Lola Young seen out with Lily Allen and Olivia Rodrigo at Lily Allen’s Christmas Party at Stringfellows on December 19, 2025 in London, England. (Dave Benett/Getty Images for Stringfellows)
After collapsing at a festival back in September, Lola Youngwrote to fans that she was “going away for a while” to “work on myself.” Now, she’s checking in with an update.
The “Messy” singer, who’s nominated for the best new artist Grammy, wrote on Instagram, “Hey, I just want to express gratitude to everyone who has given me time and space to gather myself and get my head in a better place.” She thanks fans for their “love and support,” adding, “…[It] has helped more than you will ever know.”
Lola then writes, “I hope to gradually get back to performing and continuing to pursue my dreams. Happy holidays to you all and can’t wait to see you in 2026.”
She sums up by sharing, “Life is a journey, nothing is perfect but today I am doing well. All my love always, Lola.”
Among the celebrities offering Lola support in the comments were Gigi Perez, Flavor Flav and SZA, who wrote, “Love you starfire angel !!!!! Your music is FULL of longevity and substance! We’re so grateful for you.”
Lola was also seen publicly on Dec. 19 attending a Christmas event with Olivia Rodrigo and Lily Allen.
Steven Drozd and Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips at House of Vans on February 7, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)
The Flaming Lips have posted a statement regarding the apparent departure of longtime multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd.
Drozd, who joined the band in 1991 and was the longest-tenured Lips member aside from frontman Wayne Coyne, seemed to confirm he left the group in a since-deleted social media post. The post, captured by Stereogum, read, “They’re done with me.”
The Lips’ statement, written by drummer Matt Duckworth Kirksey, reads, “If you haven’t heard this newest iteration of the band, give us a shot. The music, and the show is better than ever.”
“And remember… NONE of this ever happens without Wayne,” Kirksey writes. “This idea that Steven was THE musical genius, and Wayne is just some weirdo artist… [it’s] just not true. Wayne pushes the creativity, the sound, and the show forward, like no artist I’ve ever been around.”
“Being in The Lips is hard,” Kirksey continues. “I remember before I was in the band, I would see them rehearsing for hours and hours and think… man… [that’s] brutal. But once you get to be part of that vision… [it’s] f****** exhilarating. [It’s] f****** FUN. [It’s] Wayne’s drive to be great that makes it all possible.”
The Flaming Lips will wrap up 2025 with a New Year’s Eve show in Washington, D.C.
Barry Manilow performs during ‘Manilow: The Last Detroit Concert’ at Little Caesars Arena, June, 2025 in Detroit, Michigan. (Scott Legato/Getty Images)
Barry Manilow has been forced to postpone his January concerts so he can undergo cancer surgery, the legendary singer announced on Monday.
In a statement on Instagram, Manilow writes that he’d recently suffered through weeks of bronchitis, so his doctor ordered an MRI to “make sure that everything was OK.” He goes on to say that the test “discovered a cancerous spot on my left lung that needs to be removed.”
“It’s pure luck (and a great doctor) that it was found so early,” the 82-year-old singer writes. “That’s the good news.”
The bad news? Manilow says he has to have surgery to have the spot removed.
“The doctors do not believe it has spread and I’m taking tests to confirm their diagnosis,” he explains. “So, that’s it. No chemo. No radiation. Just chicken soup and I Love Lucy reruns.”
Since he’ll need a month to recover, Manilow will be rescheduling his January arena concerts for February, March and April. He lists the rescheduled dates in his message, noting that ticket holders can use their existing tickets for the new shows.
“I’m very sorry that you have to change your plans,” he writes. “Just like you, we were all looking forward to the January shows and hate having to move everything around.”
Manilow says he’s “counting the days” until he can get back to the Westgate Las Vegas, where he normally performs, for his Valentine’s weekend concerts on Feb. 12, 13 and 14, as well as the rest of his 2026 shows. “Something tells me that February weekend is going to be one big party!” he writes.
Manilow signs off by saying, “I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. And remember, if you have even the slightest symptom … get tested!”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia attends a rally for him as he arrives for his first check-in at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Baltimore Field Office the day after a federal judge ordered his release from a detention in Pennsylvania, on December 12, 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The federal judge overseeing Salvadoran native Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s immigration case is scheduled to hear arguments Monday over whether ICE should be allowed to re-detain Abrego Garcia while the government attempts to deport him to Liberia or another country.
Abrego Garcia was released on Dec. 11 after the judge, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, found the government had detained him “without lawful authority.”
In part, Judge Xinis said he had not been issued a formal order of removal during his immigration proceedings in 2019, when a judge also barred the government from deporting him to his native El Salvador due to his fear of persecution.
Following Abrego Garcia’s release, an immigration judge “corrected” the error and added a removal order to his record, finding that it “was erroneously omitted.”
Abrego Garcia, who had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, despite the 2019 court order barring his removal to that country, after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he denies.
He was brought back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee, after which Judge Xinis released him from ICE detention while he awaits trial. He is scheduled to go to trial on the Tennessee charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty, in January.
On Friday, his attorneys filed a motion seeking sanctions against the Trump administration for allegedly violating a court order that barred officials from making extrajudicial statements that could impact the case. After Abrego Garcia’s release from ICE detention, Chief Border Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino called him an “alien smuggler” and “wife beater” on national TV, his attorneys said.
Scott Shriner of Weezer and Jillian Lauren attend Wham! Pow! Moth! The 2015 Superheroes Moth Ball at Capitale on May 12, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Ron Adar/FilmMagic)
Jillian Lauren has opened up about her April arrest and her pending divorce from Weezer bassist Scott Shriner.
Lauren was arrested and charged with attempted murder following an incident in her Los Angeles neighborhood, in which she allegedly fired at officers who were chasing unrelated hit-and-run suspects.
“I was doing the best I knew to protect my family,” Lauren tells Rolling Stone in her first interview since the arrest. “[The] impulse was self-defense.”
“My world fell to pieces around me in a heartbeat,” she continues. “It’s like, you spend your whole life just getting an entire deck of cards in order. And just take them and throw them up in the air one day, and I’m still waiting to see how they’re gonna land.”
The charges were later amended to felonies for negligent discharge of a firearm and assault with a semiautomatic weapon, to which Lauren pleaded not guilty. She was granted a mental health diversion which is expected to lead to her charges being dismissed.
As for her marriage to Shriner, Lauren says they’d already been growing apart before the arrest, which was the “crisis” that ultimately led her to file for divorce earlier in December.
“The headlines about the divorce were the ones that really hurt me,” Lauren says. “I was the one who served my husband, but still, to see it in the public was really painful. It was definitely a day [spent] under the covers, blocking out all the noise. Divorce is painful, I don’t care who you are.”
“He’s still my best friend,” she adds of Shriner. “We still have beautiful kids together and have always really supported each other in our various transformations.”
‘Benson Boone’ stuck in Christmas tree; James Austin Johnson as Cameron Winter during the ‘Christmas Duets’ sketch on Saturday, December 20, 2025 (Esther Kuhn/NBC)
You know you’re famous when Saturday Night Live makes fun of you — at least, that’s Benson Boone‘s attitude toward being skewered in the Dec. 20 episode of the show.
At one point, the sketch introduced “a very special duet with the legendary Stevie Wonder and rising star Benson Boone.” Kenan Thompson, playing Stevie, appeared singing and playing an electric keyboard. “Benson,” dressed in a powder-blue, sparkly jumpsuit, then crashed onto Stevie’s keyboard and fell to the ground after failing to land a backflip.
“Oh my God! Benson Boone just flipped into my piano wearing a blue sequin suit!” said Kenan-as-Stevie, playing off the singer’s longtime joke that he isn’t really blind. Remembering he had to keep up the ruse, he then added, “I mean … I didn’t see nothin.'”
The sketch wasn’t done with Benson yet. At another point, the announcer said, “Plus, singing ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas,’ it’s Cameron Winter from Geese … and, once again, Benson Boone.” Cut to Benson, still in the jumpsuit, backflipping off Winter’s piano and crashing into a Christmas tree.
Benson later posted the Stevie segment on his Instagram Story, writing, “Mom I made it.” He followed up with the Cameron Winter clip and wrote, “Mom I made it twice.”
British singer Joe Cocker died of lung cancer in Colorado at the age of 70.
Known for his raspy voice and expressive body movements while performing, Cocker first gained commercial success thanks to his soulful cover of The Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends,” which appeared on his debut album.
The song, which featured Jimmy Page on guitar, hit #1 in the U.K. and was later used as the theme song for the ABC series The Wonder Years. In 2001, the track was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Cocker’s best-selling tune was “Up Where We Belong,” a duet with Jennifer Warnes that the two recorded for the Richard Gere movie An Officer and a Gentleman. The song hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and earned the pair a Grammy for best performance by a duo or group with vocals. The song also won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for best original song.
Other Cocker hits include covers of Billy Preston‘s “You Are So Beautiful,” which peaked at #5 in the U.S.; Dave Mason‘s “Feelin’ Alright?”; the Ray Charles hit “Unchain My Heart;” and Randy Newman‘s “You Can Leave Your Hat On.”
In November, Cocker was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with a tribute featuring performances by Bryan Adams, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks and Teddy Swims.
An undated photo from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein is part of a collection of images released Dec. 18, 2025, by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. (House Oversight Committee Democrats)
(NEW YORK) — A group of alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein accused the Department of Justice of missteps, including violations of the law, in its partial release of files related to the disgraced financier’s abuse of young women and girls.
The DOJ faced a Friday deadline imposed by Congress to release a massive cache of records gathered during government investigations into the sex offender, who died in jail in 2019.
Justice officials released thousands of files — ranging from investigative documents to grand jury testimony to snapshots taken by Epstein and his friends — but said it would fail to fully release all the files by the deadline.
“Instead, the public received a fraction of the files, and what we received was riddled with abnormal and extreme redactions with no explanation,” a group of 19 women, including two Jane Does, said in a statement released on Monday. “At the same time, numerous victim identities were left unredacted, causing real and immediate harm.”
The statement, which was released early Monday by attorneys representing the women, also pointed to what they said was missing from the files. Omissions by either redactions or unreleased pages amounted to a failure, they said.
“No financial documents were released,” the statement said. “Grand jury minutes, though approved by a federal judge for release, were fully blacked out — not the scattered redactions that might be expected to protect victim names, but 119 full pages blacked out. We are told that there are hundreds of thousands of pages of documents still unreleased.”
“These are clear-cut violations of an unambiguous law,” the statement added.
Some documents disclosed on Friday with significant redactions were reposted early Saturday with some or all of the redactions lifted, according to a review of the files by ABC News.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on social media on Friday, as the initial files were being released, that “[a]dditional responsive materials will be produced as our review continues, consistent with the law and with protections for victims.” The DOJ on Sunday released a similar statement, adding that reviews of the material would continue “as we receive additional information.”
President Donald Trump in November had signed a bill that gave the Justice Department 30 days to release the materials.
The statement from alleged victims noted that DOJ officials had structured the release of documents in a way that made it “difficult or impossible” for Epstein’s alleged victims to find information that may be important to their cases. And they said they hadn’t been contacted about potential redactions or withholdings prior to the documents’ release.
“It is alarming that the United States Department of Justice, the very agency tasked with upholding the law, has violated the law, both by withholding massive quantities of documents, and by failing to redact survivor identities,” the women’s statement said.
The women called for “immediate” oversight from Congress “to ensure the Department of Justice fulfils its legal obligations.”
Separately on Sunday, Brittany Henderson and Brad Edwards — attorneys who represent more than 200 survivors of Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell — had told ABC News that since the Epstein files were posted on Friday, they had been hearing from clients who have seen their names or other identifying information un-redacted documents in the DOJ’s disclosure.
Henderson and Edwards said they had been working through the weekend with federal officials in New York and D.C. to take down documents containing personal information of alleged victims, many of whom have never had their names disclosed in any context connected to Epstein.
In one instance, Henderson and Edwards said, a sealed document from settled civil litigation containing the names of more than two dozen alleged victims — was posted without redactions. That document was among those that have been removed from the DOJ’s site, the lawyers said.
The attorneys said that about 15 documents had by Sunday been pulled from the site — at least temporarily — as a result of their consultations with the government.
DOJ officials said in a social media statement on Sunday afternoon that they had “received incoming from individuals alleging to be victims and their lawyers, requesting that certain information be removed. Out of an abundance of caution, the material is temporarily removed for review and will be released again with appropriate redactions, if legally required.”
Blanche said earlier on Sunday in an interview on NBC News that the DOJ would be responsive to concerns raised by victims about potential exposure of identifying information and insisted, despite the slow release of materials, that DOJ is complying with the law.
“The statute also requires us to protect victims and—and so the reason why we are still reviewing documents and still continuing our process is simply that to protect victims,” he said. “So the same individuals that are out there complaining about the lack of documents that were produced on Friday are the same individuals who apparently don’t want us to protect victims.”
“The reality is anybody, any victim, any victim’s lawyers, any victim rights group, can reach out to us and say, ‘Hey, Department of Justice, there’s a document, there’s a photo, there’s something within the Epstein files that identifies me,'” he added. “And we will then, of course, pull that off and investigate.”
Waters of Monterey Bay, Monterey, California, August 5, 2025. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
(MONTEREY, Calif) — A search is ongoing in California for a missing swimmer who may have been attacked by a shark, officials said.
The swimmer was reported missing just after noon on Sunday at Lovers Point in Pacific Grove in Monterey Bay, according to a joint statement from the Coast Guard and the cities of Pacific Grove and Monterey.
Two witnesses said the swimmer – who is a 55-year-old woman, according to ABC Fresno station KFSN – “may have encountered a shark,” the statement said. The swimmer’s family has been notified, officials said.
Boats and helicopters were deployed for Sunday’s search, which lasted until 8 p.m., officials said. The search will resume on Monday.
Lovers Point Beach in Pacific Grove and McAbee Beach and San Carlos Beach in Monterey are closed through Tuesday, the officials said.
ABC News’ Tristan Maglunog and Amanda Morris contributed to this report.
A sign is displayed outside of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Building on June 7, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Heading into the new year, Senate Democrats are raising concerns about the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to handle the upcoming tax filing season, amid changes in leadership and to the workforce in the first year of the Trump administration.
In a letter to Treasury Secretary and acting IRS Commissioner Scott Bessent obtained first by ABC News, the group of 17 senators, led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats, wrote that they have “serious concerns” the IRS is “not prepared” for the next tax season, and that taxpayers “may face delays and difficulties in filing returns and receiving refunds.”
The Trump administration has conducted large-scale layoffs and voluntary buyouts — some of which have been reversed — at the IRS, which is also responsible this year for implementing new changes to the tax code following the passage of Republicans’ major tax and domestic policy bill.
Bessent has served as acting IRS commissioner since August after President Donald Trump removed Billy Long, a former GOP congressman, from the role two months after he was confirmed by the Senate and nominated Long to become the U.S. ambassador to Iceland.
Bessent became the seventh official to lead the agency in 2025, following Long and a string of other senior officials.
The law made permanent the 2017 GOP tax cuts, while boosting funding for border security and the Defense Department, scaling back some social safety net programs, and limiting taxes on tips and overtime for some workers.
In a statement to ABC News, Warren accused the Trump administration of enacting changes that will benefit wealthy Americans and make it harder for other Americans seeking help from the agency.
“Donald Trump’s endless attacks on the IRS are good news for his billionaire buddies and giant tax prep companies, but bad news for Americans getting ready for filing season. Americans rely on the IRS to file their taxes and get their tax refunds quickly and easily, and I’m pressing for answers,” she wrote.
The Democrats also cited a September report from the Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration on the previous filing season.
While the watchdog called the 2025 filing season “successful” and found that the agency processed more tax returns compared to the same time period in the previous year, it also found that the Trump administration’s workforce reductions “had no significant impact” on the 2025 filing season — but that they could “impact key processing programs and customer service going forward.”
According to the inspector general’s office, the staffing losses on customer service and anti-fraud teams could lead to the agency processing fewer returns, assisting fewer taxpayers, and failing to prevent $360 million in fraudulent refunds from being paid out.
The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to questions from ABC News about the inspector general’s report and the concerns raised by Democrats.
