This is it. Stephen Colbert hosted his last episode of The Late Show last night. We knew it was coming … CBS Paramount announced it was canceling the show last June, which the network said was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show's performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

Of course, Colbert was the highest-rated host in his time slot. Who cancels the #1 show? But advertising revenue for The Late Show has dropped 40% since 2018. And viewership across late-night shows has also steadily declined over the past decade, according to Nielsen ratings, and I’ll admit that I don’t watch the show on actual TV but catch the clips on YouTube and social media.

Then again, the announcement of the show’s cancellation came shortly after Colbert accused Paramount of “accepting a big, fat bribe” when the network paid President Donald Trump $16 million in 2025 to settle his lawsuit over the editing of an interview on 60 Minutes. That settlement also fueled accusations that Paramount was trying to curry favor with the administration, as it occurred ahead of Paramount’s merger approval by the Federal Communications Commission. And his public dispute with his bosses at CBS got pretty ugly.

During Colbert’s 11-year run, he delivered more than 1,800 opening monologues, speaking directly to the audience in a comedy ritual that has defined the late-night genre since the early days of television. The Wall Street Journal pulled five jokes that defined his run. And while he often took shots at the president, Colbert’s most consistent target was himself.

Media critics noted his outspokenness inspired a wave of more overtly partisan late-night hosts and presenters that didn’t shy away from politics. The Trump administration seems to be trying to silence those voices, but the Washington Post points out that now they’re mocking the president even more.

The House and Senate will both leave Washington for their Memorial Day recess without voting on a reconciliation package to fund federal immigration agencies, after the Justice Department’s controversial new “anti-weaponization fund” earned some strong pushback from Republican members.

Republicans had already abandoned part of the bill that provided $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Trump’s ballroom amid backlash from members of their own party. But the settlement announced by the Justice Dept. this week prompted even more questions, spurring a push to limit the taxpayer dollars that some feared could go to infamous Trump allies and his supporters who harmed law enforcement officers in the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol.

They questioned its legal basis, whom it would pay and how the process would work. By the end, Republicans were so livid that both House and Senate leaders scrapped planned votes. A scheduled vote in the House to rein in Trump’s military campaign in Iran was pulled after it became clear they did not have the votes to defeat it. Trump unloaded on Congress on social media, saying Republicans need to “get smart and tough,” or “you’ll all be looking for a job much sooner than you thought possible!”

Spotify is determined to stay on top. The streaming service believes it will become much more profitable over the next four years by leveraging AI to build a “large taste model” that supports “interactive sharing over passive listening.” It also will soon let users generate their own podcasts.

At the company’s investor day Thursday, Spotify announced the addition of personal podcasts, which allow users to generate podcasts directly within Spotify based on their interests and listening habits. The creation follows a similar mechanism to the existing Prompted Playlists segment, in which users write a prompt into Spotify, which then generates audio based on the input. Axios says that leaning into taste as a strategic differentiator will help Spotify create a stickier audio ecosystem and strike more partnerships that serve fans.

TechCrunch reports that Spotify also partnered with Universal Music Group to allow fans to use generative AI technology to create covers and remixes of their favorite songs. The tool will launch as a paid add-on available only to Spotify’s Premium subscribers and will offer a revenue share with participating artists for the AI-generated music based on their work.