A 26-year-old man has turned himself into police, saying he was responsible for the Solingen knife attack that left three dead and eight wounded at a festival marking the city’s 650th anniversary, German authorities announced Sunday (Aug. 25).

Duesseldorf police said in a joint statement with the prosecutor’s office that the man “stated that he was responsible for the attack.”

“This person’s involvement in the crime is currently being intensively investigated,” the statement said.

Federal prosecutors said they were investigating on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and membership in a foreign terrorist organization. The suspect, wearing handcuffs and leg shackles, was taken later Sunday from the police station in Solingen to make a first appearance before a judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe.

The suspect is a Syrian citizen who had applied for asylum in Germany, police confirmed to The Associated Press. The dpa news agency reported, without citing a specific source, that his asylum claim had been denied and that he was to have been deported last year.

On Saturday (Aug. 24), the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, without providing evidence. The extremist group said on its news site that the attacker targeted Christians and that the perpetrator carried out the assaults Friday night “to avenge Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.”

The claim couldn’t be independently verified. Only a small number of claims on the site have turned out to be completely baseless, said Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King’s College London. However “ISIS’ strategy for a number of years has been to claim attacks which are merely ‘inspired’, in other words, in which the link between organization and attacker is merely ideological.”

Friday’s attack plunged the city of Solingen into shock and grief. A city of about 160,000 residents near the bigger cities of Cologne and Duesseldorf, Solingen was holding a “Festival of Diversity” to celebrate its anniversary.

People alerted police shortly after 9:30 p.m. local time Friday that a man had assaulted several people with a knife on the city’s central square, the Fronhof. The three people killed were two men aged 67 and 56 and a 56-year-old woman, authorities said. Police said the attacker appeared to have deliberately aimed for his victims’ throats.

The festival, which was due to have run through Sunday, was canceled as police looked for clues in the cordoned-off square. Instead, residents gathered to mourn the dead and injured, placing flowers and notes near the scene of the attack.

“Warum?” asked one sign placed amid candles and teddy bears. Why?

Among those asking themselves the question was 62-year-old Cord Boetther, a merchant fron Solingen.

“Why does something like this have to be done? It’s incomprehensible and it hurts,” Boetther said.

Officials had earlier said a 15-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion he knew about the planned attack and failed to inform authorities, but that he was not the attacker. Two female witnesses told police they overheard the boy and an unknown person before the attack speaking about intentions that corresponded to the bloodshed, officials said.

The attack comes amid debate over immigration ahead of regional elections next Sunday in Germany’s Saxony and Thueringia regions where anti-immigration parties such as the populist Alternative for Germany are expected to do well. In June, Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed that the country would start deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria again after a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant left one police officer dead and four more people injured.

The IS militant group declared its caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria about a decade ago, but now holds no control over any land and has lost many prominent leaders. The group is mostly out of global news headlines.

Still, it continues to recruit members and claim responsibility for deadly attacks around the world, including lethal operations in Iran and Russia earlier this year that killed dozens of people. Its sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq still carry out attacks on government forces in both countries as well as U.S.-backed Syrian fighters.

“Are you on live?” Sabrina Carpenter asked Judi Jupiter, a stranger filming her on a Soho street in New York City on Friday (Aug. 23), the release day of her new album Short n’ Sweet.

The “Taste” singer raised her eyebrows high and widened her eyes when she got the answer: “Yeah.”

Carpenter — who’s had an opening spot on The Eras Tour, has had a No. 1 song on the Hot 100, got actress Jenna Ortega to co-star in her latest music video, and just this week had interviews airing with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, Zane Lowe for Apple Music, and Amelia Dimoldenberg on an episode of Chicken Shop Date — could’ve politely made an exit. She likely had a busy day ahead.

Instead she stopped on the corner of Spring Street for an impromptu Q&A with Jupiter, who encouraged the (unbeknownst to her) pop star to promote her social media handles on camera so the street interviewer could share with followers on her up-and-coming channel, @judijupiter. (Carpenter has more than 22 million followers on TikTok and nearly 39 million on Instagram; Jupiter has a little over 20,000 TikTok followers, a number that should continue to rise after this chance encounter.)

“This is so cool. What’s your account?” asked Carpenter, curious enough to start coming up with the questions.

“Judi with an ‘I’ Jupiter,” Jupiter said.

“What kind of content do you–“

“I do really cool people in Soho. All the hot girls in Soho, and in Fire Island,” said Jupiter, who’d spotted Carpenter as she stopped for quick photo opps with fans passing by.

“Oh! I feel honored,” said Carpenter, seemingly fascinated by Jupiter. As it turns out, she should be: Judi Jupiter was part of the late ’70s nightlife in Manhattan, at go-go bars and the famed Studio 54, where she says she became an in-house photographer.

The next part of their unplanned convo on Friday in New York went like this:

“You’re spectacular. Did you just come out with an album?”

“I did. Today.”

“What’s the name of it?”

“It’s called Short n’ Sweet.”

“By?”

“Sabrina Carpenter. Me.”

Jupiter, as though she was discovering a new talent to share, later suggested Carpenter “say hi to my followers.”

“Hi to your followers,” Carpenter said, then directed her attention back to her latest interviewer: “I’m obsessed with you, honestly.”

Watch a clip of their TikTok Live below (saved on a tweet circulating X), and see the original recording on @judijupiter’s TikTok right here.

Jean-Michel Jarre is set to open and close the Paris Closing Ceremony for the 2024 Paralympics on Sunday, Sept. 8. A pioneer in electronic music, Jarre is a native of France.

The Sept. 8 finale will celebrate 4,400 athletes from 168 Paralympic delegations. Following the athletes’ parade and the handover of the flag from Paris 2024 to Los Angeles 2028, the stadium will host an open-air party for the public at Stade de France.

The much-anticipated musical celebration highlights the French electro scene, with Jarre and a number of other French artists on the lineup, including Agoria, Alan Braxe, Anetha, Boston Bun, Breakbot & Irfane, Busy P, Cassis, Chloe, Chloé Caillet, DJ Falcon, Étienne de Crecy, GЯEG, Irène Drésel, Kavinsky, Kiddy Smile, Kittin Kungs, Martin Solveig, Nathalie Duchene, Ofenbach, Polo & Pan, Tatyana Jane and The Avener.

A press statement notes the “the concert promises to be a visually and musically festive spectacle, closing the Paris 2024 Games in style.”

Thomas Jolly is artistic director, Victor le Masne is musical director and Romain Pissenem is director/designer of festival.

Speaking with the news publication Le Parisien, Jarre said he considers Pissenem one of the world’s greatest show creators.

In a 2022 interview with Billboard Jarre talked about his French roots, saying his album Oxymore “is a tribute to this French way of approaching the roots of electronic music — by actually dealing with sounds rather than notes and injecting the sound design approach to music composition, people have no idea about how big their contribution is in the way we’re doing the music today.”

Mentor Pierre Schaeffer of Groupe de Recherches Musicale, whom Jarre called “the father of musique concrète,” taught him “two quite important things: Don’t hesitate to go to the unexpected, to mix the sound of a bird with a clarinet, to mix the sound of a washing machine with a trombone … And he said, don’t waste your time experimenting, because your path is to create a bridge between the experimentation we are doing is here in this group and pop music and the audience.”

Linkin Park is counting down to something big. On Saturday (Aug. 24), the rock band shared a mysterious 100-hour countdown timer on its social media accounts, with a link to the group’s official website.

At press time, LinkinPark.com featured a YouTube livestream with the same timer and an accompanying live chat filled with fan speculation — much of it anticipating the announcement of a new vocalist to replace late lead singer Chester Bennington, who died by suicide in July 2017 at the age of 41.

“​​I hope they announce the new singer, LP deserves to continue [with their legacy,” one user wrote in the chat. Another fan asked, “If LP has a new singer and it’s female, who do you want it to be?”

Linkin Park’s countdown timer is scheduled to end on Wednesday, Aug. 28.

Earlier this year, several sources close to Linkin Park told Billboard that the band’s three surviving members were mulling a possible 2025 reunion tour and considering hiring a female vocalist to succeed Bennington. In late April, booking agency WME was taking offers for a potential Linkin Park tour along with headlining festival dates featuring LP’s Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson and Dave Farrell, the sources said. The band had not indicated who would sing on behalf of Bennington, but one source told Billboard that LP was hoping to find a female vocalist to front the reunited group.

Fueling speculation at the time, Orgy’s Jay Gordon said he had heard rumors about a Linkin Park reunion while appearing on Wired in the Empire on KCAL 96.7.

“Very, very cool guys and obviously a great band,” Gordon said. “They’ve been around a long time and they’re still going for it,” he said. “It’s going to be tough without Chester, but we’ll see. I hear they got a girl singer now. That’s what I heard.”

Gordon later issued a statement saying his comments had been taken out of context. “With regards to this linkin park singer thing. I know nothing about any of that,” he wrote.

As previously reported, Shinoda was asked about a possible reunion around the April release of Papercuts (Singles Collection: 2000-2023).

“Rumors always go around. People always ask what’s next for the band, and the best answer I can ever give anybody is when there’s something to tell you, we will tell you,” Shinoda told Revolver magazine. When there’s an announcement to be made, it will be on LinkinPark.com. If you’re hearing it from somebody else, you can trust that information as much as you want to trust it.”

Linkin Park is one of the most successful rock groups from the 2000s, having sold more than 29.4 million albums in the United States, according to Luminate. The band has charted 24 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including three top 10 hits: “In the End” in 2003, “What I’ve Done” in 2007 and “New Divide” in 2009.

See Linkin Park’s countdown post on YouTube here and Instagram below.

Celebrating life through the lenses of contemporary African American poetry and lyrical art is the creative force behind the new Atlantic Records album, On Imagination. Produced by award-winning music producer, engineer and singer-songwriter Ebonie Smith, the project features 12 poems performed by legendary Black women artists and cultural icons such as Roberta Flack, Valerie Simpson, U.S. Representative Maxine Waters and Dr. Angela Y. Davis.

June Jordan, Gwendolyn Bennett, Phillis Wheatley and Georgia Douglas Johnson are among the esteemed poets whose work is showcased on the new project. As noted in On Imagination‘s press package, the premise was to “harness art’s transformative ability to turn grief into joy and resilience, honoring the tradition of music as a life-giving, affirmative revolutionary force while shining a light on language as a pathway to healing within the Black community.”

Available now, On Imagination was first revealed in commemoration of this year’s Juneteenth celebration with Dr. Angela Y. Davis reciting Jordan’s 1982 poem, “Moving Towards Home.” The full-length album’s cast of performers also includes Valerie June, Danyel Smith, Genesis Be, Lori Lightfoot and Flyana Boss. 

Currently an in-house engineer and producer for Atlantic, Smith has also worked on prior projects such as Hamilton (Original Broadway Cast Recording), Sturgill Simpson’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer and Cardi B’s Grammy-winning Invasion of Privacy.

In announcing On Imagination’s arrival, Smith stated, “The poems on this album are restorative. They helped me heal and re-center after COVID. The language is challenging, requiring the listener to work for a deeper understanding, but those who make the effort will find the words of these poets truly powerful and transformative. In the wake of [Migos member] Takeoff’s passing, I turned to these poems to help me heal and make sense of the deaths occurring in and around hip-hop culture. The language on this album helped me find strength during that time.”

Another of the album’s notable tracks is the Bennett-penned “Fantasy,” which artist Dawn Richard performs. It’s accompanied by a dance piece choreographed by Ailey II artistic director Francesca Harper and filmed in collaboration with Richard and Ailey II alumni Maya Finman-Palmer, Brena K. Thomas and Maggy van den Heuvel with former The Ailey School student Raven Joseph. The “Fantasy” video was filmed at Ailey’s home, the Joan Weill Center for Dance.

Commented Richard, “19 years later I get to step through the doors of Ailey on my own terms. The last time I danced in Ailey’s theater was in [ABC/MTV reality series] Making the Band. To be back here and recreate a world of regality and beauty through femininity and empowerment makes this moment so special. It speaks to the power of womanhood and perseverance. You can shape your own dreams, tell the story you wish to tell and dare to imagine the possibilities you wish to create.”

“It was an absolute pleasure working with Dawn Richard, creating movement and collaborating with her on an anthem celebrating the resilience and power of women of color from the African diaspora,” added Harper. “As Ailey stands on the shoulders of our founder Alvin Ailey, who saw the importance of using dance as a vehicle for change, we are honored to partner with Atlantic Records on this milestone project serving as a testament to the power of art in our lives.”