Zach Bryan fans might be excited for his new music, but certain United States government officials definitely aren’t.

More specifically, Tricia McLaughlin — the assistant secretary of public affairs to the Department of Homeland Security — isn’t happy with the country singer-songwriter’s lyric about the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a new song teaser he posted recently to Instagram. The line in question finds Bryan lamenting, “And ICE is gonna come bust down your door.”

In response, McLaughlin told TMZ on Tuesday (Oct. 7) that Bryan should “stick to ‘Pink Skies,’” referring to the musician’s 2024 top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

Billboard has reached out to Bryan’s rep and the Dept. of Homeland Security for comment.

The DHS official’s comments come four days after the Grammy winner posted the snippet of an unreleased song, which he captioned, “the fading of the red white and blue.”

“I heard the cops came/ Cocky motherf–kers, ain’t they?” Bryan sings on the full verse in question. “And ICE is gonna come bust down your door/ Try to build a house no one builds no more/ But I got a telephone/ Kids are all scared and all alone … The middle finger’s rising, and it won’t stop showing/ Got some bad news/ The fading of the red, white and blue.”

The lyrics quickly sparked backlash from supporters of the Donald Trump administration’s forceful crackdowns on immigration by way of mass deportations carried out by ICE raids in different parts of the U.S. On the other hand, Bryan’s song aligns him with numerous other musicians who have spoken up against the country’s treatment of immigrants this past year.

One of those stars is Bad Bunny, who was recently unveiled as the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show performer. The news also got a response from the DHS, with adviser Corey Lewandowski saying that ICE agents will be present for the Puerto Rican rapper’s performance at the big game.

“There is nowhere you can provide safe haven to people who are in this country illegally,” Lewandowski’s said on The Benny Show on Oct. 1. “Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else.”

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No, the title isn’t clickbait: Labubus are on sale, however they’re not on sale for Amazon Prime day.

It is Amazon Prime Day today, Oct. 7, till Oct. 8th and while you can’t get deals on Labubu’s via Amazon, you can with Walmart. That’s right. The stuffed collectible is currently on supersale with prices starting at 43% off.

Thanks to Walmart’s partnership with online marketplace StockX, the Labubus they have in stock are certified real, and they’re going fast. The trending plushie can be purchased within blind boxes, leaving your purchase up to chance, or solo on Walmart’s website. Created by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung, these little monsters made their first appearance back in 2015.

The figure’s viral moment didn’t happen until way later in April of 2024 when K-Pop star Lisa from the world-renouned girl group BLACKPINK was seen sporting the fluffy figure attached to her Louis Vuitton bag. Since Lisa’s introduction, we’ve seen stars like Rihanna, Dua Lipa, Kim Kardashian, Rosé, David Beckham, Lizzo, Madonna, BTS, Cher and Lady Gaga toting their Labubus with pride, sometimes multiples at once, affixed to bags, keys and even made into birthday cakes.

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Usually, you’ll be getting a plushie figure with colorful faux-fur and vinyl appendages. The Labubu is affixed to a keyring, so you’ll be able to accessorize your bags to your heart’s content. We’ve also found alternative Labubu styles, including phone charms and displayable figures sans the fluff. Pricing on these Labubu’s oftentimes depends on the demand and series they fall under. To break it down even further, a “series” is a theme that the blind box is based on. Sweet treats like macarons are one of the themes, reflected in the Labubu’s coloring, while the “Big Into Energy” series is themed based on emotions and feelings like happiness, hope, luck and love, among others.

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If you didn’t know, blind boxes are a global phenomenon that centers around cute figures and collectibles. These figures are packaged in a box, usually with images on it depicting all the figures you’re able to get from a specific series. You won’t know what you’ll get until you pop open the box. Upon purchasing your blind box, you’ll usually also have the opportunity to get a secret figure not found on the side of the box. The chances of pulling a secret are rare but not impossible. In fact, I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes. It’s pretty magical.

The blind box world is borderline addicting, like a more fun and less detrimental version of gambling. It’s all about the heart-pounding thrill of not knowing what you’ll get out of a select few items. Labubus weren’t the first blind box items to go mega viral. You’ve also got Sonny Angel, cherub-like figures invented by Toru Soeya, along with little green figures called Smiski, also created by Soeya. Peach Riot, Calico Critters, CryBaby, Smoko, Hirono and Lulu the Piggy are just a few other hit blind box series you can find on the market right now.

Pop Mart also launched their The Monsters-Cheers! Series, which is a blind box that features a double-walled glass inside. You have the option to pull six different colorful cups featuring a Labubu motif, along with one secret. The innovation is one we haven’t seen from the blind box world until now.

In between her furious baking schedule, attending Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco’s wedding last month, releasing half a dozen variations on her The Life of a Showgirl album and, it seems safe to assume, beginning to plan her own wedding to fiancé Travis Kelce, it’s hard to imagine Taylor Swift has a lot of free time.

But on Monday night (Oct. 6), during a lightning round of questions on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon asked her to name the last song by any singer (not including herself) that she’s listened to lately and Swift, 35, was right there with the answer. “Oh, Tate McRae has a great new song called ‘Tit For Tat,’ you gotta listen to it,” she said. “Like, full volume, over and over again on repeat. It’s just so good.”

As you might imagine, McRae, 22, had a totally chill, not at all freaking out response to the high praise from the high priestess of pop. “Oh my Godddddddddd [7 eyes welled with tears emoji, six crying emoji] whaaaaaaaaaaat,” McRae wrote on her Instagram Story on Tuesday morning (Oct. 7) over not one, but two different grabs of the video from the Swift shout out.

The song was released last month as a stand-alone single after first being teased on McRae’s Miss Possessive tour. Though McRae has not made any public comment on the title or the lyrics, the loosie single dropped two months after she ended her one-year relationship with singer The Kid LAROI. The latter revealed the split as part of a July post denying rumors that his team had seeded negative posts about McRae online to help promote his then-new single, “Hot Girl Problems.”

LAROI then released “A Cold Play” in early September, a song that appears to reference their breakup with lyrics including, “Who was I to think that I could fix you, baby?/ Who would I be if I didn’t miss you, baby? I hope that you know you were appreciated/ Around my house, I still got up all of our pictures, baby/ ‘Cause I still love you, that’s how I feel at my core/ Flew different states to come see you in between tour/ I gave you everything I had and even more.”

McRae’s “T4T” also seems to address the break on the first verse, where she sings, “The day I met you, boy, I thought it was a blessing/ In the heat of it, I always took your side/ It’s a shame you out here tryna make it messy/ Wow, you’re messy, damn/ We wеre good, I thought we made it through thе ending/ I was hearing s–t I never thought you’d say.”

The pre-chorus gets even spicier, with McRae playfully throwing down the gauntlet in a most Swiftian manner as she challenges, “Let’s go song for song, let’s go back to back/ Let’s go tit for tat, boy, you asked for that/ That’s the best you got, where’s the good one at?/ I was never as far away as you thought.” The song is already shaping up to be one of McRae’s biggest solo hits to date, debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending Saturday (Oct. 11); she hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 in May thanks to her feature on Morgan Wallen’s “What I Want.”

Earlier this week, Swift told SiriusXM’s Morning Mash-Up that McRae was one of the three artists she’s “constantly streaming” at home, also name-dropping Sabrina Carpenter and sombr.

Watch the “T4T” lyric video below.

Taylor Swift isn’t vying for a Grammy nomination in any category this year. The reason, of course, is that Swift didn’t release an album, single or video in the eligibility period for the 68th annual Grammy Awards – Aug. 31, 2024 to Aug. 30, 2025. Her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, and its lead single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” were both released on Oct. 3, more than a month after the cut-off for the 2026 awards.

This marks the first time Swift hasn’t been vying for a Grammy she was 17. For the Grammy ceremony in February 2007, Swift was eligible for best country song and best female country vocal performance for her first hit single, “Tim McGraw,” but she wasn’t entered in either category. (She may have still been too busy with her high school studies to have mastered the fine points of Grammy entry deadlines.)

Swift has been a nominee in all but three years since then. She wasn’t nominated at the ceremonies held in 2009, 2011 and 2017, but she had been entered in two or more categories at each of those shows.

Swift’s debut album, Taylor Swift, wasn’t nominated for best country album at the 2008 ceremony (though it was entered; the award went to Vince Gill for These Days), but every one of her regular studio albums since then has been nominated for a genre album award (best country album or best pop vocal album) and/or album of the year.

Twice, she was nominated for record of the year with the lead-off single from an upcoming studio album – “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” from Red and “Shake It Off” from 1989.

Starting with “Cardigan” from Folklore in 2020, Swift hasn’t released a lead-off single in advance of her studio albums. The lead singles from Folklore, Evermore, Midnights, The Tortured Poets Department and The Life of a Showgirl were released on the same day as the album, or even a few days after it (in the case of “Cardigan”).

Swift has won 14 Grammys, and is, famously, the only artist in Grammy history to win album of the year four times.

But Swift didn’t win the first time she was nominated for a Grammy. She lost best new artist in 2008 to the gifted but troubled Amy Winehouse. Swift did make it to the stage that year – as a presenter. She and Colombian singer Juanes co-presented the Grammy for best rap/sung collaboration, which went to Rihanna and Jay-Z for “Umbrella.” Relive that moment here:

Even Taylor Swift still can’t believe she’s engaged, much less that fiancé Travis Kelce designed the perfect diamond ring for her while keeping it a secret for a “really long time” before he proposed.

During a Monday night (Oct. 6) interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show, the pop star gushed about how the Kansas City Chiefs tight end pulled off his August proposal, marveling at the glitziness of her own ring while flashing it to the audience. “That’s crazy! That is crazy,” she exclaimed. “I look at it constantly.”

“He had it for a really long time before he gave it to me, too,” Swift continued of the cushion-cut diamond band, which Kelce designed with jeweler Kindred Lubeck. “It doesn’t feel in any way normal for me. I’m just sort of like, ‘Oh, man! Woah!’ But it’s more than that.”

“He’s just my favorite person I’ve ever met — no offense to everyone else,” she added, prompting a big “Awww” from the studio audience. “The fact that this is the person I get to hang out with every day forever, that’s the whole thing of it. You look at that, and you’re like, ‘I get to hang out with him forever.’ [The ring] represents that.” 

Swift’s appearance on The Tonight Show comes a couple of months after the 14-time Grammy winner said “Yes” to Kelce, something they announced in late August on Instagram. “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” they wrote at the time.

In the weeks since, the couple has been sharing more details about the proposal, with the football player previously revealing that he had it set up while Swift was recording her episode of New Heights with him and his brother, Jason Kelce. On the show, the singer announced her new album The Life of a Showgirl and opened up about her love of sourdough. All the while, the enchanted garden where Travis would get down on one knee was being assembled outside of his and Swift’s house.

“I think for Travis, the podcast was just sort of a distraction, [a] sort of ruse, to keep me not looking out the windows of the house,” she told Fallon, laughing. “There was fully blackout drapes on every single window of the whole house. And I was like, ‘He is so secretive about [the podcast], and I really appreciate that.’” 

“Then afterward, I kind of realized, he’s walking around sort of nervous,” Swift added. “He’s like, ‘My heart is racing, I just really want — I know how much this means to you.’”

Later in her conversation with Fallon, the Eras Tour headliner addressed rumors about her — including whether she turned down the 2026 Super Bowl Halftime Show and what she did or did not say while giving a speech at Selena Gomez’s recent wedding to Benny Blanco.

Watch her full interview on the late-night show above.