Gorillaz is set to perform on Saturday Night Live for the first time.
The Damon Albarn-led animated band — which consists of cartoon members Murdoc, Noodle, Russel and 2D — will make their SNL debut on March 6. The episode will be hosted by actor Ryan Gosling, who’s starring in the upcoming movie Project Hail Mary.
Gorillaz will release a new album, The Mountain, on Feb. 27. They’re performing the record in full during two shows in Los Angeles on Feb. 22 and Feb. 23.
The Gorillaz exhibit House of Kong will also be open in LA from Feb. 26 to March 19.
Ja Rule attends the 2023 City of Hope Spirit of Life Gala at Pacific Design Center on October 18, 2023 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Ja Rule is feeling a bit remorseful about his involvement in a recent public shouting match.
In a statement to ABC News, the rapper apologized for his “out of character” behavior in which, on a Delta Airlines flight, he got into a heated argument with members of the rap group G-Unit.
“I’m not proud of my behavior. It’s goofy to me,” Ja Rule said. “I don’t like people taking me out of my character so for that I apologize to my wife, family, fans, business and investment partners.”
Video of the altercation began circulating on the internet earlier this week, showing Ja Rule visibly upset and turning around to the seats behind him to address rappers Tony Yayo and Uncle Murda. In tweets following the viral footage, Ja Rule admitted to throwing a pillow at Yayo’s head “cuz you soft,” he wrote.
The tense exchange likely doesn’t come as a surprise to fans who have followed the decadeslong feud between Ja Rule and G-Unit founding member 50 Cent.
“I’m a grown man about to be a grandfather and I wish that video of me wasn’t out there either,” Ja Rule said in his statement. “I want people to know at the end of the day, I’m still a man and I’m going to stand my ground.”
Jessica Gunning at 2025 BAFTA Television Awards Hall on May 11, 2025, in London, England. (Lia Toby/Getty Images)| Photo of Mama Cass. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Emmy Award-winning Baby Reindeer star Jessica Gunning has been cast to play The Mamas & The Papas singer Cass Elliot in the upcoming movie My Mama Cass.
The biopic will be based on the bestselling memoir My Mama, Cass, written by Elliot’s daughter, Owen Elliot-Kugell, with the book being adapted by novelist and screenwriter Emma Forrest.
A press release notes that the film is “not a traditional Mamas & the Papas biopic,” rather a “definitive Cass Elliot film, centered on her life, legacy, and the mother-daughter bond that shaped them both.”
In addition to focusing on Elliot’s life and career, the film will highlight Owen’s journey to uncover the truth about her mother’s death at age 32 in order to put to rest the urban legend that she died choking on a ham sandwich. Cass died of heart failure in 1974 when Owen was 7.
The film is currently in production.
As a member of The Mamas & The Papas, Cass scored six top-10 hits, including “Monday Monday,” “California Dreamin'” and “Dedicated to the One I Love.” The group sold over 40 million records and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
Cass went on to a solo career, scoring hits like “Make Your Own Kind of Music” and “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”
Craig Campbell’s new track, “Drink for That,” is set to arrive Feb. 20 as the first in a series of new songs.
Clint Black, Wynonna Judd, Joe Nichols, The Bellamy Brothers and Neal McCoy will headline the 2027 Country Music Cruise, set to take place Feb. 7-14. Tickets are on sale now.
“Savannah” is the latest taste of Georgia native Ray Steven’s upcoming album, Favorites Old and New, which arrives April 10.
Breezy Johnson (USA) in action Feb. 10, 2026 at the Olympic Winter Games Milan Cortina 2026 (Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images)
What’s the surest way to get Taylor Swift to notice that you just got engaged? Use her lyrics in your engagement announcement. Oh, and be a famous Olympic athlete.
Olympic downhill skier Breezy Johnson was proposed to by her boyfriend, Connor Watkins, after she crashed while competing in the women’s super giant slalom on Thursday. As he presented her with a ring, he also gave her some lyrics from Taylor’s hit “The Alchemy” written on a small piece of wood, which she showed off in her Instagram post announcing the news.
In the post, Breezy is holding the wooden plaque, which reads, “Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?” She wrote in the caption, “Hey guys… meet Connor! My ex boyfriend! And current fiancé!!! Thank you to everyone who made this moment possible. It was everything I ever dreamed of. Kind of like Connor!”
Taylor jumped into the comments with another line from “The Alchemy”: “Where’s the trophy? He just comes running over to me.” She added, “CONGRATULATIONS!!!”
Breezy replied, “I don’t know what’s better, Olympic gold or this comment. Sourdough engagement gift please???? Would love to teach you to ski.”
According to USA Today, Breezy and Connor bonded over the song in the summer of 2024, when they moved in together. USA Today quoted her as saying, “‘The Alchemy’ is a song about a sports person and the poet that are in love. And I feel like he’s the poet and I’m the sports person.” She noted, “We always hear the song and we smile and think about each other. … It’s just kind of really special to us.”
Little Big Town’s sending fans a valentine and promising there’s more on the way in the days to come.
“We wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day a little early,” they posted on socials, announcing their new EP. “This is a collection of some of our favorite songs for this time of year, including two studio versions of ‘Girl Crush’ and ‘Rich Man’. We love these songs, but we’re ready to share something new with you soon.. From LBT With Love, out now.”
The new versions of “Girl Crush” and “Rich Man” are both accompanied by new performance videos.
The four other tracks in the collection are the #4 hit “Bring It on Home”; “Little White Church,” which made it to #6; the Tornado track “Sober”; and “Next to You,” from 2020’s Nightfall.
Little Big Town’s last traditional album was 2022’s Mr. Sun, though they put out The Christmas Record in 2024.
Gene Simmons on ‘Dancing with the Stars’/(Disney/Eric McCandless)
Gene Simmons recently made headlines for sharing his opinion about hip-hop artists being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and caught some flack over using the word “ghetto.” He’s now defending himself against the backlash.
In the original interview with the Legends N Leaders podcast, the KISS rocker, who was inducted into the Rock Hall in 2015, said of hip-hop, “It’s not my music. I don’t come from the ghetto. It doesn’t speak my language.”
“And as I said in print many times, hip-hop does not belong in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, nor does opera, symphony orchestras,” he added. “How come the New York Philharmonic doesn’t get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Because it’s called the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”
After folks online dubbed Simmons’ use of the word ghetto racist, he defended himself, telling People, “I stand by my words.”
“Let’s cut to the chase. The word ‘ghetto,’ it originated with Jews,” he continued. “It was borrowed by African Americans in particular and respectfully, not in a bad way.”
As for the suggestion that it’s a racist term, Simmons argued, “Ghetto is a Jewish term[.] … How could you be, when rock is Black music? It’s just a different Black music than hip-hop, which is also Black music.”
He added, “Rock ‘n’ roll owes everything to Black music, statement of fact, period. All the major forms of American music owe their roots to Black music.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is joined by New York Governor Kathy Hochul at an event in Brooklyn to support more housing construction in New York City on February 10, 2026 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(GARDEN CITY, N.Y.) — Just over three months after he won New York City’s mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani is already at the center of another election — even though he’s not on the ballot.
With the New York governor’s race on the horizon, some voters and Republican officials who attended New York State’s Republican convention on Long Island on Monday mentioned Mamdani’s name immediately as they spoke about Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“Kathy Hochul is scrounging for votes and she latched onto Mamdani,” convention attendee Phil Orenstein, from Queens Village, told ABC News. “She endorsed him. He endorsed her in the governor’s race and you can see where that’s going. It’s going so far off the cliff.”
The most prominent Republican New York native, President Donald Trump, criticized Mamdani heavily prior to last November’s election.
Yet after the democratic socialist and former state assemblyman defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa in November, Trump appeared to change his perspective on Mamdani.
When Mamdani visited the White House after his victory, President Donald Trump congratulated the then-mayor-elect and said that he thought Mamdani “could do some things that are going to be really great.”
Trump’s praise of Mamdani has raised questions over how Republicans seeking to defeat Hochul this November will incorporate the new mayor into their messaging.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who became the likely Republican gubernatorial nominee after Rep. Elise Stefanik dropped out of the race in December, did not mention Mamdani by name in his opening remarks at the Republican convention in suburban Garden City on Monday.
However, Blakeman’s campaign previously issued a statement criticizing the “Hochul-Mamdani agenda” and posted on social media shortly before the convention began that “Zohran Mamdani and Kathy Hochul are pushing New York in the wrong direction.”
Hochul, who had been facing a primary challenge from Lieutenant Gov. Antonio Delgado until Delgado suspended his campaign on Tuesday, touted Mamdani’s endorsement last week.
“Mayor Mamdani understands that we need to build a New York that everyone can afford — I’m grateful for his partnership in finally bringing universal child care to New York, and I know that he’ll stand strong alongside me as we fight against Donald Trump’s attacks on this state,” the governor said in a statement.
Mamdani’s proposals have ranged from free fares on the country’s largest bus system to free child care for 2-year-olds in the city.
“His policies are completely backwards and we are not a socialist country. We are not a socialist state,” Broome County Republican Committee Chair Benji Federman told ABC News at the convention on Monday. “The vast majority of voters disagree with the policies that he has put forward across New York.”
Just under 45% of New York State’s population lives in New York City.
“You have so many people who are in the Senate and the Assembly from New York City [that] if something happens locally down here, they’re going to try to bring it statewide,” Mike Sigler, an upstate Republican county legislator who lives outside Ithaca, told ABC News.
Mamdani and Hochul have each expressed disagreements with each other on a number of issues, particularly regarding taxes.
“Those of us entrusted with the sacred oath of service must heed that call and work together to honor it. That requires not the absence of disagreement but the presence of trust,” Mamdani wrote in his endorsement of Hochul that was published by The Nation. “We must be able to disagree honestly while still delivering for the people we serve.”
On Tuesday, New York leaders gathered for a press conference in the city about housing and infrastructure. Hochul and Mamdani were standing side by side at the podium.
Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, US Customs and Border Protection, Commissioner Rodney Scott, and Acting Director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons testify before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, February 12, 2026 in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Rand Paul had strong words on Thursday for the heads of the federal agencies spearheading the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and across the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Todd Lyons, Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott, and Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joseph Edlow were testifying in front of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
“Witness the thousands of people in the streets in Minneapolis and in Minnesota, and the millions of viewers who witnessed the recent deaths,” Paul, the committee’s chairman, said. “It’s clearly evident that the public trust has been lost. To restore trust in ICE and Border Patrol, they must admit their mistakes, be honest and forthright with their rules of engagement, and pledge to reform. I hope the leadership of ICE and Border Patrol here today will participate in a meaningful way.”
Paul and ranking member Sen. Gary Peters went frame by frame on videos of the shooting of Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old Minneapolis nurse killed in an encounter with federal agents last month. Federal officials initially said that Pretti “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun” and “attacked” officers carrying out immigration duties.
State and local officials said Pretti was lawfully carrying a gun, with a concealed carry permit, and video reviewed and verified by ABC News does not appear to show that Pretti drew his gun on the agents and instead was holding up a cell phone, not a gun, to record agents during the incident.
Another Minneapolis resident – Renee Good — was also shot and killed by federal agents in early January. Federal officials say that the agents acted in self defense after Good allegedly tried to ram them with her car, which local city officials and her family have disputed.
Paul said that it isn’t so much about the specifics of the investigation, but rather the training that CBP and ICE agents receive.
“No one in America believes shoving that woman’s head and face in the snow was de-escalation,” Paul said of video showing agents scuffling with Pretti and a woman moments before the shooting. “But your officer, you need to know they…had a verbal encounter with them. She did not place her hands on the officers. She wasn’t trying to get their weapon. It’s not great. I mean … I don’t like to see these encounters either, but is it appropriate for the officers to respond to a verbal, barrage of words or whatever? Is it proper, to physically throw a woman down or throw anyone down if the only action is verbal?”
Both Scott and Lyons agreed that it wasn’t de-escalation if the only action against the agents had been verbal.
“I understand you not wanting to make conclusions yet, but nobody believes you’re gonna because you made conclusions immediately,” Paul told the law enforcement leaders. “Not you. But people within the government made conclusions immediately that [Pretti] was a terrorist and an assassin … people aren’t believing there’s going to be an honest investigation.”
In the hours after the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti committed an “act of domestic terrorism” and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called him a “would-be assassin” and a “terrorist.”
Paul added at the hearing, “I think it’s terrible police work, but there has to ultimately be repercussions.”
Scott said that he would not jump to conclusions and asked the nation to do the same. He said he was committed to releasing the officers’ body-worn-cameras once the investigation is complete.
“There’s body-cam video, that’s all being looked at,” Scott said. “And until all that evidence is evaluated, I can’t jump to a conclusion on either direction. I would ask America to do the same thing, but I am committed to transparency, to making sure all the information we have is made public when it’s appropriate.”
Paul said that he saw “nothing, not even a hint of something that was aggressive on [Pretti’s] part.”
“I don’t think this should take months and months and years and years. There needs to be a conclusion,” Paul said. “We need to have answers here and there needs to be an announcement. These are the new policies. This is how we’re going to interact with the public, because the public needs to know to, you know, if I go to a protest and I shout something at people, could I be killed?”
Scott also did not say whether the gun was accidentally discharged by officers in the Pretti case, citing an ongoing investigation.
U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly speaks on the failed grand jury indictment against him during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on February 11, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — In a biting opinion that chastised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Republican-appointed judge on Thursday blocked the Defense Department from trying to punish Sen. Mark Kelly over a video he and other Democrats made urging service members not to follow illegal orders, accusing Hegseth of “trampling” on the Arizona senator’s First Amendment rights and suggesting Hegseth should be more “grateful” for the wisdom of retired service members.
“This Court has all it needs to conclude that Defendants have trampled on Senator Kelly’s First Amendment freedoms and threatened the constitutional liberties of millions of military retirees,” Washington D.C. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon wrote in his opinion.
Leon sharply questioned Trump administration lawyers on whether there was legal precedent for the Defense Department’s attempt to demote and reduce retirement benefits for Kelly, who has been sharply critical of the White House.
“Rather than trying to shrink the First Amendment liberties of retired servicemembers, Secretary Hegseth and his fellow Defendants might reflect and be grateful for the wisdom and expertise that retired servicemembers have brought to public discussions and debate on military matters in our Nation over the past 250 years,” Leon wrote. “If so, they will more fully appreciate why the Founding Fathers made free speech the first Amendment in the Bill of Rights! Hopefully this injunction will in some small way help bring about a course correction in the Defense Department’s approach to these issues.”
The Justice Department could appeal the decision, although it’s not clear if it would. The Pentagon and Hegseth on Thursday did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The case has drawn considerable attention as a major test of the First Amendment rights of military veterans and the government’s separation of powers. Kelly was suing the Pentagon for threatening to demote him in rank and reduce his military retirement benefits because of a video he made with other Democrats that urged troops not to comply with illegal orders, which they did not specify.
Hegseth accused Kelly of violating a federal law that prohibits undermining good order and discipline within the military and accused him of hiding behind his position as a U.S. senator to do so.
In a video posted online to social media on Thursday, Kelly said he is grateful for the judge’s opinion.
“I appreciate the judge’s careful consideration of this case and the clarity of his ruling, but I also know that this might not be over yet, because this president and this administration do not know how to admit when they’re wrong,” he said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
