Curb RecordsLee Brice continues his reign at the top of the country charts this week.
The singer’s latest hit, “One of Them Girls,” remains in the number-one spot on the Billboard Country Airplay chart for the third week in a row, continuing Lee’s personal longest-running streak at the top of the charts.
The song is only the second country single released to this year to stay in the top spot for more than two weeks, coming in behind Luke Combs, who spent four weeks at number one with “Lovin’ On You.”
“Truth is, I really have no words. It’s just been such a long road with so many great teammates working so hard to make and keep things going,” Lee reflects in a statement. “From the creation of the song to radio jumping in so quickly, the fans listening like crazy, to the last drop of blood, sweat, and tears from my label working their butts off. I’m just so thankful!”
Lee scored another number-one hit earlier this year with Carly Pearce on “I Hope You’re Happy Now,” which Luke co-wrote. Both hits are featured on Lee’s forthcoming album, Hey World, out on November 20.
Steve Granitz/WireImage(LOS ANGELES) — Are Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds planning to share the screen again?
The two actors, who starred together in the 2009 rom-com The Proposal, may be reuniting for Paramount Pictures’ action-romance The Lost City of D.
According to Entertainment Weekly, Bullock is attached to star in the film and will also be producing, with Reynolds eyed for a co-starring role.
“The idea that Paramount is willing to return to a genre we haven’t seen in a while, makes us incredibly excited,” Bullock tells EW in a statement. “…We all need some action, escapism and love right now. And if I have to humiliate myself on screen to do it… then so be it!”
The story centers on a romance author, played by Bullock, who learns that the fictional city she’s been writing about may actually exist. It’s set to be directed by sibling filmmakers Adam and Aaron Nee.
More people are now engaging with outlets on Facebook that repeatedly publish verifiably false content than in the lead-up to the 2016 election, new research shows.
These findings come despite a slew of new efforts from social media companies to combat the spread of misinformation on their platforms ahead of the 2020 presidential vote.
The level of engagement with articles from “false content producers” that masquerade as news organizations but repeatedly publish demonstrably false materials has increased 102% since 2016, according to a report published Monday by the think tank German Marshall Digital Fund in partnership with the firms NewsGuard and NewsWhip.
“What we were really trying to zero in on was something very simple — how is it that we keep hearing all these reports about disinformation when the platforms have taken so many actions? There have been so many announcements to prevent disinformation,” Karen Kornbluh, the director of the digital innovation and democracy initiative at the German Marshall Fund, told ABC News. “We realized there is a whole disinformation supply chain, which starts with these sites that mask as news outlets.”
The researchers also found that the level of engagement with sites that don’t necessarily mask as news outlets but repeatedly fail to present information responsibly has increased 293% in the run-up to the 2020 election compared to the 2016 presidential election. Examples of these sites, dubbed “manipulators,” include Breitbart News, according to the researchers.
Moreover, interactions with both kinds of deceptive sites — false content producers and manipulators — have spiked 242% between the third quarter of 2016 and the third quarter of 2020, the researchers found.
Kornbluh noted that while overall engagement across all content increased during the timeframe they examined, “we see the disinformation sites increasing at greater rates than overall engagement,” she said.
Kornbluh said they didn’t expect to see increased interactions with the false content producers “but we saw it there, and then we saw an enormous increase in interactions with the manipulators” since 2016.
“That is an explanation for why you’re seeing so much disinformation,” she said.
The researchers rated these outlets based on methodology developed by the startup NewsGuard, which ranks the credibility of outlets that claim to be journalism based on nine factors.
Kornbluh said it can be hard initially for regular users to tell the difference between these false content producers, manipulators and credible news organizations, which is in part why the misinformation spreads so fast.
If you see a piece of news or a headline on Facebook, “one thing you need to check is, what is the outlet this is coming from?” she said. “What are they using to make this claim? And really probing what’s the evidence behind this.”
Ultimately, however, she said “there needs to be actions to change the incentives of the platforms.”
“Just like the car companies in the early days, it wasn’t in their incentives to put in a seat belt, and we didn’t ask the individuals to install seat belts,” she said.
Social media companies need to implement policy and internal changes to better protect users from misinformation, she argued.
As for Facebook, “what they need to do is instead of playing whack-a-mole with individual pieces of content, they need to look at the disinformation supply chain,” she said, “and how they can disrupt this supply chain and not amplify that.”
A Facebook spokesperson told ABC News in a statement that “engagement does not capture what most people actually see on Facebook.”
“Using it to draw conclusions about the progress we’ve made in limiting misinformation and promoting authoritative sources of information since 2016 is misleading,” the spokesperson added. “Over the past four years we’ve built the largest fact-checking network of any platform, made investments in highlighting original, informative reporting, and changed our products to ensure fewer people see false information and are made aware of it when they do.”
Jason Kempin/Getty ImagesThomas Rhett has nothing but glowing remarks for his wife Lauren Akins as they celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary.
The country superstar took time to reflect on the couple’s milestone in an Instagram post today. Comparing their years of marriage to a whirlwind, Thomas calls his wife and mother of their three children a “fighter” who chooses “love” every day.
“Happy 8 year anniversary @laur_akins. I seriously feel like we got married 6 months ago. I have loved every second of our journey together,” he writes in the thoughtful post.
“You are my rock, my inspiration and the woman that simply just makes life better,” he continues, sharing his sweet words alongside a photo of Lauren cuddling with their three daughters, 4-year-old Willa Gray, 3-year-old Ada James and eight-month-old Lennon Love.
According to the post, the couple plans to spend the day relaxing via napping and Netflix.
The couple married in 2012 in their home state of Tennessee. Thomas’s wife and children have been the inspiration behind many of his hit songs, including “Die a Happy Man” and “Life Changes.”
John Lamparski/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Little Fires Everywhere star Joshua Jackson just lined up his next TV gig.
The actor is set to take over the lead role in Peacock’s Dr. Death, after Jamie Dornan dropped out of the project due to scheduling conflicts, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Jackson will play real-life Dr. Christopher Duntsch, a neurosurgeon who repeatedly botched spinal surgeries, killing two patients and maiming at least four others. The series is based on the Wondery podcast of the same name.
Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater are on board to play Dr. Robert Henderson and Dr. Randall Kirby, respectively, the two doctors who eventually bring Duntsch down.
“Nobody wanted to face what Dunstch had done and face the liabilities inherent in that,” Baldwin recently explained to ABC Audio. “So they kept giving him these glowing recommendations and just shoving him into the next county.”
“[Henderson and Kirby] joined forces to pressure medical boards and to pressure the state and to pressure the authorities to bring charges against him,” Baldwin added. “And basically, we put him away. We put him in prison.“
Shooting on the series begins later this fall. Baldwin told ABC Audio he’s grateful to be going back to work.
“Everybody’s very deadly serious about the COVID protocols. Nobody wants this thing to shut down again,” Baldwin said of the production. “So everybody’s — I wouldn’t say tense, but they’re vigilant about keeping this going properly.”
Curb RecordsLee Brice continues his reign at the top of the country charts this week. 
