Andrew Limbong

Editor's note: This story includes obscene language and descriptions of racist attacks.

Many users of the popular streaming platform Twitch are boycotting on Wednesday.

Another piece of New Orleans's rich jazz history has crumbled to the ground.

The building where musical great Louis Armstrong spent much of his childhood is no longer standing after Hurricane Ida battered the city. 427 South Rampart Street was called the Karnofsky Shop, after the family who lived there.

Editor's note: This report includes allegations of sexual and physical abuse.

A woman took the stand at a federal courthouse in Brooklyn during the trial of R. Kelly on Monday. In her testimony, she said that Kelly had forced her into having an abortion in 2017, and that he had sexually and physically abused her over the course of their five-year relationship.

The K-pop supergroup BTS has announced that it is canceling its upcoming world tour.

"Due to changing circumstances beyond our control, it has become difficult to resume performances at the same scale and timeline as previously planned," read a statement from the band's label, Big Hit Music.

Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba looked like he knew how to crack a skull. In his 1974 international breakout movie, The Street Fighter, Chiba plays a mercenary who relentlessly smashes goons' faces, breaks their bones and punches them so hard they spit up in visceral gushes. A cult figure in the United States, Chiba found wider popularity after appearing in such films as the Kill Bill series and The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift.

Some of the most recognizable music venues across the country will soon require proof of vaccination to enter. The new rules will take full effect by Oct. 1. Until then audience and staff will be able to show a negative COVID test to enter.

AEG Presents, the world's second-largest live music company, announced today that it will start implementing a new vaccine policy across all the 48 clubs and theaters it owns or operates in the country. That includes New York City's Webster Hall, Los Angeles' El Rey Theatre, Denver's Bluebird Theater and others.

The Bonnaroo music festival will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative COVID test to attend. In a series of Tweets, organizers of the popular music festival strongly encouraged full vaccination, reminding attendees that the last day to receive the second shot of Moderna or Pfizer, or a single dose of Johnson and Johnson, will be Aug. 19th.

Festival organizers are requesting that unvaccinated individuals wear a mask at all times. Indoors, masks will be required regardless of vaccination status.

There will soon be a day without the reminder that every day, when you're walking down the street, everybody that you meet has an original point of view.

But hey (hey!), Arthur had a good, long run.

The much beloved animated kids show is coming to an end in early 2022, after its 25th and final season.

The United States has sold the only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin to an anonymous buyer. The price of the sale was also kept confidential.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced the full lineup for the city's big upcoming "Homecoming Concert." The list covers a range of artists from classic rock mainstays to contemporary rap stars: Patti Smith, Paul Simon, Lucky Daye, The New York Philh

LGBTQ characters took up a little more space in the movies in 2020. According to GLAAD's annual Studio Responsibility Index, there was an increase in the percentage of films with LBGTQ characters. A good portion of these were serious, substantial characters, too — 80% of these movies had LGBTQ characters with more than 10 minutes of screen time. The group found that the percentage of LGBTQ characters of color also rose.

The Chicago church that hosted Emmett Till's funeral. The theater in Cleveland that is the oldest African American producing theater in the country — where Langston Hughes once had an in-house apartment. The sole remaining Black owned and built historic building along Southeastern Ohio River Valley's Underground Railroad corridor.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has cleared Britney Spears to hire her own lawyer in the long drawn-out battle over her conservatorship. And the pop star has chosen Mathew S. Rosengart, a prominent Hollywood lawyer and former federal prosecutor, to take up her case.

Wednesday is set to be an important day in court for Britney Spears. Since her searing open testimony describing life under her conservatorship, there've been some big changes to her legal situation. A wealth management company, Bessemer Trust, which had been set to take over as co-conservator for Spears' estate, requested to resign.

Samuel Ingham III, the court-appointed lawyer who's represented Britney Spears in her conservatorship, has requested to resign from that role, according to papers filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court today.

Delia Fiallo, the author and screenwriter whose peers and fans often called her the "mother of the telenovela," has died. She was 96 years old. Her daughter, Delia Betancourt, confirmed to NPR that Fiallo died Tuesday, in her home in Miami, Fla., just days before her July 4 birthday.

Fiallo scripted hugely popular dramas such as Cristal, Lenoela, and Rafaela during the 1970s and 1980s, which were broadcast throughout Latin America.

A federal judge has sentenced Allison Mack to 3 years in prison, along with a $20,000 fine, for her involvement in the NXIVM case.

Mack was one of the lead deputies and recruiters for NXIVM — the cult group that masqueraded itself as a self-help organization. The group's leader, Keith Raniere, was sentenced to 120 years in prison in October for racketeering and sex trafficking charges.

Addressing a Los Angeles Superior Court judge via a remote connection, Britney Spears on Wednesday afternoon made her most public statement to date about her long-running conservatorship. For over a decade, the pop star's life has been ruled by an atypical court-dictated legal arrangement that removes practically all autonomy from her life. Until now, she has remained mostly quiet on the subject.

Tyrus Joseforsky had resigned himself to never seeing any federal aid set aside to help his business. "I just made peace with the fact that it wasn't coming," he said.

The big re-opening of live music is truly upon us. Summer music festival season is nearly here. Artists are announcing tour dates. And fans are buying tickets! Or, in some cases, they're finally getting the chance to use tickets they bought a couple years ago. But it might be a while before your favorite arena-level act can set out on tour.

Live music is set to come back to Chicago in a big way this summer. Today, Lollapalooza announced its full line up, with Foo Fighters, Post Malone, Tyler, the Creator and Miley Cyrus headlining. And the fest will be at full capacity, too.

Pervis Staples, a founding member of the Staple Singers, has died. According to a statement from a family spokesperson, he died suddenly in his home in Dolton, Ill, on May 6. He was 85 years old.

Tina Turner doesn't need anybody's validation to hold her place in rock and roll history, but she's now been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. She joins 12 others in what the organization calls the most diverse list of inductees in the its 36-year history.

Joining Turner among the performers in the main class of 2021 inductees are Todd Rundgren, Carole King, Jay-Z, The Go-Go's and Foo Fighters. The full list of inductees, which includes those named in categories like "Early Influence" and "Musical Excellence," is below.

Ed Ward, an incisive former critic and editor for Rolling Stone and longtime contributor to WHYY's Fresh Air, died this week in his home in Austin, Texas. He was 72 years old.

Owners of live-music venues, theaters, museums and other businesses covered under the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, or SVOG, can expect to see money by the end of May. This is according to an update from the Small Business Administration, which has been handling the SVOG program's bumpy rollout.

Liz Tallent was by her computer, ready. She's the marketing and special events director at The Orange Peel in Asheville, N.C., a 1,050-cap venue that has hosted everyone from songwriter Nick Lowe, to Sublime cover band Badfish, to rapper Danny Brown. Like every other music venue, The Orange Peel was hit hard by the pandemic shut downs. Distanced indoor events would barely break even, and because of how the space is set up, there hasn't been a real way to do outdoor events, either.