Christmas is fast approaching, and many are preparing to travel to visit loved ones or host their own gatherings at home. For some, spending quality time at a favorite restaurant can be just as enjoyable. Thankfully, there are plenty of great options to explore this year.
Denzel Washington just got baptized and is now a licensed minister.
He was baptized on Saturday at Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood. Not only was he baptized and received his certificate of baptism, but he also received his minister’s license, which will allow him to be ordained in the future, per Today.com.
Talking about the momentous occasion, Washington told the crowd in attendance, as reported by Today.com: “In one week I turn 70. It took a while, but I’m here.”
Washington talks about a prophecy that has come true
He also talked about a moment he had when meeting a woman named Ruth Green when he was 20. The woman was at his mother’s beauty parlor when she told him he would preach to people one day.
Washington explained the moment, saying, “She said, ‘Boy, you are going to travel the world and preach to millions of people.’ She wouldn’t even spell the word prophecy. My mother wrote the word prophecy…50 years later, look at God. If He can do this for me, there’s nothing He can’t do for you. The sky literally is the limit and there’s no limit to the sky.”
Pauletta Washington spoke about her husband
He also thanked his wife, Pauletta Washington, who was in attendance.
“Forty-six years later, here I’m still standing next to him as only God will have it,” said Pauletta, as reported by Page Six. “So, I’m very proud of you. You are the head of our house and you have set a great example for our children, who are now adult children who know the difference because we have shown them the difference.”
“To God be the glory. Hallelujah!” Denzel said later on. “Anything I can do, I will do for this church, the Almighty. I just want to be in that number when the saints go marching in.”
The baptism and ceremony was livestreamed on Facebook, and can be viewed below:
Vocalist Alfa Anderson, of the iconic band Chic, has died at age 78. Anderson, who was the lead singer for the band, sang on his tracks such as “Good Times” and “Le Freak.” The singer’s bandmate Nile Rodgers paid tribute to Anderson with a heartfelt post on Instagram.
“Thank you for everything,” Rodgers wrote on Tuesday.
As Stray Kids’ new album HOP debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Dec. 28), they become the first act to debut at No. 1 with their first six charting albums. The Billboard 200 began publishing on […]
Stray Kids score their sixth No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart as HOP debuts atop the list dated Dec. 28. It’s the sixth leader for the group, making the pop ensemble the first act to debut at No. 1 with its first six chart entries in the nearly 69-year history of the chart. The Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March 1956.
Stray Kids previously opened atop the chart with ODDINARY and MAXIDENT (both in 2022), ROCK-STAR and 5-STAR (both in 2023) and ATE (earlier in 2024).
Further, with a sixth No. 1, Stray Kids tie BTS, Linkin Park and Dave Matthews Band for the most No. 1s among groups on the Billboard 200 in this century (since 2000).
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HOP arrives with 187,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 19, according to Luminate, largely driven by traditional album sales.
Also in the top 10 of the latest Billboard 200, Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas jingles back to the top 10 for a seventh consecutive holiday season, as the 1994 release climbs 14-10. The set, which contains the Billboard Hot 100-topping “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” peaked at No. 3 in 1994.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Dec. 28, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday, Dec. 24. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of HOP’s 187,000 first-week equivalent album units, album sales comprise 176,000 (it debuts at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart), SEA units comprise 10,000 (equaling 14.83 million on-demand official streams of the sets songs) and TEA units comprise 1,000.
HOP’s album sales were bolstered by its availability across seven different CD variants, all containing collectible items such as photocards, posters, stickers and trading cards (including some randomized items), with variants exclusive to Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart and the act’s official webstore. Of the album’s 176,000 album sales, CD sales comprise 171,000, while digital download albums comprise 5,000.
Previously, Stray Kids were tied with late rapper DMX as the only acts to see their first five chart entries debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. DMX did it in 1998-2003 with It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot (1998), Flesh of My Flesh Blood of My Blood (1999), …And Then There Was X (2000), The Great Depression (2001) and Grand Champ (2003).
As HOP is mostly in the Korean language, it is the 27th mostly non-English-language album to hit No. 1, and the fourth of 2024. Three other mostly-Korean-language sets topped the chart earlier this year, all by also debuting at No. 1: On the Nov. 30-dated list, ATEEZ landed its second leader with Golden Hour: Part.2; on the Aug. 3 chart, Stray Kids’ ATE arrived; and on the March 9 chart, TWICE notched its first leader in With YOU-th. Of the 27 mostly non-English-language albums to reach No. 1, 18 are mostly Korean, five mostly (or all) Spanish, one mostly Italian, one entirely French and two mostly a blend of Spanish, Italian and French. Of the 27 mostly non-English-language albums to reach No. 1, 23 have topped the chart since 2018 (the year that K-pop superstars BTS scored their first of six No. 1s, the chart’s first Korean-language leaders).
The rest of the Billboard 200’s top five comprises former No. 1s: Kendrick Lamar’s GNX is a non-mover at No. 2 (100,000 equivalent album units earned; down 20%), Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department falls 1-3 (85,000; down 65%), Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet steps 5-4 (69,000; down 9%) and Michael Bublé’s Christmas climbs 7-5 (68,000; up 10%).
The most recently released holiday album in the top 10 is Bing Crosby’s Ultimate Christmas compilation, which ascends two spots to a new peak at No. 6 (65,000 equivalent album units; up 15%). The Wicked film soundtrack falls 6-7 (nearly 65,000; down 13%), Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft rises 9-8 (62,000; up 11%) and Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess climbs 11-9 (56,000; up 12%).
Closing out the top 10 is Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas, rising 14-10 with 56,000 equivalent album units earned (up 22% with a 10,000 unit gain — the largest unit increase on the chart). The set returns to the top 10 for a seventh consecutive holiday season. It peaked at No. 3 during its initial chart run in 1994, shortly following its release that year.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
Two U.S. Navy pilots in a fighter jet were accidentally shot down in a “friendly fire” incident over the Red Sea on Sunday, according to the U.S. military. Both pilots were safely ejected and recovered, while one suffered minor injuries.
A local community theater director, accurately portrayed by Martin Short, comes in to critique a performance of A Charlie Brown Christmas in SNL‘s Peanuts Christmas sketch that aired Saturday night (Dec. 21).
The SNL ensemble is full of spot-on spoofs of Peanuts characters in the sketch (hats off to the wardrobe and props departments), and they’re bopping away to the classic theme song “Linus and Lucy.”
Drake Tuttle (Short, who hosted Saturday’s holiday episode of SNL) is joined by a self-proclaimed “genius” choreographer named Lestat (Bowen Yang). In full transparency, Tuttle discloses that they’ve been romantically involved. (They “used to date,” he says, “and our relationship is very weird.”)
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“Your principal hired me to direct your pageant,” he tells the Peanuts crew, to protests that Charlie Brown is their director.
“And I’m sorry to say he’s dead,” Tuttle announces, pausing for dramatic effect before adding, “to me.”
Tuttle tries to give notes. Lestat tries to incorporate modern hip-hip into the production. Nothing quite goes their way, until they discover their star: Snoopy (Kenan Thompson).
The sketch arrives while the soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas from the Vince Guaraldi Trio, originally released in 1965, currently sits at No. 1 on the Billboard Kid Albums chart, thanks to the Christmastime popularity of the special.
Watch SNL‘s Peanuts Christmas below. For those watching with kids, be warned there’s some innuendo here, particularly when it comes to the jokes Short and Yang direct toward Schroeder — and unlike the actual animated Peanuts specials, what the grownups say can be heard on SNL‘s special.
For more holiday laughs, check out Saturday night’s Sábado Gigante Christmas Special sketch, and for a musical fix, don’t miss Hozier’s performance.
Sábado Gigante ended in 2015, but SNL brought the long-running variety show back to TV, at least via short-form comedy, this season.
Cast member Marcello Hernández plays Don Francisco in the Dec. 21 episode’s Sábado Gigante Christmas Special sketch, also starring guest Paul Rudd as a clueless audience member who doesn’t speak Spanish yet finds himself on the Sábado Gigante stage. It’s a reprisal of the role for Hernández, who first appeared as the Chilean TV star in an SNL sketch in October, when Nate Bargatze was the one who had no idea what was happening on Sábado Gigante.
Rudd, playing a man named Greg, is called to the stage as a contestant in Saturday night’s skit.
“Dónde está Greg?” Hernández announces, then waves “mi gringo favorito” over to the spotlight.
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“I’m not supposed to be here,” says Rudd, who looks lost. “I missed my flight out of Miami, and instead of a voucher, they gave me a ticket to this show.”Hernández, in a silly Santa hat, ignores him completely and instructs him to choose a number.
Rudd picks “uno.” This turns out to be an unfortunate choice: “Miami Frosty,” or Frosty the Snowman melting in the sun and crying, “Yo soy agua,” is unveiled, to Rudd’s discomfort. “Oh, Greg. Como se dice, ‘You killed him’?” Hernández asks with feigned horror.
Later in the segment, he realizes he’s being asked a question with a prize of $1 million and needs to give Hernández an answer — rápido. Unfortunately, this question proves to puzzle poor Greg.
Watch SNL‘s Sábado Gigante Christmas Special below. Elsewhere during Saturday’s holiday episode of SNL, which was hosted by Martin Short, Hozier performed his hit “Too Sweet” and a cover of The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.”
SNL musical guest Hozier closed the season with his hit “Too Sweet” and a cover of The Pogues‘ “Fairytale of New York” on the Martin Short-hosted episode Saturday night (Dec. 21). Introduced by Short, Hozier performed “Too Sweet,” his 2024 […]
Rickey Henderson, an MLB and Oakland Athletics great who is often called one of the greatest baseball players of all time, has died. He was 65 and was just shy of turning 66 on Christmas Day.
In their obituary, ESPN called Henderson “the greatest leadoff hitter and base stealer in Major League Baseball history.” He was also called the “Man of Steal” for his steals.
“A legend on and off the field, Rickey was a devoted son, dad, friend, grandfather, brother, uncle, and a truly humble soul,” reads a statement from his wife Pamela and three daughters as they confirmed his death Saturday evening. “Rickey lived his life with integrity, and his love for baseball was paramount. Now, Rickey is at peace with the Lord, cherishing the extraordinary moments and achievements he leaves behind.”
Henderson was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2009.
MLB commissioner’s statement
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that Henderson was “the gold standard of base stealing and leadoff hitting.”
His statement reads, “Rickey epitomized speed, power and entertainment in setting the tone at the top of the lineup. When we considered new rules for the game in recent years, we had the era of Rickey Henderson in mind,” Manfred said, referencing recent rule changes that have encouraged more stolen base attempts. “Rickey earned universal respect, admiration and awe from sports fans. On behalf of Major League Baseball, I send my deepest condolences to Rickey’s family, his friends and former teammates, A’s fans and baseball fans everywhere.”
What was Rickey Henderson’s cause of death?
According to USA Today, Henderson died after “a battle with pneumonia.” The family, who didn’t initially confirm a cause of death, thanked “the doctors and nurses at UCSF hospital, which they said cared for Henderson with ‘dedication and compassion,’” per ESPN.
Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones at this time.
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