For this music grab bag, we've got a few on Kanye. First, AP reports,
"The rapper formerly known as Kanye West postponed his upcoming show in
the city of Marseille after French authorities said they would seek to
ban the concert. The decision by Ye came a week after he was banned from entering the U.K.,
where he was scheduled to headline the Wireless Festival in July,
following a backlash over the artist’s history of antisemitic remarks."
And he's facing a new law suit. Afouda Bamidele (THE BLAST) reports:
The
man, who filed the lawsuit under the alias John Doe, is suing Kanye
‘Ye’ West for battery and infliction of emotional distress over an April
2025 incident.
According to
court documents, the plaintiff is suing for an unspecified amount in
damages due to the alleged injuries he suffered at Ye’s hands. The man
claimed his unfortunate encounter with the rapper occurred at the famous
Chateau Marmont in April 2025.
The alleged
victim explained that he had been at his table in the hotel when Ye
approached him and punched him out of nowhere. He stressed that the
attack was unprovoked, claiming the punch “knocked him to the ground,”
causing him to lose consciousness after hitting his head.
According
to a complaint obtained by PEOPLE, West, who now goes by Ye, approached
a man at his table in the hotel's garden at around 11 p.m. on April 16,
2024.
“Without warning, [West] punched [him]
in the face,” states the complaint, which was filed on Monday, March 13,
and accuses West of battery and intentional infliction of emotional
distress.
The man, identified only as John Doe
in the complaint, alleges the punch knocked him to the ground, where “he
hit his head and lost consciousness.”
Per the complaint, West allegedly kept hitting the man while he was lying unconscious on the ground.
Madonna
wiped her Instagram clean and announced a new album, described as a
sequel to Confessions on a Dance Floor, and the reaction was immediate,
outsized, almost physical, moving across media, across group chats, and
across the quiet, private channels where people who have been paying
attention for a long time recognize a signal when they see one. It would
be easy to read that response as nostalgia or fan culture behaving as
it always does, but that reading misses something more specific —
something that has less to do with celebrity and more to do with timing.
Madonna has a habit of reemerging at moments when the atmosphere
tightens, when politics harden, and when the culture begins to narrow in
ways that feel suffocating. People who have lived through that pattern
recognize it in their bodies before they articulate it out loud.
The
last time she released Confessions on a Dance Floor was 2005, at the
height of a war built on lies, in a country that had grown comfortable
with fear as a governing principle, where dissent was treated as
disloyalty and the boundaries of acceptable life were quietly redrawn.
That record did not arrive as commentary, it arrived as release, as
insistence, as something ecstatic and physical that refused the moral
heaviness of the moment without ignoring it. It became one of the most
beloved records of her career not only because of how it sounded but
because of what it allowed people to feel when the world outside felt
increasingly rigid and controlled. So when she signals a return to that
era now, in a year that feels darker, more unstable, and increasingly
hostile to difference, the reaction is not just excitement, it is
recognition.
Well let's hope her new album lives up to that build up.Regardless, it's a powerful essay on Madonna.
Fleetwood
Mac’s iconic album Rumours will turn 50 next year, and a new Apple TV
documentary from director Frank Marshall is on the way about the band,
though it doesn’t sound like it’ll be on the 2026 television schedule.
Fleetwood Mac has stayed remarkably relevant for decades, even going
viral in recent years with their song “Dreams” from Rumours when it was
added to a vibe-y skateboarding video.
I have
complicated feelings about “The Mac” because I find some of their most
famous music a little cheesy (though as I age, I like it more), but I
adore the early bluesy stuff with founder Peter Green. That’s why I’m a
little disappointed in what the documentary sounds like it will focus
on.
Peter
Green was in Mac from 1967 through 1970. He recorded three albums with
the band, was a member for three years. They did not sell. They did
not go gold or platinum -- not in the UK and not in the US. And they
have not gone gold or platinum all these years later. Over fifty years
in release -- nearly sixty -- and they have not gone even gold. Two
albums after Green leaves, on Christine McVie's first official album as a
member they have a US gold record with FUTURE GAMES. Only in the US,
then BARE TREES is a US platinum record. In 1975, Stevie Nicks and
Lindsey Buckingham join the lineup and they have the nine million
selling (in the US) FLEETWOOD MAC album. Then the 21 million selling
(in the US) RUMOURS. TUSK and MIRAGE are double platinum. 1980's live
album LIVE is gold. TANGO IN THE NIGHT is triple platinum. BEHIND THE
MASK (Buckingham isn't involved in this album) is a gold album. 1997's
live album THE DANCE is five million seller in the US. And finally SAY
YOU WILL (Buckingham's back, Christine McVie is gone) was a gold album.
That's 1975 through 2003.
Peter
Green is the star of a Peter Green documentary, Hugh. Peter Green
doesn't really matter to a Fleetwood Mac documentary. It's a bit like
going to a Beatles documentary and being upset that Pete Best wasn't the
focus -- Best was the original drummer.
Wednesday, April 15, 2026. Chump claims war may be winding down,
Americans struggle to manage with inflated prices from the war, NYT does
a deep dive in Homeland Security, Kristi Noem's work is under
examination, Pam Bondi skips her deposition before the House Oversight
Committee, Melania's speech last week appears to have been prompted by a
former friend announcing on social media that she was going to spill,
and much more.
Most
Americans still think their taxes are too high, according to recent
polls, even after last year’s tax law fulfilled several of President
Trump’s tax-related campaign promises.
In fact,
a new Fox News poll indicates people are more upset about taxes than
they were last year. The findings from the survey, which was conducted
in late March, are another sign that Americans are on edge about their
personal finances as the U.S. experiences a spike in inflation and
sluggish economic growth. Other polling finds that frustration goes
beyond personal tax obligations, with many believing that wealthy people
and corporations are not paying their fair share, while others worry
about government waste.
And why wouldn't they be on edge about personal finances? Paul Wiseman (AP) reports,
"U.S. wholesale prices surged last month as the Iran war drove up the
cost of energy. The Labor Department reported Tuesday that its producer
price index -- which measures inflation before it hits consumers --
rose 0.5% from February and 4% from March 2025. The year-over-year gains
was the biggest in more than three years. Energy prices surged 8.5%
from February." Tristan Bove (FORTUNE) notes Chump's
tariffs have hit all fifty states, "As farmers have faced higher costs
for livestock feed, fertilizer, and machinery, those higher costs now
appear on grocery store shelves across the country as food inflation,
according to the study."
“Stagflation”
is the phenomenon that dare not quite speak its name, but will soon
perhaps stalk the Earth. Crucially, that depends on how long the Iran
war lasts, and the skill of central banks and national treasuries, but
it could easily become an extremely uncomfortable reality in the coming
months.
Given that the United States is the
IMF’s major “shareholder”, and its irascible president is known to take
critical remarks personally, the IMF avoided mentioning Donald Trump by
name. But we all know who is to blame for this catastrophe – the
president, with his illegal, unplanned and unnecessary war.
The
IMF’s list of industrial casualties from this war is a long one. The
Gulf economies, which had in recent decades become a new hub for global
growth (and tax avoidance), are the hardest hit, for obvious reasons.
But, in the broader sense of their vast reserves of money and natural
resources, they can afford it. As with the spike in commodities prices
that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it is the
poorer people in Africa and Asia who will find the struggle to survive
even harder.
The emerging economies of East Asia, which rely
so heavily on the Middle East for their oil and gas supply, and for many
raw materials, will also suffer a slowdown, having already borne the
brunt of Mr Trump’s tariff war. China, in particular, will see growth
drop to its lowest in three decades – around 4.5 per cent. While
enviable by European standards, that is insufficient to sustain jobs
growth for the rising generation.
The advanced
economies will also suffer from the disruption to trade and investment,
and the cost-of-living crisis will intensify once more – including in
the United States. President Trump’s “hottest nation in the world” will
cool, even if its fossil-fuel providers enjoy a windfall.
And yet Chump's war of choice on Iran continues. Ben notes the latest this morning on MEIDASTOUCH NEWS.
In a Wednesday morning interview with Fox Business, Trump said the war with Iran was "very close" to ending.
"I view it as very close to being over," Trump told anchor Maria Bartiromo.
Trump has repeatedly suggested the war is nearing an end without offering a clear timeline.
The
latest developments came as the International Monetary Fund warned
Tuesday that the global economy could be heading toward a recession
triggered by the war.
The velocity at which President Trump’s war on Iran has spiraled out of control is unsurprising.
History
neither repeats nor rhymes, but patterns flash like neon signs in the
recent U.S. experience in the Greater Middle East. The combination of
underestimating the enemy, overestimating one’s own power, and
altogether ignoring the need for a clear definition of victory leads to
escalation with no end in sight.
The president
raced to the top of the escalatory ladder, threatening to destroy
Iranian civilization on April 7. Mercifully, he backed down and offered a
ceasefire, leading to a single day of peace talks in Pakistan. Already,
however, Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to blockade of the Strait of
Hormuz and is reportedly weighing the resumption of limited air strikes.
The
United States was supposed to have learned these painful lessons after
the long nightmare in Vietnam. Despite serious doubts in his own mind
and among his chief advisers that victory was attainable, President
Lyndon B. Johnson sank his legacy in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
The
Homeland Security deputy secretary who was on the outs late last year
is back in the department following Kristi Noem’s firing.
Troy Edgar is serving in the same role under Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Politico reported on Monday.
Edgar
was sworn in last March, but his working relationship with Noem
deteriorated late last year, one Trump administration official and a
former DHS official told the outlet. The ex-DHS official said Edgar had
essentially been “ousted.”
In January, Donald Trump nominated him as ambassador to El Salvador, but that nomination has now been withdrawn.
“The
Admin is withdrawing Troy’s nomination and the withdrawal is expected
to be transmitted to the Senate today,” a second administration official
told Politico. “Troy never resigned from his DHS position so he was
able to return.”
Acting DHS Secretary Lauren
Bis told the Daily Beast in a statement: “DHS is fortunate to have
Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar continue in his role. He brings valuable
knowledge of the Department from the President’s first term when he
served as DHS’ Chief Financial Officer. He will play an integral role in
helping to make America safe again.”
The
main engine of Trump’s enforcement campaign is the Department of
Homeland Security. To understand how the agency has transformed, we
interviewed more than 80 former and current D.H.S. employees, as well as
officials in the Justice Department, which oversees immigration courts.
Many of them supported increased enforcement but criticized the
administration’s execution, aspects of which they characterized as
chaotic, dangerous and ineffective.
Career
employees described experiencing a frustrating sense of whiplash as
immigration policy has swung back and forth between Republican and
Democratic administrations. The root of the problem, as they see it, is
the failure of Congress over many decades to pass new laws that address
today’s realities. In February, the Department of Homeland Security shut
down after Congress failed to reach a deal on Democrats’ proposed
changes to enforcement tactics.
D.H.S. policies
bar employees from speaking to the news media without authorization.
Some of our sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they
feared retribution from the administration. We corroborated their
descriptions of specific incidents with colleagues, contemporaneous
notes and court documents. Miller, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne
Mullin, former Secretary Kristi Noem and other agency leaders declined
our requests for interviews. We also sent the department detailed
questions.
It
amounts to a sweeping indictment of the agency under Noem, 54, who was
fired by Donald Trump on March 5 after a controversial 14-month run. As
the Daily Beast has reported, Trump’s aides had wanted her gone for
months before he finally acted, with the final straw reportedly being
her insistence, under oath, that he had personally signed off on her
$220 million vanity ad campaign.
The hits in the
Times feature come thick and fast. A former ICE field director
describes how Trump’s deputy chief of staff and immigration czar,
Stephen Miller, told a room full of agency chiefs that targeting lists
were irrelevant. “There is no list,” Miller said, according to the
Times. “Everyone is fair game.”
One former
senior ICE officer says that when agents fatally shot unarmed
Minneapolis mother Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7, 2026, Noem cleared the
shooting as justified within an hour, before any investigation had taken
place. The officer says the exoneration’s speed sent a message to
agents in the field that they could “push the limits.”
The
testimony about Noem’s arrival at the agency is withering. A former
associate counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recalls
her first DHS town hall, at which she entered to the theme song “Hot
Mama,” spoke for a few minutes, took no questions, and left. “It felt
like a South Park moment,” he told the Times.
An immigrant child detained by ICE with her family in Texas nearly died before receiving medical care.
The New Yorkerpublished
a long article Monday about the medical neglect of children under
Trump’s draconian immigration crackdown, and the story highlights
Amalia, who was detained by ICE with her parents and sent to Texas’s
Dilley Immigration Processing Center in December when she was only 18
months old.
At the time, Amalia was a healthy toddler with no known issues.
The water at Dilley smelled strange, so her parents, Kheilin Valero
Marcano and Stiven Arrieta Prieto, bought bottled water at the center’s
commissary for her, despite having no income in detention. (The article
noted that nonprofit organizations who work on immigrants’ rights, such
as Human Rights First and RAICIES, have found that families detained at
Dilley say the water there is “unclean, foul-smelling, and causes
stomachaches.”)
Marcano also said that one child
found a bug in her food in the facility’s cafeteria, leading other kids
not to want to eat. Not long after that, children in the facility began
to fall sick, including Amalia. In January, Amalia developed a high
fever, and at the facility’s clinic, Amalia was given ibuprofen and her
parents were told the fever was “good, because it means she’s fighting
off a virus.”
But after two weeks, the fever persisted, and Amalia started
vomiting and having diarrhea. Going back to Dilley’s medical clinic
didn’t help, as Marcano told The New Yorker
she waited in line on eight different occasions without her concerns
being addressed. Marcano at one point gave Amalia a cold bath to try to
lower her temperature, only for her daughter to pass out. She went to
the clinic and shouted, “Are you going to watch my baby die in my arms?”
Yesterday was April 14th, the day Pam Bondi was supposed to be deposed by the House Oversight Committee. She did not show. SCRIPPS NEWS SERVICE notes:
Pam
Bondi could face contempt proceedings if she does not testify before
the House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation into the
federal handling of records related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey
Epstein.
Bondi did not appear for a scheduled
deposition Tuesday, prompting accusations from lawmakers that she is
evading a lawful congressional subpoena.
The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued a statement yesterday:
Washington,
D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Committee
on Oversight and Reform, released the following statement after former
Attorney General Pam Bondi missed the scheduled date of her deposition
before the Oversight Committee. Pam Bondi is attempting to evade a
lawful bipartisan subpoena the Committee issued last month. The subpoena
was issued following a bipartisan vote supporting a motion by Rep.
Nancy Mace to subpoena, “the Honorable Pamela Jo Bondi,” and not just
the Attorney General.
“Pam Bondi is evading a
lawful congressional subpoena by failing to appear before the Oversight
Committee for a deposition about the Epstein files and the White House
cover-up. This subpoena applies to her regardless of her title. She must
appear before the Committee, and if she continues to ignore the law,
Oversight Democrats will move forward with contempt proceedings
immediately. We will fight until there is true accountability and
justice,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.
###
Bondi's not the only person garnering attention for The Epstein Scandal.
Even
in the UK, they're talking about -- and making fun of -- Melania Chump
and her claims to have not been close to Epstein and Maxwell.
President Trump said Friday that he had
known his wife wanted to speak about Jeffrey Epstein at some point, and
that he “thought she had a right to talk about it,” even if he had not
known what exactly she planned to say.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Mr. Trump said in a brief telephone interview, referring to the remarks Melania Trump made from the entrance hall of the White House a day earlier.
“I didn’t know what the statement was,” he said, “but I knew she was going to make a statement.”
And
she did. And it did not work out how she planned if her plan was to
draw a clear line between herself and Epstein and Maxwell. Jude Cramer (FAST COMPANY) notes:
If the first lady’s associations with Epstein had recently reentered
the headlines, her speech might have been understandable. But instead,
her statement left many scratching their heads and pointing at her and
her husband’s proven connections to Epstein, particularly the two men’s
friendship in the 1990s.
It also brought renewed attention to the infamous birthday message and lewd drawing
allegedly left for Epstein by Donald Trump in 2003, which read, “A pal
is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another
wonderful secret.” The president has denied writing the message and sued
The Wall Street Journal’s parent company for defamation after the outlet reported on the letter.
A former model who’s flown on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet and has
close ties to President Donald Trump’s orbit warned late Saturday that
“the truth will come out” after reportedly threatening to “tear down the entire system” by revealing insider knowledge.
That woman is Amanda Ungaro, a former Brazilian model, former ambassador to the United Nations and ex-wife of Paolo Zampolli, Trump’s special envoy and longtime friend. The New York Times reported last month that Zampolli successfully pushed Trump in 2025 to deport Ungaro, then his ex-wife.
Now, Ungaro is vowing revenge.
“Now it’s war,” Ungano told the Spanish news outlet El País in its report published Saturday night.
“We’ll
see who wins. I kept quiet for years, and that’s why people are judging
me. ‘Why are you speaking out now?’ they ask. ‘Because the guy wouldn’t
let me live in peace!’”
Last week, an account on social media apparently belonging to Ungaro issued a series of threats directed at First Lady Melania Trump, vowing to “expose everything I know.” The threats were later suspected to be the potential motivation for the first lady’s surprise statement last week in which she denied having had a relationship with Epstein.
Amanda Ungaro? When Melania made her statement last week, many said she
was acting like someone trying to get out ahead of some news that would
be breaking. It appears to have broken. QUEERTY notes:
It all starts with a story in the New York Times about
a longtime Tr*mp friend who asked ICE to detain the mother of his child
so he could win a custody battle that flew under the radar recently.
Paolo
Zampolli, a former modeling agent and current presidential envoy,
reached out to a top ICE official when he learned his ex, Amanda Ungaro,
had been arrested on fraud charges in Florida.
Ungaro
first arrived in New York as a 17-year-old model on Jeffrey Epstein’s
plane in 2002. Later that year, she met Zampolli at a Manhattan night
club. They entered into a relationship, had a kid together, but never
married, and eventually broke up in 2023.
According
to documents, Zampolli told the ICE agent that Ungaro was in the
country illegally, and asked if she could taken into custody, hoping her
detainment would help him win custody of the couple’s teenage son.
“The
[ICE] official, David Venturella, promptly called the agency’s Miami
office to ensure that ICE agents would pick up [Ungaro] from the jail
before she was released on bail,” reports the Times.
OK, but what does this have to do with Melania?
Well,
Zampolli is credited with bringing the future FLOTUS to the United
States when she was a model in Slovenia, as well as with introducing her
to Tr*mp at the Kit-Kat Club in 1998, a story that she referenced
Thursday.
[. . .]
Then
this week, Ungaro–or at least someone claiming to be her–started
posting veiled threats towards Melania and fired AG Pam Bondi.
Though Ungaro doesn’t directly reference Epstein, the implication is apparent, especially after Melania’s remarks yesterday.
On top of that, Ungaro apparently taped an interview with a TV station in Spain that’s slated to air this weekend.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Washington, D.C. — As President Trump’s war in Iran
drives up food costs for American families and small businesses, U.S.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Minority Leader Schumer (D-N.Y.)
led a group of four senators in pressing the Department of Justice (DOJ)
and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to crack down on food and
agriculture companies engaging in grocery price fixing. The senators
pressed the administration to lower costs for Americans by taking action
to stop anticompetitive practices in the food supply chain and
predatory pricing behavior, including breaking up illegal monopolies.
Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) signed onto the letter, which
comes as oil, fertilizer, and other costs continue to surge as President
Trump’s war in Iran continues into its seventh week — making the need
for action even more urgent.
In December 2025, President Trump issued an executive order
purportedly aimed at investigating “price fixing and anti-competitive
behavior in the food supply chain.”
“[T]he Administration has yet to take any meaningful action to tackle
consolidation and bring down food and farm input prices, which continue
to squeeze farmers, small businesses, and consumers…Now, more than
ever, it is time for the Administration to get serious about addressing
these problems,” wrote the senators.
Despite President Trump’s promises to bring down prices “on Day One,”
Americans saw their grocery bills rise faster than overall inflation
last year, leading them to pay an average of $310 more for groceries compared to 2024.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to Donald Trump’s illegal war
in Iran has effectively halted the shipment of one third of global
fertilizer supplies, leading to higher fertilizer prices for farmers
that are expected to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher
grocery prices.
Instead of working to lower costs, the Trump administration has
undermined antitrust enforcement in the food and agricultural
industries, including by forcing out the DOJ’s top antitrust official
and closing the FTC’s investigation into surveillance pricing even after
an initial report found that retailers frequently use people’s personal data to tailor prices for goods and services.
“Excessive consolidation and anticompetitive practices by dominant
firms are also major drivers of these price increases,” wrote the
senators.
Consolidation in the fertilizer and seed markets, which are similarly
dominated by just a handful of companies, are also driving up prices
for farmers and American families. Giant food retailers and suppliers
continue to engage in exclusionary contracting practices (such as
slotting fees, category captain arrangements, and volume-based rebates)
and discrimination.
The senators called for the DOJ and FTC to take the following
specific actions to take on retailers’ and suppliers’ anticompetitive
practices:
Crack down on violations of antitrust laws by giant corporations in
the meatpacking, seed, fertilizer, and farm equipment sectors, including
by breaking up these dominant companies;
Scrutinize and, where appropriate, block anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions in the food and agricultural sectors; and
Issue enforcement guidance on potential violations of the
Robinson-Patman Act and investigate and take enforcement action where
merited.
The senators also called on the FTC to:
Pursue rulemaking and enforcement action to tackle exclusionary contracting practices by corporations; and
Reopen its investigation into surveillance pricing and new rules and
enforcement actions to address exploitative surveillance and dynamic
pricing practices.
The lawmakers pressed for answers by April 27, 2026.
If you've already got John Mellencamp's songs on your playlist, it might be time to add them to your bookshelf!
The
rocker is set to release a new lyric book titled John Mellencamp: The
Songbook: 50 Years of Song and Poetry on Sept. 29 via Rizzoli New York,
PEOPLE can exclusively reveal.
The tome finds
Mellencamp, 74, “opening his archives and tracing his evolution as both a
songwriter and poet — spanning every era of his storied career,”
according to a press release.
The Rock and Roll
Hall of Famer's music will be paired with previously unpublished
personal photographs, handwritten drafts, notes and more.
Stephen King, who collaborated with Mellencamp on the musical Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, will write the foreword.
To
celebrate the release, the “Jack & Diane” singer and Rizzoli will
donate a portion of the book's April presales sold through the Rizzoli
Bookstore to Farm Aid, the nonprofit organization he founded in 1985
with Willie Nelson and Neil Young to benefit American family farmers.
I
think SCARECROW and LONESOME JUBILEE are song writing perfection.
Great albums, yes, but perfection in the lyrics and music. In other
news, Natalie Oganesyan (DEADLINE) reports:
EGOT
winner and former American Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson is returning
to the ABC music competition series as a guest judge and mentor on its
upcoming Disney Night, April 20.
During
tonight’s episode, the long-running reality show announced that the
multi-hyphenate superstar and 2004 finalist would join Luke Bryan,
Lionel Richie and Carrie Underwood to usher the Top 9 Idol finalists in
next week’s themed competition.
This marks Hudson’s
inaugural return to Idol in over 10 years, as she last graced the stage
alongside Iggy Azalea, when the two performed their song “Trouble”
during Season 14 in 2015. Hudson will also mentor finalists for the
first time, guiding the Top 9 as they perform iconic Disney songs live
for America's vote and a coveted spot in the Top 7.
Hudson
first rose to prominence as a competitor on the third season of Idol,
where she finished seventh. Since then, she has entered the elite ranks
of artists who have won the hallowed EGOT, becoming one of now 22 people
who have done so. Her nationally syndicated talk show, The Jennifer
Hudson Show, was recently renewed for a fourth season and has been a
recipient of 13 Daytime Emmy nominations.
Good
for Jennifer. I might tune in to catch that. As it is currently, I'm
more likely to catch THE VOICE due to Kelly Clarkson. Like most people,
I can't stand snooty Carrie Underwood. She's so rude to the
contestants and when the audience boos her, she really enjoys it. She
used to come off like a nice person 20 years ago. I guess the lack of
career (she can't get a solo song on the charts) has really made her
bitter.
Jennifer
Lopez and Brett Goldstein are navigating a secret workplace
relationship in their new romantic comedy. PEOPLE is debuting the first
official image from the new Netflix movie Office Romance, in which Lopez
portrays Jackie Cruz, a CEO at a major company, who develops feelings
for a new employee named Daniel Blanchflower (Goldstein).
Lopez,
56, who has been involved with the project since 2024, tells PEOPLE she
was immediately hooked by the "fun, raunchy and romantic" script. "It
is a com rom! It's a classic romance, with modern edgier humor," says
Lopez, noting that the Office Romance script "felt instantly special, a
new kind of romantic comedy that really speaks to the times."
"I
was booked back to back with other projects, but I knew I had to do
this movie, so we made it work," the actress adds. "I think it's exactly
what we all need right now."
Goldstein, 45,
tells PEOPLE that he and cowriter Joe Kelly penned Office Romance
specifically for Lopez during a train ride as they filmed Ted Lasso's
third season, calling the movie "an old school rom-com but with hard
jokes."
So
that should be very interesting. I believe it's HULU that has THE KISS
OF THE SPIDERWOMAN. Jennifer should have been Oscar nominated for that
film. If you doubt it, make a point to stream it. Jennifer made her Coachella debut last week. Also there were The Strokes. Daniel Kreps (ROLLING STONE) reports:
Fresh
off the Strokes’ main stage set at Coachella, the band has announced a
summer tour in support of their upcoming album Reality Awaits.
The
trek revolves around the Strokes’ previously announced gigs at
festivals like Outside Lands, Sea.Hear.Now, Shaky Knees, and Bonnaroo,
where the Reality Awaits the World Tour will begin on June 12.
Following
that fest, the trek will hit North American amphitheaters and arenas,
including a two-night stop at Morrison, Colorado’s Red Rocks. As of now,
the North American leg will conclude September 20 at Asbury Park, New
Jersey’s Sea.Hear.Now Festival, after which the Strokes will embark on a
European jaunt.
On
this date in 1985, "We Are the World" hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot
100 and became one of the biggest songs in the world. The charity single
united some of the era's biggest stars, including Michael Jackson and
Lionel Richie, and instantly became one of the most iconic moments in
music history.
The song’s
trajectory on the charts and its impact were remarkable. It debuted at
No. 21 before reaching the top spot within a month, which was roughly
half the time it typically took a single to peak in that era. To say
that it had similar commercial success would be an understatement. Early
shipments sold out almost immediately and it became one of the
fastest-selling American pop releases of its time, eventually becoming
the eighth-best-selling single of all time. It also topped charts across
the globe, including in Ireland, Chile, and South Africa. In total, the
song raised over $80 million for Ethiopian famine relief, which is
equivalent to roughly $240 million today.
Additionally,
the song happened to mark a significant milestone for several of its
featured artists and it became the first No. 1 hit for artists like Bob
Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and La Toya Jackson.
Written
by Jackson and Richie and co-produced by Quincy Jones, the track
featured a massive lineup of talent. In total, 45 artists took part,
including 21 soloists like: Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers,
Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Ray Charles, John
Oates, Bette Midler, Dan Aykroyd, and Harry Belafonte, all performing
under the supergroup USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for
Africa).
The idea started with Belafonte, the
singer and civil rights activist, who was inspired by Band Aid's 1984
single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and wanted to organize a similar
project in the United States to raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief.
He reached out to artist manager Ken Kragen, who helped bring the
project together, including bringing on his own clients Richie and
Rogers.
Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Cindy Lauper, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen and Ray Charles did such a great job.
Tuesday, April 14, 2026. Chump struggles on in his war of choice while
his lawsuits lose steam, ICE caught with overstuffed prisons by members
of Congress, a police officer -- off duty -- decides to try to force
violence into a student protest, Senator Elizabeth Warren questions Jeff
Bezos deal for the Melania documentary, and much more.
A
federal judge dismissed President Donald Trump's defamation claims
against the Wall Street Journal over a report by the newspaper about a
birthday letter purportedly written by Trump to Jeffrey Epstein.
Judge
Darrin Phillip Gayles of the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of Florida on Monday said in a ruling that Trump's lawsuit
"fails to adequately allege actual malice," a legal standard in the U.S.
for proving defamation.
Trump
had been seeking at least $20 billion in damages in the suit against
the WSJ, parent companies Dow Jones & Co. and News Corp, the
reporters on the story and Rupert Murdoch. But the judge wrote in the
decision that Trump's complaint "is devoid of any allegations regarding
special damages."
However, the judge also declined to rule on the veracity of the WSJ's report.
"Because
the Court finds that the Complaint fails to adequately allege actual
malice, it declines to address these issues at this juncture. Moreover,
whether President Trump was the author of the Letter or Epstein's friend
are questions of fact that cannot be determined at this stage of the
litigation," the judge wrote.
Trump
filed the lawsuit in July, following up on a promise to sue the paper
almost immediately after it put a new spotlight on his well-documented
relationship with Epstein by publishing an article that described a
sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper said bore Trump’s
signature and was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein’s 50th
birthday.
The letter was
subsequently released publicly by Congress, which subpoenaed the records
from Epstein’s estate. Trump denied writing it, calling the story
“false, malicious, and defamatory.”
A
spokesperson for the president’s legal team revealed that it intends to
appeal the matter in a statement that read: “President Trump will
follow Judge Gayles’s ruling and guidance to refile this powerhouse
lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and all of the other Defendants.
The President will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in
Fake News to mislead the American People.”
The
president himself followed up by declaring “Our powerful case against
The Wall Street Journal, and other defendants, was asked to be re-filed
by the Judge. It is not a termination, it is a suggested re-filing, and
we will be, as per the Order, re-filing an updated lawsuit on or before
April 27th,” in a post on Truth Social.
Donald
Trump’s media corporation has dropped a defamation claim against the
Guardian and two other defendants over a report that federal prosecutors
were investigating $8m in payments the company received from entities
with ties to Vladimir Putin as possible money laundering.
A
filing in the 12th judicial circuit in Sarasota county, Florida, on
Friday confirmed that Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the
parent company of the president’s Truth Social platform, was withdrawing
its claims without prejudice, meaning it could refile the lawsuit at a
later date.
The Guardian reported in March 2023
that New York prosecutors had launched a criminal inquiry into money
wired to TMTG through the Caribbean by two entities that appeared to be
controlled in part by the relation of an ally of Putin, Russia’s
president.
The Trump media group, which at the
time was preparing to merge with the shell company Digital World (DWAC)
to launch a $1.3bn market capitalization, was sensitive to the
allegation it received loans from a potentially unsavory source – and it
filed a lawsuit claiming the Guardian had acted with bias or ill-will
against it.
In November, the
judge hearing the case, Hunter W Carroll, threw out most of the case
against Guardian News and Media Ltd; Penske Media Corporation, owner of
Variety, which also reported the story; and Will Wilkerson, a former
TMTG founder turned whistleblower.
Carroll is
an appointee of Rick Scott, the Republican former governor of Florida
and a Trump ally. His ruling stated the plaintiffs had failed to prove
that the defendants showed actual malice in their reporting, but he
allowed Trump’s group to file an amended complaint, which they did in
January.
A hearing in the case had been set for
Tuesday, according to the court docket, before TMTG’s decision to
withdraw entirely from the legal action.
Turning
to the topic of ICE and Homeland security, an investigation is taking
place into whether or not ICE kidnapped an American citizen. Mark Vancleave and Steve Karnowski (AP) report:
A Minnesota county is investigating the arrest of a Hmong American man
by federal officers that was captured on video as a potential case of
kidnapping, burglary and false imprisonment, officials announced Monday.
Ramsey
County Attorney John Choi and Sheriff Bob Fletcher said at a news
conference they are pursuing information from the Department of Homeland
Security that they need for their investigation into the arrest of
ChongLy “Scott” Thao, 56, on Jan. 18. Ramsey County includes the state
capital of St. Paul.
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officers bashed open the front door of Thao’s St. Paul home
at gunpoint — without a warrant as far as Choi and Fletcher have been
able to determine — then led him outside in just his underwear and a
blanket in freezing conditions.
“There are many
facts we don’t know yet, but there’s one that we do know. And that is
that Mr. Thao is and has been an American citizen. There’s not a dispute
over that," Fletcher said. “There’s no dispute that he was taken out of
his house, forcibly taken out of his home and driven around.”
It's
good to see Minnesota leading the way yet again. There is no reason
that an American citizen should have been targeted by ICE, let alone
pulled from his home in winter wearing nothing but his underwear. This
was inhumane and there's no excuse for it. And if no one challenges it,
it can happen again. American citizens either have rights or they
don't. In this instance, ICE acted as though American citizens did not
have rights.
Choi
said he sent a letter to the federal government – known as a Touhy
request – demanding any evidence used to justify Thao’s arrest during
the operation.
Thao was detained as protesters
clashed with federal agents during Operation Metro Surge, the monthslong
immigration enforcement crackdown that roiled Minnesota.
Choi
said multiple people have made reports with his office regarding
federal agents’ actions, and said they need federal cooperation to fully
investigate.
Last night, on MS NOW, Rachel Maddow reported on ICE detention centers which are being revealed to be overflowing.
In
Ariona, when two members of Congress visited Congress in February, in a
scheduled visit, the prison cleared a large number of people out. But
they went on an unscheduled visit last week and found prisoners "packed
in like sardines," overflowing with prisoners.
Voters in Social Circle, Ga., overwhelmingly backed
President Trump in 2024. But when the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) purchased a 1 million-square-foot warehouse in the tiny city to
convert it into a mega detention center for immigrants, residents and
local officials pushed back hard.
In
February, the city notified Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
that it had shut off water and sewage services to the property until the
agency explained how it could operate “without exceeding our limited
infrastructure capacity.”
“We’re
against it,” Eric Taylor, the Social Circle city manager, told The
Hill. “Having something come in like this is just really a different
dynamic than what this particular community is about.”
Social
Circle, with a population of about 5,500, is by no means an exception;
it is one of two communities in Georgia that illustrate a national
trend. As the DHS has embarked on a $38.3 billion plan to boost
detention capacity by 92,600 beds, communities that back the president’s
agenda have said no to housing immigrants in their backyard.
New Jersey, alongside the GOP-leaning township of Roxbury, sued the DHS and ICE
in March over a purchased warehouse. Residents of Surprise, Ariz.,
protested against a 1,500+ bed facility, which the DHS and ICE reduced to 500+ beds last month amid the uproar.
In February, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) spoke out
against a warehouse conversion plan in Byhalia, Miss. Separately, the
Republican executive of Orange County, N.Y., told a January board
meeting that “an ICE facility will create chaos and will tax our
emergency management and first responders.”
“Just
not in their backyard. They’re fine with it somewhere else, they just
don’t want it back here,” Social Circle Council member Tyson Jackson
said of the opposition in his community — a sentiment apparently shared
in many other reliable red districts.
According to a document
released by ICE in February, the agency is seeking to stand up eight
large-scale detention facilities that each could hold 7,000 to 10,000
detainees for periods averaging less than 60 days, along with 16 smaller
regional processing centers to hold up to 1,500 detainees for three to
seven days.
Of course, ICE has its defenders. People like the crazed police Sgt. Dusten Mullen. Who? Rob Beschizza (BOING BOING) reports on a masked adult with a gun at a Phoeniz school walk-out to protest against ICE:
Officers
said they spotted him near a shopping center wearing a mask and openly
carrying a handgun with extra magazines. … Mullen's attorney said he is
cooperating with the internal investigation. A Phoenix police
spokesperson confirmed Mullen remains employed while their Professional
Standards Bureau looks into what happened. … According to the report,
Mullen told officers his plan was to let students assault him so they
could be arrested.
He showed up
with
a gun with the intent of disrupting the peace. He showed up with a gun
to disrupt a student ction. There's no excuse for what he did.
Shortly after
it became known last week, he was placed on administrative leave. Kylie Werner (KTAR) reports:
A
sergeant with the Phoenix Police Department was put on administrative
leave Friday as his off-duty actions at a January student protest
against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Chandler are
being investigated.
ABC15 reported that Sgt.
Dusten Mullen showed up fully armed and masked to an ICE protest that
was conducted by Hamilton High School students, according to a Chandler
police report.
The report also stated that Mullen
confronted students despite police intervention and said he was going to
call other armed individuals to the area.
“As
law enforcement professionals, we are held to higher standards of
conduct — both in and out of uniform,” Phoenix Police Chief Matt
Giordano said in a statement Friday. “Our community expects integrity,
accountability and sound judgment from every member of this department,
and I expect the same. When we fall short, we must be accountable, and
we will not tolerate actions which undermine the trust the community has
placed in the department.”
I'm reading over a number of reports -- here, here and here,
for example -- and we're dealing with a grown adult imposing himself on
a student protest, wearing a mask, carrying a gun. That's outrageous
even before you get to the fact that he was an off duty police officer.
This is not how we foster civic activism among young people. He was
attempting to upset the protest and turn it violent. The fact that he
failed at what he was attempting does not change the fact that it was
wrong. Everything he did was wrong. He should not have a job on any
police force.
When Chumps goons aren't attacking people in the US, they're ignoring Americans stranded around the world. For example, Sarah K. Burris reports:
Two
American pilots have been stranded in West Africa for months, and the
government has done little to help them get home, one of them told
Semafor.
In an interview, Brad Schlenker, a
supporter of President Donald Trump, said he's been in detention in
Guinea since late last year.
The U.S. government, he said, has been “useless” in helping them.
“I voted for this administration because they were supposed to protect Americans,” he explained.
He
complained that there's no public attention to his plight and that the
State Department has taken a more "low-key" approach the report
described.
Schlenker said that he's heard from
some close to the situation that “if someone from the State Department
had simply called, if [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio or [Defense
Secretary] Pete Hegseth or someone else just picked up the phone, we’d
be out of here.”
He thinks that the issue might be related to one of Trump's mineral deals “weighing in on this situation."
"Guinea
contains some of the world’s largest deposits of bauxite and iron ore,
and the Trump administration has actively cultivated Conakry as a
partner during a wider push to secure African mineral resources," said
the report.
Fabio Nunez is the name of the other American pilot being held.
Chump
has time for every vanity project in the world but doesn't have time to
assist two Americans stranged in a foreign country. Harry Fletcher (INDY 100) notes:
Just
weeks after unveiling plans for a Miami skyscraper dedicated to
himself, Donald Trump has decided to imprint his legacy in another major
US location for "Americans to enjoy for many decades to come".
The
president unveiled plans for the 'Triumphal Arch' - where bears an
uncanny resemblance to France's Arc de Triomphe - which is set to stand
250-feet high over Washington DC.
[. . .]
The monument, if approved, would be taller than the US Capitol building and the Lincoln Memorial.
In
a relentless, unprecedented branding exercise, the sheer volume of
entities now bearing the name of President Donald Trump strains
credulity. We now live in a world of Trump RX and Trump accounts, of
Trump coins and Trump fighter jets. We have seen the John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts slapped with his name, the Institute of
Peace renamed after him, the christening of the President Donald J.
Trump International Airport in Palm Beach, a new fleet of guided-missile
warships designated as Trump-class destroyers, the Trump Gold Card visa
for wealthy immigrants, and even the unprecedented stamp of his
signature on U.S. paper currency, something reserved beforehand only for
the Treasury Secretary.
Of
course, that doesn’t even factor in the graveyard of branded detritus
across Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump Ice bottled water, Trump
Airlines, Trump Mortgage, Trump Fragrances, Trump Board Games, Trump
Bibles, the infamous Trump University, and many more.
As we write about in our best-selling new book, Trump’s Ten Commandments
— the first assessment of the arc of Trump’s career by leadership
scholars — his grandiose image building is a key leadership lever of the
supposed master of the deal. Published by Worth/Simon & Schuster,
our book makes clear how the outer-borough arriviste from Queens was
never truly accepted by the Manhattan aristocracy, so he reacted by
plastering his name all over New York City in giant letters, putting
gold leaf where others would put wood or stone, creating a visual
vocabulary of success that regular people could easily and immediately
understand. He is obsessed with gold, because gold screams money to the
masses. This has always been his entire shtick: class for the masses. He
democratizes the performance of luxury in a comically over-the-top,
exaggeratedly accessible way. He offers middle-class tourists the chance
to walk through Trump Tower’s golden atrium, to bask in a glow that
feels like royalty.
This splashy indulgence was labeled a century ago as “conspicuous consumption”
by the economist Thorstein Veblen, who believed the average American
had a desire to emulate such garish symbols of success. Such an
ostentatious show of wealth may prompt some to imagine admiringly,
“That’s how I would live if I made $1 billion overnight.”
And
more than 20 years ago, when NBC invited one of us to review the first
season of The Apprentice, the result was a Wall Street Journal column
titled “The Last Emperor Trump.”
It infuriated Trump, drawing a parallel between the Roman crowds who
once packed into the Colosseum to cheer on gladiators and see the
emperor vote on the fate of the loser, and the latter-day TV viewers
huddled by their screens to see how Trump, with his imperial aura,
decreed the fate of contestants. This brutal method of leadership
selection rewarded the most gladiatorial aspirants who survived by
destroying their own teammates — odd in the context of leadership since
it left no team in place for the winner to lead.
No
successful emperor in history has engaged in Trumpian levels of
relentless personal branding. Julius Caesar did not stamp his name on
every aqueduct. Even Alexander the Great, who named Alexandria after
himself, showed relative restraint compared to what we are seeing now.
Historically, the leaders who obsess over ornamental personal monuments
tend to be those with more divisive legacies.
This
grasping for grandeur is far more than mere commercial branding or
entrepreneurial greed as Trump exploits the trappings of office. Such
desperate attempts at grandiosity evoke empty vanity, clutching at
physical monuments to prove a greatness that history has not yet
conferred.
For patrician statesmen, grandeur is
usually understated, radiating restraint rather than gawk-inspiring
shows of brazen wealth. It is ironic that Trump regularly compares
himself to Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln — both
renowned for their legendary humility. Biographers Ron Chernow, Joseph
Ellis, and Garry Wills have documented Washington’s reluctance to assume
command of the Continental Army in 1775, feeling he was not up to the
job, and his determination to limit his term of office, not wanting to
resemble a king despite his popularity. Similarly, Carl Sandburg, David
Herbert Donald, and Doris Kearns Goodwin have depicted a Lincoln marked
by humble, self-deprecating self-awareness.
By
contrast, Trump is a grotesque extension of what Arthur Schlesinger
described as “The Imperial Presidency” — a concept Schlesinger applied
critically to the Nixon era, though FDR and Ronald Reagan were masters
of majestic ceremony, mythmaking, and monumental landmarks.
Meanwhile, there's a war going on, one Donald started, and it's not going well as Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes this morning.
In announcing a complete U.S. blockade of
Iranian ports, President Trump took a drastically new approach to
trying to achieve what he has wanted for weeks — opening the Strait of
Hormuz to global traffic.
The
president seems to be hoping that the blockade will heap new pressure on
Iran after direct talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Pakistan
over the weekend failed to end the war, and he suggested that other
countries would join the effort.
But on Monday, there were few volunteers, with only Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel publicly supporting the idea.
Mr.
Trump’s proposed blockade “makes no sense,” Spain’s defense minister,
Margarita Robles, said in a television interview. “Since this war
started, nothing makes sense,” she added. “This is another episode in
the downward spiral the world has been dragged into.”
Experts said they doubted that the
blockade would get Mr. Trump any closer to an endgame that he could sell
as an American victory.
“I’ll save
you the waiting period: Iran is not going to capitulate,” said Danny
Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security
Studies in Israel who studies Iran and its proxies. “This regime
believes that the damage that will be sustained by this act will be
bigger for the U.S. and the international economy than for Iran.”
Imposing
a blockade entailed risks for the U.S., he said. It could further
increase oil prices, deepening the drag on the global economy. The U.S.
interdiction of ships belonging to, say, India or China could cause
diplomatic clashes. It will also bring U.S. ships into striking distance
of Iran’s missiles and drones, putting American military personnel in
harm’s way.
All these weeks later and Chump still doesn't know what he's doing next.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Warren: “Amazon's response reeks of desperation to please Donald Trump…This looks like bribery in plain sight.”
Washington, D.C. — In a new response to Senator
Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Representative Hank Johnson (D-Ga.),
Amazon claimed that there was “no improper” activity in its bid for the
new Melania documentary despite what appears to be a corrupt pay-to-play
arrangement with the Trump administration. Last month, the lawmakers opened an investigation
into Amazon’s investment in the Melania film and questioned whether it
was used to secure favorable treatment from the Trump administration on
antitrust suits, potential tariff exemptions, foreign trade deals,
federal contracts, and tax cuts.
The company refused to explain its massive overpayment for the film’s
rights, insisting that it followed a “thorough and competitive bidding
process” despite reportedly paying more than three times as the next
closest bidder.
Amazon also said that its decision to license the film was “based on
the film and series itself — the access, the story, and its cultural and
historical relevance,” again providing no business justification for
the investment.
In reaction to Amazon’s insufficient response, Senator Warren released the following statement:
“Amazon's response reeks of desperation to please Donald Trump. If
there’s nothing corrupt about this deal and the bidding process was
truly “competitive”, why won’t Amazon explain why it reportedly paid
three times as much as the next highest bidder? The logical explanation
is that Amazon is trying to buy the President’s favor by dumping
millions into the Trump family’s pockets. This looks like bribery in
plain sight, and Amazon must give Congress — and the American people —
answers now.”
Representative Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) also released the following statement:
“When we saw the oligarchs and tech bros gather in front-row seats at
Trump’s second inauguration – some of whom gave him millions for his
re-election campaign – it raised the specter that the rich and powerful
were going to wield dangerous levels of power and influence on the
nation through their largess to this transactional and corrupt
president. Amazon’s ‘nothing-to-see-here’ response makes this fear even
more of a reality. If there were truly nothing to see, then Amazon would
have answered these basic questions.”
Amazon reportedly invested at least $75 million in the documentary —
with reports indicating that about $28 million of that will go directly
to Melania Trump. To date, the film has only grossed around $16 million, raising questions about whether Amazon ever planned to break even on the film.
