newsmakers
newsmakers
Drake receives his high school diploma
NEW YORK
A day after earning his high school diploma, an excited Drake performed hit songs for a few hundred people at an event for Tyra Banks.
The 25-year-old told the crowd Thursday night that he took a small break from music and “spent some time going back to high school.”
“I got my high school diploma,” he said with excitement as the crowd roared.
Drake also posted on Twitter late Wednesday that he earned a 97 percent on his final exam and an 88 percent in his last class through work with a private tutor. The Canadian dropped out of high school, ironically, to star in the high school TV series “Degrassi: The Next Generation.” He played the role of Jimmy Brooks.
The Grammy-nominated musician performed hits such as “Best I Ever Had,” “Find Your Love” and “The Motto” at Banks’ first annual Flawsome Ball for The Tyra Banks TZONE at the Lower Eastside Girls Club, her organization aimed at developing confidence in girls. He dedicated his song “Make Me Proud” to the supermodel.
Rosario Dawson, Clay Aiken and Estelle also attended the gala event in New York at Capitale.
Sting moves venue of Philippine concert
MANILA, Philippines
Sting has moved the location of his “Back to Bass Tour” concert in the Philippines after a petition by environmentalists who said the original venue is owned by a conglomerate that plans to uproot 182 trees for a parking lot and mall expansion in a northern mountain city.
The SM Mall of Asia Arena said Saturday that changing the site of the Dec. 9 concert was “the decision of the artist himself.”
“Understandably, the known environment-advocate artist was left with no choice in spite of the SM representatives’ appeal,” it said in a statement.
SM Prime Holdings, which operates SM malls and the arena on Manila Bay, is owned by the Philippines’ richest man, mall mogul Henry Sy.
Environmentalists said in their petition that as a champion of the environment, “Sting can’t be saving rainforests and enabling SM to rape the environment at the same time!”
Sting and his wife, Trudie Styler, established The Rainforest Foundation in 1989 to protect tropical rainforests and the people who live there.
Arena business manager Arnel Gonzales told The Associated Press that the venue became “collateral damage” in the environmentalists’ campaign.
“With this successful move to stop Sting from holding the concert at SM MOA Arena, and referring to the venue as an ‘oppressor,’ it is now looking more like the court battle has extended from saving trees to ruining a corporate giant’s reputation completely,” the arena said in its statement.
A local court has temporarily stopped the mall expansion plans in northern Baguio city.
Associated Press