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Modern Warfare 4 beta: release dates, content and access explained
Activision has confirmed the multiplayer beta schedule for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, giving players an early opportunity to try the game before its October release. The announcement matters because early access is tied to pre-orders, while a later phase will be available free to all players, widening access across the game’s supported platforms.…
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Sylvia Bugg Dies: PBS Programming Chief & Longtime Nonfiction TV Exec Was 55
Sylvia Bugg, PBS’s Chief Programming Executive and General Manager for General Audience Programming, has died unexpectedly at the age of 55. PBS chief executive Paula Kerger announced her death over the weekend, praising her decades of work across public media, though no cause of death has been given. Bugg had shaped much of PBS’s output…
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Judge halts Paramount-Warner Bros merger over antitrust concerns
A US federal judge has temporarily halted the Paramount-Warner Bros merger, granting a 12-state coalition’s request for a restraining order amid claims the deal would breach federal antitrust law. Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin ruled that “serious questions going to the merits remain,” keeping the two companies operating as separate, competing businesses while the underlying antitrust challenge…
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Grupo Mórbido’s Pablo Guisa Boards Two Pics at Costa Rica Media Market, Launches Blood Bank Initiative (EXCLUSIVE)
Grupo Mórbido founder and CEO Pablo Guisa has joined two Latin American genre films as producer after they won the Mórbido Co-Production Award at the Costa Rica Media Market, a sign of the relaunched market’s growing standing as a hub for genre filmmaking. The award brings a company investment of 10–20% of each project’s budget,…
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Sylvia Bugg, PBS Programming Chief, Dies at 55
Sylvia Bugg, PBS’s chief programming executive and general manager for general audience programming, has died unexpectedly at the age of 55, the broadcaster’s CEO Paula Kerger announced. Bugg was a senior and long-serving figure in American public broadcasting, having shaped programming across multiple stints at PBS as well as a leadership role at the Corporation…
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Nicki Minaj Wants Out of Lawsuit Over Alleged $275K Concert Debt: ‘Fanciful & Baseless’
Nicki Minaj is fighting to be personally dismissed from a lawsuit brought by concert production company 24/7 Productions, which claims she owes $275,000 for expenses tied to her 2023 iHeartRadio Jingle Ball performances and promotion of her album Pink Friday 2. In a filing submitted on 14 July, her lawyers argue that the contract in…
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GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen Continues Push to Buy eBay, Bumps Ownership to 10%
GameStop, led by CEO Ryan Cohen, has increased its stake in eBay to nearly 10%, intensifying its efforts to take over the online auction giant after eBay rejected an unsolicited takeover bid earlier this year. The move signals that Cohen has no intention of backing down despite eBay’s public dismissal of the offer, and points…
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John Coltrane’s Centennial: How Artists From Ariana Grande to Beastie Boys Have Been Inspired by the Jazz Pioneer
Verve Label Group, home to John Coltrane’s Impulse! Records catalogue, is leading a yearlong global celebration marking the centenary of the jazz saxophonist’s birth on 23 September. The tribute, coordinated with Coltrane’s heirs Ravi and Michelle Coltrane, underscores how deeply his music has permeated popular culture, having been sampled or referenced by artists as varied…
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Hole’s Melissa Auf der Maur releasing unheard ’90s demos & new field recordings
Melissa Auf der Maur, formerly bassist with Hole and a touring member of the Smashing Pumpkins, will release *Bass Womb Room: My ’90s 4-Track Demos x Field Recordings*. The project marks her first new music in more than 15 years and combines personal archive material with newly created work, linking her music career to an…
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Deon Taylor to Direct Biopic on Streetball Star Grayson ‘The Professor’ Boucher for Hidden Empire Sports (EXCLUSIVE)
Filmmaker Deon Taylor is set to direct a biopic about streetball star Grayson “The Professor” Boucher, produced through his Hidden Empire Film Group and its Hidden Empire Sports Collective division. The project traces Boucher’s unlikely rise from an unheralded college player in Keizer, Oregon, to a standout on the international AND1 Mixtape Tour, and reflects…