Five months after cutting its season short because of the writers strike, "Saturday Night Live" is returning to TV.
The long-running sketch comedy show will premiere Season 49 on Oct. 14, NBC announced Wednesday. Former cast member Pete Davidson will host, making good on a plan to have him host last May. The comedian will be joined by first-time musical guest Ice Spice.
The following week, Bad Bunny will pull double duty as host and musical guest. While the Grammy winner has performed on the show before, it'll be his hosting debut.
The entire cast from Season 48 will return, along with one new addition: Chloe Troast, as a featured player.
Davidson had been set to host May 6, alongside musical guest Lil Uzi Vert, but his episode was the first to be cut after the writers strike started just days before. The writers strike was declared over Sept. 26 after Writers Guild of America board members approved a contract agreement with studios. While Hollywood actors are still on strike for most television and theatrical work, the "SNL" cast can resume performing as variety shows operate under a different contract.
Other late-night shows like "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon", "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" and "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" have also returned.
"I'm excited to do some more 'SNL,'" cast member James Austin Johnson, known for impressions of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, told The Associated Press earlier this week. "It moves quick."
Associated Press journalists Alicia Rancilio and Mark Kennedy contributed to this report.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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