Hickerson was there when Hayden Panettiere died on Sunday (Aug. 16.) Continue reading…The Boot – Country Music News, Music Videos and Songs
Author: alaskaadmin
Hickerson was there when Hayden Panettiere died on Sunday (Aug. 16.) Continue reading…Country Music News – Taste of Country
What started as a roadside joint in the 1930s has grown into one of the world’s biggest chicken chains – but that hasn’t come without plenty of transformations.
Mashed – Fast Food, Celebrity Chefs, Grocery, Reviews
A cola is a cola, so why do two of the biggest names in the business (specifically, Coke and Pepsi) taste so markedly different from each other?
Food Republic – Restaurants, Reviews, Recipes, Cooking Tips
Selling City Hall to Sealaska Heritage Institute for $1.5 million rather than auctioning the site for a minimum bid of $2.5 million was approved by the Juneau Assembly by a 6-3 vote on Monday night.
The Alaska Native nonprofit organization plans to demolish the 75-year-old building in favor of a new $40 million three-story structure featuring a glass-blowing studio, retail gallery for “high-end art” and other facilities. SHI President Rosita Kaaháni Worl, during public testimony…
Tucker Wetmore reveals he was originally planning to release a full-length album this year, but as his career continued gaining momentum and life became increasingly busy, he realized he wasn’t in the right headspace to create the project he wanted.
Instead of rushing the process with a new album, the rising star decided to shift gears and give fans something that felt more natural for the moment: a summertime mixtape. By dropping his six-song Sunburn Mixtape, Wetmore was able to still deliver a collection of songs while previewing the sound he hopes to explore more in his next chapter.
“Honestly, I was working towards an album this year for a long time and this year’s just been crazy. There’s been so many things going on that I just wasn’t in the head space for an album,” he told Country Now and other outlets. “I knew I wanted to give the fans body music, but I still wanted to be proud of it and feel like I really did everything that I could for it. And I got to be able to accomplish that with this record.”
“I love the beach. I love sunshine. So it was a no-brainer for me. I was like, ‘Alright, we got a handful of songs that are already ready for the album.’ And I kind of just picked and chose a couple of the songs that made sense lyrically leading into this new world that I’m trying to build and also sonically kind of break the ice into the world that I’m trying to create.”
This mixtape arrived July 31 via Back Blocks Music/MCA/Mercury Records and includes three previously released fan favorites along with three brand new tracks. Fans can soak up the sunny, carefree days while letting songs like Wetmore’s Country radio single “Who Told You That,” “Sunburn,” “Proving Me Right” and more serve as the soundtrack.
He goes on to say that the ultimate goal when selecting songs for this mixtape was to create something “fun” and “lighthearted.”
“They’re all just fun songs. I feel like music is supposed to be fun, lighthearted. And I feel like we really hit the nail on the head with, or I tried to at least with this small little mix tape. It was fun,” he explained.
Fans were already familiar with and loving the three previously released tracks, but the mixtape also gave them three brand-new songs to discover: “Crazy To Yourself,” “98%” and “YOURS.”
While celebrating his latest No. 1 hit, “Brunette,” with a room full of members of the country music industry, Wetmore opened up about some of his newer tracks and the inspiration behind them.
Starting with “98%”, Wetmore shared that this story just “flew out” during a writer’s retreat in Arizona with Chris LaCorte, Rodney Clawson and Jacob Hackworth.
“The play on words was ‘good girls are never always good.’ And so I was like, ‘Well, like 98% good. Showing off the other two tonight.’ And just a fun, kind of just a tongue in cheeky kind of song. But sonically, that’s one of my favorite songs that I’ve created in the recent, just because sonically it’s cool between the guitar tones and the drum sounds. And it’s different. It’s not your traditional country, but it’s still got that country twang in it. But it’s also flirting with the ’70s and the ’80s, kind of Eagles, Bobby Caldwell, all the stuff that I love to listen to, which is kind of the direction I’m trying to go,” he explained.
As for “YOURS,” the hitmaker drew inspiration from something he says many “good old boys” can relate to, which is not always knowing how to put their emotions into words. Rather than writing a traditional love song, Wetmore found a way to express those feelings through the familiar imagery and relatable experiences.
“It was like ‘campfire cracking with the crickets and the frogs, moonlight shining on a Yeti and a dog.’ Just stuff that we know from small town type living, put it, and then related to a woman.”
All six tracks ultimately come together to capture the laid-back, feel-good spirit Wetmore envisioned for the project while also offering a taste of where his sound is headed next.
Sunburn Mixtape Tracklist:
- “Who Told You That”
(Jordan Schmidt, Ashley Gorley, Hunter Phelps and Michael Tyler)
- “Crazy To Yourself”
(Jacob Hackworth, Jacob Durrett, Matt Jenkins and Michael Tyler)
- “98%”
(Tucker Wetmore, Rodney Clawson, Jacob Hackworth and Chris LaCorte)
- “YOURS”
(Tucker Wetmore, Chris LaCorte, Randy Montana, Sasha Sloan and Carver Partin)
- “Sunburn”
(Daniel Ross, Ryan Hurd and Jaxson Free)
- “Proving Me Right”
(Tucker Wetmore, Jessie Jo Dillon, Luke Laird and Chris Tompkins)
Tucker Wetmore will head back on the road in September to kickstart the second leg of his Brunette World Tour. That same month he’ll also join Brooks & Dunn for select dates, including a special stop at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on September 12.
The post Tucker Wetmore Reveals Why He Chose to Drop a Summertime Mixtape Over an Album in 2026 appeared first on Country Now.
Country Now
Juneau hasn’t been represented by a Republican legislator since 2017. Annette Kreitzer says it’s time for that to change, given the range of economic and other challenges the region is facing during the coming years.
Kreitzer, a former Haines borough manager, is seeking the District 3 seat held by four-term Democratic incumbent Andi Story. The challenger says she’s seen the Alaska Legislature take actions such as increasing education funding without doing enough to ensure the…
While development of natural resources such as petroleum and mining dominate much of Alaska’s political discussion these days, state Rep. Andi Story says investing in resources such as students and workers is key to solving many of the area’s economic, workforce, outmigration, and other issues.
Story, seeking a fifth two-year term in District 3, says meaningful changes such as education funding increases have passed during her current term representing the northern part of the Southeast…
An arctic fox on the tundra of the north slope of Alaska near a field camp of the Alaska Science Center.
(Photo by Ryan Askren
USGS, Alaska Science Center)
Have you ever wondered about how sea ice and ocean temperatures are changing, marine debris in the Bering Strait, the spread of beavers into northwest Alaska, “rusting rivers” or community-based observations of Bering Sea salmon? For 20 years, the Arctic Report Card, supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has delivered timely and accurate information on the Alaska and Arctic environment that takes raw observations and makes them understandable to anyone interested in what’s happening across the top of the world.
The rapidly changing Arctic environment brings challenges and opportunities to Alaska communities, our state and the United States, including food security and cultural continuity, commercial sustainability and development options, and national energy and security concerns. Nearly 20 percent of the United States’ land area is in Alaska, and Alaska is part of the much larger Arctic. But on August 10, 2026, as reported by the Alaska Beacon, NOAA ended support of the long-running Arctic Report Card.
Since 2006, the Arctic Report Card, supported by NOAA, has delivered timely and accurate information on the Alaska and Arctic environment in formats from plain language essays to a professional video to social media bites. Alaskans use the Arctic Report Card for many reasons, because it is a trusted, understandable and vetted source of environmental information and on-the-ground impacts across the Arctic. Starting in 2019, the Report Card has included perspectives rooted in the lived experiences and cultural knowledge of Indigenous peoples in Alaska and elsewhere in the Arctic. These are not models or projections or policy. The essays in the Report Card describe what’s happened in our part of the world.
Every autumn more than 100 authors from a dozen or more countries come together, volunteering their time and expertise to create a report, not for other specialists or academic journals, but for anyone who needs timely and accurate information about what’s happening in the Arctic environment. While written for non-specialists, the Arctic Report Card maintains strict scientific integrity through the peer-review process. That is coordinated by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, and neither Report Card editors nor authors have any say in reviewer selection, nor do they know who provides reviews.
Professional societies and international organizations around the world issue several annual reports summarizing yearly weather and climate conditions, but not all include the Arctic; all are released months after the fact and are largely or entirely focused on atmosphere and ocean conditions. The Arctic Report Card is unique in providing both timeliness of the information and the wide range of topics and is the only report that provides broad review of the climate and ecosystems of the Arctic.
The loss of NOAA’s support for the Arctic Report Card does not mean that observations go away, or that change stops. But without the Arctic Report Card, the broad array of information will be harder for non-specialists to find and interpret. I work as an Alaska climate specialist, but as a user of the Arctic Report Card for 20 years and an editor since 2020, I have learned so much about topics outside of my specialty. Over the years, I’ve heard similar comments from Alaskans across the state.
The Arctic Report Card editorial team, dedicated authors and supporters are working hard to keep timely, accurate and accessible Arctic environmental observations available to everyone who relies on this annual report. However, the break in continuity with the first 20 reports and the elaborate interface developed during that time to make this information readily available will make it harder for Alaskans to find what they need in this time of rapid change.
Rick Thoman works as a Climate Specialist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness at the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks. The views expressed are solely the author’s and do not constitute the university’s official position.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.
Reading Time: 2 minutes
As millions of fans try to make sense of the tragic death of Hayden Panettiere, the late actress’ mother has made some shocking remarks about her controversial boyfriend.
As we previously reported, Hayden and Brian Hickerson claimed that they’d broken up in 2022, but it appears that they were secretly still dating at the time of her death.
Now, Hayden’s mom, Lesley Vogel, is confirming reports that the family did not approve of that relationship.
“This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death, and that was Brian Hickerson,” Vogel told NBC News this week.
Vogel did not explicitly suggest that Hickerson was involved in her daughter’s death in any way.
But much has been made of the fact that Hayden flew from LA to South Carolina with Brian the day before her death, and she passed away in an apartment being rented to him and his brother, Zach Hickerson.
According to TMZ, witnesses say Zach became “very emotional” while emergency medical services professionals were “working on Hayden.”
Investigators have noted that there was no sign of foul play, and neither Brian nor Zach has been accused of any wrongdoing.
It’s worth noting that the feud between Brian and Lesley predates Hayden’s death by at least several months.
“Hayden’s mother is by far one of the worst people I’ve ever met in my life … I just can’t with her. She’s terrible,” he told TMZ during an interview in May.
Vogel concluded her comments by suggesting that Hollywood may have been to blame for many of the addiction and mental health issues Hayden struggled with throughout her life.
“I think Hayden was an amazingly talented person in so many departments, and I think young people who grow up in the entertainment industry — it is a struggle and it’s a very challenging industry and it’s not unusual for them to sadly find the wrong path,” she told NBC.
Hayden found success early on with her roles on Guiding Light and Heroes. But fame took a toll, as it does on many young stars.
A co-star on Hayden’s final film described her as seeming “lonely” and troubled. And while she had been open about her struggles with substance abuse, fans were under the impression that the worst was behind her.
Sadly, it seems that that may not have been the case. We will have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.
Hayden Panettiere’s Mom Blasts Brian Hickerson: We Were Trying to Get Rid of Him was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.
The Hollywood Gossip