Cher will make her appearance just before the parade's end, signaled by the arrival of Santa’s sleigh, parade organizers said.
This year’s parade will feature 16 giant character balloons, 26 floats, 32 novelty and heritage inflatables, 12 marching bands, 700 clowns and eight performance groups.
It's a busy time for Cher, who is preparing to release a 25th-anniversary edition of her Grammy-winning album “Believe” and just dropped her first new album in five years, “Christmas.”
For the first time in its long history, the holiday tradition will begin at 8:30 a.m. ET, half an hour earlier than previous years, kicked off by multi-instrumentalist and Grammy-winner Jon Batiste.
There will be appearances by Bell Biv DeVoe, Brandy, Chicago, En Vogue, ENHYPEN, David Foster and Katharine McPhee, Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors, Jessie James Decker, Ashley Park with some Muppets from “Sesame Street,” Pentatonix, Paul Russell, Amanda Shaw and Alex Smith, and Manuel Turizo.
U.S. Olympic gymnastics silver medalist Jordan Chiles, U.S. track and field Paralympian Ezra Frech and U.S. Paralympic swimming gold medalist Jessica Long and Miss America 2023 Grace Stanke will also join the festivities.
Seven new balloon giants will join the lineup: “Beagle Scout Snoopy,” “Blue Cat & Chugs,” “Kung Fu Panda’s Po,” “Leo,” “Monkey D. Luffy,” “Pillsbury Doughboy” and “Uncle Dan.”
Broadway will be represented by performances from “& Juliet,” “Back to the Future: The Musical,” “How To Dance In Ohio,” “Shucked” and “Spamalot,” with an appearance by Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells of “Gutenberg! The Musical!"
Returning giant balloons include “Bluey,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” “Paw Patrol,” “Ryan's World,” “Pikachu,” “Ronald McDonald,” "Stuart the Minion" and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
The Macy’s parade has been a traditional holiday season kickoff and spectators often line up a half-dozen deep along the route to cheer the marchers, floats, entertainers and marching bands. The parade has lately asked icons to be the last guest before Santa, with last year Mariah Carey fitting the bill.
A marching band from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, the scene of one of the nation's worst school shootings, will represent Florida. Other marching bands this year will represent Alabama, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Texas.
Floats include ones from brands like Lego, “Peanuts,” “Baby Shark,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Sesame Street.”
The parade airs on NBC and streams on Peacock. Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Al Roker from “Today” will host and a Spanish language simulcast on Telemundo will be hosted by Carlos Adyan and Andrea Meza.
Data from a Slack Future Forum survey shows employees returning full-time to the office are not thrilled with their experience. Sheela Subramanian, vice [resident of the Future Forum, joined Cheddar News to talk about how worker satisfaction is worsening in returning to the office compared to those workers with flexible schedules. "Employers need to actually empower their teams to create team level agreements and also skill their managers to better lead distributed teams because everybody's work is different," Subramanian noted.
UPSIDE foods, a company that makes cultivated meat products, recently raised $400 million in a Series C round.
UPSIDE says it's developing a way to grow real meat, poultry, and seafood, without the need to raise animals for human consumption. It's a process that gets the attention of some big-name backers, including Bill Gates and Richard Branson. Dr. Uma Valeti, Founder and CEO of UPSIDE Foods, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Samantha Tan, professional racing driver and team owner of Samantha Tan Racing, joins Cheddar News to talk the motorsport community, being an ambassador for the AAPI Victory Alliance, and her mental health.
Hosts of the new MTV ]show "Help! I'm in a Secret Relationship," recording artist Travis Mills and actor Rahne Jones, joined Cheddar News to talk about the new show and how sheds light on romantic partners who are keeping their other halves hidden away from other parts of their lives. "Travis and I go in and we investigate and figure out what is going on in hopes that we can sit the two parties down and have a resolution, a conversation, a productive conversation, in hopes that the relationships remain intact," said Jones. "But unfortunately that does not happen all the time, which is where, where the drama, where the drama comes." Mills added that “I honestly think that the pandemic gave people who want to hide their partner a really good excuse."
Once called the rent-forever generation, Millennials are bucking the trend. But just as they age into their prime home-buying years, they’ve run up against a red hot housing market exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. Cheddar News senior Reporter Chloe Aiello went to Hudson, N.Y., to learn more.
Every year on April 8th, we celebrate the deliciousness of empanadas for National Empanada Day! This time, Cheddar's News Wrap was joined by New York's own Empanada Mama to try some of interesting flavors.
The Biden administration is making changes to federal student loan programs, bringing more than 3.6 million people closer to debt forgiveness under the new rules, providing 40,000 with immediate debt cancellation, and allowing several thousand more with older loans to get some relief. Rob Franek, Editor-In-Chief of the Princeton Review, joined Cheddar News to break down how these changes might impact the lives of student loan borrowers and addresses some of the pushback against doing even more. "This is not a bankruptcy bailout of industries that are supporting the American economy," he said. These are for students right now who would otherwise be hobbled financially if they didn't experience some sort of forgiveness overall."
Emmanuel Macron staves off the far right challenger Marine Le Pen in France, conservative lawmakers find themselves embroiled in varying controversies, and pickleball is hotter than ever in the U.S.
