For BRELAND, the last few years have been a whirlwind.
He released his debut album, 2022's “Cross Country,” a fluid approach to country music that now feels prescient — it's the direction the genre continues to move in. He toured endlessly, won awards and collaborated with the biggest names in country. He also realized that he needed to slow down, live a little and do some soul-searching in order to identify what would come next.
So he went to Selma, Alabama — once home to his great grandmother and great-great grandmother — to recharge, something his mom did the year prior. The trip would eventually lead to a new EP, the provocatively titled “Project 2024.”
“You think about Selma as this city that, you know, is this kind of vibrant symbol of hope and freedom and the resilience of the American people and the African American community. But unfortunately, it’s a town that has been largely forgotten by most of us,” he says. Repairs from a tornado that hit last year still haven't been made. Storefronts from the '60s lay vacant.
“It's literally a food desert. ... The nearest hospital is 30 miles away. So, I went there and saw, ‘Wow, this is a community that I was expecting to be one way and was actually completely different’ and realizing that, you know, I’m one or two decisions away from having grown up in this community," BRELAND says. "And in a lot of ways, historically, at a minimum, these are my people.” It was an eye-opening experience, one that made him realize that he needed to make work that drew attention to Selma — and to write songs that told real stories.
Those exist throughout “Project 2024,” but maybe none as direct as his collaboration with The War & Treaty, “Same Work," the most “straight down the middle, country,” track on the EP, as he describes it.
In the lyrics, BRELAND recounts an experience he had at a meet and greet. A fan told the country star his story: He's a veteran, now out of the service and working as a nurse, providing free health care to other veterans in need.
“He’s like, ‘You and me do the same work.’ And I was like, ‘We definitely don’t. What you do is tactile, like, you are helping people in need.' He was like, ‘That’s what you do.’ He’s like, ‘We do the same work. We do it in different ways. God’s purpose for us is different, but if at the root of what you’re doing is wanting to be able to help people, motivate people, encourage people and show them love? Then we absolutely are doing the same work,'" he retells it.
The story struck a chord. It's the emotional heart of the six-track release, arriving at the end as a reminder of people's potential for good.
So, what about that title, “Project 2024"? BRELAND says it has nothing to do with Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page blueprint for a hard-right turn in American government and society and frequent topic of conversation leading into the presidential election.
“Just having been down to Selma and seeing the experience of those people, you know, I think there are a lot of freedoms that we can’t take for granted. And for me, I choose to express that through the music. So, it’s more of a creative agenda than a political one," he explains.
“In the most literal sense, this is the only project that I’m putting out in 2024. You can engage with it on that level," he says. “It is a little controversial, the title, sure. But you know, maybe that makes people click on it. Maybe they don’t.”
He urges listeners not to read any political messaging into it.
“I don’t think that any of the songs on this project are political at all. But I do think that my existence in this space as a very vocal young Black man, who has never shied away from having difficult conversations in the past, my experience in this space is political in some ways. But I always want the music to be as accessible as possible.”
And he accomplished that, by continuing the country music genre-melding he introduced on “Cross Country.” “Motion” weaves in Afrobeats. “Icing” introduces Southern gospel.
“Project 2024" may not be political, but it crosses borders and finds human connection at every turn.
Breland poses for a portrait Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Breland poses for a portrait Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Breland poses for a portrait Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Breland poses for a portrait Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group said Friday it is entering a new phase in its fight against invading Israeli troops, as the region reckons with the killing of top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a battle with Israeli forces in Gaza.
Hamas acknowledged Sinwar’s death and described him as a martyr. Sinwar was a chief architect of the attack on southern Israel that precipitated the latest escalating conflicts in the Middle East.
Many, from the governments of Israeli allies to exhausted residents of Gaza, expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the war, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech announcing Sinwar’s death that “Our war is not yet ended.”
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.
Here's the latest:
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to convene a special meeting with government ministers to discuss hostage negotiations in the light of Israel's killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
It’s unclear when the meeting will be held or what exactly is on the agenda.
Israelis have urged the government to use the opportunity to seal a deal for the hostages’ release since Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces Wednesday.
Among hostage families, there’s hope Sinwar’s death could restart the negotiations that sputtered to a stop three weeks ago, when Hamas and Israel accused each other of negotiating in bad faith.
BEIRUT — The U.N.’s children’s agency says it has activated an emergency cholera response to help protect children and families by containing the disease.
The announcement by UNICEF Friday follows the confirmation of a cholera case in the Akkar governorate in North Lebanon.
The health ministry said in a statement that the cholera case was unrelated to the growing displacement crisis in Lebanon. However, the country remains vigilant in controlling the spread of communicable diseases amid the ongoing displacement.
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s crisis response unit says six people have been killed and 69 wounded in the past 24 hours in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The new numbers raise the total toll over the past year of conflict to 2,418 killed and 11,336 wounded, the Lebanese Health Ministry said Friday.
The crisis response unit report also records 87 airstrikes and shellings in the past day, mostly concentrated in southern Lebanon and the Nabatiyeh province.
Some 1,098 centers — including educational complexes, vocational institutes, universities, and other institutions — are sheltering 191,501 people, including 44,646 families, displaced by the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, the report says.
Among these shelters, 902 are full. The fighting in Lebanon has driven 1.2 million people from their homes, including more than 400,000 children, according to the U.N. children’s agency.
The Lebanese Ministry of Education reports that 77 % of public schools are out of service, either due to their use as shelters or their location in areas directly affected by the war.
Despite a major border crossing between Lebanon and Syria being out of commission after an Israeli strike on the road, crowds continue to flow across the border seeking safety in Syria. Between Sept. 23 and Oct. 18, Lebanese General Security recorded 335,948 Syrian and 135,181 Lebanese citizens crossing into Syria, the report says.
BERLIN — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has told Israel that “the world will not tolerate any more excuses on humanitarian assistance” to people in Gaza.
Speaking Friday during a visit to Berlin to meet President Joe Biden and European leaders, Starmer said “the dire humanitarian situation cannot continue. … Civilians in northern Gaza need food now.”
The Biden administration warned Israel on Sunday that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it allows into Gaza within the next 30 days or risk losing access to U.S. weapons funding.
Starmer says the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar should be a precursor to a cease-fire.
Starmer says “no one should mourn” the death of Sinwar, who had “the blood of innocent Israelis” on his hands, as well as the blood of Palestinians “who suffered in the chaos and violence that he sought and celebrated.”
He says he strongly supports Israel’s right to self-defense, “particularly in the face of the Iranian regime’s actions” and that Sinwar’s death ”provides an opportunity for a step towards that cease-fire that we have long called for.”
BEIRUT — Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says European countries are working for a “sustainable cease-fire” in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
Speaking in Beirut after meeting Friday with her Lebanese counterpart, Najib Mikati, Meloni said European nations also support negotiations for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza since October last year.
Mikati says “a diplomatic solution should overcome” war that has intensified in recent weeks into an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon, and that Israel must agree to a cease-fire.
Meloni says targeting U.N. peacekeepers deployed along the Lebanon-Israel border is unacceptable and that both sides must “ensure at all times the safety of each of these soldiers.” She says the peacekeepers will be needed in any post-conflict scenario.
Over the past two weeks, U.N. posts along the border have been subjected to fire that that has wounded at least five peacekeepers.
She says the peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, must be strengthened and that UNIFIL and Lebanese troops should be the only armed forces in the area south of the Litani river along the border with Israel.
According to a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006, Hezbollah should have no presence in the area along the border with Israel.
MOSCOW — Asked about the possibility of an all-out war between Iran and Israel, Russian President Vladimir Putin has voiced hope that tension can be defused in the region.
Speaking Friday during a meeting with media representatives he said “no one is interested in the escalation of the conflict for both economic and security reasons.”
He says there is a possibility “to find a settlement, but that will depend on the parties involved in the confrontation.”
He notes that Russia has maintained contacts with Iran and Israel and stands ready to play mediator if asked, describing those relationships as “quite trusting.”
He says: “We are ready to do what depends on us, if our role is viewed positively, to also help end those horrible strikes on civilians in the Gaza Sector and help normalize the situation in southern Lebanon to end an exchange of strikes there.”
Israel’s military says it allowed 30 trucks of humanitarian aid into northern Gaza, the latest delivery over the past week as Israel faces pressure from the U.S. to ramp up aid.
The military body in charge of humanitarian aid, COGAT, said Friday that the trucks carried food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment. There has been no confirmation from the U.N. that the aid arrived and is being distributed in the north.
Aid crossings to the north of Gaza were closed for the first two weeks of October, the U.N. says, sending food and water levels plunging in an area of Gaza where some of the heaviest fighting is taking place.
The closures raised fears that Israel was implementing an extreme plan proposed by Israeli generals to besiege northern Gaza and starve out Hamas militants there.
Following a letter from the U.S. saying the continual closures could risk continued weapons funding for Israel, Israel says crossings have reopened and aid is continuing to flow.
BERLIN — The Biden administration says it does not have any early insight on who might succeed Yahya Sinwar or whether the new Hamas leader might be more willing to revive a cease-fire and hostage deal.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby has called Sinwar the main obstacle preventing the negotiations from moving forward. But he says it remains to be seen if the killing of the Hamas leader could reinvigorate negotiations.
He adds it’s “too soon” to assess who Hamas “might anoint as Sinwar’s successor and what that individual may be willing to pursue.”
Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel’s military will keep fighting until the hostages are released and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming after a year of devastating war.
Khalil al-Hayya, who was Sinwar’s Qatar-based deputy, says Hamas will not return any of the hostages “before the end of the aggression on Gaza and the withdrawal from Gaza.”
TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has condemned the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and says his death will not disturb Islamic resistance.
The state-run IRNA news agency on Friday quoted Pezeshkian as saying, “Martyrdom will not create a disturbance in the Islamic Ummah’s resistance against force and occupation.”
Pezeshkian also expressed condolences to the people of Gaza and all the freedom-seekers of the world.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military has released new footage showing what it says is the killing of Yahya Sinwar, including a tank firing at a home where the Hamas leader took refuge after a firefight with Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli military says Sinwar was killed in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday when the tank shell hit the building where he had fled following a gunfight.
Israeli soldiers killed Sinwar after encountering three militants fleeing between buildings in Rafah, Israeli military spokesperson LTC Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters Friday. Under Israeli fire, two militants whose faces were covered by cloth fled into one building while another — Sinwar — entered a second.
Before night fell, soldiers killed the two militants in one building and fired a tank shell at the other. It wasn’t until the following day, that soldiers inspecting the rubble noticed the body of a man who looked like Sinwar. His identity was confirmed by forensic tests in Israel.
Shoshani says the military has intelligence that troops killed Sinwar during a rare moment when the Hamas leader was outside rather than in Gaza’s extensive tunnel network.
At one point, Shoshani said, Sinwar spent time in the same tunnel complex where six hostages were held. The military says they were killed by their Hamas captors as Israeli soldiers drew near.
BEIRUT — The militant group Hezbollah has expressed its condolences to the Palestinian people and Hamas for the killing of Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas’ political bureau.
A statement issued by the group’s leadership Friday referred to Sinwar as a “martyr” and praised his role in leading Hamas on “the path of resistance.”
Hezbollah describes him as the leader “who stood in the face of the American project and the Zionist occupation, and sacrificed his blood for that.”
“We in the leadership of Hezbollah, who are facing with our resistant and steadfast Lebanese people the repercussions of the criminal Zionist aggression, confirm our standing with our Palestinian people,” Hezbollah says.
— By Sally Abou AlJoud
BERLIN — U.S. President Joe Biden is reiterating his call for Israel to use the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as an opportunity to move toward peace.
Biden said as he met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin Friday that Sinwar’s killing “represents a moment of justice.” He says Sinwar “had the blood of Americans and Israelis, Palestinians and Germans and so many others on his hands.”
Biden says he "told the prime minister of Israel yesterday, let’s also make this moment an opportunity to seek a path to peace, a better future in Gaza without Hamas.”
Scholz, also a staunch ally of Israel, has said Sinwar’s death should open “the concrete prospect of a cease-fire in Gaza, of an agreement to release the hostages held by Hamas.”
BEIRUT — Hamas has heralded Sinwar as a hero who “ascended as a heroic martyr, advancing and not retreating, brandishing his weapon, engaging and confronting the occupation army at the forefront of the ranks.”
The Hamas statement released Friday appears to refer to a video circulating of Sinwar’s last moments, in which he sits on a chair in a badly damaged building, severely wounded and covered in dust. He then suddenly raises his hand and flings a stick at an approaching Israeli miniature drone in an apparent final act of defiance.
GENEVA — Forces in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon are maintaining their positions despite “demands” to move from the Israeli Defense Forces.
Spokesperson Andrea Tenenti of UNIFIL, the interim force in Lebanon, said Friday that a “unanimous” decision was taken by its 50 troop-contributing countries and the U.N. Security Council to hold its positions. They will also continue to monitor the conflict and ensure aid gets to civilians.
“The IDF has repeatedly targeted our positions, endangering the safety of our troops, in addition to Hezbollah launching rockets toward Israel from near our positions, which also puts our peacekeepers in danger,” he told a U.N. news briefing in Geneva by video.
Tenenti says deteriorating security in the recent fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces has forced UNIFIL — which has some 10,000 personnel — to suspend most, but not all, of its patrols near the U.N.-imposed Blue Line boundary separating Lebanon and Israel.
He says UNIFIL has seen “hundreds of trajectories, and sometimes more, crossing the Blue Line each day, forcing our peacekeepers to spend extended hours in shelters to ensure their safety, which remains our top priority.”
Tenenti says UNIFIL is maintaining its positions “despite IDF demands to move from positions close to the Blue Line.”
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military says two soldiers have been injured in a gunfight with militants who crossed from Jordan into Israel.
At least two militants crossed into Israeli territory south of the Dead Sea Friday morning, before being shot dead by Israeli troops. The military says two soldiers were injured during an exchange of fire and that troops are searching the area for another militant who may have infiltrated.
The identities of those who crossed the border remain unclear.
Hamas praised the incursion but did not claim responsibility, calling it an “important development” in the war in Gaza and a “natural response” to the “brutal crimes of the occupation against our Palestinian people.”
The statement is one of the first public comments by Hamas since Israel killed its leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza.
BEIRUT — A statement issued by one of Hamas’ political leaders abroad has tacitly but not directly confirmed the death of the group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza.
Hamas said Friday that Israel is mistaken if it “believes that killing our leaders means the end of our movement and the struggle of the Palestinian people.”
Hamas political bureau member Bassem Naim says past leaders have also been killed and “Hamas each time became stronger and more popular, and these leaders became an icon for future generations to continue the journey towards a free Palestine.”
He says it is “painful and distressing to lose beloved people, especially extraordinary leaders” but that the Palestinian militant group is sure it will be “eventually victorious.”
When asked if the statement confirms Sinwar’s death, Naim said it does not.
JERUSALEM — Israeli prosecutors are set to indict a Palestinian from East Jerusalem who police say planned to carry out an attack on a hostage protest in Tel Aviv.
In a statement Friday, the police and Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said the man was a supporter of Hamas and other militant groups, and planned to carry out multiple attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers in retribution for Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
Police say the man had not yet acquired a weapon or explosives to carry out any of the attacks, but that he was planning to attack a protest calling for the return of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Such protests occur weekly in Tel Aviv.
BEIRUT — Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group says it is entering a new phase in its fight against invading Israeli troops, adding that it has introduced new weapons over the past days.
A statement from the group’s operations room early Friday says Hezbollah’s fighters have used new types of precision-guided missiles and explosive drones for the first time.
The statement appears to refer to a drone laden with explosives that evaded Israel’s multilayered air-defense system and slammed into a mess hall at a military training camp deep inside Israel, killing four soldiers and wounding dozens.
The group also announced this week that it fired a new type of missile called Qader 2 toward the suburbs of Tel Aviv.
The statement also says Hezbollah’s air defense units shot down this week two Israeli Hermes 450 drones.
Hezbollah says its fighters are working according to “plans prepared in advance” to battle invading Israeli troops in several parts of south Lebanon.
UNITED NATIONS — Iran’s Mission to the United Nations issued a statement honoring Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, after Israel said he had been killed in fighting.
It says: “When U.S. forces dragged a disheveled Saddam Hussein out of an underground hole, he begged them not to kill him despite being armed. Those who regarded Saddam as their model of resistance eventually collapsed. However when Muslims look up to martyr Sinwar standing on the battlefield — in combat attire and out in the open, not in a hideout, facing the enemy — the spirit of resistance will be strengthened. He will become a model for the youth and children who will carry forth his path for the liberation of Palestine. As long as occupation and aggression exist, resistance will endure, for the martyr remains alive and a source of inspiration.”
Iran and Iraq fought a brutal war in the 1980s that began when Hussein launched an invasion of Iran. It killed more than 1 million people on both sides.
An Israeli security forces officer examines the damage to a home struck by a rocket fired from Lebanon in the town of Majd al-Krum, northern Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Israelis celebrate the news of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, near Kibbutz Erez, southern Israel, on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
FILE - Yahya Sinwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, delivers a speech during at a hall on the seaside of Gaza City, on April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
FILE - Yahya Sinwar speaks to foreign correspondents in his office in Gaza City on May 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
A demonstrator holds a sign about the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar during a protest calling for a cease-fire deal and the immediate release of hostages held by Hamas on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in Tel Aviv, Israel. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Displaced men fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in Beirut's Dahiyeh suburb, eat as sit at Beirut's seaside promenade, along the Mediterranean Sea while the sun sets over the capital Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
