Elton John is ending his touring career with a bang! The Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour has officially become the highest-grossing concert tour ever. It first kicked off in 2018 and has since grossed $817.9 million after performing in 278 shows, according to Billboard. John surpassed Ed Sheeran's 2019 The Divide Tour, which raked in $776.4 million. But it's not over yet, as the shows will continue through July 2023.
Lil Wayne on Road
Also in touring news, Lil Wayne announced a slate of shows set for Spring 2023. The Welcome to Tha Carter tour is set to kick off in Minneapolis in April and will run through May with the final show in Los Angeles. The news comes days after the Recording Academy revealed that Wayne would be one of four recipients of its Global Impact Award at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
DC Cinematic Universe
The DC Universe is kicking it into high gear with a newly announced full slate of films and shows. DC Studios heads James Gunn, co-CEO with Peter Safran, unveiled the 10 projects in a new first chapter which he called "Gods and Monsters," with the titles being connected to each other in the same universe (unless otherwise labeled like Matt Reeves' The Batman). Some of the new titles revealed include the film Superman: Legacy, to be written by Gunn and slated for a July 2025 release, and TV projects Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and Lanterns.
Food technology startup Tender Food raised $12 million in a seed round led by Chris Sacca's Lowercarbon Capital. Tender says it specializes in creating alternative meats with an authentic texture and is on a mission to make alternative meats so delicious, nutritious, and affordable, that eating meat from animals will no longer make sense. Christophe Chantre, co-founder & CEO of Tender Food, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
With the number of Ukrainians being displaced due to the Russian invasion surging, two students from Harvard took it on themselves to develop a website to help connect potential hosts with refugees seeking housing. The co-founder of the website Ukraine Takes Shelter, Marco Burstein, joined Cheddar news to discuss working together with fellow freshman Avi Schiffmann to streamline the effort to aid Ukrainian refugees. "We basically worked for three days straight developing the website, and since then the response has been pretty incredible," Burstein said.
Over three weeks ago, WNBA player Brittney Griner was arrested in Russia on drug charges. According to reports, the Star arrived at an airport near Moscow where authorities found Vape cartridges and hashish oil in her luggage. Grindr faces serious charges that could carry a possible sentence of 5-10 years in a Russian prison. Experts warn that Griner's arrest could be used as a bargaining chip. Partner at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, Thomas Firestone, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Image-sharing social media platform Pinterest is marking Women's History Month through its Pinterest Elevates program, designed to help grow 10 underrepresented businesses with monetary and strategic support. Alise Marshall, senior global lead for public affairs at Pinterest, joined Cheddar News to explain how the program is helping to uplift women and women of color with businesses of their own. “This was in response to issues that we saw happening in the community, and ways that we thought that we were uniquely positioned to respond," she said.
A new report from the Motion Picture Association highlights how the popularity of streaming services has helped the film industry recover from the pandemic. Matthew Belloni, the host of "The Town" podcast and founding partner of Puck News, joined Cheddar News to discuss the impact of streaming on Hollywood. "For all but the largest tent-pole style blockbuster movies, the future probably is streaming," he said.
In the new comedic film "Linoleum," an Ohio family faces the adventure of a lifetime after a mysterious satellite lands in their yard. The suburban dad, played by comic Jim Gaffigan, takes the opportunity to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut by re-building the machine as his very own rocket ship. Gaffigan and co-star Rhea Seehorn joined Cheddar News senior reporter Michelle Castillo at South by Southwest 2022, to chat about the science fiction roles, with the actors noting that they didn't quite understand the jargon. "Jim and I had some late night googling sessions of what we were saying in the, in the scenes, but it was fun," Seehorn said.
The pandemic has turned the world of dating upside down. So what's making daters smile, and what are they looking for in a partner? Cheddar breaks down the findings from eharmony's 2022 Happiness Index study that break down the current state of dating.
Anna Sorokin, the convicted swindler who claimed to be a German heiress to finance a posh lifestyle in New York, is making a new bid to fight deportation, a lawyer said Tuesday.
Director Ava Duvernay and Roberto Patino, both executive producers of the HBO series "DMZ," joined Cheddar News to talk about adapting the comic book about a future American civil war and a dystopian Manhattan. "I think it reflects a couple steps ahead of us. It really contemplates what happens if we can't kind of get our act together and be able to listen to each other and be able to be civil with folks we disagree with," said Duvernay. "It contemplates what's next if we don't kind of right our path."
