The nighttime lights of Las Vegas can hide the stars, but sometimes you can still find them under one dazzling roof.

One of the greatest bands on Earth — the Eagles — are in residence at the state-of-the-art Las Vegas Sphere, led by the band’s co-founder Don Henley, along with longtime guitarist Joe Walsh and country star Vince Gill.

And whenever the Eagles perform here, they sell the place out.

The Eagles’ “miraculous run”

“I guess we’re kind of a staple,” Henley said. “Our first record came out in ’72. Fifty-three years of playing for people. So it’s… you know, it’s been a miraculous run.”

And it got even more miraculous last month, when one of those Eagles albums from the 1970s — “Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975)” — was certified quadruple diamond, the first to sell more than 40 million copies, cementing its place as the best-selling album of all time.

“‘Greatest Hits’ is kind of a misnomer. It should just be called their best songs because every song on that album was not a great hit. You know? There are a couple of songs on that album that didn’t break the top 30. But they’re good songs. Desperado, for example, was never released as a single. Not by us, nor by Linda Ronstadt,” Henley said.

Henley adds that the album wasn’t really their idea; it was basically pushed on them by the record company. But the band “didn’t have any way to stop them,” Henley joked.

“We complained. Oh, yeah. It’s documented,” he laughed.

Legacy of late bandmate Glenn Frey

Henley said writing Desperado with his late bandmate Glenn Frey was the first time the pair collaborated as songwriting partners. He added that they clicked instantly, and Frey quickly earned the nickname “the lone arranger.”

“Because he was so good at arranging songs,” Henley explained.

Frey died 10 years ago at age 67, but his legacy is larger than life.

Before the show, fans can take a literal walk down memory lane at a place called the Eagles’ Third Encore — an almost life-sized model of the key places in the band’s history, including a mock-up of L.A.’s Troubadour nightclub, which includes a real working bar.

But Henley’s pre-show routine isn’t quite the same as it used to be. Instead of taking a shot of tequila, he’s doing crunches as a warm-up.

“I don’t do voice exercises because they don’t help. I sing from my core, so keeping my abdomen in shape makes me sing better,” he said, adding with a laugh, “I don’t have a six-pack or anything, but there’s one under there somewhere.”

Deacon Frey fills in for his late father

One of the emotional highlights of the show is the moment where Frey’s son, Deacon, takes the stage in his father’s spot, often with his father’s guitar, and sings his father’s songs.

“I burst with pride. I almost got tears in my eyes the other night when he was filling in for Joe,” Henley said.

Henley said he wasn’t sure performing without Frey was feasible, but the band agreed to continue only if Deacon could join them.

A father of three himself, Henley has always had a rich life outside the band, and he recently co-produced a PBS documentary with filmmaker Ken Burns about Henry David Thoreau.

“There are so many parallels to what he was seeing during his time and what we’re seeing now. As Mark Twain said, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.’ And I think that’s what’s happening now,” Henley said.

What’s next?

The Eagles are keeping the music alive with a few more live shows this summer and an extended run in Las Vegas into April, featuring cutting-edge technology that didn’t exist when they first started making music.

“The sound system is like nothing on the planet. There are about 167,000 speakers in that dome,” Henley said of the Sphere.

The Eagles’ tour is called “The Long Goodbye,” but Henley says this time he means it.

“You know, I think this year will probably be it. I’ve said things like that before, but I feel like we’re getting toward the end. And that will be fine, too,” Henley said.

After more than 50 years of playing, Henley says he has to psych himself up to perform the Eagles’ classics each night.

“After a while, you learn to make friends with the songs,” he says. “It’s not about us. It’s about what they mean to the people we’re playing them for. You have to play every night with your heart in it.” Henley adds, “Music is medicine. And people need some medicine right now.”

Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie’s royal future once again became talk of the town after they made it to the headlines due to their parents, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson’s, controversial ties with Jeffrey Epstein.

Following the latest secrets exposed in the Epstein files, the former Duke and Duchess of York not only brought negative light on the royal family but also on their daughters.

Now, a royal expert, Jennie Bond, has shed light on the chances of Beatrice and Eugenie getting official royal roles in the future.

Speaking with Mirror, she said, “I don’t think there’s any question of the Princesses being given official roles.”

The royal commentator added, “They will no doubt continue their occasional public appearances supporting the monarchy, at garden parties or charitable events, but the emphasis is still very much on keeping the number of working royals to a minimum.”

Jennie extended support towards the Princesses, saying that they have a “fair bit of sympathy” for them.

A week after his “ICE out” declaration dominated Grammy headlines, anticipation is building over whether Bad Bunny will turn the biggest performance of his career — the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show — into a political call to action. 

“One thing about Bad Bunny is that he is a master at the art of surprise,” Petra Rivera-Rideau, an associate professor of American studies at Wellesley College who specializes in Latin music and U.S.-Latinx pop cultures, told CBS News. 

But some believe Bad Bunny, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, doesn’t need theatrics to send a message.

“I think a lot of people are expecting him to have a political message in there,” Mike Alfaro, the creator of Millennial Lotería who has gone viral for translating Bad Bunny lyrics into English ahead of the big game, added. “I think just him being there is the political message.”

Reactions poured in when it was announced that the Super Bowl’s halftime headliner would be the popular Puerto Rican artist who performs mainly in Spanish, with some hailing the historic choice and others criticizing it.

President Trump blasted the decision to give Bad Bunny and Green Day — who are set to open the Super Bowl LX pregame festivities — a global stage, calling the lineup a “terrible choice.”

“I’m anti-them,” Mr. Trump told The New York Post, adding that he won’t be attending Sunday’s game.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called Bad Bunny “one of the greatest artists in the world” and said he doesn’t expect the halftime show to spark major controversy.

“Listen, Bad Bunny is — and I think that was demonstrated last night — one of the great artists in the world, and that’s one of the reasons we chose him,” said Goodell, referring to Bad Bunny’s Grammys speech. “But the other reason is he understood the platform he was on, and that this platform is used to unite people, and to be able to bring people together with their creativity, with their talents, and to be able to use this moment to do that. And I think artists in the past have done that. I think Bad Bunny understands that, and I think he’ll have a great performance.”

Bad Bunny’s political voice

Bad Bunny hasn’t shied away from decrying America’s politics. 

When he took his new album on tour, he chose a residency in Puerto Rico and skipped the U.S. mainland entirely for fear that his fans would be targeted by federal agents.

In 2018, during Bad Bunny’s first appearance on American mainstream television, he kicked off his rendition of “Estamos Bien” on Jimmy Fallon’s “The Tonight Show” by reminding the mainland that Puerto Ricans were still coping from one of the deadliest disasters in U.S. history.

“After one year of the hurricane, there’s still people without electricity in their homes, more than 3,000 people died,” said Bad Bunny, adding, “and Trump is still in denial.”

Beyond pioneering on the Super Bowl stage in a different language, Bad Bunny has already made political history through his music and cultural advocacy.

Mobilizing Puerto Rico

“We talk about stuff like Hurricane Maria, the protests in 2019, his involvement in the Puerto Rican elections in 2024. But really the point of [my] book is to talk about how his music functions as an act of resistance in this bigger political and social context of colonialism in Puerto Rico,” explained Rivera-Rideau, whose book focuses on Boricua history over the past three decades. 

Rivera-Rideau said “Benito,” as Latinos lovingly call him, continues to channel messages of pride and calls for political accountability for Puerto Rico in his latest album.

“It is in many ways his most overtly political album,” Rivera-Rideau said. 

In “LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii,” for example, Bad Bunny calls out gentrification in the island, an ongoing trend fueled by financial incentives that have catapulted property taxes.

“There’s so many things that make life here difficult and yet, at the same time, there’s so much pride and joy,” Rivera-Rideau said.

In his latest album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Bad Bunny draws from Bomba, an Afro-Puerto Rican music genre that is rooted in the island’s connection to enslaved Africans. Bomba dancers often join drummers to merge their rhythms into a musical dialogue. 

During the 2019 protests calling for Gov. Ricardo Rosselló’s resignation, Bomba, and other Caribbean music genres, were as prominent as chants and signs. Puerto Ricans used art and music — bomba dances, slam poetry, queer balls and more — to gather people together and call for change. Bad Bunny joined the movement, taking time off his concert tour that summer to march in San Juan and collaborate on what became the protest anthem, “Afilando los Cuchillos,” or “Sharpening The Knives.”

In 2020, Bad Bunny used his appearance on “The Tonight Show” to raise awareness about the murder of a homeless transgender woman in Puerto Rico. He wore a T-shirt that read, “They killed Alexa, not a man in a skirt,” to shed light on the tragedy and advocate for justice.

The broader impact of Bad Bunny’s halftime show

Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance — the first to be headlined by a predominantly Spanish‑language artist — will be a landmark moment for the Latino community.

“I think there’s so many layers to how meaningful this halftime show is, and it hasn’t even happened yet,” Rivera-Rideau said.

“To have a Spanish language artist headlining this stage, which is although not a national holiday, kind of functions like one in the context where Spanish speakers, including Puerto Ricans, are getting racially profiled, are being harassed, to have someone like that on the stage is important.”

Spanish is the most common non-English language in the U.S., with about 13% of the population speaking it at home.

“There are more people that speak Spanish here in the United States than in my home country of Guatemala,” Alfaro said. “I think it’s important to understand that music is a universal language, even if you don’t quite understand what they’re saying.” 

For some fans, Bad Bunny is the main draw of this year’s Super Bowl.

“It’s about time to recognize our culture, our passion, our people,” Miriam Velez, co-owner of the Puerto Rican-themed social club Pe Erre Domino in Chicago, told CBS News Chicago.

“To not only have an impact in the United States, but a global impact is amazing,” Puerto Rican DJ Emmanuel Ríos Colón added.

“I think it doesn’t matter that it’s Bad Bunny, but that any Latino that goes and represents us in the Super Bowl, we’re good,” Yazmin Auli, owner of the Philadelphia bakery El Coquí, told CBS News Philadelphia. “It doesn’t matter who it is, but since it is Bad Bunny, that’s even better.”

The excitement over Bad Bunny’s halftime show is also sparking interest in more than just Latin music — it’s inspiring people to learn Spanish.

Duolingo, the language learning tool, reported that almost 49 million people worldwide are learning Spanish on the app. When the NFL announced the Super Bowl line-up, they shared a “Bad Bunny 101” crash course to get more Spanish learners on board. Duolingo told CBS News that 60% of those learners are still active today and points to the data as proof that people are motivated to be in the know.