Paul Simon performs live on the pyramid stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 26, 2011 in Glastonbury, England. (Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images)
The Recording Academy has announced the honorees for their 2026 Special Merit Awards Ceremony, with Cher, Carlos Santana and Paul Simon chosen to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Lifetime Achievement honor goes to “performers who, during their lifetime, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording,” according to a press release. Other 2026 honorees include Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan and Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.
Elton John’s songwriting partner Bernie Taupin is also set to be feted with the Recording Academy’s Trustees Award, given to “individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording,” the press release states. Latin musician Eddie Palmieri and record exec Sylvia Rhone are also set to receive the award.
“It’s a true honor to recognize this year’s Special Merit Award recipients — an extraordinary group whose influence spans generations, genres and the very foundation of modern music,” said Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, in a statement. “Each of these honorees has made a profound and lasting impact, and we look forward to celebrating their remarkable achievements on the eve of Grammy Sunday.”
The Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards Ceremony will take place during Grammy week, on Jan. 31 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. The Grammy Awards are set for Feb. 1.
Paul Simon performs live on the pyramid stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 26, 2011 in Glastonbury, England. (Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images)
The Recording Academy has announced the honorees for their 2026 Special Merit Awards Ceremony, and Carlos Santana and Paul Simon have been chosen to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.
The honor goes to “performers who, during their lifetime, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording,” according to a press release. Other 2026 honorees include Cher, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan and Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.
Elton John’s songwriting partner Bernie Taupin is also set to be feted with the Recording Academy’s Trustees Award, given to “individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording,” the press release states. Latin musician Eddie Palmieri and record exec Sylvia Rhone are also set to receive the award.
“It’s a true honor to recognize this year’s Special Merit Award recipients — an extraordinary group whose influence spans generations, genres and the very foundation of modern music,” said Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, in a statement. “Each of these honorees has made a profound and lasting impact, and we look forward to celebrating their remarkable achievements on the eve of Grammy Sunday.”
The Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards Ceremony will take place during Grammy week, on Jan. 31 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. The Grammy Awards are set for Feb. 1.
he Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building on December 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. The U.S. Department of Justice is required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein today. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — After years of legal battles and online speculation, the Justice Department on Friday is set to release what a top DOJ official says are “several hundred thousand” documents from the investigations into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose connection to the rich and powerful and 2019 death by suicide has generated scores of conspiracy theories.
The DOJ faces a Friday deadline for the release of all remaining Epstein files after Congress last month passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act following the blowback the administration received seeking the release of the materials.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in an interview Friday morning on Fox and Friends, said, “I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today … and then over the next couple of weeks I expect several hundred thousand more.”
“The most important thing that the attorney general has talked about, that [FBI] Director [Kash] Patel has talked about, is that we protect victims, and so what we’re doing is we are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story, to the extent it needs to be protected, is completely protected,” Blanche said. “Those documents will come in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with all of the investigations into Mr. Epstein.”
The Epstein Files Act says the Justice Department “may withhold or redact” the identities of Epstein’s victims, and contains exemptions that would allow the DOJ to withhold records that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”
Blanche said “there’s a lot of eyes” looking over the documents to ensure victim identities have been redacted. The Justice Department in recent weeks has enlisted scores of attorneys from the National Security Division to conduct the review, according to sources familiar with the matter.
He further suggested in the interview that the administration’s review has been partially hamstrung by a ruling from a judge in the Southern District of New York that demanded the administration verify that its review is fully protecting the identities of victims.
When asked whether the American public should expect any additional criminal cases to come in the wake of the release of the files, Blanche said, “Look, as the president directed, it’s still being investigated, and I expect that will continue to happen. So we, as of today, there’s no new charges coming but, but we are investigating.”
President Donald Trump recently directed the Justice Department to investigate high-profile Democrats associated with Epstein, a task that Attorney General Pam Bondi then referred to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The Justice Department and FBI announced in July that they would be releasing no additional Epstein files, after several top officials — including Patel and outgoing FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino — had, prior to joining the administration, accused the government of shielding information regarding the Epstein case.
The Senate subsequently voted to approved the Epstein transparency bill passed by the House, after which President Donald Trump signed it into law.
Critics of Trump have speculated about the degree to which the president, who had a friendship with Epstein until they had a falling out around 2004, appears in the Epstein files, while Trump has accused several well-known Democrats of having ties to the disgraced financier.
“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump wrote on social media after signing the bill.
Epstein owned two private islands in the Virgin Islands and large properties in New York City, New Mexico and Palm Beach, Florida, where he came under investigation for allegedly luring minor girls to his seaside home for massages that turned sexual. He served 13 months of an 18-month sentence for sex crimes charges after reaching a controversial non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami.
In 2019, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York indicted Epstein on charges that he “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations,” using cash payments to recruit a “vast network of underage victims,” some of whom were as young as 14 years old.
Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial.
Jelly Roll has been granted a pardon from Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee for previous convictions for robbery and drug-related crimes that date back to 2003.
The country singer, whose real name is Jason DeFord, received the official pardon on Thursday.
He was one of 33 that were pardoned in the state.
Jelly Roll, who is known for his hit songs “I Am Not Okay” and “Need a Favor,” has previously spoken openly about his past incarceration.
He told Joe Rogan in 2023 that he spent time off and on in jail from ages 14 to 25.
“At 16, I was charged as an adult for a charge,” he said on Rogan’s podcast in 2023. “It was a heinous crime, admittedly. It was horrible. We robbed a couple of guys for some weed, but they called the police because we took some money and some stuff. It was an armed robbery, we went in there with a gun, I regret it every day of my life.”
He added that he was a kid when it happened, but said that he still feels “horrible about it.”
As a result, Jelly Roll said that his conviction has affected aspects of his life, including his ability to travel.
The singer told the Tennessee Board of Parole in April a pardon would make it easier for him to travel and perform in other countries.
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, seen inside a car rental facility. (New Hampshire attorney general)
(NEW YORK) — The suspect in last weekend’s mass shooting at Brown University that left two students dead and nine others wounded was found dead Thursday — and authorities said he is the same man who gunned down an MIT professor two days after the Rhode Island campus shooting.
During a news conference Thursday, authorities identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old former Brown graduate student, who attended the school some 25 years ago.
Officials said he took his own life. His body was discovered in a New Hampshire storage unit following an intense, multi-state manhunt that had stretched on for days.
“Tonight our Providence neighbors can finally breathe a little easier,” Mayor Brett Smiley told reporters at at news conference Thursday night.
Officials said there is no evidence Valente was working with anyone else, describing in detail his movements leading up to and after the shooting, including steps he took to conceal himself from authorities.
Officials have not yet provided a motive for the back-to-back shootings that left residents of parts of New England on edge for days.
Former Ph.D student who spent time in engineering building
Brown University President Christina Paxson said Neves Valente had enrolled as a Ph.D student in Brown’s physics program in 2000 and attended for less than a year, before going on a leave of absence and then withdrawing. She said it was believed, as a physics student, he spent considerable time in the Barus & Holley engineering building that was targeted in the shooting on Saturday.
Valente, who entered the U.S. in 2000 on a student visa, obtained lawful permanency in April 2017, authorities said.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the suspect was granted a visa through the diversity lottery program in 2017 and said that DHS would be pausing the program immediately “to ensure no more Americans are harmed,” according to a statement posted on X early Friday morning.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country. In 2017,” said Noem.
He had no current affiliation with the school, according to officials.
How 2 puzzling crimes were linked
Authorities in Massachusetts confirmed Valente is also the suspected gunman in the death of MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro in Brookline, who was fatally shot on Monday night in the foyer of his building in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Both men were natives of Portugal, and U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley told reporters at a news conference late Thursday night it’s believed Valente and Loureiro studied in the same academic program in Portugal in the 1990s.
It was only the past day or two that the “link began to be established,” between the two puzzling crimes, Foley told reporters as authorities.
Valente’s last known address was in Miami, but he had rented a hotel room in Boston in late November, Foley said. On Dec. 1, he rented a gray Nissan Sentra, which was later observed intermittently in the campus area over the next 12 days leading up to the shooting, she said.
How investigators tracked suspect down
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said local police helped tracked down Valente thanks, in part, to surveillance video and a detailed tip about a vehicle being driven by a person who noted odd behavior by the suspect.
“I’m being dead serious. Police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental,” the tipster told police, according to a complaint released by Rhode Island authorities. “That was the car he was driving.”
The tip and surveillance video, along with the use of license-plate reader technology led investigators to a car rental agency in Massachusetts. There, police obtained a copy of the rental agreement with the suspect’s name, as well as video of the suspect that matched the videos of the person of interest seen on the Brown University campus on the day of the shooting.
What happened at New Hampshire storage facility
Authorities said that discovery ultimately led them to a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, on the border with Massachusetts, where Valente had rented a unit. Foley, the U.S. attorney, said investigators believe Valente had fled to the storage facility shortly after the shooting of the MIT professor on Monday night.
By Thursday night, investigators were closing in on the storage facility, obtaining a search warrant, which FBI SWAT teams executed shortly before 9 p.m.
Authorities said Valente’s body was found in a storage unit next to the one he had rented. He was found with a satchel containing two firearms.
The two Brown students who were killed were identified as 19-year-old Ella Cook and 18-year-old MukhammadAziz Umurzokov. They were both fatally struck by gunfire when the shooter burst into the first-floor auditorium where a review session for an economics course was taking place.
The building was unlocked for exams being held in the building at the time of the shooting, the university president said.
Authorities also said Thursday someone confronted the gunman in a bathroom in the building and said he felt like he didn’t belong there.
Wyn Starks, the former America’s Got Talent contestant best known for his song “Who I Am,” has a holiday hit on his hands with his upbeat cover of “Pure Imagination,” from the classic film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. While it’s not generally considered a Christmas song, other artists have recorded it as one, so Wyn figured he’d put his own spin on it.
“I have such fond memories of the song, you know, watching Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory when I was a kid,” he tells ABC Audio. “For some reason, it always … gave me that holiday feel. And I’ve seen people do it before, like, they did more of a holiday rendition. I was like, ‘That would be a really cool approach,’ but approaching it in my way … something that could be for the holiday, but also be for any time.”
Wyn’s rendition is unique because it starts out slow and then becomes super-fast and jazzy. Wyn says the arrangement was his producer’s idea, and he loved it.
“It ended up turning out so beautifully,” he says. “I was just so happy to be able to share it especially because it brings back such nostalgia for me, the song.”
Wyn recalls “beautiful” Christmases of his childhood, which included watching Willy Wonka with his twin brother who, sadly, died five years ago.
“We always watched [the movie] during the holidays, even though it’s not a holiday movie. And that’s how I want the song to feel to people,” he explains, adding, “It feels very holiday-ish, because of the fantastical feeling you get hearing it.”
Wyn is planning to release a new album in early 2026.
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Matthew McConaughey and Zoe Saldaña are in negotiations to act alongside each other in a new film titled Positano. Deadline reports the Netflix film is a romanic caper set in Italy …
For the 2025 holiday, fans are sharing a special moment between Dylan Scott and his dad, Scotty Robinson.
Dylan recorded “Two Christmas Trees,” an emotional song about a little boy navigating the season going between two households.
“My dad wrote it in the ’80s, so I’ve heard it my whole life,” Dylan tells ABC Audio. “Fortunately, I did not grow up in that situation that the song’s talking about, but a lot of families have. It’s very real.”
“And we had to do a Christmas song this year, and I thought, well, if I’m gonna do one, I’m gonna do it for my dad. Something cool, something special,” he adds.
Fans got to see the moment Dylan played “Two Christmas Trees” for his dad thanks to social media.
“I said, ‘I’m gonna play this song for him and surprise him, but you’re not gonna get the emotional dad, you’re gonna get the dad that I’ve always had, the constructive criticism dad, “Hey you’re playing too hard” or “you’re singing too hard,”‘” Dylan explains. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way, because I mean, you don’t need a yes person in your life, you never get better with that, right? You’ve gotta have the guy that’s like, ‘Hey son, do it this way, do it like this.’ And so, yeah, he did the exact same thing I thought he would.”
Dylan’s 8-year-old son, Beckett Robinson, sings on the track as well.
Alex Warren and Myles Smith at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on December 12, 2025. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for iHeartRadio)
You know you’re really friends with someone when you get matching tattoos — and new BFFs Alex Warren and Myles Smith have officially taken that huge step.
Myles posted photos on Instagram showing off the new ink: He has “Pookie” tatted on his forearm, while Alex appears to have the same word on his bicep. “Pookie” is what the two call each other, and the tattoos came in commemoration the past few weeks, during which they both played multiple concerts together.
“So much laughter, so little sleep, and somehow still finding moments that will stay with me forever,” Myles wrote on Instagram. “And yes, Alex and I got matching ‘pookie’ tattoos because apparently we needed something permanent to mark the chaos and love of it all.”
So how did the nickname “Pookie” start in the first place? Alex told ABC Audio, “I started calling him ‘Pookie’ first, and I think now it’s just become this thing.”
“He heard me call [my wife] Kouvr it, and then he was like, ‘Oh, I have to start that,'” Alex added.
Both Alex and Myles have major tours planned for 2026. Reflecting on the recent run of shows, Myles wrote on Instagram to his fans, “I don’t take a single face in the crowd for granted. Thank you for trusting me with your stories, your time, your energy. Thank you for letting these songs belong to us together. Thank you for being patient, kind, and so wildly present.”
“I’m going to rest, breathe, and soak this all in before we do it again,” he continued. “I already miss you.”
