By Maria Sherman, Music Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Katy Perry will receive the Video Vanguard Award at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards next month. She will also perform.
Previous recipients include Shakira, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna and Missy Elliott.
Perry will return to the MTV VMA stage for the first time since 2017, when she performed and hosted the award show.
The pop singer has won five VMAs across her career. She took home her first three awards in 2011: video of the year (“Firework”), best collaboration and best special effects (both for “E.T.,” featuring Kanye West).
“Katy is a musical powerhouse and true pop culture icon,” said Bruce Gillmer, chief content officer of music at Paramount+ and president of music, music talent, programming and events at Paramount. “With her game changing creative vision, she has become a global phenomenon and taken over the world’s biggest stages.”
Taylor Swift tops the 2024 VMA nominations with 10 — eight for her “Fortnight” music video and nods in the artist of the year and best pop categories. She’s followed by her “Fortnight” collaborator Post Malone, who has nine. He is nominated along with Swift eight times and earned his ninth nom for his country hit “I Had Some Help,” featuring Morgan Wallen.
The 2024 MTV VMAs will air live on Sept. 11 at 8 p.m. Eastern from the UBS Arena on New York’s Long Island. Fan voting begins online Tuesday across 15 gender-neutral categories and ends Aug. 30.
Voting in the best new artist category will remain active throughout the show.
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More