Taylor Swift release day always arrives with a thicket of real-life allusions to ancient myths, literary heroes and local bars alike. The 31-track (!) "Tortured Poets Department" is packed with new poets to read, bands to discover and weird vacation towns to visit, and here's a brief field guide to the best of them.

As you're crushing "Florida!...Read more

NEW YORK — Brooklyn-born Oscar winner Louis Gossett Jr. died from a lung condition, according to his death certificate obtained Friday.

Per documents reviewed by TMZ, the Coney Island native suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for years. The condition is listed as his primary cause of death, while heart failure and atrial ...Read more

Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” is finally here.

In February, the pop superstar announced the album while accepting the Grammy Award for best pop vocal album (for 2022′s “Midnights”).

“An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time - one that was...Read more

The first meeting of “The Tortured Poets Department,” chaired by Taylor Swift, has come to order.

“The author,” as she dubbed herself on Instagram, shared a message to fans as the album dropped, calling it “An anthology of new works that reflect events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time — one that...Read more

Seems Taylor Swift has been one busy girl. And overnight she dropped the entirety of that effort, turning “The Tortured Poets Department” into a double album release and tacking “The Anthology” onto the title.

“It’s a 2am surprise,” she wrote on Instagram at 11 p.m. “The Tortured Poets Department is a secret DOUBLE album. I’d ...Read more

ATLANTA — A panel of federal appeals court judges in Atlanta will hear arguments Friday in the attempt by Todd and Julie Chrisley to overturn many of their convictions for bank fraud and tax evasion.

The former Atlanta multimillionaires and reality television stars are serving prison sentences of 12 and seven years, respectively, having been ...Read more

Mandisa, the Christian music singer who competed on "American Idol" and then pursued a Grammy Award-winning career, has died. She was 47.

A representative confirmed to The Times on Friday that the California-born artist "was found in her home [in Tennessee] deceased."

"At this time, we do not know the cause of death or any further details," ...Read more

Katy Perry has named her top pick to be the new judge on “American Idol” next season: country music star Jelly Roll.

The “Firework” singer, who recently announced her exit from the long-running talent competition, extolled the virtues of who she sees as her ideal successor.

“I gotta say Jelly Roll was crazy when he came on the show,�...Read more

NEW YORK — Swifties got a double dose of sweet torture at 2 a.m. when Taylor Swift dropped another 15 tracks and announced that “The Tortured Poets Department” is a double album.

She announced the second half on social media with new album art and a message about her folie à deux:

“It’s a 2am surprise: The Tortured Poets Department ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — All that screaming and crying late Thursday night in Kansas City and points beyond came from fans of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce as they listened to her new album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”

The album and song lyrics leaked on Wednesday, so many people knew there might be a song about her current boyfriend.

...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — From the first line in her new song “Florida!!!,” you can already tell that Taylor Swift has heard our state’s unofficial motto: A sunny place for shady people.

“You can beat the heat if you beat the charges too,” she sings. “They said I was a cheat, I guess it must be true.”

In “Florida!!!,” Swift paints a ...Read more

Taylor Swift has spent years warning us not to believe everything we hear about her. As the biggest star of pop music's parasocial age, she argues that the facts of her existence are constantly warped by gossip and misinformation, which is one reason the Easter eggs and coded messages she's long built into her work have helped create such a ...Read more

Perhaps never before have so many been so eager for something so steeped in heartbreak.

Taylor Swift's legions of devotees have eagerly anticipated her new album, "The Tortured Poets Department," in hopes of gaining insight into her notoriously private six-year relationship with actor Joe Alwyn — particularly her perspective on its demise.

...Read more

Taylor Swift tantalizes and tortures us once again. This time it's with her new album "The Tortured Poets Department," which dropped at midnight ET Friday. Which guy(s) in her life is she singing about? Why is she so unlucky in love? Which of these songs is about new beau Travis Kelce?

After one listen to the 16 songs on her 11th studio album, ...Read more

NEW YORK — “Everybody look around,” they’re singing, festively, at the Marquis Theatre. “There’s reason to rejoice, you see.”

For a lot of Broadway fans, especially Black audiences of a certain age, the return of the Super Soul Musical (it was the 1970s) “The Wiz” to the Great White Way after some 50 years is a cause for ...Read more

Can we really trust tears as a sign of a film’s quality? A century of so many shameless, relentless cinematic mediocrities suggest the answer is no. If a movie will stop at nothing in its mission to make you cry, yes, statistically speaking, you’ll probably comply. Or not, because you feel jerked around as a viewer. But just as there are ...Read more

DETROIT — The ABC News Studios documentary about the prosecution of James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of the Oxford High School shooter, is now available on Hulu, and while it delves into prosecutors' mindsets while charging and prosecuting the case, little previously unheard information was revealed.

The documentary began with a bird'...Read more

Lewis Black, like some of his comparably seasoned brethren on the music side such as Elton John and Kenny Loggins, has decided to retire from hardcore touring as he approaches his 76th birthday.

“I used to do 200 shows a year, then cut back to 125 and I’m now at about 100,” Black told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently. “Now I’...Read more

The stalker who allegedly sent Harry Styles 8,000 cards in less than a month is headed in one direction — to jail.

The Hendon Magistrates’ Court in London on Tuesday sentenced Myra Carvalho to 14 weeks imprisonment and banned her from seeing the Grammy winner perform anywhere for 10 years.

The 35-year-old reportedly pleaded guilty to a ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Sydney Sweeney's team fired back at Hollywood producer Carol Baum for her "shameful" disparagement of the actor, calling Baum out for not supporting a fellow female producer.

Baum recently publicized her befuddlement over the "Euphoria" star's booming popularity, marked by Sweeney's roles in "The White Lotus," "Madame Web" and "...Read more