- Julianne Hough showcases her sleek dancer’s body while heading to a NYFW show… after canceling her participa Daily Mail
- Julianne Hough Drops Out Of ‘Dancing With The Stars: Live!’ Tour: “I’m Devastated” Deadline
- Julianne Hough Drops Out of ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Live Tour, Reason Revealed Just Jared
- DWTS co-host Julianne Hough abruptly cancels tour appearances leaving fans ‘disappointed’ and ‘up… The US Sun
- Julianne Hough Cancels ‘DWTS’ Tour Appearances Due to Filming Conflicts: ‘I’m Devastated’ Yahoo Entertainment
Tag Archives: canceling
West Texas A&M Faculty Calls For Vote Of No Confidence In President After Canceling Drag Show – OutKick
- West Texas A&M Faculty Calls For Vote Of No Confidence In President After Canceling Drag Show OutKick
- Faculty Teach West Texas A&M President a Hard Lesson After Canceling Drag Show The Daily Beast
- Temple University faculty union votes ‘no confidence’ in Board of Trustees Mitchell Morgan and Provost Gregory Mandel WPVI-TV
- Texas A&M research leaders question President Kathy Banks’ leadership The Texas Tribune
- In seeking new leadership, it’s time for Temple to return to what works The Philadelphia Inquirer
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Woman files lawsuit against Morgan Wallen for canceling show – WAFF
- Woman files lawsuit against Morgan Wallen for canceling show WAFF
- Morgan Wallen Event Security Company Addresses Guard’s Claims Singer Was Drunk Ahead of Canceled Mississippi Concert, Fan Files Lawsuit Yahoo Entertainment
- Morgan Wallen Sued for Canceled Mississippi Concert Vulture
- Morgan Wallen Mississippi concert canceled: Here’s why Tennessean
- Twitter Absolutely Roasts Woman Who Demands Morgan Wallen Refund Her $4000 She Spent On Canceled Show – Including $629 At Ole Miss Gift Shop Rebel Rags Whiskey Riff
- View Full Coverage on Google News
AirPods Pro 2 Hands-On: Crisper Sound, Better Noise Canceling
This story is part of Focal Point iPhone 2022, CNET’s collection of news, tips and advice around Apple’s most popular product.
The long-rumored AirPods Pro (2nd generation) are official. Apple unveiled its latest noise-canceling true wireless headphones as part of its “Far Out” iPhone 14 event. They’re available for preorder now and will ship starting Sept. 23 for $249 (£249, AU$399).
The new AirPods Pro follow the original noise-canceling model that debuted in October 2019. They’re powered by Apple’s new H2 chip, which delivers more processing power while being more energy efficient, according to Apple. The new chip, combined with new low-distortion drivers, allows for improved sound that should offer better clarity and depth. The noise canceling is also improved — Apple says the new AirPods have “double” the noise canceling of the original AirPods Pro.
Apple/Screenshot by Sarah Lord/CNET
Preorders for the 2022 AirPods Pro model commence on Sept. 9, with the first sets of the new earbuds beginning to ship on Sept. 23.
My early hands-on impressions
I got a chance to try the AirPods Pro 2 for a limited time at the launch event in the noisy demo area, with hundreds of people around me. The noise canceling does seem improved, though it was only able to muffle the din in the room so much. I also thought the earbuds sounded cleaner and clearer than the original AirPods Pro while listening to a few tracks on Apple’s iPhone 14 demo phones. (I wasn’t able to use the buds with my own iPhone and the tracks I normally use to test headphones.)
I do think it’s really important to get a tight seal to get optimal noise canceling and sound quality. Apple hasn’t changed the design of its ear tips — with the original AirPods, I use the large size tips and also use third-party foam tips — but it will now include a fourth, extra-small ear tip for those with smaller ears.
The AirPods Pro 2nd generation earbuds are powered by Apple’s new H2 chip.
Apple
Some people were hoping that the new AirPods Pro would be able to stream Apple Lossless tracks over wireless. Apple didn’t mention anything about that, but it is possible that some features will be revealed at a later date. With the original AirPods Pro, for example, Apple didn’t introduce Spatial Audio until months after they were released.
On the Spatial Audio front, Apple says the AirPods Pro now have personalized Spatial Audio that creates a more tailored listening experience for your ears. The transparency mode is also enhanced and adapts to ambient noise you encounter, and there’s a new personalized spatial audio feature along with touch swipe controls on the stems to add to the pinch controls.
Battery life is now up to six hours on a single charge (up from five), and the case gives you an additional four charges. Additionally, the case now has a built-in speaker, which allows it to play sounds for use with Apple’s precision Find My feature.
The new case has a spot for attaching a lanyard, but Apple doesn’t include one with the new AirPods Pro.
David Carnoy/CNET
While some people may be disappointed Apple didn’t do more to upgrade the design of the AirPods Pro 2 (there are some tweaks to the microphone configuration and some other small refinements including the vents), the AirPods Pro 2nd generation are largely what I expected them to be: better sounding AirPods Pro with better noise canceling, better battery life and a wireless charging case with some enhanced features.
I’ll have a lot more to say about them in my full review — stay tuned — in which I’ll compare them to some other top noise-canceling earbuds, including Bose’s new QuietComfort Earbuds II that were also unveiled this week.
AirPods Pro 2 key features
- Same design as previous AirPods Pro
- Powered by Apple H2 chip
- Improved sound with new low-distortion drivers
- Improved noise canceling (Apple says double the amount of ANC)
- Adaptive transparency mode
- Personalized spatial audio
- The charging case now has a built-in speaker on the bottom that allows it to play a sound using Precision Find My feature
- 6 hours of onboard battery capacity (1 hour more than the original AirPods Pro) with an extra 24 hours in charging case
- Touch swipe controls added to pinch controls on stems
- Can now charge with Apple Watch charger along with Qi wireless chargers
- Lanyard can be connected to case (lanyard not included)
- Price: $249, £249, AU$399
- Ship date: Sept. 23 (available for preorder Sept. 9)
The second-gen AirPods Pro earbuds are powered by Apple’s new H2 chip.
Apple
Read more: Best Wireless Earbuds for 2022
White House leaning toward canceling $10,000 in student loan debt for borrowers who make less than $125,000
In addition to that baseline of student loan debt forgiveness for individuals who fall under a certain income level, administration officials have also recently discussed the possibility of additional forgiveness for specific subsets of the population, according to sources familiar with internal discussions in the administration.
The announcement could come as early as Wednesday, but it is not clear that a final decision on the details of the announcement — as well as the timing — has been made, and there could always be eleventh hour changes. The White House is also expected to address in the coming days whether to extend again the current pause on federal student loan payments, which is set to expire on August 31.
Payments have not been required on most federal student loans since March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the US, greatly affecting the economy. Biden has extended the pause four times, most recently in April, arguing that it was necessary to allow federal student loan borrowers to get back on their feet.
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
In recent days, White House officials have been in communication with lawmakers to discuss their thinking on student loan debt forgiveness, ahead of the current pause on payments expiring. Last week, for example, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, had a discussion with senior White House officials, sources said.
The White House has suggested in the past that Biden was considering canceling $10,000 per borrower but excluding those who earn more than $125,000 a year.
Setting an income cap, which has been the subject of intense debate both inside and outside the administration, was also crafted as a buffer against criticism that the forgiveness would benefit those with the means to manage their debt payments.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Sunday that Americans can expect a decision from the administration on student loans in the “next week or so.” With less than two weeks to go, Americans have been left guessing for weeks whether Biden will extend the current moratorium or, perhaps, forgive some of their debt.
“We’ve been talking daily about this, and I can tell you the American people will hear within the next week or so from the President and the Department of Education on what we’re going to be doing around that,” Cardona told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press.”
He did not elaborate on the details, saying he would not get ahead of the announcement.
Some Democratic lawmakers and advocates have been urging Biden to broadly cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower, but the President has consistently pushed back on canceling that much.
Biden has canceled more student loan debt than any other president, with his administration authorizing the cancellation of nearly $32 billion in loans largely for borrowers who were defrauded by their for-profit colleges and for permanently disabled borrowers.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
CNN’s Sam Fossum contributed to this report.
Adele says she was ‘shell of a person’ after canceling Vegas residency
During a recent conversation with “Desert Island Discs” on BBC Radio 4, the superstar singer shared that she felt like “a shell of a person for a couple months” after having to disappoint her fans.
“I just had to wait it out and just grieve it,” she said. “I guess just grieve the shows and get over the guilt, but it was brutal.”
Adele tearfully made the cancellation announcement in January, a day before the eagerly awaited concerts were supposed to kick off.
Now she says she “definitely felt everyone’s disappointment” and also felt “devastated’ and “frightened about letting them down.”
“I thought I could pull it together and make it work and I couldn’t. I stand by that decision,” Adele said. “I don’t think any other artist would have done what I did and I think that’s why it was such a massive, massive story.”
“I’m not going to just do a show because I have to or because people are going to be let down or because we’re going to lose loads of money,” she added.
Adele returned to the stage over the weekend to headline the BST Hyde Park festival in London.
Airlines are canceling more holiday flights due to staffing shortages
Ahead of the July Fourth weekend, airlines are facing a wave of concern over flight cancellations — and new pressure from Washington to make sure they’re not leaving travelers in the lurch.
Wednesday saw more than 2,000 cancellations in a single day, according to FlightAware data, with uncertainty continuing into the holiday travel season. The surge in canceled flights is particularly bad because it’s happening across all airlines, straining the system’s capacity and leaving many travelers unable to reach their destinations. A Washington Post report on Tuesday detailed the human cost of those cancellations, with travelers sleeping on airport floors or canceling trips altogether.
A deeper look at the data shows cancellations really have increased in recent months, peaking in January with more than 33,000 cancellations in a single month, more than double the equivalent figure from 2019. As holiday travel heats up, many are concerned that the summer’s cancellation numbers will be even higher.
The numbers are still well below the pandemic-driven peak in March and April of 2020, which saw more than 100,000 cancellations per month. But while those cancellations were driven by quarantine rules and a broader falloff in demand, the more recent problems are caused by a shortfall in supply.
Staffing is a particular issue, as airlines struggle to replace the thousands of pilots who took buyouts in 2020 as the industry responded to the pandemic. With those pilots out of the workforce, airlines have had difficulty staffing their planes — and have often had to cancel flights when unable to arrange a crew. As the shortage intensifies, some industry analysts have proposed easing the requirements for pilot certification — including the rule requiring 1,500 hours of flight time before piloting a commercial aircraft.
Politicians have been vocal in demanding fewer cancellations — often while invoking the generous terms of the industry’s $54 billion pandemic bailout.
On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman called on the White House to fine airlines $27,500 for every flight that’s canceled due to known staffing shortages. “Government has a responsibility to hold these airlines accountable,” Fetterman said in a statement. “Taxpayers saved them and now it’s their turn to hold up their end of the deal.”
When asked about Fetterman’s proposal, the Department of Transportation pointed to its ongoing enforcement actions to ensure airlines honor their refund policies. “We share the expectation that, when Americans buy an airline ticket, they will get where they need to go safely, affordably, and reliably,” said department spokesperson Benjamin Halle. “We will continue to work with airlines to meet that expectation, but also not hesitate in using enforcement actions to hold them accountable.”
Republicans Introduce Bill to Stop Biden Canceling Student Loan Debt
- Five Republican senators on Wednesday introduced a bill that would prohibit student loan forgiveness.
- The legislation bars Biden from taking any action to cancel or forgive borrowers’ balances.
- The bill is unlikely to become law anytime soon with a 50-50 Senate and Democratic-controlled House.
Student loan borrowers eager for broad debt forgiveness will be out of luck if Sen. Mitt Romney has anything to say about it.
The lawmaker from Utah along with several of his Republican colleagues on Wednesday introduced a new bill that would bar the Biden administration from broadly canceling student loan debt — a political move the president has been considering since he took office last year.
The Student Loan Accountability Act would prohibit Biden’s Education, Justice, and Treasury Departments from taking any action that would cancel or forgive student loan borrowers’ outstanding balances or even portions of those balances, according to a Wednesday press release.
The bill would include exemptions for student loan forgiveness, cancelation, and repayment programs that are already in effect, such as the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Teacher Loan Forgiveness programs.
Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined Romney in introducing the bill in Congress this week.
The bill is unlikely to become law anytime soon with a 50-50 Senate, a Democratic-controlled House, and Biden in the Oval Office.
More than 40 million Americans currently hold more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. On the campaign trail in 2020, Biden promised to forgive $10,000 per borrower, but more than a year into his presidency, little movement has been made on broad forgiveness.
“It makes no sense for the Biden Administration to cancel nearly $2 trillion in student loan debt,” Romney said in a statement, seemingly referring to the unlikely scenario in which the president canceled the entirety of America’s student loan debt.
“This decision would not only be unfair to those who already repaid their loans or decided to pursue alternative education paths, but it would be wildly inflationary at a time of already historic inflation,” the senator added.
Several times in a Wednesday press release, the lawmakers said Biden’s legal authority to forgive or cancel swaths of student loan debt is “legally dubious.” Earlier this year, White House chief of staff Ron Klain, said the president was exploring his legal options for possible forgiveness.
Recent indications from the White House suggest Biden is considering student-loan forgiveness of at least $10,000 per borrower through executive action, though questions remain around who would be eligible.
The Republican lawmakers sponsoring the bill said student loan forgiveness would raise inflation rates, worsen inequality, and incentivize colleges and universities to continue raising tuition. A May analysis found that Biden’s $10,000 plan would cost the government $321 billion.
But despite the ongoing controversy around the policy, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week that student loan forgiveness “could be good for the economy.”
“There are some trade-offs involved that need to be analyzed,” she said during a Senate hearing.
Meanwhile, Democrats and advocates are continuing to urge Biden to consider even more forgiveness, with progressives pushing for $50,000 per borrower — an amount the president himself has said he is not considering.
Romney has previously spoken out against student loan forgiveness, calling it a “bribe” for voters. He’s cautioned that it could be a slippery slope that leads to broad forgiveness for other types of debt.
Biden signals he’s open to canceling student loans
Biden and centrist Democrats have expressed skepticism, however, about the wisdom of burdening taxpayers with the debt of students who voluntarily took out loans to attend pricey private universities. To address such concerns, a Biden move could target lower- and middle-income borrowers.
During a lengthy meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Monday, Biden signaled multiple times that he was prepared not only to extend the current moratorium but to potentially take executive actions canceling some of the debt altogether, according to two House members in attendance and two aides briefed on the meeting’s contents.
Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.) initially raised the issue with Biden during the meeting. In an interview, Cárdenas said he first asked the president to extend the moratorium past its current Aug. 31 expiration date, and Biden responded with a smile, “Well, Tony, I’ve extended it every time.”
Cárdenas said he then urged the president to issue an executive order to relieve at least $10,000 in student loan debts per person. In making his case, Cárdenas said he told Biden that Latinos in the United States who are carrying student debt still have more than 80 percent of their bill due after more than a dozen years.
Biden was “incredibly positive” about the idea, Cárdenas said.
Another lawmaker in attendance, Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.), said Biden’s response to lawmakers’ requests to cancel at least some student debt was essentially that he would like to do it sooner rather than later. The president suggested he is looking to take the executive action in short order, telling the Hispanic lawmakers that they would be very happy with what he does next, according to aides briefed on the meeting.
Such a move could prove a popular selling point for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. Still, Biden stressed that the timing of any announcement on loan relief was sensitive, since he does not want it to add to inflationary pressures.
The president suggested to the lawmakers that he understood the burden of student loans on a personal level, since he recently finished paying off his late son Beau’s outstanding student debt. Biden often brought up that story on the campaign trail when discussing the subject with voters.
“I feel very confident that he is pushing on his team to do something, and to do something significant,” Cárdenas said in an interview. “That’s my feeling.”
The issue of forgiving student loans has long been politically fraught. Liberals argue that higher education should be relatively inexpensive for everyone, as it is in European countries. The soaring cost of college, they argue, is a central barrier to social advancement in this country.
But many conservatives take issue with the notion that wealthier people who have chosen to attend pricey schools should have their debts erased while those who went to less expensive schools or decided to forgo college altogether would get little or no benefit.
The debate is also unfolding at a time when some Americans, especially in rural areas and on the conservative end of the political spectrum, are questioning the value and desirability of a college education in the first place.
For much of his presidency, Biden has not been warm to the idea of outright student debt cancellation. In an interview with New York Times columnist David Brooks last year, Biden reacted dismissively to the idea, saying: “The idea that you go to Penn and you’re paying a total of 70,000 bucks a year and the public should pay for that? I don’t agree.”
The president has also stressed that any debt relief plan would be focused on lower-income and underprivileged students.
During the presidential campaign, Biden wrote in a 2020 Medium post that he favored a plan “forgiving student debt for low-income and middle class people who have attended public colleges and universities,” as well as historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs.
In that post, Biden spoke of “an immediate cancellation of a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person,” adding that those earning less than $25,000 per year would not have to make monthly payments and would accrue no interest.
Amid a continual onslaught of pressure from influential Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the administration has never ruled out the idea of a broader loan forgiveness program.
Schumer regularly tweets about a need to forgive student loans. “Today would be a great day for President Biden to #CancelStudentDebt,” he tweeted Tuesday.
White House officials have repeatedly stressed — as recently as Tuesday — that Biden would make a decision on student loan cancellations before Aug. 31, when the current moratorium on loan payments expires.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday that “nobody has paid a single penny in federal student loans since the president took office” and that administration officials were examining other ways Biden could act unilaterally to relieve student loan debt.
Around 7 million people with federal student loans are excluded from the pause because their debt is held by private companies. The Biden administration has already canceled more than $17 billion in student loans for 725,000 borrowers through targeted relief, including for people who are permanently disabled and those defrauded by their colleges.
The Hispanic Caucus meeting Monday was part of a series of sit-downs Biden has held with Democratic coalitions on Capitol Hill in recent weeks to discuss pushing ahead with his agenda by using executive action, since a number of his legislative initiatives have foundered.
Several senior White House officials and other administration officials also attended the Hispanic Caucus meeting, including domestic policy chief Susan Rice; Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget; political strategy and outreach director Emmy Ruiz; White House Deputy Cabinet Secretary Cristóbal Alex; and Louisa Terrell, the director of legislative affairs, according to an administration official.
Danielle Douglas-Gabriel contributed to this report.
MLB Lockout: Another Deadline Set for Canceling Games
Seven days after Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred canceled a week of regular season games because the league didn’t have a labor agreement with players in place to start the 2022 season, M.L.B. gave the players’ union a new deadline, with a slightly different position than before.
During talks on Monday, league officials told their union counterparts that Tuesday was the new target by which to strike a collective bargaining agreement to squeeze in a 162-game season, which would come with full pay and service time for players, said two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the negotiations.
But if no pact was reached on Tuesday night, M.L.B. had been expected to do what it did last week: Cancel regular season games. If that were to happen — an extra week of cancellations was on the table — the sides would have a much harder road ahead: It is unlikely that there would be enough time to reschedule two weeks’ worth of games while keeping the same dates for the World Series in October. In M.L.B.’s eyes, lost games equals less revenue for their clubs, and thus they do not believe they would have to compensate players for those missed contests.
So for the third time in roughly a week, the sides — which have been at odds for months — were on the clock. Each hunkered down at their respective offices in Manhattan, and they continued negotiating deep into the night, building enough momentum to keep talking into the wee hours of Wednesday morning. A little after 3 a.m. Eastern time, a league official said that the union requested time to speak to its board in the morning regarding M.L.B.’s latest proposal and would get back to the league later Wednesday morning.
M.L.B. brought the league to a standstill on Dec. 2 by locking out the players upon the expiration of the previous five-year labor agreement. Manfred said then that he was doing so as a defensive move to protect the 2022 season. And early last month, he said losing regular season games would be “disastrous” for the industry.
Neither outcome has been avoided. This season was scheduled to begin on March 31. Sensing urgency to strike a deal in time to accommodate M.L.B.’s timeline for the season, the sides met in Florida starting Feb. 21 for what turned into nine straight days of negotiating.
M.L.B. Off-Season Updates
When a little momentum was made over 16 ½ hours of talks on Feb. 28 — the final day of negotiations ahead of an ultimatum — M.L.B. extended its self-imposed deadline until 5 p.m. the next day. But players rejected the league’s so-called best and final offer ahead of the deadline, believing it still didn’t sufficiently address their concerns. Soon after 5 p.m., Manfred called off the first two series of the season for all 30 teams — roughly 75 games through April 6.
Since returning to New York, where both organizations are headquartered, M.L.B. and the union have met and exchanged proposals, including multiple times on Tuesday.
On Sunday, after hearing the players’ latest offer, which had modest tweaks, M.L.B. said it had been hoping to see more movement in its direction to get a deal done quickly and it claimed the union had actually gone backward on some issues.
“Simply put, we are deadlocked,” M.L.B. spokesman Glen Caplin said. “We will try to figure out how to respond, but nothing in this proposal makes it easy.”
M.L.B. did respond on Monday, offering some progress for the players on one of the biggest sticking points of these negotiations: the luxury tax system. Reluctant to raise thresholds because they believe the figures help preserve competitive balance among clubs, the owners offered to increase the first threshold by $8 million from their previous offer, to $228 million in 2022, and rising to $238 million in 2026 — the largest proposed increases from one agreement to the next in baseball history.
The first threshold — the payroll number at which teams incur penalties — in 2021 was $210 million. Arguing that the thresholds have not grown at the same rate as revenues and that clubs treat the luxury tax like a salary cap to limit spending, players have pushed for higher numbers. As of Sunday, the players were asking for the first threshold to start at $238 million in 2022 and jump to $263 million in 2026.
Like all proposals, certain olive branches toward the other side have come in a package of offers that act as a counterbalance. For example: M.L.B.’s offer of increased thresholds on Monday was attached to other items that players would have to weigh.
The past two collective bargaining agreements were viewed as having further tilted the balance of power and economics in the owners’ favor. Realizing that significant changes to the system would be tense and full of brinkmanship, the union has spent years building a rainy-day fund for this very fight against M.L.B. owners, who ran an $11 billion-a-year business before the coronavirus pandemic.
While owners believe players have a fair system without a hard salary cap, players have been seeking a series of changes, from improving competition to injecting more spending that is commensurate with club revenues to paying younger players more earlier in their careers.
M.L.B. has listened and offered ways to better compensate younger players — such as a raised minimum salary and a new bonus pool for players not yet eligible for the raises given in salary arbitration — and a few new measures that might help curb some service-time manipulation or tanking, like a draft lottery.
To get this far, the union has since dropped some of its biggest original asks: giving players the chance to reach salary arbitration and free agency sooner. There has been some compromise on expanding the playoffs. But entering Tuesday, other disagreements remained, such as the size of the bonus pool or the implementation of an international draft.
On Tuesday, Apple announced a deal with M.L.B. to exclusively air a weekly doubleheader of games on Fridays during the season — a new revenue stream for owners as they negotiate with the players.
If a deal cannot be reached, and a full 162-game season cannot be rescheduled, this would be the first time games were lost to a work stoppage since the 1994-95 players’ strike.