The rock band Free played their final show ever in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The band, made up of Paul Rodgers, Paul Kossoff, Andy Fraser and Simon Kirke, formed in London in 1968. Their biggest hit was the iconic tune “All Right Now,” which was a top-5 hit in the U.S.
Fraser left the band in 1972. Kossoff was replaced for the 1973 tour, which was in support of the band’s sixth and final studio album, Heartbreaker.
Following the breakup of the band, Rodgers and Kirke would go on to form Bad Company with Mott The Hoople’s Mick Ralphs and King Crimson’s Boz Burrell. They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2025.
Elisabeth Moss is teaming back up with Hulu. Deadline reports The Handmaid’s Tale actress is set to star in and executive produce an upcoming series for the streaming service called Conviction. The legal drama is written by House and The Good Doctor creator David Shore. It will be based on the book by Jack Jordan. The story follows a lawyer who gets a career-making case only to be blackmailed by a mysterious stranger …
The man behind Saturday Night Live is getting his own documentary. Focus Features has announced it will release Lorne, a documentary about SNL creator Lorne Michaels. Morgan Neville is set to direct the film that will release in theaters on April 17. The documentary will feature exclusive footage and interviews from some of the show’s cast members and writers, including Tina Fey, Maya Rudolph, John Mulaney, Andy Samberg, Conan O’Brien, Chris Rock and more …
Take a bite out of the trailer for Forbidden Fruits. The movie, which IFC Films and Shudder are releasing, will make its world premiere at the 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival. It follows a witchy femme cult that is based in the basement of a mall. Making up the star-studded cast are Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp and Emma Chamberlain …
Steve Witkoff, US special envoy, right, and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
LONDON — Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law — will lead American negotiators in Geneva, Switzerland, in high-stakes talks starting Tuesday regarding Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the U.S. standoff with Iran over the latter’s nuclear energy program.
The talks on Ukraine will be in a trilateral format including American, Ukrainian and Russian representatives. They are the third instalment of the trilateral format following two rounds of recent negotiations in the United Arab Emirates.
Those talks were described as constructive by participants, but appeared to have failed to achieve a breakthrough on key contentious points, such as the fate of Ukraine’s partially-occupied eastern Donbas region, the future of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and proposed Western security guarantees for Kyiv.
Asked what he expected ahead of talks with Russia and Ukraine in Geneva on Tuesday, Trump on Monday put the onus on Ukraine to “come to the table fast,” appearing to suggest that the U.S. and Russia “are in a position” to make a deal.
“Well they’re big talks. It’s going to be very easy,” Trump said. “Ukraine better come to the table fast. That’s all I’m telling you. We are in a position, we want them to come.”
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Gen. Alexus Grynkewich — the top U.S. commander in Europe and NATO’s chief military officer — will also attend the Ukraine-Russian talks in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday as part of the U.S. delegation, a person familiar with the upcoming discussions told ABC News.
The Ukraine talks are expected to stretch through Tuesday and into Wednesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Monday evening address that Kyiv’s negotiators had already traveled to Switzerland, warning that Moscow was preparing fresh long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities despite the ongoing diplomatic push.
Ukraine’s air force on Tuesday reported a major Russian overnight attack, in which it said Moscow launched 396 drones and 29 missiles into the country. Ukrainian forces downed or suppressed 367 drones and 25 missiles, the air force said. Four missiles and 18 drones impacted across 13 locations, the air force reported.
“It was a combined strike, deliberately calculated to cause as much damage as possible to our energy sector,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X. Twelve regions of Ukraine were targeted in the Russian strikes and at least nine people, including children, were injured, the Ukrainian president said.
Among the targets was the southern port city of Odesa and the wider region, where “tens of thousands of people are without heat and water supply after the drone strike,” according to Zelenskyy.
Poland’s Armed Forces Operational Command said NATO aircraft were scrambled and air defenses put on alert as a response to the Russian strikes. “No violations of the Republic of Poland’s airspace by objects that could pose a threat were recorded,” the command said on X.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces shot down at least 151 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Also on Tuesday, U.S. representatives are scheduled to take part in talks over Iran’s nuclear program. The talks will be mediated by Oman, traditionally a conduit for U.S.-Iran exchanges.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Geneva on Monday. Araghchi said in a post to X that he would hold talks with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi and Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi.
“I am in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal,” Araghchi wrote. “What is not on the table: submission before threats.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday that he would be “indirectly” involved in Tuesday’s talks with Iran.
“They’ll be very important,” Trump told reporters of the talks. “We’ll see what can happen. Specifically, Iran is a very tough negotiator.”
Trump has said the U.S. wants Iran to end all nuclear enrichment as part of any deal, while American officials have also indicated that the U.S. wants constraints on Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its support of regional proxies.
All three demands have long been U.S. goals, but such proposals have been repeatedly rebuffed by Iranian leaders.
The talks have been preceded by a U.S. military buildup in the Middle East, with officials in Tehran warning that Iranian forces will retaliate against U.S. and Israeli targets if Iran is attacked.
The latest round of talks also come in the aftermath of a major anti-regime uprising in Iran, in which protests — initially sparked by the deteriorating economic conditions inside the country — spread nationwide. Trump offered his support to the demonstrators, telling them to “keep protesting”, saying “help is on its way.”
Security forces violently suppressed the demonstrations, killing at least 7,000 people according to data published by the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
The Rev. Jesse Jackson walks to the front of the “Invading our community with peace” weekly Friday peace walk led by St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham, Chicago on June 25, 2021. (Vashon Jordan Jr./Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader, Baptist minister and pioneering politician who launched two bids for the U.S. presidency, died on Tuesday morning at the age of 84, his family said in a statement.
“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the family statement said.
“We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family. His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by,” it added.
Jackson is survived by his wife, Jacqueline Jackson, whom he married in 1962, and six children.
Jackson had weathered a myriad of health issues in recent years. In November 2025, Jackson was hospitalized in Chicago for treatment of complications from progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a neurodegenerative condition that he had been managing for a decade, according to a statement from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the civil rights organization Jackson founded.
“Reverend Jackson is in stable condition and is breathing without the assistance of machines,” the Jackson family said in a statement a few days after Jackson’s hospitalization, in response to speculation about his condition. “Contrary to specific reports, he is not on life support.”
“The Jackson family extends heartfelt appreciation for the many prayers and kind messages offered during this time,” the statement also said. Jackson was released from the hospital the following week.
A further family update on Jackson’s health came in mid-December 2025, when it released a statement saying that Jackson had been released from an acute-care facility where he had “received additional care” following his hospital release. The statement also said Jackson “has battled several infections consistent with the progression of his PSP diagnosis” for “the last several months.”
In 2017, Jackson announced that he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. However, the November 2025 announcement said that the PSP diagnosis had been confirmed the previous April.
Jackson also underwent gall bladder surgery in 2021 and was hospitalized later that year after falling while protesting with students at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He also was hospitalized for COVID-19 that August.
Beginning his career as a protégé of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson quickly rose to become one of the nation’s most prominent and influential civil rights leaders. In 1971, he formed the nonprofit Operation PUSH – People United to Save/Serve Humanity – to advocate for social and economic parity for Black Americans.
Jackson ran for president twice, both times as a Democrat, placing third for the party’s nomination in 1984 and second in 1988, marking the most successful presidential runs of any Black candidate prior to Barack Obama’s two decades later.
Following his first campaign, Jackson formed the nonprofit National Rainbow Coalition with the stated purpose of affording minority Americans a greater political voice. In 1996, Jackson merged the groups into Rainbow/PUSH, and served as the head of both until 2023.
Jackson was also elected in 1990 as the shadow delegate for the District of Columbia, serving a single term. In 1999, President Bill Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Jesse Louis Jackson was born Oct. 8, 1941 in Greenville, South Carolina, in the segregated South, and grew up poor in a sharecropping family. He was a gifted student and athlete, graduating from high school with offers for a minor league baseball contract and a Big 10 football scholarship.
He opted instead to attend the University of Illinois before transferring to and graduating from North Carolina A&T, a historically Black university. He then began theological studies before going to work full-time with Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He was ordained a Baptist a minister in 1968.
In 1966, 24-year-old Jackson became head of the Chicago Chapter of the nascent Operation Breadbasket, the economic activism arm of the SCLC, and was appointed its national director the following year. He also helped establish the Chicago Freedom Movement to work for open housing and school desegregation.
Jackson participated in many of the civil rights movement’s landmark moments, including the March on Washington in 1963, where King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and the Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama in 1965. He was also with Dr. King when the civil rights leader was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
Reflecting on Dr. King’s memory almost 50 years later, Jackson said he was inspired by his ability to remain undaunted even in the face of overwhelming challenges.
“He is a frame of reference. His resurrection is powerful,” Jackson said in a 2018 interview with ABC Chicago station WLS.
Speaking of King’s assassination, Jackson added, “All I can remember is some voice saying, ‘One bullet cannot kill a movement.’ We must keep going … If your key player is hurt on the field you cannot forfeit the game, you have to internalize your pain and keep marching and keep moving, and we have to be faithful to his charge 50 years later.”
Three years after King’s murder, Jackson left the SCLC and founded Operation PUSH, a social justice organization dedicated to improving the economic conditions of Black communities across the U.S.
The organization fought for greater educational and employment opportunities for Black Americans and was successful in compelling major corporations to adopt affirmative action policies benefiting Black workers.
Jackson’s social activism evolved into political ambition in in the 1980s, when he launched two campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination, in 1984 and 1988. He placed third in primary voting in 1984 and came in second to Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis in 1988, winning 12 primaries and caucuses and receiving some 6.9 million total votes.
As only the second Black American to mount a nationwide presidential campaign, after New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm in 1972, Jackson’s historic runs were the most successful by a Black candidate until President Barack Obama won in 2008.
Jackson ultimately did win political office, when he was elected to serve in the U.S. Senate as a shadow delegate for the District of Columbia, from 1991 to 1997.
Jackson also used his skills as a negotiator to facilitate the freedom of people held abroad, leading to the release of Navy pilot Robert Goodman in 1984 from captivity in Lebanon after his plane was shot down, as well as three American prisoners of war held by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 1999.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Jackson a frequent critic of Clinton and his policies – the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in recognition of Jackson’s decades of social activism.
“It’s hard to imagine how we could have come as far as we have without the creative power, the keen intellect, the loving heart, and the relentless passion of Jesse Louis Jackson,” Clinton said at the ceremony. “And God isn’t done with him yet.”
Jackson was the recipient of numerous other awards throughout his lifetime, including the NAACP President’s Award and the American Institute for Public Service’s Jefferson Award. In 2021, Jackson received France’s highest order of merit, the Commander of the Legion of Honor.
In later years, Jackson was a vocal proponent for the reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He was also involved in the United Kingdom’s Operation Black Vote to promote minority participation in British elections.
In July 2023, Jackson stepped down as head of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition after more than 50 years as its head. “We’re resigning, we’re not retiring,” Jackson said at the time, vowing to continue fighting for social justice causes.
Ella Langley & Miranda Lambert (John Shearer/Getty Images for ACM)
It’s one of the most unexpected stories you’re likely to hear today: Ella Langley’s smash hit “Choosin’ Texas” owes its existence to Miranda Lambert’s pet kangaroo.
The two helped author the #1 song during a writers retreat, which turned out to be Ella’s chance to cure her curiosity about something in Miranda’s life.
“We’ve always had a lot of mutual friends. One of them told me over the years that she had a pet kangaroo,” Ella explains. “And as a fellow animal lover, I had so many questions about that. And so I figured I had to wait till we were like friends enough [before I asked her about it].”
“So I got done with the first song and I was like, ‘What can you tell me about that kangaroo?’ And she tells me the whole story. And at the end of the story, she got pulled over with the kangaroo in the passenger seat. [The] kangaroo got her out of a ticket, [it] really did. And she had Texas plates on [her car].”
The end of the kangaroo story was the beginning of Ella’s current hit.
“I was like, ‘Well, he’s probably like, “She’s from Texas, I can tell,”‘” Ella recalls. “And just from literally that right there, the melody kinda just fell out.”
“I went, ‘She’s from Texas, I can tell by the way he’s two-stepping around the room,'” she says as she begins to sing the lyrics. “Just like that. And she’s like, ‘She’s from Texas, like the one he went with!’ And I mean, 30, 45 minutes that song was written.”
Miranda co-produced Ella’s new album, Dandelion, which comes out April 10, and contributes background vocals to “Choosin’ Texas.”
David Archuleta, ‘Devout,’ (Robert Ascroft/Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books)
David Archuleta’s raw and honest book Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myselfis out Tuesday, and in it, the former American Idol star shares how he ultimately rejected his Mormon faith to live unapologetically as a queer man.
“How I describe the book is, it’s like a prequel to where I’m at right now,” David told ABC Audio. “It was all of the disappointment. It was all the fear. It was all the anxiety of what would happen if I made the changes in my life to be more authentically myself,” noting he specifically questioned, “What would happen to me spiritually?”
But aside from the outside pressure of his faith, David said he also had to overcome his harmful people pleasing tendencies.
“I feel like a lot of Devout is the cycle that I had to learn how to break, because I would always find someone to try and just follow and obey, listen to, do what I was told,” he noted. “And so I feel it’s this journey of breaking from that and learning how to just not give a ‘you know,’ and learn how be more loyal to myself, than to other people.”
David’s other struggle was the emotional abuse he says he suffered at the hands of his family, but after he’d “aired out” his family’s “skeletons,” he said, they’ve been able to heal.
“The book brought a lot of opportunity to talk about the difficult things that happened in our family’s past. And I was like, ‘Hey, can we talk about this? Because we haven’t,'” he explained.
Now, they’re in a better place.
“We don’t have to pretend like ‘everything’s fine’ anymore,” he explained. “We can really sit with each other and say, we’ve made it this far together and look at us now. We’re closer than ever and bonded. And I’m just so grateful to have my family.”
A number of pop groups have gone on “hiatus” and never regrouped, but BTS isn’t one them. After taking time off to do their mandatory military service, the seven members are back together and getting ready to drop their first new studio album in six years — which is something that fans were initially concerned might not happen.
That’s because on December 6, group member RM said in a livestream, “I’ve wondered thousands of times, would it be better for the team to disband or go on hiatus?” It sent their fans, known as ARMY, into a panic, But ahead of the March release of their album ARIRANG, there doesn’t seem to be any question about them continuing for a very long time.
In their new GQ cover story, Jimin says, “I know we’re here because we are a team and we started as a team and we very much acknowledge that. And also, we have a lot of fun together.” V adds, “We all treasure BTS more than we treasure each one of us separately.”
And Suga notes, “We’re still very good friends. The fans still love us — they want us, they support us. If we can keep this going, then maybe we can be dancing in our 60s…. As long as we’re willing — I think maybe into our 50s, into our 60s — we can always be together as a band.”
He adds, “Maybe it’ll be a little bit hard on our knees. But I think we can do that.”
And while RM is still trying to identify a new goal that they can all get behind going forward, he tells GQ, “I think now, the most important thing is just that we are here back together again, we’re going to see the fans all over the world.”
Lily Cornell Silver at 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. (Disney/Cristian Lopez)
Earlier in February, Lily Cornell Silver, the eldest child of the late Chris Cornell, launched a band called Josie on the Rocks. As she follows in her father’s footsteps, Lily tells ABC Audio how he and his music inspired her.
“His ability to take inner turmoil and turn it into art, I think about that a lot,” Lily says.
In introducing Josie on the Rocks, Lily wrote in an Instagram post, “Playing with these boys pulled me out of an awful place and gave me a sense of purpose I’d never felt before.”
“I find myself when I’m in depressive states or anxious states that I tend to wanna check out or just be on my phone or whatever,” Lily tells ABC Audio. “But it’s a superpower and something really inspiring to be in one of those states and say, ‘I’m gonna externalize it and make something out of it.'”
The first two Josie on the Rocks songs, “Not You” and “Super Sonic,” are out now. The video for “Not You” is dedicated to the band’s late drummer, Graham Derzon-Supplee, who died in 2022.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp founder David Fishof (Courtesy of Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp)
Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp, where regular folks get to meet, be mentored by and perform with rock superstars, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. That’s certainly quite a milestone, considering founder David Fishof wasn’t sure he’d get any rockers to sign on when he came up with the idea.
“In the beginning, I had a lot of rock stars who said no,” he tells ABC Audio. “But I did have a bunch that said yes,” noting some of first to participate included The Beach Boys’ Mike Love, Poison’s Bret Michaels, and E Street Band members Clarence Clemons and Nils Lofgren.
Upcoming 30th anniversary camps will feature The Police’s Stewart Copeland, The Who’s Roger Daltrey, Bad Company’s Simon Kirke, and Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee and John 5.
Fishof says he’s excited to have Daltrey back for the 30th anniversary, noting he also took part in their 10th anniversary and participated in about eight camps over the years. As for why Daltrey keeps returning, Fishof says, “It reminds him what it was like when he first started.”
But even with all the big names he’s landed over the years, there are still some rock stars Fishof would love to enlist for the camp.
“My dream is Paul McCartney and/or Mick Jagger,” he says. “I have to say they’re two of my favorites.”
Of course, the camps aren’t only about the rock stars — they’re about the campers, as well, with Fishof noting they usually walk away better musicians after performing with their favorite artists.
He says, “I’ve learned over the 30 years, if you play with someone that’s better than you, you’re gonna become better.”
More info on Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp can be found at RockCamp.com.
Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie on the ‘Wuthering Heights’ poster. (Alon Amir/Warner Bros. Pictures)
Wuthering Heights was the box office champ over the long holiday weekend.
The film, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, earned $38 million domestically over the Presidents’ Day holiday to debut at #1, according to Box Office Mojo.
The animated sports comedy GOAT, featuring the voices of Stephen Curry, David Harbour, Gabrielle Union and more, earned a solid #2 debut, bringing in $35 million, while the Chris Hemsworth/Halle Berry crime thriller Crime 101 debuted at #3 with $16.37 million.
The only other new movie to land in the top 10 this weekend was action-adventure comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, starring Sam Rockwell and Haley Lu Richardson, which brought in $4.15 million to debut at #7.
Here are the top 10 films at the box office:
1. Wuthering Heights — $38 million 2. GOAT — $35 million 3. Crime 101 — $16.37 million 4. Send Help — $10.4 million 5. Solo Mio — $7.4 million 6. Zootopia 2 — $5 million 7. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die – $4.15 million 8. Avatar: Fire and Ash — $3.91 million 9. Iron Lung –$3.7 million 10. Dracula — $3.56 million
