The Grammy Nominations Are Out!

The 59th Annual Grammy Award (airing Sunday February 12th, 2017) nominations have now been released, and the whole world is going crazy!

Every year, the nominations for the most prestige award in music are let out early, so people can react, love it, hate it, place bets, do whatever they want, and this year, the nominations are pretty amazing, if you ask me. The event will be broadcast live on CBS, and we all hope host James Corden of The Late Late Show will do the job justice.

Of the major categories, Beyoncé's Lemonade and Adele's 25 are each nominated for Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year.

Speaking of Album of the Year, arguably the night's biggest award, Justin Bieber's Purpose, Drake's Views, and, surprisingly, Sturgill Simpson's A Sailor's Guide to Earth were also nominated for the award.

In All, Queen Bey rolls in the most nominations with a staggering 9. Including Best Solo Pop Performance, Best Urban Contemporary Album, even, Best Rock Performance, for a song she did with Jack White. You name it, Beyoncé is nominated.

Right behind Beyoncé, in considering number of nominations, are Drake, Kanye West and Rihanna all with 8 nominations.  

Then comes in Chance the Rapper with 7 nominations, and Adele comes in right after, with a cool 5. Even though Adele doesn't have the first, second, or third most amount of nominations, her album was still one of the most anticipated of the year.

N.M.

Hairspray Returns Live To NBC on December 7th!

The film "Hairspray" was a hit that was made in 2007. The film included stars like John Travolta playing "Edna Turnblad" Zac Efron playing "Link Larkin" and Michelle Pfeiffer playing "Velma" . Now, after a long wait, Hairspray is finally coming back after 9 years since its last production. New stars like Ariana Grande is stepping up to play "Penny" and we're hoping that the new actors do the job justice. The main character of the 2007 film was "Tracy Turnblad" played by Nikki Blonsky. The actor playing the 2017 "Tracy" will be Maddie Baillio. Now to talk about the new and improved Hairspray.

The premiere of Hairspray 2 will be held in Baltimore. The people that will be playing in the movie will include Ariana Grande, Maddie Baillio, Jennifer Hudson, Harvey Fierstien, Derek Hough, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Dove Cameron, Garrett Clayton, Kristin Chinoweth, Rosie O'Donnell, and Billy Eichner. There will also be little cameos of "Tracy" from the first Hairspray who was Nikki Blonsky. There will also be a cameo of Marissa Jaret Winokur. They will both be playing  Mr. Pink's assistants. According to PlayBill, The costumes of the movie are really vibrant with colors, and according to NBC News, Jennifer Hudson will be doing an emotional solo. Also, The movie and Broadway show's signature song,"Can't Stop the Beat" will be in the movie.

If you want my opinion about the movie. I think the the sequel will be really good. The first one was a huge success and it was directed by Adam Shankman. Let us just hope that Kenny Leon, the director of Hairspray Live!, will be achieve the same success as the first one did in 2007.

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B.Z.

J Cole's New Album - 4 Your Eyez Only

J Cole may be first known as Jay-Z's protege but he has emerged from the sidelines to become a Billboard chart topper. He was born Jermaine Lamarr Cole on January 28, 1985 in Frankfurt, Germany onto a European American mother and an African American father. He moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina with his mother when his father left the family.

 J Cole has recently been left out of the 2016 music conversation. Until today. Two months ago J Cole claimed that his performance at Meadows Fest in New York would be his last show for a “very long time.” No one really knew what he meant by that. But today a link was released saying he is releasing a new album on Friday December 9th called 4 Your Eyez Only. The album comes out exactly two years from the day that he released his last album. 2014 Forest Hills Drive. That album reached double platinum and broke so many records.

 Despite Cole’s claims of stepping away from the stage, a corresponding tour is a welcomed thought. His Forest Hills Drive tour sold approximately 565,000-575,000 tickets according to Cole’s booking agent, Rob Gibbs.      The tour generated multiple sellouts, including the 18,000-capacity Madison Square Garden, and grossed over $16 million from July to September, according to Billboard.

 Cole is one of rap’s more emotional artists since arriving on the scene, but it has often felt as if he slightly crosses the line between fully speaking his mind and keeping the peace. But according to his new documentary, he has few inhibitions as an artist and feels that now is his opportunity to spill his thoughts and let out his opinion.

“First of all, you get to this height or this level of your career, in terms of platform, who’s to say the next one, the next one might go down, it could go up,” he says. “You’re never guaranteed to be this high again. And while I’m here, let me use this opportunity to say the realest shit I’ve ever said.”

K.G

3 Christmas Facts To Start Off The Holidays

Isn’t Christmas just the best time of the year? So much joy, singing, smiles, and surprises. Sitting by the fire, with your friends and family while sipping on eggnog and munching on cookies, watching all the “Home Alone” and “Jack Frost” movies, but there are still many things that you probably do not know about Christmas. Trust me, they will surprise you. Here are some facts that might make you laugh and smile, and they might even ruin a few Christmas related cartoon characters for you.

Did you know that scientists have hypothesized that your favorite childhood Christmas cartoon character, Rudolph the red-nose reindeer has an infection that will make his nose red and glowy. That’s right, his nose isn’t just red by fluke. He actually has a parasite infection. The parasite goes by the name of pneumonia. Pneumonia is an infection that affects your lungs. This parasite enters you through your skin or by being swallowed. When the bug is inside of you it travels through your blood to get to the lungs. There are three species of parasites that cause this infection, Ascariasis, Schistosoma, and finally Toxoplasma Gondii. So Rudolph’s nose isn’t magic, it’s a deadly infection.

Also, did you know that each year more than 3 Billion Christmas cards are sent through post offices and email? That’s insane! Christmas time is clearly the best time of the year for the post office. Only Christmas makes the business of post an average of over 1.5 Billion dollars! A third of the population of the World sends mail on Christmas. That’s crazy!

Also, If you have a Girlfriend or Boyfriend around the time of Christmas, you are probably thinking of an expensive gift to buy him or her, but did you know that Christmas time according to Facebook is one of the most popular times for breakups. For many reasons, such as not being what they want (as a person and as a gift),  not spending enough money on a gift for them, cheating…

I know all of these facts are crazy, but from all of us at Pop Rocks, we want to wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

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Trumps Transition Team

With Trump being voted as the 45th president of the United States he is required to choose his transition team. A transition team is a group of people who manage the transition between one system, administrative regime, etc and another. Or in simpler terms, they are the group of people who are going to help Trump through his presidency.

On top of all the controversy about himself, it seems Trump is taking another stab at the American people by also choosing other controversial politicians like him.

Trump has chosen Mike Pence as his Vice President. In Pence's earlier years, he lost twice for a U.S. congressional seat, after that he became a conservative radio and TV talk show host in the 1990s. Pence successfully ran for Congress in the year 2000, moving up to the position of Republican conference chairman, before being elected governor of Indiana in 2012. Like Trump he went from a tv personality to a politician, thankfully with much more political experience than Trump.

As one of his vice chairman trump has chosen Jeff Sessions. Sessions has been with Trump since March, managing his security team. He is known for his very anti-immigration attitude and has endorsed Trumps idea of a wall on the border of the United States and Mexico.

Another vice chairman is Newt Gingrich. This former speaker of the house, the first one to be republican from the 40 years prior, became the leader of the anti Clinton republican movement in 1994. This would have been brought to Trumps attention showing Trump that Gingrich already shows loyalty to the republican views and shares the same hatred against Clinton as Trump does.

Rudy Giuliani another one of Trumps vice chairman's is the former mayor of New York. He was known for spreading rumours about Hillary Clinton, Trump's former running mate. He also had been criticized for his comments on terrorism a subject he is seen to know nothing about.

As for the executive community there is, Jared Kushner and Stephen Bannon. Jared Kushner is not only part of Trumps team but also part of the family, he is Ivanka Trump's husband. Some believe that this was a bad decision on Trumps part, believing that having family involved could mess things up. But he was actually played a key-part in the trump campaign, doing things like getting Trump an appearance before the Israeli Public Affairs Committee.

Stephen Bannon is known for running the ultra-conservative website Breitbart News. He also served as the CEO of the Trump's campaign. There is now speculation that Bannon will be a top pick for chief of staff.

We can only hope that the rest of the members on Trumps team will help make good decisions for the country.

C.C.

The 2016 American Music Awards

The American Music Awards are not your average awards show. The awards are entirely fan-voted, which puts the power in the listener’s hands ensuring that the most popular artist or song wins, and as host model Gigi Hadid noted, “There’s no electoral college tonight.”

In addition to showing who fans love the most, the show also featured performances by Niall Horan, Maroon 5 and Kendrick Lamar, James Bay, Fifth Harmony, Lady Gaga, John Legend, Bruno Mars, Shawn Mendes, The Weeknd and Justin Bieber, special duets from The Chainsmokers and Halsey, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj, and many more. Plus, Robert Downey, Jr., stopped by the show to give Sting the honor of the American Music Award of Merit.

The show was hosted Hadid, whose boyfriend Zayn Malik was nominated for best new artist, and former Saturday Night Live star and master impressionist Jay Pharoah, who did so many impressions it was like Donald Trump, Kanye West and Drake were all co-hosting the show, too.

Drake had a amazing night as he was nominated for a record breaking thirteen awards. He went home with three awards. Ariana Grande also went home with a award and probably the best one, artist of the year.

How to Lose Weight Properly

Many men, women, and children in their community are worried about their weight as well as their eating habits. Even if they want to get more fit and eat healthier they have no clue where to start. If you want to lose weight and get thinner as well as gain muscle mass then you have come to the right place. I will be explaining to you the right steps on becoming more fit.

In order to lose weight you need to know how many calories your body intakes a day. Your body burns a certain amount of calories a day and if you eat less calories then your body can burn then you will eventually lose weight.

A pound of fat equals to 3,500 calories. Once you know how many calories you eat daily  subtract that amount by 1,000 calories and continue this step every day and eventually you will lose two pounds per week .

Now we need to talk about exercises that can help you lose weight. Cardiovascular exercise are the best way to lose weight when it comes to fitness. Get a gym membership or just get a treadmill and run at least 30 minutes every day . You may be asking yourself but how does running make you lose weight . Well when you run it burns off all the leftover fat that's stored up in your body also it can increase your metabolism so you can burn fat much easier .

Now that you have lost weight it's time to focus on your muscular physique. If you are confused on how to to start working out then you can always hire a weight trainer at your local gym to show you specific exercises to help you gain muscle, but I’ll be telling you the basic exercises that can help you gain muscle . If you are planning on gaining muscle it's very important you always work on these four muscles (chest,legs,back,arms). These are the prime muscles you need to focus on if you are planning to gain some muscle.

Well, now you know the basics on how to lose weight and gain some muscle. If ever you still have questions then go to your nearest gym and ask some of the staff there, they will be happy to help. Everyone can lose weight as long as you want too, these steps will help you do so.

Happy Training!

Panagiotis Paraskevopoulos

Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher Had Something Special

No one can forget the famous scene in the movie “The Empire Strikes Back” where Leia says to Han “I love you!” and Han says back “I know.” When Han was about to get cryogenic-ally frozen by Darth Vader. But maybe they were not just acting. Maybe they really did love each other. This was found out in Fisher’s new memoir, “The Princess Diarist”, where Ford and herself were in a three month affair with Fisher in London. She described it as an intense affair, and it started when she was nineteen and Ford was 33 and married. Fisher told People Magazines “ It was Han and Leia During the week and Carrie and Ford during the weekend.” Their relationship ended once the movie wrapped up. But even then, They still had a spark between them.

“The Empire Strikes Back” was released in 1980 and was considered the second best out of the seven Star Wars trilogy movies.  A New Hope is the number one Star Wars movie of all time. Fisher’s book will be released on November 22nd of 2016. Ford got an early copy of the 272 page book and immediately asked for his lawyer. “I didn't say anything to anybody for years but it's not like anyone's deeply affected by it anymore.” says Fisher to the New York Times best seller. Fisher claims that their first night together was at the director of Star Wars, George Lucas, at his birthday party.

B.Z.

Montreal's 40 Million Dollar Bridge

In early September, a design company introduced the idea to light up the Jacques Cartier bridge for Montreal's 375th anniversary and Canada's 150th anniversary. They're calling the project, "Living Connections." This clever title is meant to emphasize how importance this bridge has been to connect outsiders to the city of Montreal over its long, rich history.

This idea is the product of the local engineering firm Pomerleau. Their brilliant plan is to place approximately 2800 lights on the previously dark and dull bridge. These lights, when installed, will turn 365 shades of colour, depending on the season, time or event that is going on at the moment. To avoid washing out starlight, all lights will be facing the bridge rather than outwardly. If successful, this project will be a fine commemoration of Montreal's past accomplishments, while still looking like a designing marvel.

The only problem with this bright idea is the 39.5 million dollar cost of the installation process. A CROP poll shows that few Quebecers actually approve of Montreal's 375th anniversary plan to light up the Jacques Cartier bridge. In the survey that they conducted of 1,000 Quebec residents, of that group about half of them live in the greater Montreal area. Only 8 percent of this group said they want Montreal to go ahead with the plan at its current cost of $39.5 million. On the other hand, fifty-two per cent said they'd be in favour of the project if it cost less money. Finally, 30 per cent of the group said that they don't approve of the project at all.

The Jacques Cartier Bridge, officially opened on May 14, 1930, was named after the great explorer because it celebrated his 400th anniversary of landing in Canada. This was a historic moment for the country.

Before the bridge was built, people would have to take two ferries to get to Montreal. During the winter, people would cross an ice bridge to get to Montreal. With the urgent need and necessity for the bridge, the Harbour Commissioners of Montreal announced in August of 1922 that they had selected the Monsarrat and Pratley, Montreal engineering firms, for the challenging project. The bridge has been an important part of the Montreal landscape for almost one hundred years.

There us no doubt that the new firm Pomerleau was going to choose this important bridge to celebrate since it is a huge part of Canada's history and means so much to the hundreds of people who use it every day to get on and off the island. It is a bridge of exploration, named after the very man who discovered Canada.

C.C.

Michael Lee: The New Social Media Sensation

A little over a week ago, a man took to Twitter to post a picture of his 1993 yearbook and a quote from a student that read, ‘Chicago Cubs. 2016 World Series Champions. You heard it here first.” And social media lost its mind.

It got even crazier when the Cubs actually did it, having to come back from a 3-1 deficit to claim their first World Series in 108 years.  In an interview with WGN-TV, Michael Lee, the guy who predicted the win, stated the win came to him in a dream.

“It just came from, when I was a kid, I had a dream about it,” said Lee, who attended Mission Viejo High School in California but now lives in Chicago.  “It was up on that red scoreboard with Harry Caray blasting away, ‘Cubs win World Series!’” Lee said of the dream. “It was pretty vivid. That’s why I remembered it all through high school, and now I’m getting reminded again.”  The Chicago Cubs are finally world series champions and at their parade 5 million people showed up including the man who predicted it, Michael Lee.

K.G.