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The 51st annual Country Music Awards will honor artists and musicians in Music City at Bridgestone Arena.The stars flocked to the red carpet Wednesday night before the show.Country Stars Walk CMA Awards Red Carpet 221

Sugarland is taking the country music scene back by storm.They started by making waves at last year's Country Music Awards, announcing that the fan-favorite duo that went separate ways in 2012 after almost a decade together was getting back together.Made up of Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles, the duo released a new song to country radio called "Still The Same". PHOTOS: See red carpet arrivals from the 53rd annual Academy of Country Music AwardsNow the pair is making Nashville headlines again as they released the tracklist for their upcoming album due in June, "Bigger".The biggest surprise? Track number seven which has another familiar name that disappeared from the country charts. Taylor Swift.Swift, who famously left her country music roots to crossover to pop, is listed as a duet performer for the song titled "Babe".ACM Awards: Follow who is winning big and taking home a trophyIt also happens to be the only song on the album not co-written by Nettles and Bush. The duo confirmed backstage at the Academy of Country Music Awards that the track with Swift will debut next week.  1123

The banana phone is back.A startup that licenses the Nokia phone brand has unveiled a new version of the 8110, a curved mobile phone that was first released in 1996 and featured in "The Matrix."The phone, which is offered in banana yellow and black, will sell for €79 (). It comes loaded with a new version of the game Snake, Finnish startup HMD said in a statement."This is a return to the glory years of Nokia," said Ian Fogg, senior analyst at IHS Markit. "But it also includes all the new technology."The 8110 comes with 4G, and a handful of apps including Google Maps, Facebook and Twitter. But it doesn't have a flashy operating system and users won't be able to download other popular apps.Fogg said that basic -- or "feature" -- phones are appealing because they are reliable, and can run for a long time on a single charge. The 8110 goes 25 days in standby mode, for example.Nokia used to be the world's largest maker of mobile phones, but it struggled to adapt to the era of smartphones and compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung.Microsoft purchased the company's handset business in 2013, but later unwound the deal. Nokia now focuses on making technology for telecommunications networks.HMD, which has licensed the Nokia brand since 2016, sold over 70 million handsets in 2017, according to IHS. That puts its sales, on an annualized basis, in the same league as Sony and Lenovo."HMD's strategy clearly aims to return Nokia to be a mobile market leader, even if it's too early for HMD to realistically target displacing Samsung or Apple," Fogg said.Nokia marketed the original 8110 as "the first of its kind in terms of its ergonomics." Its battery lasted up to six days, and it was able to store 16 ring tones and up to 324 names and numbers."It feels good in the hand and fits into any pocket. The revolutionary curved design fits the natural shape of your face," the company said in a press release at the time.  1948

Support is growing for early voting, but there's still a lot of distrust for voting by mail.Just over 3 in 10 people say they're very confident their vote will be counted accurately if they vote by mail. Nearly 7 in 10 say the same thing about voting in person on Election Day. That's according to a new poll from the University of Maryland and The Washington Post.There's a big racial disparity in perceptions about election integrity. About 71% of Black Americans in the poll say it¡¯s easier for white Americans to vote, while only 34% of white Americans believe that's the case.¡°There's a historic trend of distrust in government amongst racial and ethnic minorities,¡± said Jonathan Collins, education and political science assistant professor at Brown University. ¡°And instances like this during the need to transition to mail-in voting. This is where that distrust really kind of rears its head.Collins studies ethnic minority political behavior. He says campaigns from state attorneys would be helpful to reassure people their mail-in ballots will be counted properly.The U.S. Postal Service is trying to educate people on its role in the mail-in voting process with TV ads. It says the nonpartisan campaign neither encourages nor discourages mail-in voting. Collins expects a lot of African Americans are still going to prefer in-person voting.¡°There is this sense of pride that you get from showing up to your precinct, to your polling station on Election Day and in-person casing your vote. There's a pride of wearing the 'I voted' sticker around for your friends and our family and your coworkers to see. How do we replicate that feeling of pride?¡±About 6 in 10 registered voters nationwide say they want to cast their ballot before Election Day. Compare that to 2016, when about 4 in 10 people cast ballots early.For mail-in voters worried about their vote not counting, many states allow residents to track their ballot. NBC News reports that all states allow this, except for the following: Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, and New York.Also, many states allow mail-in voters to submit their ballots at designation drop-off boxes, if they don't want to trust the USPS.Click here for tips from the USPS on voting by mail. 2290

TAMPA BAY, Fla. ¡ª Thanksgiving is a day of gratitude for many, but it also marks 10 years of Justin Gaertner's Alive Day.Gaertner's Alive Day marks the day he survived injuries overseas."It's a day to remember how far you've come in life and that nothing can hold you back," said Gaertner. November 26, 2010, Gaertner and his best friend, Gabriel Martinez, were on a clearance mission in Marjah in Afghanistan's southwestern Helmand province. While sweeping after a vehicle in front of them, the vehicle rolled over an IED, Gaertner said Martinez hit a secondary IED and as he swept to secure a landing zone for a medical helicopter, he triggered a tertiary IED. Both lost their legs."I remember every second of that moment. The smell. The looks. The sound. Everything that was going on, and it's something I'll never forget. But regardless, he was right there by my side the whole time, throughout the whole thing," Gaertner said.A photo shows the two with injured hands, holding each other's pinky fingers. They had each other's backs in the Marines through their recovery. Now, both work as computer forensic analysts for ICE Homeland Security Investigations, Martinez for HSI Denver, and Gaertner for HSI Tampa."We never let each other go because going through something like that by yourself is hard enough and then having him by my side that whole time, I guess there's really no feeling or words that can describe having your best friend, your brother right there next to you throughout the entire journey," Gaertner said.They were brought on through the Human Exploitation Rescue Operative (HERO) program."The child exploitation cases are really close to my heart, close to everybody's heart, and it's just nice when you come home and know you made a difference today," he said.Gaertner said he's now worked on close to 300 federal and state cases, dealing with things like child exploitation, drug smuggling, and national security. He also helped in the aftermath of the shooting attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola.He said the past ten years have been a journey."Highs lows, accomplishments of conquering challenges, starting my family, marrying the love of my life, having a beautiful daughter together. It's just been a journey and something I don't take for granted because I shouldn't be here, but I am, and I'm trying to make the best of it," he said.He said his wife and daughter are his rocks. "With the challenges of 2020, the challenges over the last 10 years of my life, my daughter has been a blessing. We lost a daughter in 2018 and have been praying every day since then for the arrival of our daughter Callie now and on top of her I've prayed for a wife such as mine, and I couldn't have made it over the past few years without her," Gaertner said.His wife, Paige, said while Thanksgiving before was a day to acknowledge blessings, now it's also gratitude, celebrating Justin's life."I think Justin's greatest ability in life is to adapt and overcome, and to me and having a daughter now and him being a father, I think it's just an example to all of us that no matter what we go through, I mean losing his legs has been a huge trial in his life, but he has done it and overcame it like it was a blessing to him," she said. "And so he always makes the best out of every situation, and I think no matter where we are in life that it's important to remember that."On this Thanksgiving, Gaertner doesn't dwell on what happened to him on his Alive Day."I don't really think about it too much, I just think about everybody else that's serving and the sacrifices that they're making while I'm able to sit here and enjoy Thanksgiving with my family," he said.This story was first reported by Haley Bull at WFTS in Tampa Bay, Florida. 3798