
Taylor Swift turned down Meghan Markle's 'handwritten' invite to her podcast
Singer Taylor Swift turned down Meghan Markle’s personal request to appear as a guest on her now-cancelled podcast Archetypes. When they stepped down as working members of the royal family in January 2020, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle soon found other roles that kept them busy. Through their podcast production company, Archewell Audio, they brokered a deal with Spotify, through which Markle launched her own podcast series, Archetypes. The first episode was released in August 2023, but the podcast series was axed after just one season, despite high-profile guest stars such as tennis legend Serena Williams and pop icon Mariah Carey. But, even with her vast connections, Markle was unable to secure Taylor Swift who declined her invitation to appear on the podcast after she had sent her a hand-written letter. According to the Wall Street Journal, singer Swift turned Markle’s personal request down to appear on Archetypes via a representative, for unknown reasons. In the podcast series, Markled discussed the history of negative stereotypes used to label women with her celebrity guests. It won the top podcast award at the People’s Choice Awards, but despite this, it was cancelled by Spotify in June after airing 12 episodes. The cancellation comes as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have reportedly struggled to come good on the $20 million Spotify deal, leading to its collapse. Bill Simmons, Spotify’s head of podcast innovation and monetisation, called the pair "f**king grifters”. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
1970-01-01 08:00

Saudi Arabia’s Stash of Oil in the Red Sea Is Driving Up Global Floating Storage
The amount of oil being stored at sea globally climbed to the highest in more than two-and-a-half years,
1970-01-01 08:00

Biden Energy Subsidies Risk Distorting Critical Metals Market, UK Minister Warns
US President Joe Biden’s landmark clean-energy law — and the huge subsidies it offers — risk distorting the
1970-01-01 08:00

Victims' families, united in grief, face 2 paths to justice as Pittsburgh synagogue shooting death penalty trial moves to next phase
Federal jurors in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial will soon decide whether to sentence the convicted gunman to death or life in prison -- two potential avenues for justice that in the years since the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history have found varying levels of support in an otherwise unified community.
1970-01-01 08:00

Chelsea could sell naming rights to Stamford Bridge
Chelsea may look to explore selling the naming rights to Stamford Bridge amid interest from German insurance and assets management firm, Allianz.
1970-01-01 08:00

Goldman Taps Tom Montag for Board Amid Disquiet in Bank’s Ranks
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plans to add Tom Montag to its board, enlisting a prominent alum at a
1970-01-01 08:00

Ukraine Recap: Germany Ready to Place 4,000 Troops in Lithuania
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1970-01-01 08:00

Roundup: Taylor Swift Rejected Meghan Markle; Carlos Alcaraz Back to No. 1; The Mets Are a $359 Million Mess
Taylor Swift rejected an appearance on Meghan Markle's podcast, Carlos Alcaraz is back at No. 1, the Mets are an expensive disaster and more in the Roundup.
1970-01-01 08:00

Astronomers discover a totally new way that stars can die
Astronomers have discovered a new way that stars can die. In a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, experts have worked out that a minute-long gamma-ray burst of light, which occured in 2019 and evidence a star dying, happened because stars collided within the densely crowded environment near the supermassive black hole at the centre of an ancient galaxy. Normally gamma-ray bursts (GRB) last around two seconds and happen when stars collapse. “For every hundred events that fit into the traditional classification scheme of gamma-ray bursts, there is at least one oddball that throws us for a loop,” said study coauthor Wen-fai Fong, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, in a statement. “However, it is these oddballs that tell us the most about the spectacular diversity of explosions that the universe is capable of.” Over time, astronomers have observed three main ways that stars can die, depending on their size. Lower mass stars like our sun shed their outer layers as they age, eventually becoming dead white dwarf stars. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Massive stars burn through the fuel-like elements at their core and shatter in explosions called supernovas. Doing so can leave behind dense remnants like neutron stars or result in the creation of black holes. A third form of star death results when neutron stars or black holes begin to orbit one another in a binary system and spiral closer to one another until they collide and explode. But the new observation suggests a fourth type of death. “Our results show that stars can meet their demise in some of the densest regions of the universe, where they can be driven to collide,” said lead study author Andrew Levan, an astrophysics professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, in a statement. “This is exciting for understanding how stars die and for answering other questions, such as what unexpected sources might create gravitational waves that we could detect on Earth.” “The lack of a supernova accompanying the long GRB 191019A tells us that this burst is not a typical massive star collapse,” said study coauthor Jillian Rastinejad, a doctoral student of astronomy at Northwestern, in a statement. “The location of GRB 191019A, embedded in the nucleus of the host galaxy, teases a predicted but not yet evidenced theory for how gravitational-wave emitting sources might form.” “While this event is the first of its kind to be discovered, it’s possible there are more out there that are hidden by the large amounts of dust close to their galaxies,” said Fong, who is also a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics at Northwestern. “Indeed, if this long-duration event came from merging compact objects, it contributes to the growing population of GRBs that defies our traditional classifications.” You learn something new every day. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
1970-01-01 08:00

Hong Kong to Reopen Downtown Airport Check-In Service Next Month
Hong Kong is poised to allow airport check-in services in the heart of the city again, according to
1970-01-01 08:00

UK Banks to Pass All of Rate Hikes to Some Savers, JPMorgan Says
British lenders will likely have to pass on all of the Bank of England’s record rate hikes to
1970-01-01 08:00

Marketmind: World markets calm after Russia drama
A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Mike Dolan. More perplexed by events than anything
1970-01-01 08:00