Resorts World NYC, which partnered with Nas, received unanimous approval in a 6-0 vote from the Community Advisory Board to bring its $5.5 billion casino to Queens.

Following Thursday’s (Sept. 25) victory, the Resorts World project is now on the 1-yard line, awaiting a final approval decision from the Gaming Facility Location Board.

Resorts World officials hope the Southeast Queens casino will open doors by July 2026, and the Aqueduct Park project is expected to be one of the largest in the U.S. at 350,000 square feet.

“On behalf of the entire Resorts World team, I want to thank the Community Advisory Committee for recognizing the impact we will have not only on Queens but all of New York City and State,” said Robert DeSalvio, who serves as the president of Genting Americas East. “We are incredibly grateful to the large number of residents, partners, and supporters who touted this project, without a single person speaking against it. This is a testament to our mission – solidified over the last 15 years – to be the best neighbor possible here in Queens.”

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. even took a shot at Jay-Z, after Roc Nation’s proposal was struck down by the CAC last week, which has all but killed Hov’s hopes of building a casino in Times Square.

“There’s a theme in Queens, and I know that Nas was a part of this: Queens get the money. Sorry, Jay-Z, we win again,” Richards quipped. “You can let the Brooklyn borough president know that I send my regards to him.”

Along with a state-of-the-art casino and 30 eateries, Resorts World will open a 7,000-person capacity entertainment venue to bring concerts, games and events to the area.

According to Covers, NBA champion Kenny “The Jet” Smith will help bring a sports and media complex to the Resorts World campus.

The Resorts World project hopes to bring 24,000 new jobs to Queens and $1 million in new revenue during its first year of operation.

Resorts World wasn’t the only bid to hear good news, as MGM Empire Casino’s bid to transform its racino to a full-service casino in Yonkers was also approved, meaning there’s one gaming license remaining for New York.

“This is an ambitious project that will give new opportunities to the hard-working families who call Queens home, attract top-tier talent, and build up the next generation of leaders,” Nas said in March 2024 when he came on board with Resorts World. “Clearly, with this project, the world is ours.”

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that he says will allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States in a way that meets national security concerns laid out by the law.

President Joe Biden signed legislation last year calling for China’s ByteDance to sell TikTok’s assets to an American company by early this year or face a nationwide ban, but Trump has repeatedly signed orders that have allowed TikTok to keep operating in the U.S. as his administration tries to reach an agreement for the sale of the social media company.

Much is still unknown about the actual deal in the works, but Trump said Thursday that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has approved it. Any major change to the popular video platform could have a huge impact on how Americans — particularly young adults and teenagers — consume information online.

The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to an AP inquiry seeking confirmation that China has signed off on the proposed framework deal.

About 43% of U.S. adults under the age of 30 say they regularly get news from TikTok, higher than any other social media app including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, according to a Pew Research Center report published Thursday.

Trump said in response to a question at a signing ceremony Thursday that he would make the American- controlled TikTok “100% MAGA” if he felt he could, but he intends for “every philosophy, every policy” to be “treated right.”

Vice President JD Vance said the deal ensures that “American investors will actually control the algorithm” that determines the content seen on the social media app. He said more information about the deal will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Who will control the new TikTok venture?

Under the terms of the deal that have so far been revealed by the White House, the app will be spun off into a new U.S. joint venture owned by a consortium of American investors — including Oracle and investment firm Silver Lake Partners.

Though the details have yet to be finalized, the investment group’s total stake in the new venture would be around 80%, while ByteDance is expected to have a 20%, or smaller, stake in the entity. The board running the new platform would be controlled by U.S. investors. ByteDance will be represented by one person on the board, but that individual will be excluded from any security matters or related committees.

TikTok’s new owners include many whose business or political interests are tied to Trump, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Rupert Murdoch, raising questions about whether political influence will be exerted into the platform.

Although he stepped down as Oracle’s CEO more than a decade ago, Ellison remains heavily involved as chairman and chief technology officer. Now 81, he could be in line to become a behind-the-scenes media power player, having already helped finance Skydance’s recently completed $8 billion merger with Paramount, a deal engineered by his son, David.

Trump also mentioned Dell founder Michael Dell will be an investor in the new venture.

TikTok users could now “get the editorial policies of the people who now have control of the company,” said David Greene, civil liberties director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ”It won’t be 100% MAGA. The question is how it will treat criticism of him and people he likes.”

What we know about the algorithm powering the platform

The recommendation algorithm that has steered millions of users into an endless stream of video shorts has been central in the security debate over TikTok. China previously maintained the algorithm must remain under Chinese control by law. But a U.S. regulation that Congress passed with bipartisan support said any divestment of TikTok must mean the platform cut ties with ByteDance.

American officials previously warned the algorithm — which is a complex system of rules and calculations that platforms use to deliver content to your feed — is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape messaging on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect, but no evidence has ever been presented by U.S. officials showing that China has attempted to do so.

Trump, during his first term, signed an executive order attempting to ban the app if it didn’t split off its U.S. business, warning that TikTok’s “data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information.”

Trump has since changed his approach to TikTok, often citing its role in helping him reach young voters in the 2024 presidential election.

Although the details remain unclear, a Trump administration official said that a licensed copy of the ByteDance created algorithm — retrained solely with U.S. data — will power the new U.S. version of the app. Administration officials say this retraining effort will nullify any risk of Chinese interference and influence.

Vance said “we wanted to keep TikTok operating” but address security concerns so that “Americans can use TikTok but use it with more confidence than they had in the past.”

Young people especially “really wanted this to happen,” Trump said during the signing ceremony.

That makes it unclear if the U.S. version of TikTok will be a different experience than what users in the rest of the world are used to. Any noticeable changes made to a social media platform’s service raises the risk of alienating its audience, said Jasmine Enberg, an analyst for the research firm eMarketer.

In a prime example of how a change of control can reshape a once-popular social media platform, billionaire Elon Musk triggered an almost immediate backlash after he completed his takeover of Twitter nearly three years ago.

But Musk made extremely visible changes, including changing its name to X, pulling back on its content moderation and adding exclusive features for paid subscribers. The changes that gradually occur while different data is fed into the U.S. copy of TikTok’s algorithm could be subtle and unnoticeable to most of its audience.

“Social media is just as much about the culture as it is the technology, and how users will take to new ownership and potentially a new version of the app is still an open question,” Enberg said.

What motivated China to make this deal

Beijing once called the demand that TikTok be spun off from its Chinese parent company an act of “robbery,” but Chinese officials changed their tune as the U.S.-China trade war progressed.

Following the announcement of a possible TikTok framework deal after U.S.-China trade talks in Spain, some observers believed that China was able to extract concessions from the U.S. on loosening trade restrictions in exchange for the TikTok deal. Others believe China was willing to do so to pave the way for a meeting between Xi and Trump.

A TikTok deal would allow China to keep the ball rolling on trade negotiations, said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center. “TikTok alone does not compare with the importance of an amicable U.S.-China relations and the positive momentum that prevents many negative development from happening.”

Dimitar Gueorguiev, associate professor of political science at Syracuse University, said TikTok has become an “expendable concession” to Beijing because it is no longer a disruptive newcomer as it was five years ago.

TikTok’s highly personalized “For You” video feed was seen as its secret sauce five years ago, when Trump first threatened to ban the app, but Instagram and other rivals now work similarly.

Gueorguiev argues that Beijing is more interested in retaining access to U.S. technology and services, at least in the short term, so it can build up self-sufficiency in semiconductor, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing.

“That is the front line of technological competition,” Gueorguiev said. “TikTok, by contrast, is a maturing consumer app with diminishing strategic weight.”

This story was originally published by The Associated Press.

Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening is gearing up for a final run of its tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. “This is it, the last run,” the son of Zeppelin’s late drummer John Bonham promises Billboard. “We will not do it again.”

But Bonham already has a good idea of what he’ll do next.

“After 15 years of doing this, I’m always inspired to go, ‘What could be next?’ And this time…Presence!” he says, referencing Led Zeppelin’s seventh studio album, which will celebrate its golden anniversary next year. “That’s one of my favorites. And underrated: ‘For Your Life,’ ‘Achilles Last Stand,’ ‘Candy Store Rock.’ I can’t wait. I feel like we’ve definitely got to try it.” Bonham did, in fact, play the epic Presence opener “Achilles Last Stand” during shows last year after avoiding it previously — “’cause I was always scared of it,” he notes with a laugh.

Bonham acknowledges he’s even looking beyond Presence. “I’m not too sure if I’ll be able to play that well, but in 2029, Presence into (1979’s) In Through the Out Door, in their entirety, would be the way to go,” he says, noting that most of the latter’s songs were never played live by Zeppelin due to the band breaking up after his father’s death 13 months after its release. He’s particularly hot to take on the careening “Carouselambra,” which he played with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones during rehearsals in 2008, when Zeppelin was trying to continue after its triumphant December 2007 Celebration Day reunion at London’s O2 Arena.

“They played it as if they had just left the studio, and they hadn’t played it since they day they recorded it. It was mind-blowing,” Bonham recalls. “Jimmy was only using this tiny little amp, and it still had that sound (sings), that breakdown in the middle. I’d love to play that for (an audience).”

With that future mapped out, albeit loosely, Bonham is looking forward to returning to the Physical Graffiti shows, starting Oct. 22 in Louisville, Ken., with 26 North American dates booked through Nov. 26 in Hollywood, Fla. He considers the Billboard 200-topping Physical Graffiti — Zeppelin’s first on its own Swan Song Records label and the first album to go platinum on advance orders — to be “THE Led Zeppelin” album. He says performing it has been as rewarding as he hoped when he and the JBLZE band set out to do it.

“It’s the first time we’d ever had to go into a place to rehearse,” he says, “because even though we had done nearly every one of these songs at some point, maybe just for one tour, we never thought of actually doing it as the whole album. (Led Zeppelin) used to do ‘In My Time of Dying’ live. They did ‘Kashmir’ live, ‘Ten Years Gone,’ ‘Sick Again.’ But then to do ‘The Wanton Song’ and ‘Down By the Seaside’ and ‘Night Flight’…When I found out ‘Night Flight’ was a Led Zeppelin IV outtake, it made perfect sense; when dad does the (sings drum fill), that’s the ‘Stairway to Heaven ‘ fill. You know, drummers, when we find a new fill we’ll put it in anything, like, ‘Oh, that’ll work there as well..’” He’s also fond of talking to the audience about why the song “Houses of the Holy” wound up on Physical Graffiti and not on Zeppelin’s preceding album of that title.

JBLZE does not, however, play Physical Graffiti in its original running order.

“It’s a show; we’re trying to keep people engaged in this,” he explains. “I know if I went to a concert and knew it was gonna be in order, you subconsciously go, ‘I can nip off to the bathroom on this one’ if it’s not one of my favorites. There’s no way you can put ‘Kashmir’ [the sixth track on the album] that early in the show. And it’s working. From what we’ve done so far, it’s been one of the most successful runs we’ve ever done, just from the feedback we’re getting. People are like, ‘It’s so great to hear those songs in a live environment,’ ’cause nobody plays ‘In the Light.’ Zeppelin never played ‘In the Light.’ Some of these songs never saw the light of day other than when they were recorded, so…here they are.”

Those emotions are resonating even stronger with Bonham this year, which marks 15 years “of doing a project that I really didn’t think I was gonna do that long…. But I realized it’s not about what I want, really. Who am I to stop? It’s what Zeppelin means to so many people. People write to me about it, still, and it gets me every time. I get emotional. It took on a life of its own and I’m glad.”

Besides DNA, of course, Bonham’s own Zeppelin history includes playing with Page, Jones and Robert Plant at the Atlantic Records 40th anniversary concert in 1988 at Madison Square Garden as well as at the 02 show in 2007. He still has particularly fond memories of the latter. “I’d gone from this younger version of me when I’d played with them before, when I had kind of a chip on my shoulder…and now I was a sober 39-year-old that wanted it to be perfect, wanted the knowledge,” he recalls. “I wanted to know everything. I wanted to ask them all the questions…because it’s my dad’s peers, my dad’s bandmates. So you’re having conversations with them, musically, to the point where they’re like, ‘Whoa, slow down! Cut the coffee out.’

“People ask  me a lot, ‘What was the highlight of playing with them?’ back when we did Celebration Day. To be honest with you, the highlight was the six weeks leading up to it, being with them from 11 in the morning ’til 6 p.m., five days a week. That was really special.”

Bonham also holds dear one special conversation with Plant, with whom he’s closest, in which the singer bared his reason for never wanting to reactivate Led Zeppelin as a going concern.

“He gets a lot of grief for that,” Bonham notes. “We had a great conversation right after the O2…We went to (a pub) to watch a football game, and on the way back my son dozed off and I said, ‘I’ve got to ask you…are we gonna get the band back together?’ and he said, ‘I loved your dad way too much…Everything we said when your father passed, it would be like we didn’t mean it. When your father left us, left the world, that was it for Led Zeppelin. I can’t go out there and fake it. I can’t be a jukebox. I can’t. We couldn’t do what The Who did. It was too vital. I can’t go out there and try and do it that way.’”

Bonham says that Plant also assured him that his decision “‘is not out of disrespect to you. You know the stuff better than all of us, and no one can play it who is alive as close to your dad like you. But it’s not the same.’ And I got it. I was absolutely fine for that. My dad and Robert, they’d known each other since they were, like, 15. So it’s a lot deeper because of their relationship.”

Outside of JBLZE work, Bonham toured earlier this year with Black Country Communion, the supergroup with guitarist Joe Bonamassa, bassist-vocalist Glenn Hughes and keyboardist Derek Sherinian. A live album was recorded during the tour as well. “We hadn’t played together for so many years…and it was great,” Bonham reports. “I’m so glad they were recording every night, ’cause one night we suddenly went into a whole other realm.”

Bonham reports he remains on good terms with Sammy Hagar despite being dismissed from his Best of All Worlds band last year and replaced by Kenny Aronoff — partly because Bonham had to tend to his ailing mother in England, who’s since recovered. “I wish it could’ve ended in a slightly different way,” he says of Hagar. “But I had an amazing 10-year-run with him, and I’m grateful for it. I always joke with him. He always sends me a message and says, ‘You know it’s not over, right? You know we’re not done yet,’ and I always write back and go, ‘Oh, we are. You can’t afford me anymore,’” he laughs.

The upcoming Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening tour dates include:

Wed, Oct 22 – Louisville, KY – The Louisville Palace Theatre
Fri, Oct 24 – Cincinnati, OH – Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati
Sat, Oct 25 – Gary, IN – Hard Rock Live Northern Indiana
Sun, Oct 26 – Cleveland, OH – MGM Northfield Park
Tue, Oct 28 – Indianapolis, IN – Murat Theatre at Old National Centre
Wed, Oct 29 – Detroit, MI – The Fillmore Detroit
Thu, Oct 30 – Rockford, IL – Hard Rock Casino Rockford
Sat, Nov 1 – Waterloo, NY – The Vine Showroom at del Lago Resort & Casino
Sun, Nov 2 – Port Chester, NY – The Capitol Theatre+
Tue, Nov 4 – Ottawa, ON – Hard Rock Live Ottawa
Wed, Nov 5 – Toronto, ON – Massey Hall
Fri, Nov 7 – Atlantic City, NJ – Sound Waves at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Sat, Nov 8 – Danville, VA – The Pantheon at Caesars Virginia
Sun, Nov 9 – Montclair, NJ – The Wellmont Theater
Tue, Nov 11 – Boston, MA – Citizens House of Blues Boston
Wed, Nov 12 – Providence, RI – The VETS
Fri, Nov 14 – Hampton Beach, NH – Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom
Sat, Nov 15 – Bethlehem, PA – Wind Creek Event Center
Sun, Nov 16 – Hanover, MD – The HALL at Live!
Tue, Nov 18 – Huntington, NY – The Paramount
Wed, Nov 19 – Albany, NY – Palace Theatre
Fri, Nov 21 – Bristol, VA Hard Rock Live Bristol
Sat, Nov 22 – Atlanta, GA – Coca-Cola Roxy
Mon, Nov 24 – Orlando, FL – Walt Disney Theater at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts
Tue, Nov 25 – Tampa, FL – Hard Rock Event Center – Seminole Hard Rock Tampa
Wed, Nov 26 – Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live

Music from The Summer I Turned Pretty leads Billboard’s Top TV Songs chart, powered by Tunefind (a Songtradr company), for August 2025 — its second month in a row at No. 1 — as the Amazon Prime Video show’s third and final season continued to air throughout the month.

Rankings for the Top TV Songs chart are based on song and show data provided by Tunefind and ranked using a formula blending that data with sales and streaming information tracked by Luminate during the corresponding period of this August.

The Summer I Turned Pretty’s recent dominance began in July (the series’ third and final season premiered July 16), with the show snagging eight of the 10 positions, paced by Chappell Roan’s “Hot To Go!,” on that month’s chart.

This time around, it’s Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” that rules the tally following a The Summer I Turned Pretty synch, leading an August chart that features music from the show in the top three and again with eight of the 10 positions.

1970’s “Into the Mystic,” featured in the season’s fifth episode (Aug. 6), racked up 10.3 million official on-demand U.S. streams and sold 2,000 downloads in August, according to Luminate.

Sabrina Carpenter’s “Juno” and Taylor Swift’s “loml,” both from the Aug. 20 episode, follow at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively. “Juno,” which peaked at No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2024, earned 12.8 million streams this August, while “loml,” No. 12 on the Hot 100 last year, accumulated 8.3 million streams and sold 1,000.

In July, The Summer I Turned Pretty’s quest to occupy the entire Top TV Songs chart was thwarted by songs from And Just Like That… and Untamed. This time, it’s Wednesday and Alien: Earth, which feature tracks that rank at Nos. 4 and 10, respectively.

For Netflix’s Wednesday, Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” is the runaway success from the second season’s Aug. 6 premiere, bowing at No. 4 with 9.2 million streams and 1,000 paid downloads. As for FX/Hulu’s Alien: Earth, Tool’s “Stinkfist” represents the series at No. 10 (3.5 million streams, 1,000 sold).

The Summer I Turned Pretty will have another crack at a clean sweep, though; the series’ final three episodes aired in September.

See the full top 10 below.

It’s free Billboard charts month! Through Sept. 30, subscribers to Billboard’s Chart Beat newsletter, emailed each Friday, can unlock access to Billboard’s weekly and historical charts, artist chart histories and all Chart Beat stories simply by visiting the newly redesigned Billboard.com through any story link in the newsletter. Not a Chart Beat subscriber? Sign up for free here.

Rank, Song, Artist, Show (Network)
1. “Into the Mystic,” Van Morrison, The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)
2. “Juno,” Sabrina Carpenter, The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)
3. “loml,” Taylor Swift, The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)
4. “Dancing in the Dark,” Bruce Springsteen, Wednesday (Netflix)
5. “Wild Horses,” The Rolling Stones, The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)
6. “Linger,” Royel Otis, The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)
7. “Girl, So Confusing,” Charli XCX feat. Lorde, The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)
8. “False God,” Taylor Swift, The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)
9. “Joy to the World,” Three Dog Night, The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon Prime Video)
10. “Stinkfist,” Tool, Alien: Earth (FX/Hulu)

Wale is hopping into the producer’s chair. Alongside his management company EQT, Folarin is set to executive produce the upcoming crime series Silk, which is based on infamous ’90s hitman Wayne Perry.

The project is still in the early stages of development without a release date or streaming home.

Set in Washington, D.C. from about 1989 to 1993, the crime drama series will follow Wayne “Silk” Perry, who served as an enforcer for notorious NYC drug-dealing kingpin Alpo Martinez. Martinez’s story was brought to life through 2002’s Paid in Full film.

With Silk, Wale wants to focus on properly telling the stories that shaped Washington, D.C. culture. He also acquired ownership in Perry Industries, a production company, which owns the life rights to Wayne Perry.

“D.C. is more than just politics,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “We have a rich, Black history that’s inspired audiences around the world, and it’s time to tell more stories that are based here. That era in D.C. was internationally famous. The Redskins were winning Super Bowls, the mayor was indicted by the FBI, Joe Biden passed the crime bill, and D.C. had 482 homicides — the highest in the country.”

Wale added: “At the same time, our regional genre of go-go was thriving, and Def Jam, the label I’m signed to now, was the first major label to sign a go-go band with a song on the Hot 100 produced by Rick Rubin. There was a lot going on, and we want to weave all of these stories together.”

It’s Wale’s debut as a producer, but he’s previously starred in 2022’s Ambulance and Starz’s American Gods series. The D.C. rapper is also gearing up to release his eighth studio album this fall, which is his first LP with Def Jam.