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After weeks of the Trump administration refusing court orders to facilitate the return of the wrongly deported, Kilmar Abrego Garcia to an infamous prison in El Salvador, many began to speculate that Garcia might’ve actually lost his life. Even Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele refused requests to let the man return home to his family.
Now, we finally have proof of life as Democratic Senator, Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland traveled to El Salvador to visit Garcia at the CECOT prison. After initially receiving the runaround the first day he arrived, prison officials finally let Van Hollen sit face-to-face with his Maryland constituent, Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
According to Newsweek, Van Hollen was finally able to meet with Garcia at the prison known for housing thousands of MS-13 and MS-18 gang members, and in the process, laid to rest any notion that Garcia had somehow lost his life in the process of being deported and wrongfully incarcerated at CECOT. Though Salvadorian officials are still denying any requests to let Garcia return to America (as the U.S. Supreme Court instructed the Trump administration to make happen), Van Hollen was at least able to confirm that Garcia is alive and well at the current moment. Unfortunately for Garcia, the Trump administration is fighting tooth and nail to keep Garcia in El Salvador regardless of the Supreme Court’s 9-0 ruling. And they don’t seem to be backing down anytime soon, if ever.
Per Newsweek:
In an order on Thursday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Trump administration’s plea for an emergency stay in Abrego Garcia’s case requesting that the White House should no longer be required to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, an appointee of GOP icon former President Ronald Reagan, ripped the administration in the order, saying in part, “It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.”
“This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty thatAmericans far removed from courthouses still hold dear,” Wilkinson wrote.
With the Trump administration paying Bukele $6 million a year to house hundreds of deported immigrants and asking Bukele to build five more prisons for future deportations of migrants AND American citizens who Trump deems as “criminals,” this saga is only getting started. Politicians, Americans, and Garcia’s family are demanding that the defiant Trump administration follow court orders and bring Garcia back home. They won’t.
Knowing that the public perception behind this deportation of Garcia is a horrible look for Trump’s agenda, his spokespeople and administrative officials continue to lie and label Garcia a “terrorist” and member of MS-13 even though neither the U.S. nor El Salvador can provide any evidence of such allegations in a court of law. While most people see right through the lies, MAGA supporters on social media continue to push the false narrative to justify Garcia’s detention at CECOT to further muddy the waters and paint Garcia as a “bad hombre.”
American fascism in 2025.
What do y’all think about this situation? Let us know in the comments section below.
Music stocks bounced back — and performed better than major U.S. indexes— for a second week after President Trump’s tariff policy sent markets into a tailspin.
The 20-company Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) rose 3.6% to 2,446.90, its second consecutive gain after falling 8.2% the week ended April 4. Fourteen of the 20 stocks were winners and five had gains exceeding 5%. The largest companies were among the week’s winners, which had an outsized impact on the index’s value, while the four worst performers are the index’s least valuable companies.
The BGMI outperformed the Nasdaq and S&P 500, which lost 2.6% and 1.5%, respectively, but fell short of the FTSE 100’s 3.9% improvement. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index gained 2.1% and China’s SSE Composite Index rose 1.2%.
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Streaming companies, which analysts believe are well-suited to survive the impacts of the U.S. tariff policy, were among the week’s best performers. Cloud Music was the week’s biggest gainer, rising 10.5% to 156.40 HKD ($20.15). Deezer was the third-best performer with a 6.7% gain.
Spotify, the most valuable music company, rose 5.6% to $574.25. UBS lowered its Spotify price target on Tuesday to $680 from $690 but maintained its buy rating. Tencent Music Entertainment improved just 0.4%, giving it a 10.2% gain in 2025.
Multi-sector companies, particularly those from South Korea, also performed well. YG Entertainment rose 10.0% to 66,800 KRW ($47.10). SM Entertainment rose 9.3% to 116,300 KRW ($81.99) and JYP Entertainment improved 6.2% to 63,300 KRW ($44.63). HYBE rose 2.0% to 230,500 KRW ($162.51).
Universal Music Group rose 3.2% to 23.96 euros ($27.25), turning a deficit into a year-to-date gain of 0.2%. Warner Music Group rose 0.3%, bringing its loss in 2025 to 6.1%.
Live entertainment companies had mixed results. German promoter CTS Eventim gained 4.2% to 97.20 euros ($110.54) and MSG Entertainment rose 1.2% to $30.69. Live Nation fell 1.8% to $127.22. Sphere Entertainment Co. dropped 6.3% to $25.38. The company, which owns the Sphere venue in Las Vegas, has fallen 40.2% year to date.
Radio companies continued their decline. iHeartMedia dropped 14.8%, bringing its year-to-date loss to 54%. Cumulus Media’s 19.4% fall took its year-to-date deficit to 67.5%.
Tariffs continued to be a dominant theme in the financial world this week. Apple and other tech companies that import phones, computers and chips from China and other Asian countries gained a reprieve from the most burdensome tariffs. The announcement, which came on April 11, sent Apple’s stock up 2% on Monday (April 14) and pushed its market capitalization back past $3 trillion. On Thursday, the Trump administration announced new fees on Chinese-made ships entering U.S. ports. Some of those fees were quickly walked back, however, by exempting ships that travel between U.S. ports of call, and from domestic ports to Caribbean islands or U.S. territories.
Billboard
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MGM+ television series Godfather of Harlem, starring Forest Whitaker as Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson during his later years in the 1960s, made its return earlier this week for its fourth and final season. And with that comes another original soundtrack curated by Swizz Beatz. The lead single features Swizz teaming up with barbarians (shout to […]
When Chappell Roan was asked to name her “gay music video Holy Trinity,” she instantly rose to the challenge.
The pop singer/songwriter recently sat down — or, rather, stood up — for a Gaydar interview with Anania, who asked Roan to pick her big three gay music videos of all time.
“‘Alejandro,’ ‘She Wolf,’ ‘Beautiful Liar,’” Roan rattled off, choosing Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster visual, plus two separate Shakira music videos: the solo “She Wolf” and her epic Beyoncé team-up “Beautiful Liar.”
Roan and Anania even tried to mimic Shak & Bey’s hypnotic hip motions from the video, but the host had some excuses for why they couldn’t quite match the moves. “I could do it,” Anania says, “but the bones, they chilled up.” Roan laughs, “Your arthritis!” to which Anania responds, “Absolutely, right, it’s acting up today.”
In the Gaydar social series, Anania asks 20 questions of guests to figure out whether they’re “gay, straight or a homophobe.” In the end, Anania concludes, “I can confirm you’re not straight, so I think you’re gay.”
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“Wow! Thank you!” Roan responds with a cheeky smile to end the video.
Roan is currently promoting her latest country/pop single “The Giver,” which has topped the Hot Country Songs chart and has risen as high as No. 5 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. There’s no word yet whether “The Giver” will be part of Roan’s next album, the follow-up to her 2023 debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
Watch Roan name her own personal holy trinity and the full interview below:
This Tuesday (April 15), hundreds of people from across the music industry gathered in Hollywood for the second annual Music Sustainability Summit.
Organized by the Music Sustainability Alliance (MSA), the event again brought together thought-leaders and innovators from the live music, labels, waste management, merch, food, design and production sectors. Panels and breakout sessions — curated around the event’s “progress through collaboration” theme — focused on the challenges and, more crucially, the many solutions that currently exist and can be implemented at scale as the industry takes on the ongoing climate crisis that’s affecting touring, events, the supply chain and the health and wellness of artists, teams, fans and the Earth itself.
“Sustainability is good for the planet and it’s good for business, and it’s being led by the people in this room,” MSA CEO/co-founder Amy Morrison said at the start of the day, “but we’re not done. There’s still more to learn, more to share and more to do. And let’s be honest, this work is only getting more important as some political forces pull back from climate commitments and even try to undermine environmental progress. It’s falling on industries like ours to step up and lead.”
The day began with a stirring performance from singer and environmental activist Antonique Smith and a rousing conversation with activist Reverend Lennox Yearwood Jr., who emphasized the importance of artists and not just engaging in performative activism, but truly engaging with the people who are feeling the very real effects of the climate crisis. “You have to be amongst the people,” Yearwood Jr. told the rapt crowd. “Not only will it make you a better artist, but you will transform yourself by being with the people and feeling the crisis. It will allow you to create art that is divine, that is otherworldly. You will begin to create something that isn’t just pain and depression, but something that could actually change and save this world.
The day of conversations went on to provide huge insights on the many ways the music industry can transition to greater sustainability and do its part in humanity’s greatest challenge, via panel topics that included live music emissions in the U.S. and U.K., why paying attention to menus at venues at events is important, the evolving clean energy sector, strategies that are being used in film, sports and live theater, sustainability in contracts and more.
Here are five things we learned from the conference.
The Music Industry Could Be Greener Through More Strategic Planning
Post Malone’s ex-fiancée, Hee Sung “Jamie” Park, has filed a court petition seeking sole physical custody of their two-year-old daughter. Park is filing for primary physical custody of the ex-couple’s daughter — named in court documents as “DDP” with a birthdate of May 26, 2022 — while allowing Post visitation rights, in addition to joint […]
This Gunna and Young Thug situation isn’t over by a long shot. The two labelmates have had a complicated relationship in the public eye since Gunna decided to take an Alford Plea in 2022 just as YSL’s lengthy RICO trial was getting started. Now we can add another chapter to the drama. Fans have noticed […]
After getting mixed up by the general public for years, one particularly hilarious mixup prompted Michelle Williams and Michelle Williams to finally link up.
In a video posted Thursday (April 17) by the first Williams — as in, the superstar previously in the Beyoncé-led girl group Destiny’s Child — she sits backstage after a performance of her Broadway show Death Becomes Her, telling the camera, “We had an amazing show tonight!”
She then pulls out a stack of photos of the other Williams — aka the five-time Oscar-nominated actress who’s starred in everything from Brokeback Mountain to My Week With Marilyn — that a fan had mistakenly mailed her in the hopes of getting an autograph weeks prior. Turning the camera, the first Williams reveals that the second Williams is sitting there beside her, and the former asks the latter to sign the pictures of herself.
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“Who should I make it out to?” the Blue Valentine star says, to which the “Journey to Freedom” singer replies giddily, “Would you make them out to meee?”
“#FINALLY,” reads the video’s caption.
The sweet meetup comes a little over a month after the singer posted a video of herself reading aloud a letter from a fan, featuring a hilarious twist at the end. “‘Dear Michelle Williams, I hope this letter finds you in great spirits,’” she recited in the March clip. “‘My name is Philip, and I have been an avid fan of your incredible performances in both film and theater.’”
“‘Your work in movies like Blue Valentine, Manchester by the Sea or The Greatest Showman has deeply moved me and many others, showcasing your exceptional talent,’” she continued at the time. “‘I am writing to kindly ask if you would consider signing the enclosed photos I have of you. Having your autograph would mean so much for me and my daughter, as we admire your artistry.’”
That’s when the first Williams showed the photos Philip had sent: snapshots of the second Williams in various movies. “Philip, thank you so much,” she said, laughing. “Thank you, Philip. Thank you so much. Absolutely brilliant. Her hair is fabulous.”
Though the moment was certainly memorable, Philip is far from the first person to get the two Michelle Williamses switched around. With both women working in the entertainment industry since the 1990s, countless others have gotten their identical names confused over the years.
The “Unexpected” artist has been starring in Death Becomes Her since the show opened in New York City in November. On the very first night of performances, her former bandmates Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland came out to Lunt-Fontanne Theatre to cheer her on. Film star Michelle is currently promoting her Hulu miniseries Dying for Sex.
See Michelle Williams Squared meet up below.
Good Friday might be a religious holiday, but it also aptly describes the quality batch of new songs that dropped at the end of this week. The final New Music Friday before Easter 2025 found several major stars dropping fresh new tracks, including Lana Del Rey, who rings in the spring holiday with a gorgeous […]
PinkPantheress announced Friday (April 18) that she’ll release her new single “Stateside” next Friday, April 25. She partnered with [untitled], which describes itself as “a sacred place for your work-in-progress music,” to tease a snippet of the track while depicting “an accurate representation of how me and my friends listen to this song,” the English […]