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Positive COVID-19 test sidelines FGLs Tyler Hubbard at CMAs

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Florida Georgia Lines Tyler Hubbard is the second artist so far that will miss a scheduled performance at the CMA Awards on Wednesday due to COVID-19.

Hubbard posted a note on his Instagram page on Monday saying he was asymptomatic and quarantining on his bus outside his home. It comes days after another artist, Lee Brice, also revealed he had tested positive and would also not perform on the show, which airs on ABC from Nashville, Tennessee.

The Country Music Association said in a statement that while it was disappointing that both artists would not perform, but it was a sign that their COVID-19 precautions were working.

We have been extremely diligent with our testing process in advance of anyone entering our footprint, the statement said. Every single person has been tested, and many will be tested repeatedly throughout the week. This is in addition to wearing PPE (personal protective equipment) and of course practicing social and physical distancing.

Although the show doesnt have a normal audience of fans because of the pandemic, CMA CEO Sarah Trahern had promised to bring country stars together in one room for the awards show, while keeping them physically distanced.

Greta Thunberg on 2 very surreal years of protest and fame

NEW YORK (AP) In the first days of Greta Thunbergs solitary sidewalk protest outside Swedish Parliament in August 2018, most walk right past her. Some pause and ask why shes not in school. But people steadily begin to take notice of the steadfast 16-year-old girl.

Those humble beginnings of Thunbergs protest the unlikely birth of a global movement are seen in the opening minutes of the new documentary I Am Greta. Since then, Thunberg has met world leaders, been vilified by others, and seen countless join her in an ever-growing resistance to environmental complacency. Its a journey she readily describes as totally surreal Its like living in a movie and you dont know the plot, she says but also affirming.

I look back and I remember how it felt. I think: Oh, I was so young and naive back then which is quite funny, says Thunberg, recalling her first days of protest in an interview. So much has changed for me since then but also so much hasnt changed from the bigger perspective.

I feel like now Im happier in my life, she adds. When you do something thats meaningful, it gives you the feeling that youre meaningful.

I Am Greta, which debuts Friday on Hulu, is the first documentary to chart the meteoric rise of Thunberg from an anonymous, uncertain teen to an international activist. As an intimate chronicle of a singular figure, it plays like a coming-of-age story for someone who seemed, from the start, uncannily of age. The film, directed by Nathan Grossman, captures the head-spinning accomplishments, and the toll they sometimes take, on the bluntly impassioned Thunberg.

For an activist who insists on putting the cause before herself, its also a somewhat uncomfortable acceptance of the spotlight. I havent really achieved anything, Thunberg says, speaking by phone from Sweden. Everything the movement has achieved.

She doesnt endorse everything about the documentary. It should come as no surprise that Thunberg, who has called her Aspergers syndrome her superpower a condition she believes only enhances her ability to be straightforward and focused has a few notes.

I dont really like the title of the film, I Am Greta. It makes it seem like I take myself very seriously, says Thunberg. (In Sweden, the film is simply called Greta, but that title was recently taken by the 2018 Isabelle Huppert film.) Also the poster. I look like I have make-up on. I dont like the poster and the title.

Grossman began filming Thunberg soon after she began protesting in August 2018, but he didnt expect much from it. He told Thunberg he might not stick around for more than a few hours. He shot in half-resolution to save memory cards.

But as time went on, and young people around the world began following Thunbergs lead, Grossman realized he had unwittingly captured the first moments of an unfolding zeitgeist. The project evolved and Grossman continued to shadow Thunberg up to her scorching speech at the United Nations in which she admonished world leaders: We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you.

She felt that a movie about her could help clarify things, says Grossman. In the media, I think, she hasnt felt that she recognized herself. The one-dimensional character of Greta is a very angry, frustrated girl. In the movie, you see so much more that shes also funny and has different sides.

Part of the power of Thunberg is that, as a 17-year-old, she literally embodies a future imperiled by the inaction of older generations. I Am Greta is in a way a profile of generational divide, where adults and politicians line up to take selfies with a young woman who despite her stature sometimes struggles to get out of bed for an appointment or cries for home while sailing across the Atlantic.

But if Thunberg, Time magazines Person of the Year in 2019, is recognizably human in I Am Greta, shes also ruthlessly frank. She doesnt mince words on Earths trajectory. She dismisses superficial gestures for change. And she shrugs off those who dismiss or mock her message. Asked how she felt watching news clips of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin deriding her in the film, Thunberg laughs.