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In what might be the most decisive critique yet of President Trump’s remake of the Kennedy Center, the Washington National Opera’s board approved a resolution on Friday to leave the venue it has occupied since 1971.

“Today, the Washington National Opera announced its decision to seek an amicable early termination of its affiliation agreement with the Kennedy Center and resume operations as a fully independent nonprofit entity,” the company said in a statement to the Associated Press.

Roma Daravi, Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, described the relationship with Washington National Opera as “financially challenging.”

“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the WNO due to a financially challenging relationship,” Daravi said in a statement. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”

Kennedy Center President Ambassador Richard Grenell tweeted that the call was made by the Kennedy Center, writing that its leadership had “approached the Opera leadership last year with this idea and they began to be open to it.”

“Having an exclusive relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety,” Grenell wrote. “We have spent millions of dollars to support the Washington Opera’s exclusivity and yet they were still millions of dollars in the hole – and getting worse.”

WNO’s decision to vacate the Kennedy Center’s 2,364-seat Opera House comes amid a wave of artist cancellations that came after the venue’s board voted to rename the center the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. New signage featuring Trump’s name went up on the building’s exterior just days after the vote while debate raged over whether an official name change could be made without congressional approval.

That same day, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) — an ex officio member of the board — wrote on social media that the vote was not unanimous and that she and others who might have voiced their dissent were muted on the call.

Grenell countered that ex officio members don’t get a vote.

Cancellations soon began to mount — as did Kennedy Center‘s rebukes against the artists who chose not to appear. Jazz drummer Chuck Redd pulled out of his annual Christmas Eve concert; jazz supergroup the Cookers nixed New Year’s Eve shows; New York-based Doug Varone and Dancers dropped out of April performances; and Grammy Award-winning banjo player Béla Fleck wrote on social media that he would no longer play at the venue in February.

WNO’s departure, however, represents a new level of artist defection. The company’s name is synonymous with the Kennedy Center and it has served as an artistic center of gravity for the complex since the building first opened.

One chimpanzee with a typewriter could pound out the script for “Primate” in an hour. Some pretty young things throw a pool party at an Oahu home and — yikes! — the family’s rabid pet chimp bashes in their skulls. That’s it, that’s the plot. Any tease that the movie could possibly be about anything more — a love triangle, a recently deceased mother, a vet’s puzzlement that Hawaii doesn’t even have rabies — is nothing but a banana peel tripping the audience into expecting a narrative.

I’m not foaming at the mouth over the death of cinema or what have you. Honestly, “Primate’s” kills are great. The problem is the dead space between them when we realize we’re bored sick.

The set-up is thus: Our heroine, Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), who goes to school somewhere to study something, has flown home for an indefinite amount of time with her best friend, Kate (Victoria Wyant), and a classmate she loathes, vivacious sexpot Hannah (Jess Alexander), who doesn’t inform her host that she’s tagging along until they’re on the plane. Already, you’re wondering if this is a monkey’s take on mammalian behavior, but it’s just the actual screenwriters, Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera (the former of whom also directs), clueing us in that bringing a brain to this humid adventure is as futile as packing a snowsuit. (They previously teamed up for the 2017 Mandy Moore shark movie “47 Meters Down.”)

Lucy’s father, Adam (Troy Kotsur of “CODA”), and her younger sister, Erin (Gia Hunter), have been rattling around their cliffside estate grieving for her mother, a primatologist who passed away from cancer the year before. They’re both lonely, but at least mom left behind her research chimpanzee, Ben (performed by Miguel Torres Umba), who uses a talking touch pad to communicate.

“Lucy back, Ben miss,” the chimp says, pressing a few keys. This is more or less how all the dialogue goes even when the humans are speaking — which, when it comes to a pair of frat guys that the girls picked up on the plane, is part of the joke. Brad and Drew (Charlie Mann and Tienne Simon) enter the house like two gorillas, belching and high-fiving, expecting to seduce the girls with verbal skills that stopped around preschool. “Me no hurt, OK?” Mann’s hilarious Brad says to Ben, grinning nervously and clapping his hands in an attempt to make friends. For a tender moment, you think these apes might be soulmates.

“Primate” is gleefully unevolved. The fatalities are gruesomely entertaining, the opening murder splattering the audience with such brutality that my theater howled in delight. In just two minutes, the movie had delivered everything it promised: a snorting monkey, a sucker in a flowered shirt, a shot of an ominous tire swing and a closeup of a peeled cheekbone.

If the pace had stayed that breakneck, my fellow schlock-lovers and I would have merrily pounded our chests. But at a hair’s breadth under an hour and a half, “Primate” is mostly draggy scenes of victims hiding in closets and trying not to scream as Ben roams the property acting like a hungover, steroidal toddler. Anything screechy sends him into a violent fit.

Umba, the movement specialist underneath the simian special effects, is convincing. But the movie treats his character like a generic slasher baddie checking off the standard tropes: the jump-scare surprise, the out-of-focus loom, the beat when the villain appears bested yet somehow staggers to his prehensile feet. Roberts doesn’t offer much empathy for the poor, diseased critter other than a pause when Ben momentarily ponders his reflection in a pool as Adrian Johnston’s eerie synth-piano score tinkles.

Let me give the film some credit: the performances are pretty good. Recent Oscar winner Kotsur has a casual nonchalance that makes you buy into his character right up until the moment he starts punching a monkey in the face. While Mann’s doomed meathead is only in the movie to raise the body count, the young actor brings a goofy, kinetic charisma to his too-few scenes — and, as a reward, Roberts grants him the longest and best death. Set in a romantic bedroom, it plays like a morbid joke about consent. (We’re meant to assume that at some time in this horny jock’s past, he’s done something to deserve it.)

Likewise, Alexander’s Hannah is the naughty girl who deserves to be punished for rudely moving in on Lucy’s crush, Nick (Benjamin Cheng). But she’s so magnetic that we root for her survival anyway. Just as Renée Zellweger and Matthew McConaughey somehow managed to have careers after starring in the fourth “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Alexander is a performer with promise: a screen presence with that extra twinkle.

The script has an anthropologist’s curiosity about the mating habits of Homo sapiens collegiate. Alas, humanity appears to be a species in decline. Faced with an angry monkey, these kids can’t think of much else to do other than run around hunting for their smartphones. An overreliance on tools weakens our civilization (and saps the film’s dramatic thrills). When Ben smashes a television set, perhaps Roberts is even making some sort of societal point.

Chimpanzees and humans share 98.4% of the same DNA and if you want to double-check that stat, so much blood gets smeared around this house that you can easily test a sample. Presumably, the character of Lucy was given her name as a nod to our earliest known ancestor, a 3.2-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis who stood about the same height as Ben. Our closest relative, the bonobo, shares 98.7% of our genes and has been known to dispatch each other by bursting a male’s testicles, a nature fact that Roberts must be saving for the sequel.

Mystifyingly, “Primate” blames Ben’s terrible temper on rabies, not the more interesting causes of chimpanzee aggression like depression, psychological confusion and over-medication. Neither does it dig deep into the emotional horror of an owner realizing their best buddy is capable of ripping off a human face — let alone the guilt and agony of failing to stop an attack. When a Connecticut woman was forced to stab her beloved pet after he maimed a female friend, she lamented that sticking the blade in him “was like putting one in myself.” (She later adopted a replacement chimp.)

But it’s silly to expect actual social science from a movie that expands rabies’ ancient name — hydrophobia, or a fear of water — into the nonsensical idea that the only safe hideout from Ben is the swimming pool. That said, in case anyone from the Department of Health and Human Services watches “Primate” on an airplane, I feel compelled to mention that the rabies vaccine is 100% effective. The last thing we need is a government decree that every American should surround their house with a moat.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ended the lease agreement for three public golf courses in Washington, a move that offers President Trump an additional opportunity to put his stamp on another piece of the nation’s capital.

The National Links Trust, the nonprofit that has operated Washington’s three public courses on federal land for the last five years, said Wednesday that the Department of the Interior had terminated its 50-year lease agreement. The Interior Department said it was terminating the lease because the nonprofit had not implemented required capital improvements and failed to meet the terms of the lease.

While it was unclear what the Trump administration’s plans are for the golf courses, the move gives Trump, whose private company has developed numerous golf courses in the U.S. and abroad, the chance to remake links overlooking the Potomac River and in Rock Creek Park and a site that is part of Black golf history.

Officials for the National Links Trust said in a statement that they were “devastated” by the decision to terminate the lease and defended their management of the courses. They said $8.5 million had gone toward capital improvements at the courses and that rounds played and revenue had more than doubled in their tenure managing the courses. The nonprofit has agreed to keep managing the courses for the time being, but long-term renovations will stop.

“While this termination is a major setback, we remain stubbornly hopeful that a path forward can be found that preserves affordable and accessible public golf in the nation’s capital for generations to come,” the officials added.

The Department of the Interior’s decision comes as Trump rebrands civic spaces in Washington and deploys National Guard members to the streets for public safety. The Kennedy Center added Trump’s name this month after the center’s board of trustees — made up of Trump appointees — voted to change the name of the performing arts space designated by Congress as a memorial to John F. Kennedy. Trump is also in the midst of a construction project to build a ballroom on the White House’s East Wing, and he has put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Groves writes for the Associated Press.

The Kennedy Center is ending the year with a new round of artists saying they are canceling scheduled performances after President Donald Trump’s name was added to the facility, prompting the institution’s president to accuse the performers of making their decisions because of politics.

The Cookers, a jazz supergroup that has performed together for nearly two decades, announced their withdrawal from “A Jazz New Year’s Eve” on their website, saying the “decision has come together very quickly” and acknowledging frustration from those who may have planned to attend.

Doug Varone and Dancers, a dance group based in New York, said in an Instagram post late Monday they would pull out of a performance slated for April, saying they “can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution.”

Those moves come after musician Chuck Redd canceled a Christmas Eve performance last week. They also come amid declining sales for tickets to the venue, as well as news that viewership for the Dec. 23 broadcast of the Kennedy Center Honors — which Trump had predicted would soar — was down by about 35% compared to the 2024 show.

The announcements amount to a volatile calendar for one of the most prominent performing arts venues in the U.S. and cap a year of tension in which Trump ousted the Kennedy Center board and named himself the institution’s chairman. That led to an earlier round of artist pushback, with performer Issa Rae and the producers of “Hamilton” canceling scheduled engagements while musicians Ben Folds and Renee Fleming stepped down from advisory roles.

The Cookers didn’t mention the building’s renaming or the Trump administration but did say that, when they return to performing, they wanted to ensure that “the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it,” reiterating a commitment “to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”

The group may not have addressed the Kennedy Center situation directly, but one of its members has. On Saturday, saxophone player Billy Harper said in comments posted on the Jazz Stage Facebook page that he “would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name (and being controlled by the kind of board) that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture. The same music I devoted my life to creating and advancing.”

According to the White House, Trump’s handpicked board approved the renaming. Harper said both the board “as well as the name displayed on the building itself represents a mentality and practices I always stood against. And still do, today more than ever.”

Richard Grenell, a Trump ally whom the president chose to head the Kennedy Center after he forced out the previous leadership, posted Monday night on X, “The artists who are now canceling shows were booked by the previous far left leadership,” intimating the bookings were made under the Biden administration.

In a statement Tuesday to The Associated Press, Grenell said the ”last minute cancellations prove that they were always unwilling to perform for everyone — even those they disagree with politically,” adding that the Kennedy Center had been “flooded with inquiries from real artists willing to perform for everyone and who reject political statements in their artistry.”

There was no immediate word from Kennedy Center officials about whether the entity would pursue legal action against the latest round of artists to cancel performances. Following Redd’s cancellation last week, Grenell said he would seek $1 million in damages for what he called a “political stunt.”

Not all artists are calling off their shows. Bluegrass banjoist Randy Barrett, scheduled to perform at the Kennedy Center next month, told the AP he was “deeply troubled by the politicization” of the venue and respected those who had canceled but feels that “our tribalized country needs more music and art, not less. It’s one of the few things that can bring us together.”

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to him. Scholars have said any changes to the building’s name would need congressional approval; the law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.

More artists have canceled scheduled performances at the Kennedy Center following the addition of President Donald Trump’s name to the facility, with jazz supergroup The Cookers pulling out of a planned New Year’s Eve concert, and the institution’s president saying the cancellations belie the artists’ unwillingness to see their music as crossing lines of political disparity.

The fresh round of cancellations after Trump put his name of the building follows an earlier artist backlash in spring. After Trump ousted the Kennedy Center board and named himself the institution’s chairman in February, performer Issa Rae and the producers of “Hamilton” cancelled scheduled engagements while musicians Ben Folds and Renee Flaming stepped down from advisory roles.

The Cookers, a jazz supergroup performing together for nearly two decades, announced their withdrawal from “A Jazz New Year’s Eve” on their website, saying the “decision has come together very quickly” and acknowledging frustration from those who may have planned to attend.

The group didn’t mention the building’s renaming or the Trump administration but did say that, when they return to performing, they wanted to ensure that “the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it,” reiterating a commitment “to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”

The group may not have addressed the Kennedy Center situation directly, but one of its members has. On Saturday, saxophone player Billy Harper said in comments posted on the Jazz Stage Facebook page that he “would never even consider performing in a venue bearing a name (and being controlled by the kind of board) that represents overt racism and deliberate destruction of African American music and culture. The same music I devoted my life to creating and advancing.”

According to the White House, Trump’s handpicked board approved the renaming. Harper said both the board, “as well as the name displayed on the building itself represents a mentality and practices I always stood against. And still do, today more than ever.”

Richard Grenell, a Trump ally whom the president chose to head the Kennedy Center after he forced out the previous leadership, posted Monday night on X that “The artists who are now canceling shows were booked by the previous far left leadership,” intimating the bookings were made under the Biden administration.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Grenell said Tuesday the ”last minute cancellations prove that they were always unwilling to perform for everyone — even those they disagree with politically,” adding that the Kennedy Center had been “flooded with inquiries from real artists willing to perform for everyone and who reject political statements in their artistry.”

There was no immediate word from Kennedy Center officials if the entity would pursue legal action against the group, as Grenell said it would after musician Chuck Redd canceled a Christmas Eve performance. Following that withdrawal, in which Redd cited the Kennedy Center renaming, Grenell said he would seek $1 million in damages for what he called a “political stunt.”

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to him. Scholars have said any changes to the building’s name would need congressional approval; the law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Steven Sloan and Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

Are top-drawer college football teams and their name, image and likeness collectives simply trying to protect themselves from willy-nilly transfers or are they bullying players to stay put with threats of lawsuits?

Adding liquidated damage fee clauses to NIL contracts became all the rage in 2025, a year that will be remembered as the first time players have been paid directly by schools. But some experts say such fees cannot be used as a cudgel to punish players that break a contract and transfer.

It’s no surprise that the issue has resulted in a lawsuit — make that two lawsuits — before the calendar flipped to 2026.

Less than a month after Georgia filed a lawsuit against defensive end Damon Wilson II to obtain $390,000 in damages because he transferred to Missouri, Wilson went to court himself, claiming Georgia is misusing the liquidated damages clause to “punish Wilson for entering the portal.”

Wilson’s countersuit in Boone County, Mo., says he was among a small group of Bulldog stars pressured into signing the contract Dec. 21, 2024. The lawsuit also claims that Wilson was misused as an elite pass rusher, that the Georgia defensive scheme called for him to drop back into pass coverage. Wilson, who will be a senior next fall, led Missouri with nine sacks this season.

Georgia paid Wilson $30,000, the first monthly installment of his $500,000 NIL deal, before he entered the transfer portal on Jan. 6, four days after Georgia lost to Notre Dame in a College Football Playoffs quarterfinal.

Bulldogs brass was not pleased. Wilson alleges in his lawsuit that Georgia dragged its feet in putting his name in the portal and spread misinformation to other schools about him and his contractual obligations.

“When the University of Georgia Athletic Association enters binding agreements with student-athletes, we honor our commitments and expect student-athletes to do the same,” Georgia spokesperson Steven Drummond said in a statement after the school filed the lawsuit.

Wilson’s countersuit turned that comment on its head, claiming it injured his reputation because it implies he was dishonest. He is seeking unspecified damages in addition to not owing the Bulldogs anything. Georgia’s lawsuit asked that the dispute be resolved through arbitration.

A liquidated damage fee is a predetermined amount of money written into a contract that one party pays the other for specific breaches. The fee is intended to provide a fair estimate of anticipated losses when actual damages are difficult to calculate, and cannot be used to punish one party for breaking the contract.

Wilson’s case could have far-reaching implications because it is the first that could determine whether schools can enforce liquidated damage clauses. While it could be understandable that schools want to protect themselves from players transferring soon after receiving NIL money, legal experts say liquidated damage fees might not be the proper way to do so.

It’s difficult to overshadow a game in which two touchdowns were negated by the officials in the last 30 seconds, enabling the Pittsburgh Steelers to hang on for a 29-24 victory over the Detroit Lions on Sunday in a Week 16 game with significant playoff implications.

Offensive interference penalties erased both Lions scores, including one of the wildest plays ever seen as time expired. What possibly could steal a headline from that?

How about Steelers star wide receiver DK Metcalf reaching into the stands and swinging at a fan with seemingly more force than the contact by Lions receivers that prompted the offensive interference flags?

Multiple videos captured Metcalf approach a fan wearing a blue wig at the first row of seats behind the Steelers’ bench at Ford Field. The fan leaned over the rail to say something and Metcalf reached up, grabbed him by the shirt or wig with his right hand before turning and walking away.

What would prompt Metcalf, one of the NFL’s top receivers in each of his seven seasons, to lose his temper and allegedly engage with a fan in a way strictly forbidden by the league?

Well, the fan, who identified himself as Ryan Kennedy from Pinckney, Mich., to the Detroit Free Press, said he called Metcalf by his full given name — DeKaylin Zecharius Metcalf — and that apparently touched a nerve.

“He doesn’t like his government name. I called him that and then he grabbed me and ripped my shirt,” Kennedy said. “I’m a little shocked. Like everyone’s talking to me. I’m a little rattled, but I just want the Lions to win, baby.”

Kennedy didn’t get his wish thanks to Lions receivers getting too pushy themselves, albeit on the field of play.

The play that will be replayed countless times came as time expired. Lions star wideout Amon-Ra St. Brown was stopped after catching a pass at the one-yard line, but before the whistle St. Brown underhanded the ball back to quarterback Jared Goff, who barreled into the end zone for what appeared to be a miraculous game-winning touchdown.

However, St. Brown had given Steelers cornerback Jalen Ramsey a shove before breaking free to make the catch and a flag had been thrown before Goff crossed the goal line. The officials announced after a lengthy huddle that St. Brown had committed offensive pass interference and that the game was over.

The applicable NFL rule reads: “If there is a foul by the offense, there shall be no extension of the period. If the foul occurs on the last play of the half, a score by the offense is not counted.”

Fewer than 30 seconds earlier, Lions rookie wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa set an illegal pick that enabled St. Brown — a former USC and Mater Dei High star — to break free in the end zone and make a nine-yard scoring catch.

The Steelers sideline erupted in joy after the second call resulted in a victory that put them in control of their destiny for the AFC North title. They need one win or a Baltimore Ravens loss in the last two weeks of the regular season to clinch it and secure a home playoff game.

The Lions, meanwhile, had their playoff chances reduced to 6% after the loss.

DeKaylin Zecharius Metcalf, it can be presumed, has a near 100% chance of being fined and suspended by the NFL for taking the swing at Kennedy.

Just a little over a year after an all-time performance as “Saturday Night Live” host (one of the best of that season, truth be told), Ariana Grande returned again to show off some of her talents: mimicry and comic timing, dance moves, and, of course, a spectacular singing voice.

But she also showed a lot of grace by ceding the spotlight to her “Wicked” co-star Bowen Yang, who confirmed before this week’s episode that he is exiting “SNL” midway through his eighth season. At several turns of this week’s show, particularly in a closing sketch about a retiring Delta Sky Club employee that served as Yang’s emotional goodbye, it was clear that Grande understood the assignment: this was Yang’s night, not hers.

Which isn’t to say Grande wasn’t great. She started strong with an “All I Want For Christmas” takeoff in her monologue, played an Elf on the Shelf who’s been cut in half in a support group sketch, exchanged a costume soul patch with Marcello Hernández as one of two dramatic dance instructors, and perhaps most memorably in this outing, played Macaulay Culkin‘s character Kevin in an extremely bloody parody of “Home Alone.”

She dated The Grinch (Mikey Day) in a “Love Is Blind” reunion sketch, played a judge in a courtroom scene featuring Black Santa Claus (Kenan Thompson) before portraying Katy Perry and Celine Dion in a promo for a Peacock special that mashes up different singers like the viral David Bowie/Bing Crosby “Little Drummer Boy” video.

But in his last show as a cast member, Yang got to appear in nearly every sketch as well, from a brief appearance in the “Home Alone” sketch to playing Yoko Ono in the Peacock special skit to reprising his Trend Forecaster character on “Weekend Update” with former cast member Aidy Bryant.

If Grande wasn’t as locked in as last time (she broke character laughing a few times), it didn’t matter much because she was as funny, energetic and eerily accurate in all her impressions. It felt very much like Grande was there less to promote the new “Wicked” movie than to help a friend say goodbye.

Musical guest Cher appeared in Yang’s Delta Sky sketch as his boss and performed “DJ Play a Christmas Song” and “Run Run Rudolph,” the latter introduced by Grande as her Castrati character, Antonio. A title card before the goodbyes honored Rob Reiner, who was killed with his wife Michele Singer Reiner in their home last week.

Not surprisingly, President Trump (James Austin Johnson) had a lot to say in a holiday address to the nation while also hugging a Christmas tree (“Remember when I did this with flag? I’m hugging tree now.”) and reading his stage directions out loud, an interesting new wrinkle to Johnson’s masterful impression. Trump reminded the country that “Arctic immigrants are coming in through our chimneys and stealing our milk and cookies” and discussed the recently voted on name change to the Kennedy Center, now “The Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts No Homo,” saying it is just the beginning. His name will be on the Trump Washington Monument, the Trump Lincoln Memorial and “Big Elphaba,” his name for the Statue of Liberty. Why so many names on things? “We had to take it off so many files,” he said, a reference to the much-redacted, newly released Epstein Files. Johnson’s impression is getting slurrier and even more meta, but continues to deliver on random pop culture references, which this week included the Indigo Girls, “The Hunger Games” and the videogame “Metal Gear Solid.”

Grande’s monologue briefly touched on the idea of bringing back old sketches such as “Domingo” from her last appearance before declaring cheekily, “When something is perfect, it doesn’t need a sequel.” She talked about how hard it is to find gifts for people she doesn’t know well, like her cousin’s boyfriend, Steve, which led to a whole music number to the tune of “All I Want for Christmas,” including Yang and other cast members giving suggestions on gifts like back massage coupons or a box of raw oysters. The lyrics weren’t all easy to understand unless you had captions enabled, but Grande sang the heck out of the Mariah Carey song.

Best sketch of the night: Take a bow, Bowen

Was it the funniest sketch of the night? No, that would probably be the Elf on the Shelf support group or the “Love is Blind” reunion. But Yang’s last sketch, about an elderly Delta Sky Club worker passing out eggnog and working his last shift, was heartfelt and sweet. Even a casual fan of Yang and “SNL” would be hard pressed not to get choked up by Yang talking about his time on the show to his wife (Grande), who replied, “All the egg nog you’ve made over the years. Some of it was great. Some of it was rotten.” “And a lot of it got cut,” he replied. Bowen broke down a few times while expressing his love for the people who work on “SNL” and sang through tears a version of “Please Come Home for Christmas” with Grande. “Egg nog is kind of like me — it’s not for everyone, but the people who like it are my kind of people,” he said to riotous applause. When he said he wanted to go out on top, she responded, “Oh, everyone knows you’re a bottom.” The capper to the sketch: Cher appearing as his Delta boss to tell him, “Everyone thought you were a little too gay. But, you know what? You’re perfect for me.”

Also good: The holiday duets you didn’t know you needed

When you’ve got Grande on board, it’s hard to resist falling back on lots of celebrity impressions, especially if they involve singing. For this piece, random performers are paired up for duets to try to replicate the magic of David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy” to varying degrees of success. Grande and Johnson were paired up twice: as Katy Perry and Bob Dylan and then again to close the sketch as Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion. It’s impossible to overstate how good Grande is at mimicking other singing voices, but the surprise here is how well Johnson keeps with her as Bocelli. Other standouts: Hernández as Bad Bunny, a backflipping Benson Boone (it was likely a stunt person and not a cast member, we never see his face) and Veronika Slowikowska as Bjork.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: Mistletoe, you are on watch!

Kam Patterson did well as Michael Che’s 12-year-old nephew Tyson, who goes back and forth between being a sweet kid and threatening Santa Claus for not bringing him a bike for Christmas last year. And this year’s holiday joke swap was weirdly one-sided with only Michael Che writing heretofore-unseen jokes for “Update” co-host Colin Jost to read. But Bryant returning to reunite with Yang for their arch Trend Forecasters bit won the week. They targeted mistletoe, musical intros that go “1, 2, 3, 4!” and in Chinese Trends, orange chicken. The duo repeated their catchphrase, “Go to bed, b—!” to each of these outgoing trends before declaring that waving pride flags, Marge Simpson hair and Michael Che are out. Of course, a stunned Michael Che was shown with a big blue wig and little pride flags in his hands.

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers unhappy with Justice Department decisions to heavily redact or withhold documents from a legally mandated release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein threatened Saturday to launch impeachment proceedings against those responsible, including Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general.

Democrats and Republicans alike criticized the omissions, while Democrats also accused the Justice Department of intentionally scrubbing the release of at least one image of President Trump, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggesting it could portend “one of the biggest coverups in American history.”

Trump administration officials have said the release fully complied with the law, and that its redactions were crafted only to protect victims of Epstein, a disgraced financier and convicted sex offender accused of abusing hundreds of women and girls before his death in 2019.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), an author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the release of the investigative trove, blasted Bondi in a social media video, accusing her of denying the existence of many of the records for months, only to push out “an incomplete release with too many redactions” in response to — and in violation of — the new law.

Khanna said he and the bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), were “exploring all options” for responding and forcing more disclosures, including by pursuing “the impeachment of people at Justice,” asking courts to hold officials blocking the release in contempt, and “referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice.”

“We will work with the survivors to demand the full release of these files,” Khanna said.

He later added in a CNN interview that he and Massie were drafting articles of impeachment against Bondi, though they had not decided whether to bring them forward.

Massie, in his own social media post, said Khanna was correct in rejecting the Friday release as insufficient, saying it “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.”

The lawmakers’ view that the Justice Department’s document dump failed to comply with the law echoed similar complaints across the political spectrum Saturday, as the full scope of redactions and other withholdings came into focus.

The frustration had already sharply escalated late Friday, after Fox News Digital reported that the names and identifiers of not just victims but of “politically exposed individuals and government officials” had been redacted from the records — which would violate the law, and which Justice Department officials denied.

Among the critics was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who cited the Fox reporting in an exasperated post late Friday to X.

“The whole point was NOT to protect the ‘politically exposed individuals and government officials.’ That’s exactly what MAGA has always wanted, that’s what drain the swamp actually means. It means expose them all, the rich powerful elites who are corrupt and commit crimes, NOT redact their names and protect them,” Greene wrote.

Senior Justice Department officials later called in to Fox News to dispute the report. But the removal of a file published in the Friday evening release, capturing a desk in Epstein’s home with a drawer filled of photos of Trump, reinforced bipartisan concerns that references to the president had been illegally withheld.

In a release of documents from the Epstein family estate by the House Oversight Committee this fall, Trump’s name was featured over 1,000 times — more than any other public figure.

“If they’re taking this down, just imagine how much more they’re trying to hide,” Schumer wrote on X. “This could be one of the biggest coverups in American history.”

Several victims also said the release was insufficient. “It’s really kind of another slap in the face,” Alicia Arden, who went to the police to report that Epstein had abused her in 1997, told CNN. “I wanted all the files to come out, like they said that they were going to.”

Trump, who signed the act into law after having worked to block it from getting a vote, was conspicuously quiet on the matter. In a long speech in North Carolina on Friday night, he did not mention it.

However, White House officials and Justice Department leaders strongly pushed back against the notion that the release was somehow incomplete or out of compliance with the law, or that the names of politicians had been redacted.

“The only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law — full stop,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche. “Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim.”

Other Republicans defended the administration. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, said the administration “is delivering unprecedented transparency in the Epstein case and will continue releasing documents.”

Epstein died in a Manhattan jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He’d been convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution in Florida, but served only 13 months in custody in what many condemned as a sweetheart plea deal for a well-connected and rich defendant.

Epstein’s crimes have attracted massive attention, including among many within Trump’s own political base, in part because of unanswered questions surrounding which of his many powerful friends may have also been implicated in crimes against children. Some of those questions have swirled around Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had what the president has described as a falling out.

Evidence has emerged in recent months that suggests Trump may have had knowledge of Epstein’s crimes during their friendship.

Epstein wrote in a 2019 email, released by the House Oversight Committee, that Trump “knew about the girls.” In a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to help him sexually abuse girls, Epstein wrote that “the dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him … he has never once been mentioned.”

Trump has ardently denied any wrongdoing.

The records released Friday contained few if any major new revelations, but did include a complaint against Epstein filed with the FBI back in 1996 — which the FBI did little with, substantiating longstanding fears among Epstein’s victims that his crimes could have been stopped years earlier.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the president’s most consistent critics, wrote on X that Bondi should appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain under oath the extensive redactions and omissions, which he called a “willful violation of the law.”

“The Trump Justice Department has had months to keep their promise to release all of the Epstein Files,” Schiff wrote. “Epstein’s survivors and the American people need answers now.”

Long Beach City College’s performing arts center is officially being named after Long Beach legend and LBCC alumna Jenni Rivera.

Last week LBCC’s Board of Trustees unanimously voted to name the new facility the Jenni Rivera Performing Arts Center.

“This naming recognizes not just an extraordinary performer, but a daughter of Long Beach whose voice and spirit transcended borders,” said Uduak-Joe Ntuk, president of LBCC’s board of trustees in a press statement. “Jenni Rivera inspired millions through her music, resilience, and advocacy. We are proud that future generations of artists will learn and create in a space that bears her name.”

Jenni Rivera Enterprises will donate $2 million over the next 10 years to the LBCC Foundation, with the bulk of the funds going toward scholarships and education programs, the Long Beach Post reported.

“Our family is deeply honored that Long Beach City College has chosen to memorialize Jenni in this extraordinary way,” said Jacqie Rivera, Rivera’s daughter and CEO of Jenni Rivera Enterprises, in a press release. “Long Beach shaped who Jenni was — as an artist, a mother, and a woman — committed to her community. Knowing that young performers will grow, train, and find their creative voice in a center that carries her name is profoundly meaningful to us.”

The performing arts center, which is scheduled to open in spring 2026, is the second honor the “Inolvidable” singer has received from LBCC. Earlier this year, Rivera was inducted into the LBCC Hall of Fame alongside actor/activist Jennifer Kumiyama and attorney Norm Rasmussen.

Rivera was born and raised in Long Beach, attending Long Beach Poly High School in the 1980s, where she got pregnant as a sophomore. She later graduated from Reid Continuation High School as class valedictorian. She went on to attend LBCC before transferring to Cal State Long Beach to get a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

She immediately put that degree to use as a real estate agent, while simultaneously working at her father’s recording studio and record label.

Her father, Pedro Rivera, was a noted singer of corridos. In the 1980s he launched the record label Cintas Acuario. It began as a swap-meet booth and grew into an influential and taste-making independent outfit, fueling the careers of artists such as Chálino Sanchez. Jenni Rivera’s four brothers were associated with the music industry; her brother Lupillo, in particular, is a huge star in his own right.

She released her first album, “Somos Rivera,” in 1992, launching a prolific career that was tragically cut short when Rivera and six others were killed in a plane crash in Mexico on Dec. 9, 2012.

The self-proclaimed “Diva de la Banda” was a self-made star with a veritable rags-to-riches story. She was a true trailblazer, a U.S.-born woman who took up plenty of space in the male-dominated world of música mexicana.

In 2015, Long Beach city officials honored the singer’s legacy by bestowing her name on a park in Long Beach. On display along a brick wall at the Jenni Rivera Memorial Park is a 125-foot-long mural honoring Rivera’s life and heritage.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame also honored Rivera with a star in 2024, which her five children accepted on her behalf.

“One of my mom’s favorite exes used to work in this vicinity. We would come and check in on him and she always dreamt — I remember sitting in the car, in her Mercedes, and she always dreamt, ‘I’m gonna have my star here one day,’” Rivera’s daughter Jenicka Lopez said at the star unveiling ceremony.

“I thought it was impossible after she passed away, but God has a beautiful way of proving people wrong.”