His 2013 marriage to Khloe Kardashian was tabloid fodder and the couple appeared together on a reality TV show before divorcing months later. That same year, Odom was arrested for DUI in Los Angeles.
In 2015, Odom made headlines after suffering a medical episode during a stay at a legal brothel in Nevada called Love Ranch.
Second lady Usha Vance and Vice President JD Vance are expecting a baby this summer, the couple announced Tuesday.“We’re very excited to share the news that Usha is pregnant with our fourth child, a boy. Usha and the baby are doing well, and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in late July,” they said in a joint statement posted to social media.The Vances have three children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel, who have often joined them on travels across the country and the globe.This will mark the first time a sitting second lady has had a baby while in office, but it’s not without precedent for first ladies.First lady Frances Cleveland, wife of President Grover Cleveland, gave birth to her daughter Esther inside the White House in 1893, and a second child, Marion, two years later (born in Massachusetts).First lady Jacqueline Kennedy had a third child, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, in 1963, who was born prematurely on Cape Cod and died at two days old of Hyaline membrane disease.The Vances’ message described the moment as “exciting and hectic” and expressed gratitude to military doctors and their staff.Usha Vance, 40, left her job as a high-profile public lawyer when her husband became President Donald Trump’s second in command, and she has appeared frequently by his side over the course of his first year in office.She has assembled a small team of staff, transitioned her children to life at the Naval Observatory and settled into the role. She has taken up childhood literacy as a platform, launching a summer reading challenge last year.The couple is expected to lead the U.S. delegation to the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, next month.
Second lady Usha Vance and Vice President JD Vance are expecting a baby this summer, the couple announced Tuesday.
“We’re very excited to share the news that Usha is pregnant with our fourth child, a boy. Usha and the baby are doing well, and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in late July,” they said in a joint statement posted to social media.
The Vances have three children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel, who have often joined them on travels across the country and the globe.
This will mark the first time a sitting second lady has had a baby while in office, but it’s not without precedent for first ladies.
First lady Frances Cleveland, wife of President Grover Cleveland, gave birth to her daughter Esther inside the White House in 1893, and a second child, Marion, two years later (born in Massachusetts).
First lady Jacqueline Kennedy had a third child, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, in 1963, who was born prematurely on Cape Cod and died at two days old of Hyaline membrane disease.
The Vances’ message described the moment as “exciting and hectic” and expressed gratitude to military doctors and their staff.
Usha Vance, 40, left her job as a high-profile public lawyer when her husband became President Donald Trump’s second in command, and she has appeared frequently by his side over the course of his first year in office.
She has assembled a small team of staff, transitioned her children to life at the Naval Observatory and settled into the role. She has taken up childhood literacy as a platform, launching a summer reading challenge last year.
The couple is expected to lead the U.S. delegation to the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, next month.
CARACAS, Venezuela — Families of Venezuelan prisoners on Tuesday demanded the release of nearly 800 imprisoned critics, journalists and members of the opposition still detained in the South American nation.
The call came after family members waited two weeks outside of prisons following the government’s announcement that it would release a “significant number” of prisoners detained under Nicolás Maduro. The former president was deposed in early January in an overnight U.S. military raid.
In the wake of criticism that the government had only released a handful of people, acting President Delcy Rodríguez last week vowed to continue releasing prisoners.
Rodríguez called it “a new political moment” for Venezuela.
Despite that, Venezuelans like Francis Quiñones say they feel the same turmoil that families of prisoners have felt for years. While much of Venezuela has started to move on from the chaos of just a few weeks earlier, people like her are stuck in limbo.
Groups of families have spent two weeks camped out outside a Caracas prison known as Helicoide, which activist groups said holds a number of government opponents. Quiñones, whose son has been detained for more than five years, said she hasn’t been able to speak to him in more than six months. But she holds onto hope that they may be reunited.
“Here we are waiting. … Every day, we’re out here outside the Helicoide,” she said. “(The government) is killing us psychologically.”
As of Tuesday, Venezuela’s leading prisoner rights organization, Foro Penal, had verified the release of 145 people it considers “political prisoners.” Around 775 more remain in detention, according to the organization’s leader, Alfredo Romero.
Romero said that those who have been released may not be locked up anymore, but they’re far from free. Most released face government restrictions, including gag orders on speaking to the media and mandatory check-ins with authorities, he said. Others are blocked from leaving the country.
“These people are not free,” Romero said. “They are subjected to constant, latent persecution.”
In Caracas, a row of tents lines the curb where relatives display posters of the missing. Over the weekend, families clustered together, embracing as they lit candles in a vigil.
Fifty-something years after Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, Tompall Glaser Jerry Jeff Walker and a whole host of others set up the framework for outlaw country, the movement is alive and well in a new batch of free-thinking, system-bucking alt-country greats.
Most of the living original outlaws have moved into legacy status, but a few, such as Steve Earle, are still working touring artists.
But what’s changed about outlaw country today? What does an outlaw country singer sing about? Has the rebellion itself changed since the ’70s? Has the status quo changed?
And are these outlaws pushing back solely against the artistic confines of mainstream country music, or something bigger?
Well…it depends on who you ask.
I spoke to three working artists from three different touch points and eras of the subgenre — Dale Watson, Ray Wylie Hubbard and Cross Canadian Ragweed’s Cody Canada.
Each defined outlaw country as a form of independence: An artist’s side-stepping of Nashville’s old guard in order to make their music, their way. All three have deep ties to Texas and the Austin outlaw scene that’s been a hotbed over the past half century.
Is Outlaw Country About Flying the Flag For Roots Music, Or Pushing the Genre Somewhere New?
Most people, when they think about outlaw country, think about that first wave of artists in the ’70s. That musical style is ingrained in most of the subgenre’s heirs.
“It was part of our DNA as far as my music,” says Dale Watson. He’s been tied to the Austin alt-country scene for his whole career, and the city is also home to his Ameripolitan Awards, a yearly show since 2014 to spotlight outlaw, honky tonk, Western swing and rockabilly music.
Jacob Blickenstaff
Jacob Blickenstaff
Today, Watson’s music sounds like a time capsule from another era. “It’s just more rooted,” he acknowledges. “That’s the way my stuff is.”
His new single “Waylon, Willie & Whiskey” — the first off his upcoming Unwanted album — is no exception. The single arrives on Jan. 23, but you can get an early listen at a live video of the song below, exclusively for Taste of Country.
Watson says he wrote the song in real time onstage after spotting a fan in the front row who had the title phrase written on his shirt. “I knew by the time we got around to the chorus the second time, when everybody was singing it, that it’d probably be a song I’d keep doing,” he recounts.
In an era of genre-bending, experimental country music, traditionalism does feel like rebellion to Watson. “There’s a quote by Marty Stuart I lean on that say, ‘The most outlaw thing you can do nowadays is play country music,” he says.
But Watson doesn’t believe that’s the definition of outlaw country.
“The reason they call it outlaw country is because they were doing what they wanted to do without permission. Without regard to what the record label wanted,” he said. “That’s the one thing that’s been a constant in all of it, you know, from Billy Joe Shaver…down to people like Nikki Lane.”
Has the Importance of Songwriting Changed in Outlaw Country?
The image of the outlaw singer as a troubadour is an important piece of the movement’s legacy, but historically, it’s been pretty common for outlaws to record songs they didn’t write.
Shaver wrote most of Jennings’ Honky Tonk Heroes album. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson covered each other all the time. And Johnny Cash cut songs written by Shel Silverstein.
I asked Watson if he thought writing and recording your own songs has become more of a rebellion as mainstream Nashville streamlined the songwriter’s room, placing full-time songwriters together for sessions to crank out as many radio hits for as many stars as possible.
He responded that around 1992, he spent about 10 months writing for a publishing company, and one day, he was booked for a session with two other writers. Before he got there, they’d been looking at a pitch sheet: A list of artists currently recording for albums, and the type of songs they were looking to cut.
“They wanted to write a song for Wynonna Judd, and she was looking for an ‘edgy power ballad a la Melissa Manchester meets Bonnie Raitt.’ It was that specific. And they were like, ‘We’ve kinda got the idea, we’re gonna go with, there’s this teenage girl and she’s pregnant.'”
“I was like, ‘I’m out,'” Watson remembers. “That’s when I let myself out of the Nashville songwriting machine.”
By contrast, in the outlaw subgenre, cutting someone else’s songs was often more about friendship, serendipity or simply being a fan of the person who recorded it first.
Cross Canadian Ragweed frontman Cody Canada told me that in the ’90s, when his band was coming up, they often covered Steve Earle.
Earle’s Guitar Town album was formative for Canada as a young fan, especially because he heard his own father’s struggles echoed in the lyrics, about addiction and coming of age during the Vietnam War.
Michael Buckner, Getty Images
Michael Buckner, Getty Images
But some fans didn’t catch that Ragweed’s versions were covers, and maybe didn’t even know who Earle was at all. “And then the next thing you know, [that fan]’s like, ‘Man, I bought a couple of [Steve Earle] records and I love it.”
“It just felt like the outlaw movement, everybody was really helping each other out,” Canada continues.
The Outlaw Country Community Takes Care of Each Other
And all three, at some point during our interview, rattled off a list of lesser-known acts I just had to check out, people they’d worked with or seen at small venues.
“That’s my favorite part about it…it’s more of a community than the mainstream stuff,” Canada reflects, pointing out that outlaw artists might not have a publicity team or a major label promoting them the same way a mainstream star would.
Instead, they rely on each other — and their ability to build a fan base listener by listener, show by show — to keep their careers alive.
Fan bases are tight communities, too; there’s a strong bond that comes along with being fans of the same lesser-known artist. Canada remembers a “deathly hot” show that Ragweed once played in Waco, Texas, where he looked out from the stage and saw how “everyone was taking care of each other.”
“It was good to witness,” he says. “I felt like we had the best seat in the house.”
He also mentioned another show, when one concertgoer with “a certain colored hat on” was “just trying to be an a–hole to people.”
“There’s 40,000 people having a good time and he’s just not going to have it,” Canada describes. “And I watched all these people not raise a fist, not raise their voice…just scoot in and politely push him to the back barricade. He had to leave the pit. But they did it without violence.”
“And that’s our fan base,” he adds.
Is Outlaw Country More Political Today Than It Was in the 1970s?
In case you didn’t catch the “certain colored hat” comment, Canada says he and most of the artists he runs with are “liberal dudes and ladies.” Especially over the past decade, he’s noticed more and more of his cohorts either writing more political songs or “just having a hard time being quiet.”
He thinks that having the freedom to vocalize your views, without getting muzzled by a diplomatic record label, goes hand in hand with outlaw country’s history.
Dale Watson isn’t so sure.
“The original outlaw thing wasn’t about that,” he said, when I asked him if freedom to share political views was part of the creative freedom that Jennings, Shaver, Kristofferson and Nelson were seeking back in the day.
“Waylon didn’t go that way. Johnny [Cash] did in a very classy way. So, I think, did Willie…he’s not out there saying, ‘If you don’t vote this way, you’re a horrible person.’ But a lot of people are doing that,” Watson continues. “I think it’s sad when you have to — you’re a musician, just do the music, you know?”
He pointed to the merging of outlaw country and folk as the point when outlaw music got political. Ray Wylie Hubbard also told me that political viewpoints were connected to different genres: He said that rednecks and hippies listened to either country or rock, respectively, and for a while, you couldn’t cross that genre line.
Terry Wyatt, Getty Images
Terry Wyatt, Getty Images
But Hubbard thinks that there’s always been a political context for the outlaw country movement. “Yeah, of course,” he said, when I asked if the cultural tensions of the ’70s informed the first wave of the movement.
“The country was really kind of torn apart because of the Vietnam War and civil rights and women’s rights, and all of the sudden the Beatles come in, and the Stones had long hair, and if you had long hair, you were anti-establishment,” he detailed. “It was a very turbulent time.”
Hubbard (who, it should be noted, has had long hair for most of his career) wrote his outlaw classic “Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother” — a song most famously recorded by Jerry Jeff Walker — after “almost getting beat up” at a bar in New Mexico in the early ’70s.
It was a sort of response to Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee,” a song that was “kind of a diss on the whole long-haired hippie from Austin thing,” Hubbard says. “So ‘Redneck Mother’ was kind of an answer to that, like, ‘Hey, your mom raised a redneck.'”
It might’ve been a turbulent, “us versus them” time, but the two sides could find common ground through music. Haggard gave “Redneck Mother” his blessing and even insisted that Hubbard play the song while opening for him one night, and came out to the side of the stage to watch with “a big ol’ smile on his face.”
There was one artist who could always get the hippies and the rednecks to stop fighting and come together, Hubbard continues, and it was Willie Nelson.
“You’d see these old guys in cowboy hats, they’d been out on a tractor, and they’re standing next to some hippie guy that had been in the parking lot smoking pot, and they’re together because the music is so strong,” Hubbard continues, speaking about watching Nelson play at Armadillo World Headquarters.
Robert Mora, Getty Images
Robert Mora, Getty Images
“Boy, the music, that was the key. That was the catalyst,” he adds. “That was the thing that put everything in the pot and threw it together and you had gumbo.”
Is there an artist today who can bring crowds together like that? Hubbard can’t think of one.
“It’s us or them. You’re either gonna be for Kid Rock or the Chicks. You aren’t gonna be for both, even if the music’s good, because of that political divide. It’d be very hard to find an artist I know that can do that,” he says.
Then, he drily joked, “Except me.”
The divide may be bleak, but all three of the outlaws I spoke to for this story had reasons to feel optimistic about the future of the movement, too.
What’s the Future of Outlaw Country?
Hayes Carll, Blackberry Smoke and Whiskey Myers are just a few of the acts brought up as new champions of the outlaw subgenre, a movement rife with fiery young guns and alt-country stars more than capable of carrying it forward.
Cody Canada sees hope in his fan base, as vibrant and dedicated to packing out venues today as it was in the ’90s. Incredibly, Cross Canadian Ragweed hasn’t lost all that much fan momentum even after a two-decade break.
And Ray Wylie Hubbard points to the inspiration he’s found in Nashville’s outlaw-leaning mainstream acts such as Eric Church, with whom he co-wrote “Desperate Man” in 2018.
He’s also found reason to be hopeful in the songwriter’s rooms, for all their commercialization.
After his co-writing experience with Church, around 2019, Hubbard says he agreed to a co-writing appointment with another artist — this time a young woman he’d never met before.
“All of the sudden this young girl comes in and says, ‘Hi, I’m Lainey Wilson,'” Hubbard recounts. “Never met her, no idea who she was…So we got together and wrote this really bada– song, and six months later, she’s everywhere.”
“I hope she has retained that — because she just came in with this attitude of, ‘Let’s write this song and make it cool and make sure it works,’ you know what I mean?” he goes on to say.
At its heart, outlaw country has always been about protecting the integrity and authenticity of the song. In 2026, musical authenticity is not in short supply. And with the original outlaws’ legacy still looming large and bleeding into mainstream country, a modern-day outlaw sensibility can pop up anywhere. You just have to know how to recognize it.
The Top 20 Waylon Jennings Songs
Waylon Jennings’ 20 best songs show why he’s among the largest-looming figures of the outlaw country movement. But they also prove his versatility.
Jennings’ discography includes some ambitious covers of songs that were already massive hits — and without exception, his versions could stand toe-to-toe with the originals. It also features some lesser-known cult classics and a tender love ballad or two.
Keep reading to hear the songs that prove that country music wouldn’t be country music without Jennings’ incredible influence.
Temperatures rebound through the day today with calm conditions. Overnight a weak backdoor cold front will move across parts of eastern New Mexico. This will bring a slight cooldown into Wednesday afternoon. Upper-level winds increase out of the west-northwest heading into Thursday, bringing warmer highs through Thursday. Friday brings in a big change to the […]
The Justice Department has sent subpoenas to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and other state leaders, escalating its investigation into whether state officials conspired to impede law enforcement during the Trump administration’s immigration operations, according to a document reviewed by NBC News and a person familiar with the investigation.
The subpoenas were also sent to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the office of St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and two counties, according to the document and the person familiar with the probe.
NBC News has reached out to their offices for comment.
In a statement to NBC News, Frey sharply criticized the Trump administration and accused the Justice Department of misusing its power.
“When the federal government weaponizes its power to try to intimidate local leaders for doing their jobs, every American should be concerned. We shouldn’t have to live in a country where people fear that federal law enforcement will be used to play politics or crack down on local voices they disagree with,” Frey added.
“In Minneapolis, we won’t be afraid. We know the difference between right and wrong and, as Mayor, I’ll continue doing the job I was elected to do: keeping our community safe and standing up for our values,” the Democratic mayor added.
In a statement, Ellison said the subpoena was “for records and documents, not for me personally.”
“Everything about this is highly irregular, especially the fact that this comes shortly after my office sued the Trump Administration to challenge their illegal actions within Minnesota,” the state attorney general said.
“Let’s be clear about why this is happening: Donald Trump is coming after the people of Minnesota and I’m standing in his way,” Ellison added. “I will not be intimidated, and I will not stop working to protect Minnesotans from Trump’s campaign of retaliation and revenge.”
The investigation comes after an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, during an immigration enforcement operation. The killing sparked protests and led to clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement in scenes that have drawn national attention.
The federal statute invoked in the investigation into Minnesota officials has been rarely used and has roots in the Civil War era. But it was on a list of statutes in a memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi last month, obtained by NBC News, that offered a road map for federal prosecutors on how to charge political agitators with crimes.
Federal officials are also investigating Good’s partner to determine whether she may have impeded a federal officer moments before Good was shot and killed, two people familiar with the investigation said.
Walz has said previously: “The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her.” He was referring to ICE officer Jonathan Ross, a war veteran who spent over a decade working for the Department of Homeland Security.
Megadeth are giving fans a chance to pre-order their final studio album, set for release on January 23, 2026, with an exclusive one-off 180g Zoetrope Picture Disc. Limited to just 5,000 copies worldwide, the striking picture disc features Vic Rattlehead flipping the bird as the record spins — a true collector’s item for longtime fans of the legendary metal band. Pre-orders are available here.
Frontman Dave Mustaine reflected on the significance of the release, calling it a celebration of his career and the band’s enduring impact: “There’s so many musicians that have come to the end of their career, whether accidental or intentional. Most of them don’t get to go out on their own terms on top, and that’s where I’m at in my life right now. I have traveled the world and have made millions upon millions of fans and the hardest part of all of this is saying goodbye to them.”
He continued, emphasizing the timing of the album and farewell tour: “We can’t wait for you to hear this album and see us on tour. If there was ever a perfect time for us to put out a new album, it’s now. If there was ever a perfect time to tour the world, it’s now. This is also a perfect time for us to tell you that it’s our last studio album… We have done something together that’s truly wonderful and will probably never happen again.
“We started a musical style, we started a revolution, we changed the guitar world and how it’s played, and we changed the world. The bands I played in have influenced the world. I love you all for it. Thank you for everything.”
2/15 Victoria, BC Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre 2/17 Abbotsford, BC Rogers Forum 2/18 Kelowna, BC Prospera Place 2/20 Calgary, AB Scotiabank Saddledome 2/21 Edmonton, AB Rogers Place 2/24 Saskatoon, SK SaskTel Centre 2/25 Winnipeg, MB Canada Life Centre 2/28 London, ON Canada Life Place 3/1 Ottawa, ON Canadian Tire Centre 3/3 Halifax, NS Scotiabank Centre 3/4 Moncton, NB Avenir Centre 3/6 Québec City, QC Videotron Centre 4/23 Lima, Peru Costa 21 4/26 Bogotá, Colombia Movistar Arena 4/27 Bogotá, Colombia Movistar Arena 4/30 Buenos Aires, Argentina Tecnópolis 5/2 São Paulo, Brazil Espaco Unimed 5/4 Santiago, Chile Movistar Arena 5/5 Santiago, Chile Movistar Arena 5/8 Monterrey, Mexico Arena Monterrey 5/10 Mexico City, Mexico Arena Ciudad de Mexico 5/11 Mexico City, Mexico Arena Ciudad de Mexico 5/13 Guadalajara, Mexico Arena Guadalajara 5/25 Valencia, Spain Roig Arena 5/27 A Coruña, Spain Coliseum 5/29 Bilbao, Spain Bizkaia Arena BEC! 6/2 Hanover, Germany Heinz von Heiden Arena 6/6 Maastricht, Netherlands South of Heaven 6/7 Gelsenkirchen, Germany Amphitheater 6/10 Hradec Králové, Czechia Rock For People – Park 360 6/11 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg Rockhal 6/14 Ferrara, Italy Ferrara Summer Festival – Piazza Ariostea 6/15 Zurich, Switzerland Halle 622 6/16 Vienna, Austria Gasometer 6/18 Dessel, Belgium Graspop Metal Meeting 6/20 Clisson, France Hellfest 6/23 Istanbul, Türkiye Kucukciftlik Park 6/26 Helsinki, Finland Suvilahti – TUSKA 6/28 Almaty, Kazakhstan Spartak Stadium 8/8 Sturgis, SD Sturgis Buffalo Chip 8/29 Toronto, ON Scotiabank Arena 8/30 Toronto, ON Scotiabank Arena 9/3 Montréal, QC Parc Jean Drapeau 9/5 Harrison, NJ Sports Illustrated Stadium 9/6 Harrison, NJ Sports Illustrated Stadium 9/9 Boston, MA TD Garden 9/11 Bristow, VA Jiffy Lube Live 9/12 Charlotte, NC PNC Music Pavilion 9/15 Hershey, PA Hersheypark Stadium 9/19 Shakopee, MN Mystic Lake Amphitheater 9/22 Tinley Park, IL Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre 9/25 Los Angeles, CA BMO Stadium 9/26 Los Angeles, CA BMO Stadium 9/29 San Antonio, TX Alamodome
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