Zayn Malik, Sheryl Crow, Scarlett Johansson and many other stars are asking Congress for just “One Thing”: Don’t cut funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Medicaid in the federal budget bill, which the Senate is expected to vote on as soon as this week.

Celebrities from various fields joined non-profit group Feeding America — which runs a network of food banks to help those in need access healthy food with the goal of ending food insecurity — to sign an open letter urging politicians to reject the cuts to SNAP and Medicaid that are currently included in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” According to CBS News, the new work requirements in the House Republicans’ bill would mean that an estimated 16 million people may become uninsured by 2034.

The bill had also proposed shifting some costs of food stamps from the federal government to the states, but according to the Associated Press, the Senate parliamentarian said that such a move would violate the chamber’s rules; these rulings are not often ignored. NPR reports that the bill would also cut more than $290 million from SNAP. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that should the bill pass, the poorest families would see a decrease in resources by about $1,600 a year, while the richest would gain about $12,000.

“Food is a beautiful way humans show care, compassion and love to those around us. It’s a fundamental part of the human experience and a basic right we all deserve,” the open letter from Feeding America and endorsed by celebrities notes, adding that millions of Americans rely on SNAP and Medicaid to help make ends meet. “Congress is now considering a bill that would make some of the largest cuts to SNAP and Medicaid in U.S. history – taking 9.5 billions of meals a year through SNAP off the table and pushing hundreds of thousands of people off Medicaid and into food insecurity.”

“This is unacceptable and wrong. It is not how people in this country treat each other when facing hard times,” the letter continues.

In addition to the former One Direction member, “All I Wanna Do” singer and Oscar-nominated actress, stars of stage, screen and music including Alan Cumming, Matt Damon, Michelle Williams, David Arquette, Chrishell Stause, Paul Scheer and Danai Gurira signed the open letter to Congress.

Read the letter in full below:

Dear Members of Congress,

We all have powerful memories of sharing meals with friends, with family and even with strangers in moments of celebration, grief or everything in between. Food is a beautiful way humans show care, compassion and love to those around us. It’s a fundamental part of the human experience and a basic right we all deserve.

Ongoing high grocery costs mean food is out of reach for so many families, and many of our neighbors simply do not have enough to eat. They don’t know where their next meal is coming from or if that meal will be enough to nourish and sustain them.

Millions of people in this country, including an estimated 15.5 million children and 7.2 million seniors, rely on programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid to make ends meet. These programs make it possible for them to live more healthily and with dignity, in turn helping communities across America to thrive.

Congress is now considering a bill that would make some of the largest cuts to SNAP and Medicaid in U.S. history – taking 9.5 billions of meals a year through SNAP off the table and pushing hundreds of thousands of people off Medicaid and into food insecurity.

This is unacceptable and wrong. It is not how people in this country treat each other when facing hard times.

We call on Congress to reject cuts to these vital programs that help millions put food on their tables and provide access to health care.

It’s hard enough for most artists to find one breakout hit, let alone two surging up the Billboard charts in tandem. But for 19-year-old alt-rock artist born Shane Boose, he’s struck gold in recent months: The piano-forward “Back to Friends” became his first Billboard Hot 100 entry on April 12; and just a week later, he added a second thanks to the pop-leaning “Undressed.” The former single arrived in the final days of 2024 before ultimately accruing its following this spring, while the latter came out as the buzz started to take hold.

“‘Back to Friends’ was just starting to see some success [when I created ‘Undressed’], which I think made me a bit more confident with the music I was making,” says Sombr.

And as the hits continue to grow — with “Back to Friends” spending a third week at No. 1 on Alternative Airplay and “Undressed” climbing back up to No. 29 on the Hot 100 — so have Sombr’s stages. Following a few festival dates this summer, he’ll begin a North American leg of The Late Nights & Young Romance Tour across the country, including several dates with venue upgrades that have since sold out. He’ll then round out the year performing in Australia and New Zealand.

“I love meeting new people in new countries every day and I’m glad that these songs have given me the ability to do so,” he says. “Road life is a life I want to live for a very long time.”

Below, the singer-songwriter reflects on making “Undressed,” how his hits have impacted the stakes when releasing new music, potential Grammy buzz and more.

How was “Undressed” created?

I made “Undressed” late one night when I was feeling not so good, as I feel when I create my favorite songs. I started by producing some drums and laying those down on the track, and then I recorded that guitar bassline that you hear in that intro and throughout the song. From there, I recorded that guitar riff in the intro and post-chorus. (Sings.)

It’s not every day that I listen back to a melody that I’ve made and really feel what I felt. From there, the first verse, the chorus and the second verse came very easily — it was all done that same night. The next day I produced out the rest a little bit more; I wrote the bridge in about five minutes and recorded that. I had about 75% of a production — all the vocals are recorded, all the guitars are recorded, the drums are recorded.

I leaked the song online, and it was the greatest initial response I’ve ever had from a leak. The song wasn’t even finished yet, so we had to scramble. I brought it into Sound City [Studios] in Van Nuys, [Calif.] to my amazing collaborator Tony Berg. We did finishing touches there, added some atmospheric stuff, made the drums hit harder, made the transitions flow — a lot of synths in the bridge. When we listened back, I knew we had something special.

Your two biggest hits are exploding simultaneously, with “Back To Friends” spending a third week at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Alternative Airplay chart this week. As someone who has been releasing music for several years already, how did you prepare for this kind of moment?

There’s nothing that can prepare you for something like this. It’s absolutely unreal. As a kid, growing up with alternative music, raised by alternative music, it feels like a dream to be No. 1 at alternative radio and have these songs transferring into pop. Honestly, it’s all so new to me, I don’t really know how to navigate it and I’m still figuring it out — but one thing I do know is that I’m so honored. [I’m] taking it day by day, and all I want to do is take this platform that I’ve been given and make more — as much as I can until I drop dead.

You’re touring throughout 2025, including dates with venue upgrades. What have been your biggest takeaways from life on the road?

It’s the most fun life experience an artist can go through. If you’re an artist, I highly urge you to try to tour at one point in your career. I’m so grateful to be playing shows, whether it’s a venue upgrade or the smallest room in a city. It’s what I love to do. But the road also has down sides: It can be lonely in a different hotel room in a different bed every night. You can disassociate, but then that hour that you’re onstage always feels like the best hour you’ve had in your life yet — until you do it again the next night.

What’s the wildest thing that has happened at a show so far?

Me chipping my tooth not once but twice at two separate shows — and one of them was the day after I got my tooth fixed, which is just crazy. I hope to have many more of those in the coming years because that means I’m doing a lot of touring, and that’s what I love to do.

What do conversations surrounding new music sound like right now?

There’s always a part of having “hits” that puts pressure on you, but I try to block that out. Every time I’m feeling it, I remember why I got into it and why I made those songs. I didn’t make them to have hits; I made them because I was feeling something and I needed an escape. I needed to pour my thoughts and feelings out, and when I put them out, I received so many messages and people telling me after shows that the music has been therapeutic for them, which is exactly what it was for me.

I don’t think the music I’ve made will impact the album, really. I think the music I’ve made has definitely given me the confidence to do what I want and make what I feel is true to myself because that’s what those songs were. I can’t say much, but there’s definitely an album on the horizon.

Though it’s only June, it’s never too early to start speculating about Grammy buzz for 2026. Have you given any thought to your name being in the best new artist conversation?

It’s a big compliment to even be asked that or a part of that conversation, but I haven’t really put much thought into it, to be honest. If I were to receive a nomination, it would be a great honor. But I’m just making music and taking it day by day.

A version of this story appears in the June 21, 2025, issue of Billboard.

Billboard announced the first round of artists confirmed for 2025 Billboard Latin Music Week, returning to The Fillmore Miami Beach in October.

Among the star-studded names are Carín León, Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Goyo, Grupo 5, Kapo, Laura Pausini, Luis R. Conriquez, Myke Towers, Netón Vega, Ozuna, and Venesti, with additional talent to be announced soon.  

Taking place from October 20 to 24, 2025, at the historic Fillmore Miami Beach, Billboard Latin Music Week is recognized as the most influential week in Latin music and has been hailed as the birthplace for some of the industry’s biggest stars. Spanning over 30 years, the event will once again celebrate the heartbeat of Latin music and culture with four days of panels, marquee conversations, roundtables, showcases, networking and activations. In addition, Latin Music Week will once again bring its celebrated En Vivo shows to the city. Tickets are on sale now at BillboardLatinMusicWeek.com. The full schedule and lineup will be revealed in the coming weeks.

“For over 30 years, Billboard Latin Music Week has helped shape culture and elevate Latin music on a global stage,” said Mike Van, CEO of Billboard. “We’re proud to welcome this year’s standout talent as we continue driving the conversation forward.”

Leila Cobo, Billboard’s Chief Content Officer, Latin/Español, added: “Latin music’s growth and influence continues, unabated, and we are thrilled to celebrate it with its leaders. We are excited to once again bring the most iconic event in Latin music to the hub of Latin music: Miami.”

Over the past three decades, Latin Music Week has become the one steady foundation of Latin music in this country, becoming the single most important — and biggest — gathering of Latin artists and industry executives in the world. Last year’s sold-out events brought together some of the biggest names in Latin music, featuring star-studded conversations with artists like Peso Pluma, J Balvin, Alejandro Sanz, Young Miko, Thalia, Pepe Aguilar, JOP of Fuerza Regida and Belinda.

The 2025 Billboard Latin Music Week — returning to Miami Beach for a fifth consecutive year — kicks off Monday, Oct. 20 and wraps on Friday, Oct. 24 with a celebration concert. The event also coincides with the 2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards, set to air on Thursday, Oct. 23 on Telemundo and Peacock.

Billboard has also teamed up with State Farm® for En Vivo, a live concert with talent to be announced, and the New York State Lottery, which is sending select lottery winners to Latin Music Week, and is hosting an exclusive Welcome Reception. More partners will be announced soon.
For more information on Billboard Latin Music Week and ticket sales, visit BillboardLatinMusicWeek.com.

One day several months ago in Culver City, California, orchestral musicians filed into the Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage at Sony Pictures Studios unsure of what awaited them on their music stands.

“They come in, and they see the Wizard of Oz sheet music,” recalls Grammy Award-winning music supervisor Julianne Jordan. “They were all freaking out. They all came up to me and were like, ‘We never thought we’d ever be playing this — let alone playing this here.’”

The Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage is hallowed ground in the world of film scoring. Countless soundtracks have been recorded there — beginning with The Wizard Of Oz, in 1939. Now, nearly a century later, another orchestra was re-recording the score, for a film experience that aims to be as groundbreaking as the original movie once was.

Jordan supervised music for The Wizard of Oz at Sphere, the Las Vegas venue’s ambitious first foray into licensing — and modernizing — an existing film property for Sphere’s towering screen and cutting-edge audio system. Along with a team comprised of some of contemporary Hollywood’s best musical minds — including Oscar-nominated composer David Newman and Oscar-winning engineer Shawn Murphy — Jordan was instrumental in figuring out how, exactly, to bring Oz‘s score to life in a venue that its original creators could’ve never dreamed of.

For the same reason an old cassette tape might sound bad on high-end home audio equipment, Sphere, with its advanced technology, couldn’t simply press play on the original version of Oz. That meant augmenting the original visual component (including with the use of AI), but also reconstructing the film’s audio for Sphere Immersive Sound, in some cases from the ground up.

“It would be a huge miss to do this film as a 1939 optical audio track,” says Paul Freeman, who as vp and principal audio artist at Sphere Studios, the division overseeing the Oz project, touches “everything that makes noise in the venue.”

When it came to the score, the solution — re-record it — was deceptively complex. About a year and a half ago, when the project began gathering steam, Sphere’s team brought orchestras of different sizes to the venue, arranging them in various physical formats simply to see how orchestras sounded within its dimensions. Then, as recording commenced, the team divided the ensemble into component sections — “not unheard-of” in today’s filmmaking, Jordan says, but not common either — to record them separately, which would make the audio easier to manipulate in Sphere later. “When everybody’s in the room playing together, there’s a fluidity that you don’t get when you’re just playing in sections,” Freeman says, though Jordan notes that because Murphy “has done it before, he knew how to put it all together.”

This separation didn’t only allow the Sphere team to render the score in unprecedented clarity — it also provided narrative benefits. “An example is when the Tin Man sways back and forth,” says Freeman. “We’re taking the strings that are orchestrationally augmenting that, and we’re positionally augmenting that with him. The strings are playing, mimicking his movement [musically], but now we’re physically moving it in space [throughout the venue] at the same time. We do that several times in the film.”

When re-recording the score — originally captured in mono — musicians played in the era’s style of film music, using then-common techniques such as pizzicato and vibrato; the ocarina used for the original “If I Only Had a Brain” recording was used again this time around.

Sphere licensed the orchestral compositions from Sony Music Publishing, as opposed to the original vocal parts, for which it licensed the original masters from Warner Bros. Those vocals — not to mention all the other sounds heard in the film — presented both challenges and opportunities for Sphere’s team.

When remastering classic albums, audio professionals often face a dilemma: modernizing a recording too thoroughly can make it sound conspicuously, even distractingly, different from the original. This held true for Oz, which is at times defined by the era’s audio primitiveness. “You’re used to hearing the [Wicked] Witch sound bad,” Freeman says. “If you try and fix that too much, it doesn’t sound like the film anymore. It sounds correct sonically, but it doesn’t sound like The Wizard of Oz. We’ve all heard this film so often that you have to be true to that.”

The answer, he explains, was “just a bunch of smart guys with really good ears trying to get this stuff in the venue to sound correct.”

But fidelity concerns aside, Sphere’s team had the freedom to conceptualize what Oz‘s original creators might have done with the audio if they’d had access to Sphere. It’s not just orchestra following the Tin Man across the venue as he sways back and forth — it’s the way dialogue follows characters as they move across the screen, or how amidst the tornado’s swirl, the main orchestra remains centered while audio motifs move in tandem with the objects and people in the gale force wind. “Point blank, when you walk into this venue and minutes into the film the tornado happens, hold on to your wig, because you’re in it,” Freeman says.

Sphere’s capacity for immersive, 4D experiences have been a selling point — the venue hasn’t elaborated further, but promises “environmental effects and custom scents” during the Oz show — and that extends to the infrasound system running through the venue’s seats, which Freeman points out are actually speakers that activate when the seats are down.

“One of the things that our chairman [James Dolan] has wanted to do with our infrasound system since the beginning was make it emotional,” he says. “So, there are certain identifiable things that we’re doing, not necessarily to grab your attention to it, but to make certain components more special.” For instance, the Sphere team applied backward reverb to the Wicked Witch’s dialogue to create an almost imperceptible but unsettling feeling; it’s just one of the subtle ways they’re manipulating dialogue to elicit emotional responses from fans, and the first time Sphere has used its seats not only to vibrate, but to emit tones.

On paper, all this change might make an Oz superfan a little trepidatious — something the Sphere team and its colleagues at Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services considered at every turn. For both the audio and visual aspects of the film, they combed through footage and archival materials and notes to understand where the original filmmakers were coming from.

“We all approached it with a lot of reverence,” says Sphere Studios head Carolyn Blackwood, who joined the company about a year ago, after nearly 25 years as an executive at Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. “The choices we made were done with the idea of the purity of the original film — always with the intention to get to the clarity and the original intent of what existed there, but couldn’t have been done back then, because the technology didn’t exist.”

In fact, modern audio advancements — from the techniques employed to Sphere’s audio system — have also helped to clarify certain aspects of the original film. “Most people are used to hearing this on their TV,” says Jordan, who recounts sitting in recording sessions and hearing cues she never knew existed in the score, including a snippet of Mussorgsky’s Night On Bald Mountain that’s woven into scenes at the Wicked Witch’s castle.

As for Oz‘s most well-known musical moment, Judy Garland‘s performance of “Over The Rainbow,” Freeman says, “This is the definitive, all-time, greatest version that you will ever, ever hear. The track is all around you. It’s a perfect piece of audio.”

To Blackwood, the project is in keeping with Oz‘s broader cultural legacy. When she arrived at Sphere, the project was already in development, and naturally she asked why the team had settled on Oz, rather than another classic film. The answer she received was twofold: The cultural ubiquity was a factor, sure, but so was Oz’s spot in the evolution of cinema. “When Wizard of Oz was done in 1939, it was a technological marvel,” she says. “It made sense that, once again, this 1939 movie would break new ground.”

Nine-year-old rapper King Moore made a major impression on America’s Got Talent this week, earning a standing ovation and four yeses from the judges following an electric performance of his original track “Pen Game.”

In an early release clip from Season 20, Episode 5 of AGT, the pint-sized performer took the stage with confidence well beyond his years.

Before launching into his high-energy set, Moore introduced himself and shared his big dreams: starring in movies, traveling the world, and one day having his own TV show. If he wins the million-dollar prize, he told the judges he’d take his family on a cruise.

Then came his self-penned song “Pen Game,” which Moore wrote at just six years old. With a hyped-up crowd already on their feet at his request, the rapper delivered rapid-fire bars with remarkable clarity and charisma. The judges smiled, danced in their chairs, and ultimately gave the young star a standing ovation.

Mel B praised Moore for having “so much swag and rhythm and confidence,” while Sofia Vergara called him a star in the making. Simon Cowell was equally impressed, calling the performance “brilliant.” All four judges voted to send Moore through to the next round, bringing his father to tears backstage.

King wasn’t the only act to make waves during the night’s auditions. Roller-skating aerial duo Stardust earned Sofia Vergara’s Golden Buzzer after dazzling the audience with their fireworks-filled performance, while Kentucky trucker Bill Taylor and his band The Appalachian Heathens wowed the judges with a soulful rendition of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”

Other standouts included magician Alain Simonov, who earned praise for his sleek sleight-of-hand routine, and the Benn Family Band, who delivered a moving cover of Lauren Daigle’s “Rescue” in the wake of losing their home in the January 2025 Altadena wildfires. Comedian Shuler King also brought the laughs with material about his day job as a mortician.

But it was King Moore’s performance that stole the spotlight—and social media buzz—heading into the next round.

America’s Got Talent airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on NBC and streams the next day on Peacock.