Taylor Swift dominates MTV Video Music Awards 2023 – and NSYNC reunite
Pop megastar Taylor Swift has dominated yet another awards show – taking home the top prize and several other gongs at MTV’s Video Music Awards.
“This is unbelievable,” Swift told the crowd as she picked up the prize for video of the year for Anti-Hero, the first single from her 2022 album, Midnights.
The star was also named artist of the year, beating stars including Beyonce, Shakira and host Nicki Minaj to the award – for which the six nominees were all female for the first time.
Anti-Hero – a tale of insecurity featuring the much-memed line “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me” – was crowned song of the year and also took the prize for best direction, while Midnights was named best album.
Swift is now nearing Madonna’s record of 20 VMAs. Pic: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Tearin’ up our hearts: NSYNC members Joey Fatone, from left, Lance Bass, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick reunited to present Swift with one of her many prizes. Pic: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Swift also collected the best pop video award in a moment that almost eclipsed her bigger wins – thanks to an on-stage reunion by US boyband NSYNC, who presented the gong.
“I had your dolls!” the singer said to band members including Justin Timberlake. “You are pop personified. So to receive this from your golden pop hands, it’s too much.”
NSYNC dished out the trophy more than 20 years after first picking up the award themselves, for hit single Bye Bye Bye in 2000, with Lance Bass handing Swift a friendship bracelet – as fans do at her shows.
Swift also dominated MTV’s Europe Music Awards in 2022 and her latest haul comes following the end of the US leg of her sell-out Eras tour, which resumes in South America in November. Throughout her career she has now won 18 VMAs in total, just two behind the overall record held by Madonna.
Olivia Rodrigo was among the star performers. Pic: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
Shakira won a lifetime achievement prize. Pic: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
A global icon: ‘This is for 30 years’
Other winners from the MTV VMAs ceremony, held in Newark, New Jersey, included best new artist Ice Spice. Minaj took home the prize for best hip-hop video for Super Freaky Girl – and Shakira and Sean “Diddy” Combs won the Vanguard award for lifetime achievement and the global icon award respectively.
Rapper Combs, known for hits including Bad Boy For Life, Come With Me, and I’ll Be Missing You, his tribute to Notorious BIG, told the audience: “This is for 30 years. I pray to God that you get to do what you love for 30 years.”
Rema and Selena Gomez won the first MTV VMA for Afrobeats music, for their collaboration Calm Down.
Nicki Minaj hosted, performed, and accepted the award for best hip-hop video. Pic: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
It’s Diddy… Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was named global icon. Pic: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
‘Thank you for helping me fight my battles’
Minaj, one of the night’s performers, joined Grandmaster Flash, LL Cool J and other rap legends for a celebration of the 50th anniversary of hip-hop that concluded with Run DMC’s Walk This Way.
And Colombian pop singer Shakira sang a bilingual medley of her hits including Hips Don’t Lie and Whenever, Wherever. “I want to share this award with my fans who always, always support me through thick and thin,” she said as she accepted her award. “Thank you so much for being my army and helping me fight all my battles.”
Stars including Demi Lovato, Lil Wayne and Olivia Rodrigo also performed at the event.
Other winners included Blackpink, who were named best group; Stray Kids, who won the best K-pop award; SZA, who scored best R&B video for Shirt; and former Eurovision winners Maneskin, who took the rock video prize for The Loneliest.
Dozens of websites, banks and apps are being affected by a major internet outage.
The problem, which started on Monday morning, appears to be related to an issue at Amazon Web Services (AWS).
As of 9.20am, there were more than 2,000 reports of the Amazon Web Services outage in the US alone, according to Downdetector, which monitors issues and outages in real-time.
On its service status page, the company said it was seeing “increased error rates” and delays with “multiple AWS services”.
Here’s what we know so far.
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
Pic: PA
What has been affected?
Multiple banks, the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) website, mobile phone networks and video-chatting platform Zoom are among the websites having technical issues.
All Amazon products – including Prime Video and Amazon Music – have also been affected, as well as the main Amazon website.
Here’s a full list of what has been affected by the internet outage, according to Downdetector:
• Snapchat
• Ring
• Roblox
• Amazon Web Services
• Life360
• My Fitness Pal
• Amazon
• Xero
• Signal
• Canva
• Fortnite
• Blink Security
• Zoom
• HMRC
• Clash Royale
• Clash Of Clans
• Asana
• Wordle
• Slack
• Smartsheet
• Epic Games Store
• Duolingo
• Amazon Alexa
• Jira
• Vodafone
• Tidal
• Coinbase
• Atlassian
• IMDB
• Amazon Prime Video
• Pokemon Go
• BT
• Peloton
• EE
• Ancestry
• Square
• Playstation Network
• Eventbrite
• Amazon Music
• Sky
• Flickr
• Hay Day
• Rocket League
• Perplexity AI
• Dead By Daylight
• Bank Of Scotland
• Lloyds Bank
• Halifax
What has AWS said?
AWS confirmed it was suffering from “increased error rates and latencies” for multiple services.
In a statement on its website, the company said: “We are actively engaged and working to both mitigate the issue and understand root cause,” an update on its website says.
“We will provide an update in 45 minutes, or sooner if we have additional information to share.”
The company is posting regular updates on the situation and said its engineers were “immediately engaged” as soon as they spotted the issue.
Concentrated in the US
ThousandEyes, a website that tracks the performance of local and wide area networks, servers and applications, shows many of the outages appear to be concentrated in the US.
A large portion is focused in Virginia, which is widely considered as the global capital for data centres.
Has something like this happened before?
US
Donald Trump mocks ‘No Kings’ protests with AI video of himself dropping brown sludge on protesters from jet
Donald Trump has responded to so-called “No Kings” rallies with an AI video of himself in a fighter jet, pouring brown sludge over protesters.
Millions of people were expected to take part in the demonstrations this weekend – the second such gathering after an initial nationwide day of protest in June coinciding with the US president’s birthday.
The term “No Kings” reflects the belief by some that Mr Trump is behaving like a “king” and some in his administration are depicting him as a monarch.
A protester in costume as Donald Trump presents the president as a prisoner in chains in Seattle. Pic: AP
One of the rallies in New York. Pic: Reuters
On Sunday, the president shared the AI video on his social media platform, Truth Social.
In the clip, an AI-generated version of Mr Trump is wearing a crown and sitting in a jet with “King Trump” written across it, to the soundtrack of Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone, from the film Top Gun.
The jet then drops thick brown sludge on to AI-generated protesters.
Supporters say the marches are a patriotic defence of free speech, while critics are calling them anti-American.
A large inflatable effigy of Mr Trump in Chicago. Pic: Reuters
This protest took place in Washington DC. Pic: AP
Mr Trump’s Republican Party has dismissed the demonstrations as “Hate America” rallies.
Many of the events featured marching bands, huge banners and signs, as well as effigies of the president and demonstrators wearing inflatable costumes.
Thousands gathered along the waterfront in Portland, Oregon. Pic: AP
Protesters at the Wyoming State Capitol got creative with their signs. Pic: Wyoming Tribune Eagle/AP
The protests follow Mr Trump’s return to the White House and come against the backdrop of a government shutdown which has closed federal programmes and services.
There has also been criticism of what some see as an aggressive executive, confronting Congress and the courts, in ways that protest organisers believe are a slide toward authoritarianism.
This event in San Francisco was among thousands taking place across the US. Pic: Reuters
A ‘No Kings’ sign, outside City Hall in Los Angeles. Pic: Reuters
So far, the atmosphere at most of the protests appears to have been largely energetic and upbeat, with protesters calling for accountability and protections for civil liberties.
Organisers said events would be peaceful – a direct response to Republican and Trump administration claims that the protests could be unsafe.
Two survivors of a US airstrike, targeting what Donald Trump has described as a “drug-carrying submarine” in the Caribbean, have been repatriated to their home countries.
The US president posted footage of Thursday’s operation, part of a recent military campaign targeting boats transporting drugs to America.
“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“US intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics,” he added.
The US military staged a helicopter rescue for the survivors on Thursday after the strike on their semi-submersible
vessel, suspected of trafficking illegal narcotics. They were then transported to a US Navy warship.
Two other crew members on board were killed.
The semi-submersible vessel was struck by US forces on Thursday, leaving two dead and two survivors. Pic: @realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
President Trump confirmed the survivors would be returned to their home countries of Colombia and Ecuador “for detention and prosecution”. Both countries subsequently confirmed they had been handed over.
“America will not tolerate narcoterrorists trafficking illegal drugs, by land or by sea,” he added.
On Saturday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro posted on X: “We have received the Colombian detained on the narco submarine, we are happy he is alive and he will be processed according to the law.”
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Trump sends CIA into Venezuela and threatens land attack
Read more from Sky News:
Venezuela’s president pleads for peace
Is Trump planning to attack Venezuela?
Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize winner
The Trump administration has said previous strikes in the Caribbean have killed 27 people, raising concerns among some about the legality of the military operations.
The strikes also come against the backdrop of a US military buildup in the Caribbean that includes guided missile destroyers, F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear submarine and around 6,500 troops as the US president escalates a standoff with the Venezuelan government.
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Venezuelan president: ‘We don’t want a war’
On Wednesday, Mr Trump disclosed he had authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela, adding to speculation in Caracas that the US is attempting to topple Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Mr Maduro has denied any connection to drug smuggling and claimed the US boat strikes are a pretext for regime change, and violations of sovereignty and international law.
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