CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – Music Midtown, a popular music festival in Atlanta, is going on hiatus this year, prompting North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to encourage organizers to move it to the Tar Heel State.

Music Midtown organizers announced Wednesday the festival has been canceled for 2024. Organizers haven’t released details on the reason for the cancelation, according to WBTV’s sister station Atlanta News First.

The festival had traditionally been in September at Piedmont Park in Atlanta.

“North Carolina has proven itself as a top tier entertainment center by hosting everything from the inaugural Lovin’ Life Music Festival in Charlotte to the NHL Stadium Series hockey game in Raleigh last year,” a spokesperson for Gov. Cooper told WBTV Thursday. “These events have significant economic impacts on our state’s economy and the Governor encourages Music Midtown to find its new home in North Carolina.”

According to Atlanta News First, it’s not the first time the festival has been canceled. Since it began in 1994, it went on hiatus from 2006 through 2010 due to a decline in attendance and rising costs. It was canceled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Atlanta News First reports it returned in 2021, but it was canceled once again in 2022. It’s speculated that organizers made this decision over the Georgia gun laws — which would have prevented them from allowing firearms at the event.

In 2023, the festival returned with thousands of attendees over a 3-day period, according to Atlanta News First.

WBTV’s sister station Atlanta News First contributed to this report.

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Copyright 2024 WBTV. All rights reserved.

The Oklahoma City Thunder can’t be undefeated forever.

In its first loss of the playoffs, the Thunder fell to the Dallas Mavericks 119-110. It was a tale of two vastly different offensive nights, with Oklahoma City failing to convert nearly as many 3-point opportunities.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander continued his excellence from Game 1 of the series, dropping 33 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists, one steal and two blocks on 13-of-24 shooting. Even through questions of injury, his performances in the second round have been far more encouraging, truly leading the the Thunder as its superstar.

Jalen Williams provided a nice secondary option, recording 20 points, four rebounds and four assists. Although it was on an inefficient 7-of-17 night, he was the only other player who fully stepped up to the occasion outside of Gilgeous-Alexander.

Luka Doncic and P.J. Washington had equally fantastic performances to lead the Mavericks to victory, They combined for a whopping 58 points, 21 rebounds and 11 assists, a true show-stopping night for the pairing. Kyrie Irving could only muster up nine points, but his 11 assists showed impressive playmaking that proved important to the Dallas offense.

Oklahoma City began with a rough start, allowing a 13-2 deficit in the first three minutes of the contest. It soon embarked on a 7-0 run — which included a ridiculous block from Holmgren on Dereck Lively II — helping it quickly get back into the game.

Even with Doncic’s 16 points and a total of eight team 3-pointers, the Thunder still managed to stick with the Mavericks, only falling behind four points after the first quarter.

Once again Dallas went on an unanswered scoring run to open up the second quarter, this time being 9-0. The favor began to swing Oklahoma City’s way once again with a stretch of eight straight points from Gilgeous-Alexander, but it wasn’t enough to prevent a halftime deficit of six points.

Doncic and Washington combined for 37 of 68 Mavericks points, while Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams combined for 32 of 62 Thunder points — a fairly balanced duel between the top duos of the night.

The third quarter was another competitive one, but a lead still wasn’t in Oklahoma City’s sights. It was outscored 99-89 heading into the fourth quarter, making for a challenging deficit to come back from in the final 12 minutes of action.

The Thunder offense stumbled for much of the fourth, completely losing its ability from behind the arc. A couple of costly mistakes and missed opportunities prevented it from ever fully making a push at stealing a win, resulting in a series tie heading into Dallas on Saturday.

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WASHINGTON — The Senate has passed a $105 billion bill designed to improve safety and customer service for air travelers, a day before the law governing the Federal Aviation Administration expires.

The bipartisan bill, which comes after a series of close calls between planes at the nation’s airports, aims to boost the number of air traffic controllers amid a shortage, improve safety standards and make it easier for customers to get refunds after flights are delayed or canceled, among other measures.

After passing the legislation on a strong 88-4 vote, the Senate passed a one-week extension to ensure that the law doesn’t expire before the House considers the bill next week. The FAA has said it would have had to furlough around 3,600 workers if the law expired at midnight Friday.

The bill stalled for several days this week after senators from Virginia and Maryland objected to a provision that would allow an additional 10 flights a day to and from the heavily trafficked Reagan Washington National Airport. Other senators tried to add unrelated provisions, as well, seeing it as a prime chance to enact their legislative priorities.

But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called a vote Thursday evening after it became clear that senators would not be able to agree on amendments to the bill before the law expired. The Senate then passed the one-week extension that the House had already passed, sending that to President Joe Biden’s desk.

The FAA has been under scrutiny since it approved Boeing jets that were involved in two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019. The Senate legislation would govern FAA operations for the next five years and put several new safety standards in place.

The bill “gives the FAA the stability it needs to fulfill its primary mission — advancing aviation safety — while also making travel more convenient and accessible,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

The legislation aims to increase the number of air traffic controllers, provides for more safety inspectors at manufacturing facilities and requires the FAA to use new technology designed to prevent collisions between planes on runways. It would require new airline planes to have cockpit voice recorders capable of saving 25 hours of audio, up from the current two hours, to help investigators after safety incidents.

It would try to improve customer service for flyers by requiring airlines to pay a refund to customers for flight delays — three hours for a domestic flight and six for an international one. Lawmakers tweaked the bill this week to make it even easier for customers to receive refunds, revising language that would have put most of the onus on the customers to request them. The change put the Senate bill more in line with new regulations issued by the Biden administration last week.

In addition, the bill would prohibit airlines from charging extra for families to sit together and triple the maximum fines for airlines that violate consumer laws. And it would require the Transportation Department to create a “dashboard” so consumers can compare seat sizes on different airlines.

The legislation would also improve access for passengers with disabilities, requiring airlines to accommodate seating requests for disability-related needs, setting new training standards for airline personnel who handle and store wheelchairs and awarding grants for airport accessibility upgrades.

Failure to pass the popular bipartisan bill by May 10 would have been the latest setback after months of delays on the measure, and the last-minute deal to pass it was the most recent example of Congress struggling to pass major legislation that had broad bipartisan support.

Schumer, who had urged lawmakers to drop their objections and come to agreement on the legislation, said after passage that “passing this FAA bill is the best thing Congress can do to give Americans the peace of mind they deserve.”

Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Democrats, had pushed for a vote on their amendment to block the additional long-haul flights at Virginia’s Reagan National. They say the airport is restricted in size and too busy already, pointing to a close call there between two planes earlier in April that they said is a “flashing red warning light.”

Several Western lawmakers have argued for more flights at the airport, saying it is unfair to consumers that there is a restriction on long-haul flights. The provision’s chief proponent is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, who is up for reelection this year and has argued that San Antonio should have a direct flight from the airport. Cruz blocked a vote on Kaine and Warner’s amendment when Schumer tried to bring it up shortly before final passage.

Like lawmakers, airlines are also split on the idea of additional flights at Reagan National. Delta Airlines has argued for more flights, while United Airlines, with a major operation at farther-out Dulles Airport, has lobbied against the increase.

The House last year passed its own version of the FAA legislation without additional Reagan National flights after intense, last-minute lobbying from the Virginia delegation — a bipartisan vote on an amendment to the FAA bill that saw members aligning not by party but geographic location. Lawmakers use the airport frequently because it is the closest Washington airport to the Capitol, and Congress has long tried to have a say in which routes have service there.

“Some of our colleagues were too afraid to let the experts make the call,” Kaine and Warner said in a joint statement Thursday evening, after Cruz blocked a vote on their amendment. “They didn’t want to show the American people that they care more about a few lawmakers’ desire for direct flights than they care about the safety and convenience of the traveling public. That is shameful and an embarrassment.”

Kaine, Warner and Maryland’s two senators, Democrats Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, were the only four senators to vote against final passage.

Copyright 2024 NPR