Scott Olson/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — ABC News can characterize Joe Biden as the apparent winner in Pennsylvania, giving him 273 total electoral votes — a win that makes him president elect. Based on these numbers and those in other states, Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.
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Election Day has turned to night as polls across the country closed with some municipalities announcing they will resume tabulating Wednesday morning.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, former Vice President Joe Biden briefly addressed the nation from Wilmington, Delaware, projecting confidence in the race and called for patience as the nation tabulates a record number of mail-in and absentee ballots.
President Donald Trump teased he would make a statement from the White House, which took place an hour later.
For President Trump’s speech, which he made around 2:30 a.m. ET, he opened with a joke saying, “this is, without question, the latest news conference I ever had.” The president made a fiery 10 minute speech, saying that “a group of very sad people” are trying to steal the election, which he called “a fraud” and vowed he would go to the Supreme Court to “have all voting to stop.”
As for the states that are already accounted for, President Trump is projected to win Iowa, Florida, Ohio, Idaho, Utah, Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana, South Carolina, the Dakotas, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Texas and Nebraska.
Meanwhile, Biden is projected to win Virginia, New Mexico, California, Illinois, New Hampshire, Colorado, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, Minnesota and the District of Columbia.
As of 1:45 A.M. ET, Biden leads with 220 electoral votes while President Trump has 213 — the winner requires 270 votes to win.
Pennsylvania, a major battleground state, is projected to wrap up the count by Friday before the election, but did not provide an exact timeline. Philadelphia will continue counting absentee ballots, with the next updates coming at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
In Michigan, only 16 percent of the early vote is in with 49 percent of the expected vote in as of early Wednesday, with Tracy Wimmer, a spokesperson for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson telling ABC News, “We’re still looking at some time tomorrow, but we really don’t have a guess of when.”
One of the most decentralized election systems in the country, Wisconsin state officials have repeatedly told ABC News that they expect full statewide results could come in the early hours of Wednesday morning
In the weeks leading up to Tuesday, at least 100 million early votes were cast. Nationally, voters have cast 73.4 percent of the total votes counted in the 2016 general election.
Hawaii and Texas have already surpassed their 2016 total and five other states — Montana, North Carolina, Georgia, New Mexico and Nevada — are close to doing the same.
Most surprisingly in the election however is, young voters did not increase their showing at polls, despite expert predictions.
The 18-29 year-olds and 30-44 year-olds make up the same percentage of the electorate as they did in 2016.
Those youngest voters are breaking toward Biden by much more than they did to Hillary Clinton in 2016, but among 30-44 year olds, Biden is only winning by about the same as Clinton. There are no major third-party candidates this year, while 10 percent of young people voted for a third-party candidate or gave no answer in exit polls.
Older voters, over 65, make up a similar percentage of the vote as they did in 2016, making up about 21 percent in preliminary exit polls compared to 20 percent in 2016.
There was concern that voting remotely for college kids who were not on campuses this year could be a factor, but after the protests this summer it is a surprising outcome.
By Megan Stone
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ABC/Sami DrasinAcclaimed actress Taraji P. Henson has been announced as the host of the 2020 American Music Awards, which will air Sunday, Nov. 22 from 8 to 11 p.m. ET on ABC.
“The AMAs brings together the music community to celebrate what really drives all artists — the fans. I’m proud to take the stage as this year’s host -– and also a fan — for what promises to be an electrifying night of music,” the Emmy-winning Empire star and Oscar-nominated actress said in a statement.
This year, Dua Lipa scored an American Music Awards nomination for favorite female artist in the pop/rock category, alongside Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. The 25-year-old is also competing in the favorite pop/rock song category with Lewis Capaldi, Post Malone, Roddy Ricch and The Weeknd.
Malone, Ricch and The Weeknd are also up for up for artist of the year, along with Swift and Justin Bieber. Capaldi and Ricch will also face off in the new artist of the year category, alongside Doja Cat, DaBaby, Lil Baby and Megan Thee Stallion.
The Weeknd and Ricch lead the group of nominees this year, garnering eight each. Megan Thee Stallion follows closely behind, with five nods.
This year’s American Music Awards ceremony will be broadcast live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
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Little Richard, the flamboyant, envelope-pushing musician whose wild performance style and appearance helped set the blueprint for rock and roll, has died, ABC News has confirmed via his agent. He was 87.
Rolling Stone was the first to report the death, via Richard’s son, Danny Penniman. No cause of death was given.
His string of hits, starting with 1956’s “Tutti Frutti,” included “Long Tall Sally,” “Rip It Up, “Slippin’ and Slidin’,” “Lucille,” and “Good Golly Miss Molly.” Featuring pumping piano and lyrics often filled with sexual innuendo, Little Richard’s songs were a massive influence on future legends like Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Elton John and The Beatles, and have been covered by countless artists through the years.
For a time, Richard’s backing band in the early sixties, The Upsetters, featured a left-handed guitarist named James Marshall Hendrix. Hendrix also recorded a single with Richard in 1965 called “I Don’t Know What You Got (But It’s Got Me).” It peaked at #92 — but Hendrix, later known as “Jimi,” soon went on to bigger and better things.
Little Richard’s gender-bending onstage appearance — including makeup, huge pompadours and showy outfits — earned him screaming fans, and roles in early rock ‘n roll movies like “The Girl Can’t Help It” and “Don’t Knock the Rock.” Prince is one artist who was taking notes — in fact, Richard himself called Prince “the Little Richard of his generation.”
While Richard once said his flamboyant appearance was designed to make him appear “less threatening” to white audiences, the sad truth is that white singer Pat Boone‘s much-criticized anodyne covers of “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally” were more appealing to the mainstream, doing better or as well as Richard’s did on the charts.
Born Richard Wayne Penniman in 1932 in Macon, Georgia, Richard was one of 12 children and left home at age 13. He borrowed much of his musical style and appearance from Esquerita, a pompadoured singer and pianist from South Carolina. Little Richard got his first record deal in 1951, but didn’t experience any success.
In 1956, while working as a dishwasher at a bus station, Richard sent a tape of the racy song “Tutti Frutti” to a record label in Chicago. As the legend goes, he came up with song’s signature lines — “a wop bop a lu bop a wop bam boom” — while washing dishes. He was signed to the label, and a tamer version of the song became his first hit.
In 1957, Little Richard gave up music and became ordained as a minister. When he returned to music, it was gospel. However, he switched back to rock ‘n roll in 1964 and, as Rolling Stone notes, when he played Hamburg, Germany in 1964, The Beatles opened for him.
In the ’70s, Little Richard worked the oldies circuit, but in the ’80s, he became a pop culture fixture, appearing in movies and TV shows, including Miami Vice. In 1986, he was one of the first 10 artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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FOX
Elton John, Mariah Carey, Billie Eilish and other major music stars gathered together for the Fox Presents the iHeart Living Room Concert for America on Sunday, and raised nearly $8 million to help fight the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and salute the strength and resilience of the U.S. people during the health crisis.
Highlights included Demi Lovato performing her hit “Skyscaper”; Eilish and her brother Finneas teaming up for an acoustic rendition of “bad guy”; Camilla Cabello and Shawn Mendes joining forces for her song “My Oh My”; and Mariah belting out her hit, “Always Be My Baby.”
Elton, who hosted the event from his home, closed out the evening with a special performance of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”
Other performers included Backstreet Boys, Dave Grohl, Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong, Alicia Keys and Tim McGraw.
The hour-long special drew more than 8.7 million viewers across multiple networks, who were encouraged to donate to two of the many charitable organizations that are helping COVID-19 victims and front line workers, such as health care professionals: Feeding America and First Responders Children’s Foundation.
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iStock/Cesare FerrariFor several weeks, artists have been announcing concert tour cancellations. But now, all the tours are being canceled for all the artists. Well — almost all artists.
Live Nation, one of the world’s biggest concert promoters, plans to press pause on all of the tours it’s currently promoting, both foreign and domestic, through the end of March, Billboard has learned.
According to Billboard, Live Nation told employees that while a few shows will continue on Thursday or Friday, any shows starting this weekend will be postponed. Billboard reports company executives told employees that March is generally a slow month anyway. Live Nation plans to re-evaluate in April, with an eye towards getting artists back out on the road in May or June.
The tours affected span all musical genres: Just some of them, Billboard notes, include Billie Eilish, Jason Aldean, Zac Brown Band, Cher, Kiss, Post Malone, Tool, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Shania Twain‘s Las Vegas residency, Chris Stapleton and more.
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2020 Coachella lineup; Goldenvoice COVID-19 coronavirus has taken down yet another set of festivals in its wake.
On Tuesday, Goldenvoice, the company behind the fests, made the announcement that both Coachella and Stagecoach have been postponed until October due to the infectious disease.
“At the direction of the County of Riverside and local health authorities, we must sadly confirm the rescheduling of Coachella and Stagecoach due to COVID-19 concerns,” the statement read. “While this decision comes at a time of universal uncertainty, we take the safety and health of our guests, staff and community very seriously.”
Coachella was originally scheduled to take place on the weekends of April 10 and April 17, while Stagecoach was supposed to follow taking place from April 24 until April 26. Both festivals take place in Indio, California, located in Riverside County, where three cases of COVID-19 were confirmed on Monday.
Now, according to Goldenvoice, Coachella will jam out on the weekends of October 9 and 16. With its sister festival following suit on the weekend of October 23.
Tickets already purchased by festival-goers need not fret as they will be honored for the new dates. For ticket holders looking for a refund, the company said it will issue instructions on how to do so on March 13.
Coachella, whose highly anticipated 2020 headliners are Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott, and Frank Ocean, brings fans to the desert for some good old fashioned and Instagram-worthy fun.
Stagecoach does the same but with a country twist. Its headliners are Carrie Underwood, Thomas Rhett and Eric Church.
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Tim Mosenfelder/Getty ImagesAfter a number of high-profile drop-outs due to concerns over the COVID-19 coronavirus, the annual South by Southwest music, film and culture festival in Austin, Texas, has been officially canceled.
“The City of Austin has cancelled the March dates for SXSW and SXSW EDU,” reads a statement from the festival. “SXSW will faithfully follow the City’s directions.”
“We are devastated to share this news with you,” the statement continues. “‘The show must go on’ is in our DNA, and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place. We are now working through the ramifications of this unprecedented situation.”
Over the past week, a number of big-name companies pulled out of SXSW, including Apple, Netflix and WarnerMedia, resulting in the cancellation of talks by Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor, Ozzy Osbourne and Beastie Boys.
SXSW 2020 was set to take place March 13-22. Festival organizers say they are “exploring options” to reschedule, or provide a “virtual SXSW online experience.”
“We will continue to work hard to bring you the unique events you love,” the statement reads. “Though it’s true that our March 2020 event will no longer take place in the way that we intended, we continue to strive toward our purpose — helping creative people achieve their goals.”
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2020 Coachella lineup; Goldenvoice Coronavirus is turning out to be quite the party-pooper with Coachella as the latest festival on its radar.
The Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival is an annual festival held in Indio, California that takes place over the course of two weekends in April. The event, whose highly anticipated 2020 headliners are Rage Against the Machine, Travis Scott, and Frank Ocean, brings fans to the desert for some good old fashioned and Instagram-worthy fun.
As of right now, Coachella seems to be in the clear and will carry-on as normal.
“Residents and travelers to our region should know that the situation is safe,” Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez said at a press briefing Thursday morning.
Dr. Cameron Kaiser, Riverside County’s public health officer added that there are currently no known cases in the county, but admitted that things could change between now and the festival’s April 10 commencement.
“I could be up here tomorrow telling you something completely different,” he said.
If Coachella were to end up getting cancelled, it wouldn’t be the first music festival to meet that fate.
Tomorrowland Winter, Ultra Abu Dhabi and Ultra Miami have all been cancelled as of this week.
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Jamie McCarthy/Getty ImagesFollowing her ouster on Monday, former Recording Academy CEO Deborah Dugan filed a supplemental charge against the organization, claiming it provides “significant additional information and evidence” of alleged attempts to influence the nominations process by the Academy and longtime Grammy Awards executive producer Ken Ehrlich.
The supplemental charge, filed by Dugan’s lawyers on Tuesday, cites an email from Ehrlich that allegedly implies a superstar artist would be more likely to perform on the Grammy Awards telecast if that artist received a nomination.
The email, sent to Dugan and the Recording Academy’s interim CEO and president Harvey Mason, reads in part, “looking at the [American Music Awards] nominations this morning, it’s more about who’s NOT there than who is…..and [superstar] is definitely not gonna be happy. minor representation at best.”
“I think there’s a case to be made to [superstar] that a performance of [song] from [album] on our show, should it be nominated,’” the email continues, “‘and that a blowout performance of that song, which IS a Grammy song, might.”
Erlich, in the email goes on to write there “should there be some discussion in a certain room at your meetings next week for Record, Album and Song, and if it involves making a choice between [one album] vs. [a second album], my thought from knowing [superstar] since [superstar] was a child, is that [superstar] might see the wisdom of a [sic] performance [of a song from the second album]…I’m jus [sic] sayin.”
“Gotcha. Thanks Ken,” Mason replies.
Dugan also claims to have new evidence of the Academy’s efforts to retaliate against her, particularly after her legal complaint of January 21, in which she she “exposed alleged misogyny, sexual harassment, discrimination and corruption, including voting irregularities, at the Academy.”
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