Before The Ramones became international icons, the band's first press release in 1975 introduced the punk rockers to the world as working-class men from Queens.

Youngsters from the New York borough's neighborhood of Forest Hills "either become musicians, degenerates or dentists. The Ramones are a little of each," it informed.

A judge on Wednesday voided the sale of a former Catholic convent to a Los Angeles businesswoman, clearing the way for Katy Perry to purchase the hilltop property.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Bowick ruled that attempts to sell the property to the businesswoman by members of an order of elderly nuns were improper.

The team running the Paris concert hall where 90 people were killed in last year's jihadist attacks announced Wednesday a series of concerts would be held at the venue in November.

British singer Pete Doherty and the Senegalese star Youssou N'Dour and his Super Etoile de Dakar band will play the Bataclan on November 16 and 18 respectively, the managers said in a statement.

Several country music artists and songwriters have condemned proposed laws that critics say discriminate against LGBT people, but anyone looking for reaction from the record labels and production companies on Nashville's Music Row has heard only the sound of silence.

New laws in North Carolina and Mississippi have drawn the ire of businesses and celebrities alike, with Bruce Springsteen and Bryan Adams canceling shows in those states. Legislation dealing with the treatment of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people was vetoed by Georgia's governor, but bills are still being considered in Tennessee and South Carolina.

Lawyers for Bill Cosby are urging a court to reseal the actor's deposition testimony about extramarital affairs, Quaaludes and payments to women.

Cosby doesn't want the decade-old testimony used in the legal battles he's fighting with women who accuse him of sexual assault or defamation.

The recorded music industry has enjoyed its first significant growth since the dawn of the Internet age, as streaming led digital to overtake physical sales, a global trade body said Tuesday. 

Recorded music revenue expanded by 3.2 percent in 2015 worldwide to $15 billion, fueled by an extraordinary growth in subscriptions to streaming services, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

One of India's top newspapers faced a social media backlash on Tuesday after it splashed a picture across its front page of Britain's Princess Kate suffering a "Marilyn moment" as her dress rose up in the wind.

Dozens of fire trucks on Tuesday rushed to extinguish a blaze which gutted four buildings in a famed Tokyo bar district.

Turkey's most popular comedian went on trial Monday accused of insulting a provincial governor, the latest in a string of such court cases seen as clamping down on free speech in the country.

Cem Yilmaz, who is also an award-winning actor, is facing up to two years in jail for a series of tweets criticizing the governor of northwestern Yalova province over the death of a mathematics teacher.

A cellist friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin named in the Panama Papers as owning a $2-billion offshore empire was portrayed as a humble patron of the arts Sunday, in a state TV program in which he said he helps hundreds of musicians.