newsmakers

newsmakers

White, Underwood to perform at Grammys

NEW YORK

Grammy nominees Jack White, Carrie Underwood and the Lumineers will hit the Grammys stage next month.

The Recording Academy announced Thursday that those acts will join previously announced performers including fun., The Black Keys and Taylor Swift at the Feb. 10 awards show in Los Angeles.

White is nominated for album of the year, and the Lumineers are up for best new artist.

U.K. newcomer Ed Sheeran and Elton John will perform together. Sheeran’s “The A Team” is nominated for song of the year.

Country singers Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley will also join forces onstage.

The Black Keys, Rihanna and Mumford & Sons also are set to perform.

Frank Ocean, Jay-Z, fun., Kanye West, Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and Mumford & Sons lead with six nominations each.

‘Cloud Atlas’ censored for China audience

BEIJING

Nearly 40 minutes have been chopped from the Hollywood film “Cloud Atlas” for Chinese audiences, deleting both gay and straight love scenes to satisfy local censors despite a movie-going public that increasingly chafes at censorship.

It premiered Tuesday in Beijing in a red-carpet ceremony with actor Hugo Weaving and China’s own Zhou Xun, but it won’t start running in Chinese theaters until Thursday. The filmmaker’s Chinese partners have slashed that version from the U.S. runtime of 172 minutes to a pared-down 134 minutes to expunge the “passionate” episodes.

“The 172-minute version can be downloaded online ... so I am sure some people will prefer that to going to the cinema,” said movie fan Kong Kong, 27, who lives in Shanghai.

Romano will relish live performance

NEW YORK

While everybody loves Raymond, it’s stand-up comedy that Ray Romano loves most.

The 55-year-old actor-comedian says performing live is his passion, so he jumped at the chance to participate in the “Garden of Laughs” event at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.

“It’s great to see some of the guys that I started doing stand-up with, like Brian Regan and Wanda [Sykes],” Romano said. “And Bob Costas is hosting.”

Associated Press