‘Bridgerton’ soundtrack artwork (courtesy of Netflix)
Covers of songs by The Cars and Sting are set to make an appearance in Netflix’s hit series Bridgerton.
The final four episodes of season 4 premiere Thursday, with episode six featuring instrumental versions of The Cars’ ”Just What I Needed,” performed by Altum Quartet, and Sting’s “Fields of Gold,” performed by Music Lab Collective.
Part 1 of season 4 featured instrumentals of songs by Coldplay, Third Eye Blind, Paramore and Taylor Swift, while part 2 also features songs by Charli XCX, Billie Eilish and Teddy Swims.
Part 1 of the soundtrack is currently available for streaming, with part 2 going live on Thursday at 12 a.m. PT.
Released in 1978, “Just What I Needed” was the first single off The Cars’ self-titled debut album and reached #27 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Fields of Gold” appeared on Sting’s fourth solo album, Ten Summoner’s Tales. It went to #2 on the Adult Contemporary chart and peaked at #23 on the Hot 100.
A view of the site where Mexican Army troops killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as ‘El Mencho,’ leader of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (Jalisco New Generation), during a federal operation in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico on February 22, 2026. (Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Airport operations are gradually returning to normal in Mexico after violence ignited in the country following the killing of the drug lord known as “El Mencho,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said at a press conference Tuesday.
Sheinbaum said there were “seven roadblocks” in Mexico Tuesday morning, but “all of them” have now been cleared. Flights have resumed at Guadalajara Airport, and operations are “gradually returning” at Puerto Vallarta airport, she added.
School was suspended in Jalisco and Michoacan on Tuesday, but “activities are expected to return to normal tomorrow,” Sheinbaum added.
Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was killed in an operation led by Mexican authorities on Sunday in Jalisco, Mexican officials said.
Widespread cartel-organized violence erupted following his death, with vehicles set on fire, hundreds of road blockages and attacks on gas stations and businesses, according to Mexican authorities.
Mexico’s security strategy “has not changed,” after the operation, emphasizing that law enforcement were attempting to arrested an individual with an outstanding warrant, Sheinbaum said Tuesday.
“Members of the Army were attacked and responded. He later died while being transferred. But we will never act outside the law. That is very important. Here, the objective was never to kill anyone,” Sheinbaum said.
“Yes, this was a very significant member of organized crime, but the strategy has not changed. The strategy remains the same and is grounded in our laws and our Constitution,” she added.
Sheinbaum said that as of Monday morning, there are no longer any blockades and “normal activity has largely been restored.”
Oseguera Cervantes was one of the most wanted criminals in both Mexico and the United States. He was one of the top traffickers of fentanyl into the U.S., and last year President Donald Trump designated the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, the White House said.
When Mexican forces moved in to arrest him on Sunday, “El Mencho’s security detail opened fire,” Mexico’s Secretary of National Defense Ricardo Trevilla Trejo said Monday.
El Mencho “fled the location, leaving behind a group heavily armed,” Trevilla said. “The attack by organized crime members was extremely violent.”
Mexican special forces members continued to pursue El Mencho and eventually were able to injure him and two of the bodyguards with him, according to Trevilla.
El Mencho and the two bodyguards died during the helicopter evacuation flight that was heading towards a medical facility in Jalisco, Trevilla added.
Ultimately, 25 members of the Mexican National Guard and 30 cartel members were killed in Jalisco, Mexican officials said. Four cartel members were also killed in Michoacan, officials said.
Among those killed was a “principal confidant” of El Mencho in Jalisco who was “coordinating road blockades, vehicle burnings, and attacks on military and government facilities,” Trevilla said.
Seventy cartel members have been detained across seven states, Mexican officials said Monday.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico on Monday continued to urge Americans in locations throughout Mexico to shelter in place due to “ongoing security operations and related road blockages and criminal activity.”
“While no airports have been closed, roadblocks have impacted airline operations, with most domestic and international flights cancelled in both Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta,” the U.S. Embassy said in a security alert. “All ride shares are suspended in Puerto Vallarta. Some businesses have suspended operations.”
Lineup for ‘Billboard”s Women in Music 2026 (Courtesy of Penske Media Wire)
Kehlani, Mariah the Scientist and Teyana Taylor are not only singers, they’re now honorees at Billboard‘s Women in Music 2026.
Kehlani is set to receive the Impact Award “for her artistry, advocacy and influence on culture and community,” according to a press release, while Mariah will be honored with the Rising Star Award, which celebrates “her rapid ascent, dynamic songwriting and distinctive voice.”
As for Teyana, she will be recognized for her “boundless creativity and cultural impact across music, film, fashion, and choreography,” the press release notes, as she’s named the recipient of the Visionary Award.
The 2026 Billboard Women in Music event will take place April 29 at the Hollywood Palladium in LA, with Keke Palmer on hosting duties. Ella Langley, Laufey, Tate McRae, Thalia and Zara Larsson are also set to be honored that night.
“From breakthrough voices to enduring icons, each of these women is pushing the industry forward in powerful ways,” Jason Lipshutz, Billboard‘s co-chief content officer, says in a statement.
Fellow co-chief content officer Leila Cobo adds, “The 2026 Billboard Women in Music presented by Sonesta International Hotels honors artists who are not only shaping the sound of today, but defining the culture of tomorrow. This year’s honorees represent bold creativity, global influence, and artistic excellence across genres.”
Artemis II: the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft at Launch Pad 39B, on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(MERRITT ISLAND, Fla.) — Weather conditions have again delayed operations leading to the launch of the Artemis II rocket mission to the moon.
The rollback of the Artemis II rocket and spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida was originally scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Due to high winds in the area, NASA said its plans to move the rocket and Orion spacecraft for Artemis II off the launch pad and back to the vehicle assembly building were pushed to Wednesday morning.
The 4-mile trek is expected to take 12 hours, the space agency said.
The move was deemed necessary after crews detected an interrupted flow of helium to the Artemis II rocket’s upper stage on Saturday. Helium did not flow properly during normal operations and reconfigurations that followed the wet dress rehearsal that concluded on Thursday.
The upper stage uses helium to maintain the proper environmental conditions for its engine and to pressurize liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant tanks, according to NASA. Essentially, helium is a critical element that ensures the proper flow of fuel into the rocket.
Once back in the vehicle assembly building, teams will install platforms to access the helium flow issue, NASA said. Teams will review potential causes of the issue as well as data from the 2022 Artemis I mission, in which teams had to troubleshoot helium-related pressurization of the upper stage before launch.
The Artemis II mission is a test flight that will send four astronauts on a more than 600,000-mile journey around the moon to test critical spacecraft systems, according to NASA. The crew will fly over the far side of the moon — passing between 4,000 and 6,000 miles above it — and spend a day observing and photographing the region.
After the lunar flyby, the astronauts will circle the moon for a return to Earth, in which the Earth-moon gravity field will help pull the spacecraft back to Earth over the course of its three-day return trip.
The Orion will then splashdown off the coast of San Diego after re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, and the U.S. Navy will recover the astronauts from the Pacific Ocean.
The journey is expected to take 10 days total.
The mission sets the stage for the future Artemis III, which aims to someday land astronauts near the moon’s South Pole. The region has never been explored by humans before.
Artemis II will mark the first time humans have traveled beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.
In January, NASA delayed the Artemis moonshot due to near-freezing temperatures at the launch site.
Heaters were deployed to keep the Orion capsule on top of the rocket warm, while rocket-purging systems were adapted to the cold.
The rollback of Artemis II means it will not launch during the March launch window, NASA said.
The quick preparations will potentially preserve the April launch window, pending the outcome of data findings and repair efforts, according to the agency.
ABC News’ Briana Alvarado and Matthew Glasser contributed to this report.
Ella Langley will be center stage at Billboard‘s annual Women in Music event April 29 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles.
“Country music standout Ella Langley will be honored with the Powerhouse Award for her commanding voice, bold storytelling, and chart success,” the esteemed music magazine announced in a news release.
Earlier this month, Ella became the first woman ever to top the Billboard 100, Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts at the same time with “Choosin’ Texas.”
Tate McRae, who also hit #1 on the Hot 100 with “What I Want” with Morgan Wallen, will receive the Hitmaker Award at the gala, which will be hosted by Keke Palmer.
Look for Billboard to announce its prestigious 2026 Woman of the Year in the weeks to come.
President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, February 20, 2026. (Aaron Schwartz/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A 10% global tariff took effect on Tuesday, marking the first duty enacted by President Donald Trump after a recent Supreme Court decision invalidated most of his levies.
Within hours of the high court’s ruling on Friday, Trump signed an executive order imposing a 10% tariff on nearly all imports for up to 150 days. The directive called for enforcement of the duty to begin at 12:01 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 24.
Soon after signing the order, Trump vowed to hike the global tariff to 15%. As of Tuesday, however, the president had not issued an executive order formalizing that increase.
Stocks ticked higher Tuesday morning, recovering some of the losses suffered a day earlier in the first trading session since Trump announced the tariff increase.
Trump enacted the 10% tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the White House to address “large and serious” balance-of-payments deficits, or disparities between a country’s total payments in transactions with other nations and its total earnings.
Under the measure, the president can also impose levies to “prevent an imminent and significant depreciation of the dollar.”
The Section 122 tariffs will result in price increases amounting to $800 in additional costs for an average U.S. household over the next 150 days, the Yale Budget Lab projected. In order to extend the across-the-board 15% tariff beyond that time window, Trump would need to secure Congressional approval.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday that Democrats would oppose an extension of Section 122 tariffs, which could deny Trump the 60 votes necessary to overcome a potential Senate filibuster.
In a social media post on Monday, Trump affirmed what he said was his authority to issue tariffs, saying he does not need to consult Congress before erecting new trade levies.
Trump also reiterated his commitment to his policy approach, warning other countries that they may face a “much higher Tariff, and worse.”
The high court ruled in their February 20 decision that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEPPA) does not authorize Trump to impose levies, nullifying a major swathe of tariffs issued by the president on April 2 of last year, which he dubbed “Liberation Day,” and a host of other measures.
If the Supreme Court had opted to uphold tariffs issued under IEPPA, the nation’s effective tariff rate would have remained at 16%, the Yale Budget Lab said. Taking into account the Section 122 tariffs, the effective tariff rate now stands at 13.7%, the group said.
Joshua Homme of Queens of the Stone Age performs at Dolby Theatre on November 11, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Harmony Gerber/Getty Images)
Queens of the Stone Age have added five additional dates to their U.S. Catacombs tour.
The outing, described as a “very limited run,” will make stops in Joshua Tree, California, on April 24; Rancho Mirage, California, on April 25; Portland, Oregon, on April 27; Seattle on April 29; and Lincoln, California, on May 1.
Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. PT. For more info, visit QotSA.com.
The Catacombs tour, which first launched in fall 2025, features special arrangements of Queens songs inspired by their Alive in the Catacombs concert film. The set was recorded in the famed Catacombs of Paris.
American Tourist Yoni Pizer speaks of getting caught in the violence that erupted in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, February 22, 2026, after the Mexican government killed the cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as El Mencho. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — In harrowing detail, an American tourist described the violence that he, his husband and two friends were caught in on Sunday in the vacation mecca of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, when armed criminals responded to the killing of a notorious cartel boss.
Yoni Pizer of Chicago told ABC News that he and his husband, who own a vacation condo in Puerto Vallarta, were driving their friends to a whale-watching expedition around 8:30 a.m. local time on Sunday when chaos suddenly erupted.
Pizer said they were just west of Puerto Vallarta, approaching an intersection, when they first noticed trouble and soon realized their lives were in jeopardy.
“We suddenly noticed a man running at us with a gun in his hand and one of my friends who was in the backseat shouted, ‘He’s got a gun! He’s got a gun!'” Pizer said.
He said the man was part of the group of armed assailants who were stopping cars and pulling the occupants out.
Pizer said the man banged on his car window and pointed the gun at his head. He said at first he thought it was just a carjacking, but later noticed other armed assailants stopping cars and pulling the occupants out.
He said the armed man ordered him and the others with him to get out of the car.
“At that point, he got into the car and drove it just a few yards into the intersection, and then threw an incendiary device in it, which exploded, and the car was quickly engulfed in flames,” Pizer said.
Widespread cartel-organized violence erupted following a Mexican Special Forces operation on Sunday that killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, who is also known as “El Mencho.”
Oseguera Cervantes was one of the most wanted criminals in both Mexico and the United States. He was one of the top traffickers of fentanyl into the U.S. Last year President Donald Trump designated the Jalisco New Generation Cartel as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
When Mexican forces moved in to arrest him on Sunday in another part of the state of Jalisco, “El Mencho’s security detail opened fire,” Mexico’s Secretary of National Defense Ricardo Trevilla Trejo said Monday. More than 30 cartel members were killed in the firefight, which also left 25 members of the Mexican National Guard dead, Mexican officials said.
Oseguera Cervantes initially got away, but government forces tracked him down in the town of Tapalpa, about 180 miles southeast of Puerto Vallarta, where he and his two bodyguards were gravely wounded in a gun battle, Mexican authorities said.
El Mencho and his bodyguards died during an evacuation flight to a medical facility, Trevilla Trejo said.
In response, cartel members fanned out across the country, setting fire to vehicles and buildings, authorities said.
Among the other cartel members killed was a “principal confidant” of El Mencho in Jalisco who was “coordinating road blockades, vehicle burnings, and attacks on military and government facilities,” Trevilla said.
“Their goal was clearly to block all main roads in Puerto Vallarta. And, clearly, it wasn’t to kill people, because they easily could have killed all of us,” Pizer said.
He said that after his car was taken and set on fire, he and his party ran for their lives as they heard gunshots and saw numerous vehicles being torched.
“Then a city bus came up and they went onto the bus and started shooting their guns to make sure people understood that they meant business,” Pizer said, adding that the assailants blocked a road with the bus and set it on fire.
Pizer said at one point during their escape, he was separated from his husband and one of their friends, who both ended up sheltering in a church orphanage for more than eight hours.
Pizer said that a good Samaritan stopped and gave him and his other guest a ride back into Puerto Vallarta.
“We ran to the beach and turned around and saw black columns of smoke throughout the city,” Pizer said.
The U.S. State Department is advising American tourists to continue sheltering in place until tensions subside.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said there is a “greater calm” in Mexico as government forces worked to quell the violence.
Pizer said he fears the attack will wreck Puerto Vallarta’s top industry — tourism — at least for the short term.
“This all makes me very, very sad,” Pizer said. “Puerto Vallarta is such a wonderful, special place. Obviously, that’s why so many people come here.”
Tate McRae ‘So Close to What’ deluxe (RCA Records)
Tate McRae, Zara Larsson, Laufey, Kehlani and more are among the honorees at this year’s Billboard Women in Music Event, set for April 29 in LA.
Despite making music for a decade, Zara will be honored with the Breakthrough Award for her recent international chart success. Tate, meanwhile, will get the Hitmaker Award for her “chart‑dominating catalog and undeniable cultural influence.”
Laufey will be presented with the Innovator Award for her unique spin on jazz-pop, while Kehlani will receive the Impact Award for her “artistry, advocacy, and influence on culture and community.”
Other honorees include Mariah the Scientist, who’ll get the Rising Star Award; country star Ella Langley, who’ll receive the Powerhouse Award; and actress/singer Teyana Taylor, who’ll get the Visionary Award for her “boundless creativity and cultural impact across music, film, fashion, and choreography.”
Presenters, as well as the recipient of the Billboard Woman of the Year award, will be announced soon.
Isaac Hayes performs at Chronicle Pavilion on August 1, 2004 in Concord, California. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)
The son of legendary R&B singer Isaac Hayes has announced the outcome of the estate’s lawsuit against Donald Trump over the use of the classic Hayes-penned track “Hold On (I’m Coming)” at his political rallies.
According to an Instagram post by Isaac Hayes III, president of the estate, the suit has been “mutually resolved and we are satisfied with the outcome.”
The Hayes estate sued the Trump campaign in August of 2024, demanding they stop using the tune, which Hayes co-wrote with David Porter for Sam & Dave. They also sought $3 million to cover licensing fees for the times the song has already been used without permission between 2022 and 2024.
“This resolution represents more than the conclusion of a legal matter,” reads the Instagram post. “It reaffirms the importance of protecting intellectual property rights and copyrights, especially as they relate to legacy, ownership, and the responsible use of creative works.”
“Isaac Hayes, Jr. dedicated his life to his craft, and his contributions to music and culture carry enduring value. As stewards of his legacy, we remain committed to ensuring that his work is respected and properly protected,” the statement notes.
“We are proud that this matter has helped further a broader conversation surrounding intellectual property rights and the obligation to honor creators and their estates,” the post continues. “Protecting ownership is not only about the past, it is about preserving dignity, value, and accountability for future generations.”
On Monday, a stipulation of dismissal of the case was filed with the courts. No other details regarding the resolution of the case have been revealed.
