Bill Maher is set to receive the 2026 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at a June 28 gala in the concert hall of The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, the official name (for now at least) of the cultural landmark in Washington, D.C.

Maher will be the 27th recipient of the award; the first since board voted on Dec. 18 to adopt the new name. The program will stream exclusively on Netflix for the third consecutive year on a date to be announced.

“Thank you to the Mark Twain people: I just had the award explained to me, and apparently it’s like an Emmy, except I win,” Maher said in a statement. “I’d just like to say that it is indeed humbling to get anything named for a man who’s been thrown out of as many school libraries as Mark Twain.”

As his quip implies, Maher has indeed lost dozens of times at the Primetime Emmys. He has received 42 nominations over the years but has won just once – as an executive producer of the HBO series Vice. He lost 11 times for his breakout series Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher and an astounding 19 times for the subsequent Real Time With Bill Maher.

In addition to his 42 Primetime Emmy nods, Maher has received two Grammy nods, both for the audiobooks of two of his best-selling books. He was nominated for best spoken word album for When You Ride Alone You Ride With Bin Laden in 2004 and New Rules – Polite Musings From a Timid Observer in 2007. He lost both times.

Maher, 70, will be the oldest recipient of the Mark Twain Prize since David Letterman, who was also 70 when he was honored in 2017. The oldest-ever recipient was Carol Burnett, who was 80 when she was honored in 2013.

The June 28 event is being held more than three months later in the calendar year than last year’s presentation to Conan O’Brien, which was held on March 23, 2025. The event will be held in the same venue – only the name has been changed.

The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor recognizes individuals who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to the 19th-century novelist and essayist Samuel Clemens, colloquially known as Mark Twain. Previous recipients are Richard Pryor (1998), Jonathan Winters (1999), Carl Reiner (2000), Whoopi Goldberg (2001), Bob Newhart (2002), Lily Tomlin (2003), Lorne Michaels (2004), Steve Martin (2005), Neil Simon (2006), Billy Crystal (2007), George Carlin (2008), Bill Cosby (2009; rescinded in 2018), Tina Fey (2010), Will Ferrell (2011), Ellen DeGeneres (2012), Carol Burnett (2013), Jay Leno (2014), Eddie Murphy (2015), Bill Murray (2016), David Letterman (2017), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (2018), Dave Chappelle (2019), Jon Stewart (2022), Adam Sandler (2023), Kevin Hart (2024), and Conan O’Brien (2025). The event was created by Bob Kaminsky, Peter Kaminsky, Mark Krantz, and John Schreiber. 

Maher was born in New York City and raised in River Vale, N.J. He launched his career as a stand-up comedian in 1979. In 2022, Maher launched a new podcast, Club Random With Bill Maher. He has done 13 solo specials for HBO including last year’s Bill Maher: Is Anyone Else Seeing This? The special was nominated for a Golden Globe for best performance in stand-up comedy on television, but (as per usual for Maher at award shows), it lost.

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Florence Welch has partnered with Planned Parenthood to bring reproductive healthcare resources to fans who attend the next stretch of Florence + The Machine‘s ongoing tour.

As announced Monday (April 6), the organization will have tables stationed at multiple stops on the rock group’s Everybody Scream trek, at which affiliates will sit and speak with interested concertgoers about Planned Parenthood’s life-saving reproductive care. A release stresses the urgency of the initiative amid President Donald Trump’s second term and his administration’s anti-choice policies.

“Planned Parenthood health centers are a lifeline for millions of people, and they are relentlessly attacked,” Welch said in a statement. “Having access to a trusted provider is essential and also the difference between life and death. In this moment of uncertainty for our rights, I’m proud to support Planned Parenthood and create space on my tour for them to connect people with the care and information they need.”

“Florence Welch has long used her platform to speak out for reproductive freedom and care, including bravely sharing her personal experience with pregnancy loss,” added Caren Spruch, national director of arts and entertainment for Planned Parenthood. “Her new album, Everybody Scream, is a powerful testament to the importance of ensuring everyone can make decisions about their own bodies.”

After a month-long break, the trek is set to pick back up on Wednesday (April 8) for a North American leg. The Planned Parenthood partnership will launch that same day, with the group kicking off the run at Target Center in Minneapolis.

The tour initially kicked off in February to support Everybody Scream, which dropped this past October. The project peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, adding to Welch’s career tally of eight entries on the chart.

Shortly ahead of the album’s release, Welch opened up for the first time about her own personal experience with life-saving reproductive healthcare. In 2023, she had emergency surgery after suffering an ectopic pregnancy that caused her to miscarry, losing a fallopian tube in the process.

“The closest I came to making life was the closest I came to death,” she told The Guardian last September. “And I felt like I had stepped through this door, and it was just full of women, screaming.”

Planned Parenthood has established partnerships with multiple artists beyond Welch. Last year, the organization presented Olivia Rodrigo with its Catalyst of Change award to honor how she raised money for abortion funds on the Guts World Tour through her Fund 4 Good. Also in 2025, Harry Styles, Megan Thee Stallion, Gracie Abrams, Stevie Nicks, Cyndi Lauper and numerous other artists signed a letter of support for Planned Parenthood in response to Trump enacting a number of policies restricting access to reproductive healthcare, slashing public health programs and removing legal protections for reproductive healthcare clinics.

Lil Yachty is a die-hard wrestling fan, and he lived out every WWE fanatic’s dream during Friday night’s (April 3) episode of SmackDown when he stepped into the ring for the first time in St. Louis.

Lil Boat’s WWE debut came through an alliance with WWE superstar Trick Williams, as the rapper helped execute an attack on Sami Zayn during a promo. Yachty’s appearance seemed to draw positive reviews, while wrestling purists typically want the WWE to shy away from celebrity cameos.

The “One Night” rapper came across a “revised” WrestleMania poster mocking celebrities aligning with the WWE brand, which saw Yachty in the graphic sitting alongside streamer iShowSpeed, Jelly Roll, ESPN’s Pat McAfee and NFL legend Tom Brady with WWE’s head of creative, Triple H.

Yachty defended himself from backlash and fans trying to make it sound as if he’s not worthy of being associated with the brand, as Boat watches RAW and SmackDown “religiously” and attends live events across the U.S. regularly.

“i understand yall upset but don’t try and step on my f—king moment, i’m at the tv screen every monday and friday religiously,” he wrote to X while resharing the poster on Easter Sunday (April 5). “I’ve been to more ple’s than most. i probably know more history than most of yall. who’s to say i don’t deserve to be apart of something i love so dearly?”

However, much of the commentary around Yachty’s involvement looked to be positive reviews. “Lil Yachty was actually pretty entertaining on SmackDown,” a fan wrote on X. Another chimed in: “Ngl man nobody really mad at your involvement because it don’t feel forced, other celebs tho? We can’t say the same.”

Perhaps WWE fans are holding last year’s rap infiltration into wrestling against Yachty. Travis Scott played an integral role in the Cody Rhodes, The Rock and John Cena storyline through 2025’s WrestleMania. There was speculation La Flame reportedly had a “falling out” with WWE following his involvement.

Trick Williams invited Yachty to join him at WrestleMania 42, which will take place in Las Vegas once again on April 18 and April 19.

Watch Yachty’s appearance on SmackDown above.

Legal scholars are harshly criticizing Drake’s bid to revive his lawsuit over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” arguing that he cannot sue after he “consented” to the war of words — and that litigation over rap lyrics is “dangerous.”

Drake is currently appealing an October ruling that dismissed his case, which accused Universal Music Group (UMG) of defaming him by releasing Lamar’s Grammy-winning diss track that tarred him as a “certified pedophile.”

But according to law professors from Yale University, the case ought to stay dismissed. In a brief filed Friday (April 3), they say Drake clearly granted “consent” — not only for the exchange of diss tracks generally, but specifically by goading Lamar to rap about him “likin’ young girls.”

“Suppose a self-assured boxer challenges the world champion to a prize fight, is knocked out on live television, and, with bruised ego and body, files a lawsuit for battery,” the Yale scholars write. “That lawsuit would fail at the outset for a simple but important reason: the challenger consented to the fight, and consent is a classic defense to an intentional tort.”

Having given consent to the rhetorical bout — and having made his own bombastic claims about Lamar — Drake was not allowed to go to court when he lost, according to the professors. “Lamar won in the court of public opinion,” they say. “Having lost in that forum, Drake turned to another.”

Lamar released “Not Like Us” in May 2024 amid a war of words with Drake that saw the two UMG stars release a series of bruising diss tracks. The song, a knockout punch that blasted Drake as a “certified pedophile” over an infectious beat, became a chart-topping hit in its own right and won five Grammy Awards, including record and song of the year.

In January, Drake stunned the music business by taking UMG to court over the song, claiming his own label had defamed him by boosting its popularity. The lawsuit, which didn’t name Lamar himself as a defendant, alleged that UMG “waged a campaign” against its own artist to spread a “malicious narrative” about pedophilia that it knew to be false.

But just 10 months after Drake filed it, Judge Jeannette Vargas dismissed the case. Ruling that diss tracks are often filled with “figurative and hyperbolic language,” the judge said listeners would not have taken Kendrick’s insults as literal statements of fact.

With Drake currently appealing that ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, outside groups are now weighing in on the case — a common step in high-profile legal battles.

In addition to the Yale scholars, Friday also saw the filing of a separate brief from a group of scholars who have extensively studied the use of rap lyrics as evidence in criminal cases — a controversial tactic sometimes employed by prosecutors. Urging the judge to reject Drake’s case, they warned that his approach would lend fuel to the fire.

“Drake’s defamation claim rests on the assumption that every word of ‘Not Like Us’ should be taken literally, as a factual representation,” the professors write. “This assumption is not just faulty — it is dangerous. When rap lyrics are admitted, it is because they are treated as literal. This in turn opens the door to racial bias and stereotypes in the courtroom.”

The brief’s signatories include Erik Nielson, a University of Richmond professor who wrote a book on rap lyrics in criminal cases; Charis E. Kubrin and Jack I. Lerner, professors at the University of California, Irvine, who conducted widely-cited empirical studies of rap in trials; and prominent professors from several other schools who have studied the issue.

“Diss tracks are an emblematic and long-standing feature of the history and cultural context of rap,” they write. “They are understood by audiences not to represent factual assertions about the opposing artist, but rather to demonstrate skill and dominance meant to build allegiance and win competitions through clever wordplay, hyperbole, bluster, and demonstrations of disrespect.”

Both Drake and UMG have already filed their own briefs in the case (read more about Drake’s here, and UMG’s here.) The case will be argued before the appeals court in the months ahead, with a ruling expected at some point in the next year. An attorney for Drake did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday’s amicus briefs.

Bad Bunny‘s first Asia show at Spotify’s star-studded Billions Club in Tokyo will arrive on the platform — and soon. Spotify announced on Monday (April 6) that the release date for the one-night event will be April 8.

Billions Club Live With Bad Bunny: A Concert Film will show the Puerto Rican superstar delivering 17 of his biggest hits — including “DtMF,” “Baile Involvidable,” “Nuevalyol” and “EOO” — at Tipstar Dome Chiba on March 7, almost a month after his headline performance at Super Bowl LX.

The show — Spotify’s first Billions Club Live in the region — also debuted a salsa version of his reggaetón hit “MIA” from 2018, featuring guest appearances by Puerto Rican musicians Los Pleneros de la Cresta and Los Sobrinos. Other highlights included “Yonaguni,” during which fans sang along to the Japanese lyrics, and a surprise appearance by Jowell & Randy for “Safaera.”

The evening opened and closed with music provided by DJ Nasthug, while BLACKPINK‘s LISA and contemporary artist Takashi Murakami were among the celebrities in attendance.

With 29 songs that have surpassed one billion streams on Spotify, Bad Bunny has been shattering numerous records in recent months. In February, he landed a record-breaking 29 simultaneous titles on Billboard‘s Hot Latin Songs chart, including the entire top 25, while also bagging the top spot on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100.

Furthermore, his Super Bowl LX Halftime Show was the most watched of all time. According to coproducer Roc Nation, Benito’s history-making performance set a global viewership record with 4.157 billion worldwide views in the first 24 hours across global and U.S. broadcasts, as well as YouTube and other digital properties.

Watch a teaser of Billions Club Live With Bad Bunny: A Concert Film below: