We now know who will be announcing the Tony Award nominations. Darren Criss and Uzo Aduba are set to announce the actors who are nominated for awards at this year’s 79th annual Tony Awards ceremony. The nominations will be announced on May 5 at 9 a.m. ET …
The first look at Sterling Point has arrived. Prime Video has released the first glimpse of the new drama series from director and creator Megan Park. The show is a coming-of-age comedy about a 17-year-old New Yorker named Annie who is raised with her twin brother and adoptive father. Annie’s life suddenly takes a turn when she inherits her grandfather’s island in Canada. Ella Rubin, Keen Ruffalo and Jay Duplass star in the series, which will debut all eight of its episodes on Aug. 5 …
The upcoming rom-com starring Emma Stone and Chris Pine now has a release date. Deadline reports that Universal Pictures will release the currently untitled movie in theaters on May 21, 2027. Plot details are being kept under wraps, although it is described as a two-hander rom-com. Stone’s husband, Dave McCary, is directing the film …
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon on March 2, 2026 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth heads to Capitol Hill Wednesday for what is formally billed as a routine hearing on the Pentagon’s budget request.
But the appearance — the first before Congress for Hegseth since the war in Iran began in February — lands just two days before a 60-day deadline to wind down hostilities.
It also comes amid intensifying questions on the Hill about how quickly the Pentagon is depleting weapons stockpiles, and as lawmakers continue to scrutinize Hegseth’s unusual spate of firings of senior defense officials without a public explanation.
Questions over civilian casualties in the Iran war, as well as whether the U.S. was properly prepared for retaliatory strikes, and broader questions over the strategic rationale for the conflict, are likely to be a key part of committee members on both sides of the aisle questioning of Hegseth, multiple congressional aides explained.
This week marks Hegseth’s first return to Capitol Hill in nearly a year — with testimony Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee and Thursday on the Senate side — and his first exposure to sustained scrutiny since the war with Iran began. He’ll be joined by Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff at both hearings.
While Hegseth has appeared before the press since the conflict began in late February, he has largely limited engagement to reporters viewed as sympathetic to the administration.
At the center of this week’s hearings is the administration’s request for $1.5 trillion in defense spending, the largest amount in the Pentagon’s history and a jump of 50% over current levels, which would mark the largest single-year increase in a generation.
The proposal would triple spending on drones and related technologies to more than $74 billion, while directing over $30 billion toward munitions procurement. But that budget request was developed months ago: not account for spending in the war with Iran.
“The overlap, you’ll see, is the request for munitions, which is something we always need,” Jules Hurst III, acting undersecretary of defense and the Pentagon’s comptroller, told reporters last week. “We always need to increase our magazine depth. But outside of that, there aren’t any operational costs in here from Iran.” Hurst is set to join Hegseth and Caine at the Senate hearing on Thursday.
That means the Pentagon may require additional funding to cover the cost of the vast quantities of munitions being expended as U.S. forces have struck more than 13,000 targets in Iran since February, along with other significant war-related expenses.
Defense experts have long raised concerns about stockpile constraints even before the war with Iran, with some estimates of a potential conflict with China suggesting the United States could exhaust long-range missile inventories within the first few weeks of fighting.
In less than two months of exchanging fire with Iran, the U.S. has used roughly half of certain missiles and other munitions, according to an analysis published last week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Retired Col. Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at CSIS and an author of the report, said Operation Epic Fury “does create a window of vulnerability” for a period of as many as four years – the time it would take to replenish stocks.
“The United States has enough munitions to fight this war if it stubs up again,” Cancian said. “But the risk is in a future war with China, where inventory levels are far below where war planners would like them to be.”
Pentagon officials have maintained the U.S. has enough ammo to fight Iran. Though rearming the force with new munitions can take years, with some missiles requiring one to two years to build, reflecting an inherent limit on how many complex munitions the defense industry can produce each year, spurring much of the interest in huge investments in relatively cheap, easier-to-produce drones, which the Pentagon continues to surge into the Middle East.
Hegseth is also likely to face questions on his unprecedented firing or sidelining of two dozen senior military officials, particularly during a time of war, where he recently fired Gen. Randy George, who was the Army’s top officer and John Phelan, the Navy secretary.
Hegseth has also fired numerous lower-profile generals, without explanation, including Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., who was the chief of the Army Chaplain Corps, a collection of clergy from different faiths within the service. He has also blocked the promotion of four colonels to brigadier general, two of whom are women and two are Black, according to two U.S. officials, who both described a secretary of defense intervening in promotions as unprecedented.
Meanwhile, Democrats have failed in their multiple attempts to rein in President Donald Trump’s authority to wage war in Iran without Capitol Hill’s approval.
The 1973 War Powers Resolution gives the president latitude to conduct military strikes for a 60-day window, which closes Friday. The law allows for a one-time 30-day extension for the president to act without the consent of lawmakers, though it is unclear whether Trump intends to do so or whether Republicans will take into account the ceasefire in a way that relieves any deadline pressure.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a press conference following the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting at the Federal Reserve on December 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday will issue its latest announcement on interest rates as gasoline prices in the U.S. reach their highest level in four years. The move marks what may be the central bank’s final decision on borrowing costs under the leadership of Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
The policy announcement is set to arrive at an uneasy moment for the central bank. The Iran war set off a rapid acceleration of price increases, posing a challenge for policymakers bedeviled by elevated inflation and sluggish hiring.
Investors overwhelmingly expect the Fed to leave rates unchanged on Wednesday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.
A standoff between the White House and Congress, meanwhile, has cast doubt over succession plans for Powell as his term comes to a close next month.
President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Fed, Kevin Warsh, has faced a bipartisan stonewall in the Senate Banking Committee over a federal criminal investigation into Powell.
The Department of Justice moved to drop the probe last week, paving the way for Warsh to advance in a committee vote. If his nomination advances, Warsh would face a confirmation vote on the Senate floor.
The investigation into Powell focuses on alleged false testimony to Congress about an office renovation. Powell, who was appointed by Trump in 2017, has rebuked the probe as a politically motivated effort to influence interest-rate policy.
Powell’s term as Fed chair ends on May 15, but he said last month he would stay in the position until Warsh is confirmed.
Even after his successor is confirmed, Powell could remain on the Fed’s 12-member policymaking board until 2028, retaining a role in the central bank’s interest-rate policy. Powell has not indicated whether he intends to remain on the board.
Elevated price increases have coincided with a slowdown of economic growth, threatening to intensify an economic double-whammy known as “stagflation,” which poses difficulty for the Fed.
If the Fed opts to lower borrowing costs, it could spur growth but risk higher inflation. On the other hand, the choice to raise interest rates may slow price increases but raises the likelihood of a cooldown in economic performance.
The Fed held interest rates steady last month at its first meeting since the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran drove up gasoline prices and risked a wider bout of inflation.
The central bank’s move marked the second consecutive time it has opted to maintain interest rates at current levels since the outset of 2026. Before that, the Fed cut interest rates a quarter-point three straight times.
Warsh, a former Fed official, is currently a fellow at a conservative think tank called the Hoover Institution, which is based at Stanford University.
During his term as a Fed governor in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Warsh gained a reputation as an interest-rate “hawk,” meaning he generally preferred higher interest rates as a means of ensuring low and stable inflation.
In recent months, however, Warsh has voiced support for lower interest rates, rebuking the Fed’s concern about inflation risk posed by a flurry of new tariffs issued last year.
Markets peg a roughly 80% chance of interest rates holding steady for the remainder of this year, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office after signing an Executive Order April 18, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday is considering whether the Trump administration unlawfully ordered hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in the U.S. from Haiti and Syria to return home, abruptly cancelling their legal status out of alleged racial animus and without proper consideration of risks to their safety and the nation’s economy.
The outcome in the pair of cases being argued before the court will directly affect the futures of roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals and about 6,000 Syrians.
The Trump administration contends in court documents that the immigrants were never intended to be permanent residents and that cancellation of their temporary status is “critically important to the national security and public safety of the United States.”
Those immigrants were granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under separate government declarations first issued more than a decade ago and later renewed multiple times, most recently by the Biden administration.
TPS status, established by the Immigration and Nationality Act, provides work authorization and protection from deportation – as long as the Homeland Security Secretary certifies that a foreign country is unsafe because of armed conflict, natural disaster, or “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”
Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake in 2010 and has since been hit by subsequent natural disasters, political unrest following a presidential assassination, and waves of rampant gang violence.
Syria devolved into civil war around 2011 and has been considered by the U.S. government a hotbed of terrorism and extremism for nearly two decades. A major earthquake in 2023 plunged the country into a deeper economic and humanitarian crisis.
“There is no functioning healthcare system for the disabled and elderly to return to, no reliable housing infrastructure, no legal framework that can guarantee anyone’s safety,” said Syrian TPS-holder and health care worker Adam, a pseudonym used to protect his identity.
Then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, in separate acts last year, moved to terminate TPS status for Haiti and Syria by certifying that, in her estimation, conditions on the ground in those countries were sufficiently safe for immigrants to return.
Those decisions were blocked by lower courts, which concluded that Noem did not follow proper procedures for cancelling TPS and may have also unlawfully discriminated against the immigrants on the basis of race.
The Supreme Court is now reviewing those findings.
“If the government is correct, then they can terminate TPS without conducting any country conditions review at all,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, a UCLA law professor and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy. “The statute requires, in our view, that there be consultation with the State Department.”
Immigrant advocates and some American business groups, particularly in the healthcare and senior caregiving sectors, say TPS holders play an indispensable role in the nation’s labor force and contribute billions of dollars in tax revenue to state and federal governments.
Immigrants make up 28% of the U.S. long-term care workforce – nearly double their share of the entire labor force, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
More than 113,000 Haitian TPS holders work in Florida alone, which is home to a high proportion of America’s seniors, according to the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
“The effects of [DHS’s] hasty TPS terminations are too serious to ignore,” a senior living community and ageing services provider jointly wrote the Court in an amicus brief. “The government has largely failed to address the impact that stripping thousands of caregivers of work authorization will have on elderly and medically vulnerable adults in U.S. communities.”
The Trump administration contends that courts have no authority to second-guess the DHS determinations on whether countries should qualify for TPS or not. They note that Congress, in creating the special status, put a time limit on it of 18-months, subject to extension.
“Congress, in short, prescribed substantive and procedural guardrails to keep TPS designations temporary,” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote the Court in a brief, “but left further accountability to the political process, not federal courts.”
Sauer also disputed claims that the TPS cancellations rested on racial animus, calling it a “legal and factual nonstarter.”
The cases are the latest high court test of President Trump’s bold assertion of executive authority in his second term. The justices are already preparing to rule on his authority to redefine birthright citizenship, fire members of independent agencies, and remove a member of the Federal Reserve.
The Supreme Court last year handed the Trump administration a temporary win when it allowed them to terminate TPS for 350,000 Venezuelan nationals as litigation continues.
TPS status for Haitians and Syrians remains in place for now, but many immigrant advocates worry that if the Court allows the Trump administration to cancel the status, protections for immigrants of other countries may also end. The Department of Homeland Security has attempted to end protections for at least 11 countries since President Trump took office.
The Court is expected to hand down a decision by the end of June.
Representative Haley Stevens, a Democrat from Michigan and US Senate candidate, speaks during the DC Blockchain Summit in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Against the backdrop of polls showing declining Democratic support for Israel — especially among young voters — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s support for candidates is under intense scrutiny and is becoming a dividing line in contentious Democratic primaries from Michigan to New Jersey.
A poll released earlier this month by the Pew Research Center shows that Americans’ views toward Israel are trending negative, especially among Democrats.
The survey found that 6 in 10 Americans have a very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel. That number is up 7% since last year and 20 percentage points since 2022. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the percentage who have a very or somewhat unfavorable opinion of Israeli was 80%.
One manifestation of those changing views is the increased scrutiny of political contributions from pro-Israel groups, especially AIPAC.
Conflicts over AIPAC funding have been fueled in part by the popularity of the group Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, better known by their social media handle Track AIPAC, which says it’s a “grassroots effort to reveal and counter the influence of AIPAC and the Israel Lobby by systematically documenting their financial contributions to our federal officials” and accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza — a charge the Israeli government has long denied.
The group churns out graphics of donations to politicians to its audience of 400,000+ followers on X. These numbers include contributions by not just AIPAC but by individuals who have previously donated to groups it says are part of the “pro-Israel lobby.” That approach has received controversy, with critics saying it’s unfair to conflate the donations of individuals with the support of the pro-Israel lobby as whole.
AIPAC has been critical of Track AIPAC’s approach. National spokesperson Deryn Sousa described it in a statement to ABC as “an un-American and undemocratic online campaign that applies selective standards to stigmatize and silence pro‑Israel Democrats.”
Estimates of donations from the pro-Israel lobby were cited by an audience member in a town hall for Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who told the questioner, “If you’re equating “Israel lobby” to Jews, I got a problem with that.”
In Michigan, the Uncommitted National Movement, which encouraged opposition to then-President Joe Biden’s support of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, received more than 100,000 votes in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary in the swing state.
Divisions over support for Israel have continued to dominate that state’s highly competitive Democratic Senate primary. Michigan is home to one of the largest Arab-American populations in the country as well as a sizeable Jewish community.
Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the former Wayne County, Michigan, health director who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018, has been the most vocal on the issue, repeatedly calling the war in Gaza a genocide and criticizing his opponents for accepting donations from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups.
Appearing alongside controversial podcaster and political commentator Hasan Piker on the campus of the University of Michigan, El-Sayed took explicit aim at AIPAC, saying, “No longer are we going to sit idly by while AIPAC tells us that the goal of our foreign policy is to align with a foreign government.”
Most of his criticism has been directed towards his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens. Stevens, who is Jewish, was backed by AIPAC in her 2022 primary challenge of then-Rep. Andy Levin, a progressive Jewish member who had opposed some of Israel’s policies. Stevens recorded a video in support of AIPAC last month. The Democratic Majority for Israel — a pro-Israel group — has endorsed her Senate run.
The third candidate in the race, State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, has criticized Piker for some of his comments on Jews and the conflict in Gaza, calling it a genocide and promising not to take money from AIPAC.
Track AIPAC endorsed El-Sayed, calling him “the only candidate for US Senate in Michigan with the spine to call out Israel’s atrocities,” and saying “his voice can’t be bought.”
Nearby Minnesota also faces a progressive vs. centrist Senate battle between Rep. Angie Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. While Flanagan has pledged not to take any funds from AIPAC, Craig has received funds in her past congressional races from AIPAC and has been endorsed by the Democratic Majority for Israel.
Craig has not received AIPAC funding in this race. When asked if it planned to make an endorsement in that race, Track AIPAC’s Co-Executive Director Cory Archibald, who has worked as a consultant for progressive Democrats like former Reps. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, said that it will monitor the race “and we know AIPAC has an interest in who wins Minnesota.”
The track record of AIPAC’s spending in some of the year’s early primaries has been mixed. In New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, AIPAC spent $2 million on ads attacking moderate Democratic incumbent Tom Malinowski, who supported some conditions on aid to Israel. That primary was won by progressive Analilia Meija, who has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. Track AIPAC ran an ad supporting her in that race, which marked its first-ever ad buy.
The issue of AIPAC support has emerged on the national level. The Democratic National Committee considered a proposal at its spring conference to condemn the “growing influence” of money in primaries, specifically citing AIPAC. That resolution failed. AIPAC celebrated the decision, saying that “the DNC made clear that all Democrats including millions who are AIPAC members have the right to participate fully in the democratic process.”
Track AIPAC says that despite that setback, it plans to remain “an important voice for change in this cycle and many more to come.”
Zach Top is the second-most nominated male artist at the upcoming Academy of Country Music Awards, news he almost missed since he was headed to the Masters golf tournament that day.
Luckily, his manager called just in time.
“I’m glad he caught me before we went out there,” Zach says. “He called me that morning. I was literally about to get in the car and leave my phone at the house, and you can’t have your phone or nothing. And he’s like, ‘We’re up for five.’ And I was like, ‘Dang, that’s amazing! What five are they?’ And then he started making up dumb award names. I can’t remember what they were.”
Zach is up for male artist, album, single and song of the year for “I Never Lie.” He’d get two trophies for song, since he’s both a co-writer and the artist.
As for missing the nominations, Zach says there’s a silver lining in that.
“They sneak up on me every time, because I know when the award show is, you know. I know when that date’s coming, but the nominations I always forget what day they’re coming out,” he explains. “So it’s always a fun little surprise, catches me off guard, and it’s fun. When we’re up for a few, it’s a nice little pick-me-up to start a day.”
That’s something Zach knows about, since he previously picked up the new male artist of the year trophy.
Tune in to see who wins Sunday, May 17, when the 61st ACMs stream live from Las Vegas via Prime Video.
Dave Mustaine of Megadeth performs at Canada Life Place on February 28, 2026 in London, Ontario. (Jeremychanphotography/Getty Images)
Megadeth has released an official live video for their cover of Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning.”
The performance, which is available to watch on YouTube, was recorded in Bogota, Colombia, where Dave Mustaine and company played “Ride the Lighting” live for the first time during a concert Sunday.
The original “Ride the Lightning” credits Mustaine as a cowriter since it uses riffs that he’d written during his time in Metallica prior to being let go from the band in 1983. Mustaine recorded it on his own over 40 years later for Megadeth’s self-titled farewell album, which was released in January.
“As I come full circle on the career of a lifetime, the decision to include ‘Ride the Lightning,’ a song I co-wrote with [Metallica members] James [Hetfield], Lars [Ulrich], and Cliff [Burton], was to pay my respects to where my career first started,” Mustaine said.
The Bogota show was part of Megadeth’s ongoing farewell tour, which is expected to last for multiple years. The outing includes North American dates with Iron Maiden, kicking off in August.
Jutes performs onstage at The Independent on July 28, 2025 in San Francisco, California. (Dana Jacobs/Getty Images)
Jutes takes flight on a new single called “Icarus.”
On the track, Jutes sings, “No one knows my name/ So who would even cry/ If I should die.” Speaking with ABC Audio, Jutes describes the song as partly about “younger me feeling invisible and feeling like I wasn’t getting anywhere with my music.”
“I was just, like, so hungry to be noticed,” he says. “[‘Icarus’] is just touching on those past feelings.”
During that point in his life, Jutes says he was “romanticizing the broken artist thing” and telling himself that the substances that he was using were necessary for his creativity.
“It also felt like a way of not needing to get better, because I thought it was, like, fuel,” Jutes says.
Now sober, Jutes has done a complete 180 on that worldview.
“I’ve found now that I write the best songs of my life and I’m in the best place in my life, and I’m sober,” Jutes says. “I care about my health and I do wanna live long, now. I have a wife that I wanna stay alive for, I wanna have a family one day, all that stuff.”
“Icarus” follows Jutes’ March single, “Disassociate.” Meanwhile, his song “It Takes Two” is currently charting on the Billboard Alternative Airplay tally. He describes “It Takes Two” as a “‘I gotta have you or there’s no point in living’ kinda song.”
“I find that my fans tend to gravitate towards those ones a lot,” he says. “It’s either the super horny ones or the super emotional ones that the fans tend to love, which is hilarious.”
Jutes will launch a U.S. headlining tour in August.
David Byrne has released a new version of the track “What Is the Reason For It?” from his latest solo album, Who Is the Sky?
The original song featured Paramore’s Hayley Williams, but the new take, retitled “¿Cuál Es La Razón?,” features Grammy Award-winning Mexican singer Natalia Lafourcade in her place.
A press release describes the new version as “a vocal and brass-led remix, drawing inspiration from David’s experiences in Mexico City and the enduring mysteries of love.”
“¿Cuál Es La Razón?,” produced by Mexican Institute Of Sound, is now available via digital outlets.
The release coincides with Byrne announcing that he’ll bring his Who Is The Sky? tour to Mexico for a trio of shows: Sept. 4 in Mexico City, Sept. 8 in Guadalajara and Sept. 10 in Monterrey.
In other Byrne news, the rocker’s new book, Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up, will be released Oct. 6. It’s described as “a brilliant and inspiring reckoning with how breakthroughs across the arts and sciences get forgotten, and how they get rediscovered.”
Byrne is currently on the latest North American leg of his Who Is The Sky? tour. He’ll wrap a two-night stand in St. Louis, Missouri, on Wednesday. The tour hits Europe and the U.K. this summer, with additional stops in Thailand, Japan and South Korea before returning to the U.S. The tour is set to wrap Sept. 19 at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York.
A complete list of dates can be found at DavidByrne.com.
