Clemson tight end returns from year-long drug suspension maintaining, ‘I did nothing wrong’

Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney raises the ACC championship trophy after the team's win over Virginia on Dec. 7. (Ken Ruinard/the Independent-Mail/AP)

Clemson sophomore tight end Braden Galloway will suit up for the No. 3 Tigers in Saturday’s Fiesta Bowl against No. 2 Ohio State after serving a year-long suspension for failing a drug test ahead of last year’s College Football Playoff.

Galloway and two other players, defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence and offensive lineman Zach Giella, tested positive for ostarine, a muscle-growth supplement banned by the NCAA, and were forced to sit out the Cotton Bowl and national championship game. All three have maintained their innocence and said they were uncertain how the substance entered their bodies.

The Top Songs, Artists, Playlists, and Podcasts of 2019

This year was a big one for podcast growth on Spotify. There are now more than 500,000 podcast titles available, and our podcast audience has grown by more than 50% since the start of the year. We’ve also seen a 39% increase in podcast hours consumed by listeners quarter over quarter. People are clearly loving podcasts, tuning in the most to Spotify Original The Joe Budden Podcast with Rory and Mal, followed by My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark and Germany’s Gemischtes Hack. The most-streamed podcast genre of 2019 was comedy, showing that laughter is truly universal.  

Can’t get enough of the chart toppers? Check out our lists of the top artists, songs, albums, groups, podcasts, and more below—and don’t forget to tune in later this week to the Wrapped microsite to see your personal favorites and receive a playlist based on your tastes. Plus, we’ve also created the ultimate Playlist of the Decade: the biggest songs of the past 10 years according to fan streaming.

Spotify’s Global Top Lists 2019:

Most-Streamed Artists

Post Malone

Billie Eilish

Ariana Grande

Ed Sheeran

Bad Bunny

 Most-Streamed Female Artists

Billie Eilish

Ariana Grande

Taylor Swift

Camila Cabello

Halsey

Justin Timberlake publicly apologizes to Jessica Biel

Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel attend the Louis Vuitton Womenswear Spring/Summer 2020 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on October 1, 2019 in Paris, France.

Justin Timberlake publicly apologizes to Jessica Biel for PDA pics with co-star: 'I drank way too much that night'

Justin Timberlake has addressed photos and video that surfaced last month showing him holding hands with a woman who wasn’t Jessica Biel.

Cameras recorded the singer holding hands with actress Alisha Wainwright, his co-star in the upcoming movie Palmer, in New Orleans, where they’re filming. Britain’s The Sun published a series of images of the two being overly friendly as they sat together at a Bourbon Street bar.

Timberlake didn’t speak about the incident until Wednesday, when he apologized to his wife of seven years and their 4-year-old son, Silas.

“I stay away from gossip as much as I can, but for my family I feel it is important to address recent rumors that are hurting the people I love,” Timberlake wrote. “A few weeks ago I displayed a strong lapse in judgement — but let me be clear — nothing happened between me and my costar. I drank way too much that night and I regret my behavior. I should have known better.”

Counter-Strike New Characters

CS:GO's first operation in two years unveils new Master Agents.

For 20 years, Counter-Strike players have worn generic character skins into their minutes-long matches. In-game terrorist factions like the "Phoenix Connexion" or "Elite Crew" have fought spec-ops groups like GSG-9 and the SAS. Through the immeasurable repetition of CS, these drab default outfits embedded themselves in the identity of the game. With Operation Shattered Web, that's changing.

"For the first time in CS:GO, unlock all-new T and CT-sided characters equippable on any map," writes Valve on a microsite announcing the update. "All-new CT Operators and T Agents are available as mission progress rewards. Complete missions and earn Stars to unlock them and equip them for deployment. Or equip the default Local Agent or Operator to use the pre-existing map-based characters."

Taylor Swift's 2019 AMA Performance Was Full Of Surprises

There was a ton of drama leading up to Taylor Swift's big performance at the 2019 American Music Awards on Sunday, Nov. 24, but despite all that confusion about whether Swift could perform all of her hits or not, the superstar delivered on a totally show-stopping medley. Among all the surprises in her big performance, Camila Cabello and Halsey crashed Taylor Swift's 2019 AMA's performance and made for a hugely memorable concert.

All eyes were on Swift going into this years AMAs after a very public back-and-forth on social media threw a major wrench in what fans thought they could expect from the performance. A little over a week before the awards show, Swift posted a note on Twitter in which she claimed that her former label Big Machine Records was barring her from performing any of her songs released prior to her recent Lover album at the show. But after that statement, Big Machine and Dick Clark Productions announced they had come to an agreement, suggesting Swift would actually be free to perform whichever songs of hers that she wished during the performance.