LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Dave Mustaine, lead singer and guitarist for the heavy metal band Megadeth, has been diagnosed with throat cancer, forcing the band to cancel most of its 2019 shows, he said on Monday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop singer and songwriter Taylor Swift on Monday released a star-studded music video that scolded social media trolls and urged fans to sign a petition demanding U.S. legal protections for gays, lesbians and transgender people.

ROME (Reuters) - Franco Zeffirelli, who directed the world's greatest opera singers and brought Shakespeare to the cinema-going masses, has died. He was 96.

ROME, June 15 (Reuters) - Franco Zeffirelli, who directed the world's greatest opera singers and brought Shakespeare to the cinema-going masses, has died. He was 96.

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - Taylor Swift has gone from the personal pride of her seven-week-old single, "Me!," and moved on to Pride with a capital P in its just-released followup, "You Need to Calm Down" (exclamation point only implied this time).

LOS ANGELES, May 31 (Reuters) - Country singer Kenny Rogers on Friday dismissed "wild misinformation and speculation" about his health and said he planned on "sticking around" for years to come.

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - Country music star Trace Adkins continues to carve a niche for himself, along with several notches on his six-shooter, as an imposing presence in indie Westerns with his persuasive portrayal of a tarnished lawman in "The Outsider," an unusually dark and brooding shoot 'em up capably directed by genre specialist Timothy Woodward Jr. ("Traded," "Hickok").

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A collection of more than 50 love letters written by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen to the woman who inspired "So Long, Marianne" has sold for $876,000, with many going for more than five times their pre-sale estimates, Christie's auction house said on Thursday.

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - Here's a little-known pop-diva fact: Madonna used to have nightmares about Whitney Houston. In a 1995 "Primetime Live" interview, she described a dream she had in which she learned that her greatest '80s chart rival's then-latest single, "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)," had replaced hers, "You'll See," at No. 1. Meanwhile, in another room, her music teacher was humming Houston's hit. Cue cold sweat. (Dreams don't always come true: In real life, "You'll See" never made it past No. 6.)