Lainey Wilson Hosts ‘The 59th Annual CMA Awards’ live from Nashville airing November 19 on ABC; streaming next day on Hulu. (Disney/Michael Le Brecht)
After scoring the entertainer of the year trophy at the Country Music Association Awards, Lainey Wilson is ready to entertain the entire country Thursday at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
On Wednesday she shared footage on her Instagram Story of her parade rehearsals. She sang “Somewhere Over Laredo” while holding an umbrella and wearing a festive red coat with a fur collar. She captioned it, “You can’t rain on this parade!” Unlike most of the other performers, Lainey isn’t riding on a float — she’ll be performing on a stage in front of Macy’s store entrance.
And if you want more Lainey holiday viewing, she appears as an animated version of herself in Disney’s Hulu’s Family Guy’s Hallmark Channel’s Lifetime’s Familiar Holiday Movie, which begins streaming on Hulu Friday. She also sings the theme song, which includes fitting the special’s very long title into the lyrics.
Speaking of “Somewhere Over Laredo,” it just became her ninth top-10 hit on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.
My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way performs at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
My Chemical Romance has announced the openers for the band’s 2026 European tour.
Each show will feature a different supporting act, depending on the night. For example, Joan Jett will be on the bill for MCR’s July 10 performance at London’s Wembley Stadium.
Other openers include Interpol, Sunny Day Real Estate, Echo and the Bunnymen, Mogwai, Idlewild and Skunk Anansie.
MCR’s 2026 tour, which celebrates the 20th anniversary of their 2006 album, The Black Parade, will come to the U.S. starting in August. The openers for the U.S. leg include Franz Ferdinand, Pierce the Veil, Modest Mouse, Iggy Pop, Sleater-Kinney, The Breeders, BABYMETAL, Jimmy Eat World, The Mars Volta, The Used and Thrice.
My Chem will also launch a tour of South America in January with support from The Hives.
Sombr on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ (Disney/Randy Holmes)
Sombr is one of 2025’s biggest breakout alternative artists, but he’s also become a giant pop act — his single “back to friends” reached the top 10 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. Speaking withVanity Fair, sombr shares that he hopes to follow in the footsteps of other musicians he feels has bridged the gap between alternative and pop.
“I feel like Hozier is a great example of being alternative and sustaining it. He still has such a successful business,” sombr says. “The 1975, same thing. Billie Eilish, when I first heard her music, I considered it to be alternative pop, and I relate.”
“I feel like I make alternative music now,” he continues. “I’m a pop star, apparently. That’s kind of how I feel.”
Asked what “alternative” means to him, sombr replies, “Alternative music is just music that is not pop.”
“It’s not made to be a pop song, but it can become a pop song, because it may be a good song that people gravitate toward,” he says. “When I made ‘back to friends,’ that is an indie-rock song.”
Sombr adds that he always felt “alternative” while in school.
“I painted my nails. I wore all black in high school,” sombr says. “I listened to alternative music, so I make alternative music.”
“I feel like some people are just born alternative,” he continues. “I remember being in high school and thinking, Am I going to be emo forever? And I think I am.”
L-R Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander and Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov in ‘Heated Rivalry’ (Sabrina Lantos)
From BookTok to your TV screen: The much-buzzed-about steamy hockey romance seriesHeated Rivalry debuts its first two episodes on HBO Max Friday.
The six-episode series, created by Jacob Tierney and based on the popular novels by Rachel Reid, follows Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, two rival hockey players who start a secret relationship in their rookie season that ends up spanning years. Hudson Williams plays wholesome Canadian superstar Shane, opposite Connor Storrie as Russian bad boy Ilya.
Tierney, Williams and Storrie say seeing the fan excitement grow online before the show has even aired feels “surreal” and “crazy.”
“It just makes me so excited for them to see the show,” Storrie tells ABC Audio. “Because if this is the reaction without, I can’t imagine some of the reactions to what we end up actually doing.”
The faithful adaptation has enough heat to melt the ice, thanks to the chemistry between Williams and Storrie, but the characters’ evolving love story against all odds is what has resonated deeply with fans.
“[The emotional scenes] felt like an extension of the physical ones, especially after establishing our relationship as Connor and Hudson,” Williams says. “It helped just allow us to go anywhere as Shane and Ilya with just sort of innate trust in each other.”
Tierney says the characters are “like high school sweethearts” in a way, who just “can’t shake each other.” “I think there’s something so romantic and swoony about that, that I think that’s partly why they stand out from the pack,” he says.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump now says extending Affordable Care Act subsidies “may be necessary” as the enrollment deadline looms for millions of Americans who are set to see their premiums skyrocket in the new year.
“Somebody said I want to extend it for two years. I don’t want to extend it for two years. I’d rather not extend them at all,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday night, pushing back on reports that the White House was going to pitch a plan that would have included a two-year extension of the subsidies.
Trump, though, notably went on to say “some kind of an extension may be necessary to get something else done because the unaffordable care act has been a disaster. It’s a disaster.”
The comments come after a fight over the health care tax credits on Capitol Hill that resulted in the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, as Democrats pushed for an extension while Republicans largely balked.
A deal to end the shutdown in the Senate included Majority Leader John Thune promising to allow a vote on a bill of Democrats’ choosing related to the Affordable Care Act in December.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson, who during the funding battle called the subsidies a “boondoggle,” said he wouldn’t commit to a vote on ACA subsidies in the House.
“Am I going to guarantee a vote on ACA unreformed COVID-era subsidies that is just a boondoggle to insurance companies and robs the taxpayer? We got a lot of work to do on that,” Johnson said in mid-November. “We, the Republicans, would demand a lot of reforms before anything like that was ever possible. And we have to go through that deliberative process.”
Some vulnerable Republicans, though, have pushed Johnson to hold a vote on the issue.
A poll from KFF taken right before the federal government shutdown began showed 78% of Americans said they want the ACA marketplace tax credits extended — including 59% of Republicans.
The clock is ticking for a solution for the estimated 22 million ACA enrollees currently receiving a tax credit to lower monthly premiums. December 15 is the deadline for Americans to sign up for or change a plan that begins coverage on Jan. 1. The last day to enroll is marketplace health plans for 2026 is Jan. 15.
Congress is currently out of town for the Thanksgiving recess. Trump is spending the holiday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, on Monday, said the issue was a “topic of discussion that’s happening very frequently and robustly inside the West Wing” and that Trump was involved in the talks but didn’t reveal any further details.
Trump, on Air Force One on Tuesday, was pressed further on when he will unveil his health care plan and what may be included.
“Don’t give any money to the insurance companies, give it to the people directly. Let ’em go out, buy their own healthcare plan. And we’re looking at that, if, if that can work. We’re looking at that. That’s sort of taken off,” Trump said on Tuesday.
Juelz Santana attends Fat Joe & Friends In Concert at The Apollo Theater on April 02, 2024, in New York City. (Photo by Shareif Ziyadat/Getty Images)
Juelz Santana doesn’t believe it’s necessary for kids to learn how to read. He contends in a recent episode of the No Funny S*** show that it’s not as important as learning about financial literacy.
“By the time they get to ninth grade they should be learning how to start businesses, but they don’t really need to learn how to read,” he said.
Though he clarified that people are not “supposed to be illiterate,” he doubled down on his argument that reading comes second to learning math, as there are ways to survive without knowing how to read.
“You could listen to a book on YouTube. You can still obtain the information. You don’t have to know how to read. … I believe common sense is better than everything,” Juelz said, noting he recently listened to Robert Greene‘s The 48 Laws of Power.
He even pushed back on host Kenny “KP” Supreme, who argued that reading is essential to reviewing and understanding contracts.
“Reading is just when people want to embarrass you and try to play you … or, ‘You can’t read your contract.’ Anybody who said you can’t read your contract, they didn’t read their contract,” Juelz said. “They had a lawyer read their contract. They just saying it to be funny.”
The full episode is now available to watch on YouTube.
Sombr performs on ABC’s ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ (Disney/Randy Holmes)
There’s so much AI content floating around online these days that you never know what’s real. Maybe that’s why we can forgive sombr for thinking that a quote from Taylor Swift praising him was fake.
Taylor did an interview in October in which she said, “Tate McRae is amazing. Sombr is amazing. There are so many incredible artists that I love listening to … I’m supporting them by streaming their music constantly in my house.”
Speaking to Vanity Fair, sombr said, “[E]very time anything cool happens to me, I’m sleeping. And I sleep really late, so I always wake up and already have a bunch of texts about it, spoiling it. … I just woke up and I opened my texts: ‘Taylor Swift mentioned you!’ I was like, No, no way. This is AI. But it wasn’t!”
“I was … six years old listening to pop radio, and it was Taylor Swift.Now I’m on pop radio with Taylor Swift, and she says she listens to my music,” he continued. “Life doesn’t feel real. And what do you mean, I’m a pop star? I’m still trying to process it all.”
The best new artist Grammy nominee had a similarly suspicious reaction to hearing his song on the radio for the first time. “I remember, when it first started picking up, I was going to meet my friends, and I got into an Uber and ‘Undressed’ was just on, and I had never experienced something like that, so I got really scared,” he told Vanity Fair.
“I was like, Am I getting kidnapped? Then I looked at the screen on the car and it was just on a radio station. Ever since then, it’s gotten to be more normal.”
Thomas Rhett performs on stage during 2025 CMA Triple Play Awards at The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts on April 29, 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Terry Wyatt/Getty Images)
Thomas Rhett and his family are mourning the loss of another beloved pet, after losing their dog Cash in October.
On Wednesday he posted a photo of his dog Kona and wrote, “It’s been a tough dog month for our family. We lost our little Kona girl. I think after cash passed she just wanted to go be with him.”
“It’s weird losing a dog, cause whether you know it or not they are just always there, always by your side at the dinner table,” he continued. “They are truly a part of your family. Got the courage last night to listen to @hardy song ‘Dog years’ I cried like a child, but dang that song is so spot on about the life of a dog if they could talk.”
“Kona and Cash yall will be missed a lot. I know yall are having a blast up in heaven together.”
When Cash passed, TR paid tribute by writing, “He was the most loyal, kind dog that I have ever known. He was [my wife] Lauren’s best friend. He was there when every single baby came home for the first time.”
Thomas and Lauren share four children and are expecting their fifth in 2026.
USA Photo of Jimmy CLIFF (Photo by Richard E. Aaron/Redferns)
The Rolling Stones have paid tribute to Jamaican reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, who passed away Monday at the age of 81.
Mick Jaggerposted a black-and-white photo on social media of him and Cliff laughing together, writing, “So sad to lose the beautiful voice of Jamaica, Jimmy Cliff.”
Both Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood also posted photos with Cliff. While they were different shots, they appear to have been taken around the same time.
Richards covered Cliff’s hit track “The Harder They Come” in 1993 and wrote about seeing the impact of the movie of the same name, which Cliff starred in.
“Farewell Jimmy, I was in Jamaica when the ‘Harder They Come’ was in every cinema on the island. You could feel the pride and and the love for Jimmy everywhere,” he wrote. “The sweetest voice, the sweetest soul. His music will live with us forever! Heartfelt condolences to his family! One love, Keith @jimmycliff.”
And in his tribute, Wood recalled Cliff’s 1982 album, Special, which he appeared on.
“Very sad news, bless @jimmycliff,” he wrote. “I made an album with him Jimmy in Kingston, Jamaica – a song called ‘Peace Officer’ among others xx.”
And those weren’t the only times The Stones and Cliff collaborated. The reggae star contributed backing vocals to the band’s 1986 album, Dirty Work.
President Donald Trump speaks to the media aboard Air Force One on November 25, 2025 in flight en route to Florida. The Trumps are traveling to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday. (Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Fulton County, Georgia, election interference case against President Donald Trump and others has been dismissed after the prosecutor who took over the case requested that it be dropped.
“In my professional judgment, the citizens of Georgia are not served by pursuing this case in full for another five to ten years,” wrote Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, who took over the case after the original prosecutor was disqualified from the case.
Within minutes of Skandalakis’ court filing, the judge overseeing the case granted the request and dismissed the case.
“This case is hereby dismissed in its entirety,” Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee wrote.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty in August 2023 to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
The charges, which were brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis following Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to win the state, allege that the defendants solicited state leaders throughout the country, harassed and misled a Georgia election worker, and pushed phony claims that the election was stolen, all in an effort for Trump to remain in power despite his election loss.
Defendants Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro and Scott Hall took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
Willis was subsequently disqualified from the case following accusations of impropriety regarding her relationship with a fellow prosecutor, leaving a council of Georgia attorneys to assign an independent prosecutor to take over the case and determine its fate.
Skandalakis took over the case himself earlier this month after he said he was “unable” to find someone else to accept the job.
In a statement following the dismissal of the case, Trump attorney Steve Sadow said, “The political persecution of President Trump by disqualified DA Fani Willis is finally over. This case should never have been brought. A fair and impartial prosecutor has put an end to this lawfare.”
The dismissal marks the end of the two major election interference cases Trump faced following the 2020 election.
Following an eight-month investigation by then-special counsel Jack Smith, Trump pleaded not guilty in August 2023 to charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election by enlisting a slate of so-called “fake electors,” using the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations,” trying to enlist the vice president to “alter the election results,” and promoting false claims of a stolen election as the Jan. 6 riot raged.
After Trump was reelected president last year, the case was dismissed without prejudice due to the Justice Department’s long-standing policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president.
In a 22-page filing explaining his decision to drop the Fulton County case, Skandalakis wrote that the allegations and case theory are “not a viable basis for prosecution,” and noted the timing and logistical difficulties of continuing the case specifically against Trump.
He acknowledged the seriousness of the case, writing that the indictment, if proven, would establish a conspiracy undertaken by multiple individuals … to overturn the results of the November 2020 Presidential Election,” but said that trying a criminal case against Trump would not be feasible.
“There is no realistic prospect that a sitting President will be compelled to appear in Georgia to stand trial on the allegations in this indictment,” he wrote. “And even if, by some extraordinary circumstance, [Trump] were to appear in Georgia on January 21, 2029 — the day after his term concludes — an immediate jury trial would be impossible.”
Regarding the specifics of the case against Trump, Skandalakis wrote that “Overt acts such as arranging a phone call, issuing a public statement, tweeting to the public to watch the Georgia Senate subcommittee hearings, texting someone to attend those hearings, or answering a 63-minute phone call without providing the context of that conversation, just to name a few examples, are not acts I would consider sufficient to sustain a RICO case” against the president, referring to the racketeering charges that Trump faced.
Skandalakis wrote that he considered severing Trump from his co-defendants but concluded that such a move would be “futile and unproductive.”
He also concluded that the case should have been pursued federally, not in a Fulton County courtroom.
“The criminal conduct alleged in the Atlanta Judicial Circuit’s prosecution was conceived in Washington, D.C., not the State of Georgia. The federal government is the appropriate venue for this prosecution, not the State of Georgia,” he wrote.
He also identified a series of flaws in the prosecution’s case theory, including that the Republican electors charged lacked criminal intent and that the allegations against federal officials Jeff Clark and Mark Meadows “fall short of the far more rigorous standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt required to sustain a criminal conviction.”
In concluding his explanation, Skandalakis acknowledged that his decision would receive pushback — but said he still had to make it.
“The role of a prosecutor is not to satisfy public opinion or achieve universal approval; such a goal is both unattainable and irrelevant to the proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion. My assessment of this case has been guided solely by the evidence, the law, and the principles of justice,” he wrote.
