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Jan 01, 2050
Chip Somodevilla/Getty
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Jan 01, 2050
Kevin Lamarque/ReutersJohn S. McCain III, an American hero who served as a Navy captain and a member of Congress for 57 years, died on TKTKTK DAY. He was 81.
McCain was a giant of the United States Senate and a lifelong public servant who won respect and admiration from his colleagues on Capitol Hill and world leaders for his staunch advocacy of democratic principles and his defiant policy positions, particularly on issues relating to the military and national security.
He was a tough and, at times, feisty and brash legislator, but he forged friendships and bonds that cemented his place in history as a dealmaker. His political opponents sometimes branded him a war-monger and a reactionary at worst but never doubted his unwavering adherence to his principles, his tireless support for American troops, and his enduring commitment to public service.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 25, 2023
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersOn April 25, all nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court signed a Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices, which they submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"In regard to recusal," the justices unanimously declared that they "follow the same general principles and statutory standards as other federal judges."
It took Justice Samuel Alito less than five months to renege on his written commitment to his colleagues and the public. In a four-page statement issued on Sept. 8, Alito declined to recuse himself from a major tax case, without a single citation, reference, or acknowledgement of either the federal recusal statute or the "general principles" that he had so recently agreed to follow.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 25, 2023
ABCAutumn is finally here. There's a pleasant chill in the air, the seasonal drinks are flowing, and The Bachelor is turning over a new leaf with its oldest leading man yet. I'm calling it now: On Thursday night, 71-year-old grandfather, pickleball fan, and "Golden Bachelor" Gerry Turner is going to single-handedly turn this ailing franchise around.
A long-gestating Bachelor spin-off, The Golden Bachelor premieres Thursday on ABC and will, just like its predecessor, observe its leading man as he dates through a house of women to find The One. In this case, that would be Gerry—a retired restaurateur, father, and grandfather from Indiana who loves barbecuing, four-wheeling, and going out on the town with his loved ones.
"He posts his thirst traps in a leather-bound album," ABC's first teaser croons. "His DMs have postage. He gets the early bird special any time he wants. If you call him, he'll answer the phone. He doesn't have gray hair, he has ‘wisdom highlights.' Florida wants to retire, and move to him. He's Gerry."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 25, 2023
Alan ShapiroIn October 1983, the Disney Channel—which had launched just six months earlier—was already at the forefront of original cable series. But, says Jim Jimirro, founding president of the Disney Channel, "The last thing I was looking to do at that time was get into a feature film business."
Jimirro tells me, "We were just getting our feet wet with the original productions," 13 of which were part of the channel's April ‘83 launch.
However, a young filmmaker and his production partner seized an opportunity to tell a worthwhile story—opening the door for the network to create a world of movies called "Disney Channel Premiere Films," which predated the now-beloved "Disney Channel Original Movies."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 25, 2023
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyUnder the waters of the North Atlantic, hundreds of meters of seaweed rope lines used to farm algae are being strung up—the magic ingredient, a growing clutch of startups believe, in fighting climate change. While 97 percent of seaweed farming currently happens in Asia, British companies are looking to muscle in on the $13.3 billion industry—and maximize on the natural advantages their location brings to regenerate the planet.
Given the scale of Asia's operation, the UK has its work cut out. But it's a challenge that Olly Hicks believes is worthwhile "in myriad different ways." Hicks, the first person to row solo across the Atlantic from the U.S. to the UK, is the founder of Algapelago, an algae farm in Bideford Bay, four miles from the coast of North Devon in southwest England. He has secured a license to cultivate a nearly 300-acre area along with his cousin Humphrey Atkinson, product manager at Notpla, a startup that uses seaweed as a biodegradable replacement for single-use plastics.
While Notpla and other enterprises focus on harnessing the aquatic plant for packaging, food, and cosmetics, Algapelago is working on a less-common use for the slimy stuff: cow feed. A 2021 study from the University of California, Davis found that mixing a small amount of seaweed into cow feed over five months reduced Earth-polluting methane emissions by 82 percent—making it a potential green goldmine.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 25, 2023
Jonathan BrowningThe below is an excerpt from ‘Cunk on Everything: The Encyclopedia Philomena' by Philomena Cunk.
FacebookFacebook is a sort of pub in your computer, where your mates and you can all meet and fall out with each other without having to pay for a drink or some nuts or put up with a fucking pub quiz taking place.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 25, 2023
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyWhen Rosevony Duroseau turned 47 last year, her brother and sister-in-law hosted a small surprise party to celebrate.
Dr. Yves Duroseau, M.D., chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Manhattan's Lenox Hill Hospital, and his designer wife, Claude, had about 15 guests over on Sept. 17, 2022—a Saturday evening—for a nine-course dinner in the back garden of their gracious Forest Hills home. The occasion was especially joyous for Rosevony, who had recently gotten engaged.
Yves, who in 2020 was the first physician in the U.S. to receive the COVID vaccine, and Rosevony, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officer based out of Washington, D.C., are Haitian-American, and all but one of the guests at the gathering were Black or Latino. Among them were friends of Rosevony's from Fordham Law School, where she earned her J.D., along with attorneys from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul's administration, two bank executives, a New Jersey public schools administrator, at least one public defender, high-powered music industry player Rigo Morales, who co-founded the Recording Academy's Black Music Collective, and Rosevony's fiancé, the co-founder and CEO of a cybersecurity risk management consultancy. The meal was catered by chef Vanessa Cantave, 2011 winner of Bravo cooking competition show, Rocco's Dinner Party.
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Sep 24, 2023
Charley Gallay/Getty ImagesThe Writers Guild of America told its 11,500 members on Sunday night that it had reached a tentative deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, signaling that the union's historic 146-day strike may soon be at an end.
"What we have won in this contract—most particularly, everything we have gained since May 2nd—is due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power, to demonstrate its solidarity, to walk side-by-side, to endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days," an email to the union read.
The email noted "with great pride" that the new three-year contract "is exceptional—with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 24, 2023
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Bravo/GettyIn the Great Real Housewives of New York Prank War of 2023, the battle lines were drawn in the Anguilla sand. What was already an emotionally volatile trip to the Caribbean has erupted into an all-out international conflict, with Ubah and Erin as the opposing powers. Erin maintains that she did nothing wrong when she hid Ubah's phone, which was her retaliation against Ubah pushing her into the pool the night before. Ubah, however, is irate about having her phone taken from her while traveling, which led to her spending an hour hunting around their enormous villa in a panic looking for it.
If you, like me, chose sides at the end of last week's episode, you might've found that Episode 11 made it much more difficult to maintain those allegiances. I still believe Ubah was in the right to be upset about Erin's "prank," but the lengths the cast goes to when ganging up on Erin in response—however annoying she may be—seem a bit extreme and mean-spirited. While a certain level of that might be warranted for Erin's crude remark that Ubah was "a dumbass," this is merely a practical joke gone too far; both women could apologize and squash their beef, but we're learning how they operate in intense conflict, and it's not great. Well, it's not good for them, but for us viewers, this tension is precisely the kind of thrill that we seek from Housewives at their most repulsive. Bring on the schadenfreude!
After Ubah snatched the sunglass
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Sep 24, 2023
Courtesy of Olivia HillThe first trans person to be elected to office in Tennessee is being treated as a second-class citizen and may be forced to use the male bathroom at work despite identifying as female.
Five women, including openly transgender member Olivia Hill, were handed a sweeping victory on Sept. 14 by winning all the seats at large during Nashville Metro Council's election and making the body majority female. However, the historic election victory is being overshadowed by an anti-LGBTQ law quietly passed in May that will make it harder for Hill to do her job and simply live her life in the state.
Senate Bill 1440/House Bill 239, which went into effect on July 1, establishes sex in all state codes as "a person's immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth and evidence of a person's biological sex."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 24, 2023
Julia Nikhinson/ReutersIn a late entrance to the "insult Sen. John Fetterman for his style" race, Pete Hegseth came out swinging on Sunday, calling the Pennsylvania Democrat a "slob" who bears the sole responsibility for making the nation "look like a joke."
Like so many right-wingers, the Fox & Friends co-host appeared perturbed—triggered, even—by the spotlight thrust upon Fetterman in the wake of the news that the U.S. Senate is dropping its unwritten dress code. (The Pennsylvania senator and the hoodies and shorts that populate his wardrobe are widely believed to be the reason for the relaxing of the code, which has long consisted of the unspoken stipulation that athletic wear and the Senate floor don't mix.)
Hegseth launched into his tirade against Fetterman after co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy suggested on the Sunday morning show that the clothes one wears "shows respect for where you're going."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 24, 2023
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Ottawa CountyA county commissioners board in western Michigan that was taken over by a far-right slate of candidates will vote Tuesday on whether to drastically cut the health department's budget, in the face of pleas by public health officials and community protests.
A group of ultraconservative candidates, motivated by resentment over COVID restrictions and mask mandates, swept to power in a election held in Ottawa County in Aug. 2022. Since taking office in January, the new commissioners affiliated with "Ottawa Impact" have used their majority to fire top county officials, install a former Trump administration official and MAGA loyalist as county administrator, shutter the county's Diversity Equity and Inclusion Office, and change the county motto from "Where You Belong" to "Where Freedom Rings."
But their particular target has been the public health department, apparently in retaliation for COVID mandates.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 24, 2023
Jason Hanna/Getty ImagesIf Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce really are "New Romantics," then Missouri's Arrowhead Stadium might just be about to become "Holy Ground" for Swifties everywhere.
At the Kansas City Chiefs' matchup against the Chicago Bears, Swift was spotted in Kelce's suite—and sitting next to the tight end's mother, no less. She was filmed cheering when quarterback Patrick Mahomes threw Kelce a touchdown in the second half of the game, chest-bumping a friend and mouthing, "Let's fucking go!"
"I heard she was in the house," Mahomes told Fox Sports after the game, which the Chiefs won 41-10. "I felt a little bit of pressure and so I knew I had to get it to Trav."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 24, 2023
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via GettyRep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) used his weekly email newsletter—hosted on a .gov domain that is funded by American taxpayers—on Sunday to launch a thinly veiled, homophobic attack on Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, shockingly suggesting Milley should be put to death.
The diatribe came in a section commenting on former Capitol Police Chief Stephen Sund's testimony to the House Committee on Administration last week, in which Sund discussed the Capitol riot. Sund called the events of Jan. 6 "an intelligence failure" and said he wished several agencies and individuals—from the Pentagon to then-President Donald Trump—had reacted more swiftly to provide back-up for local law enforcement.
But in Gosar's recantation of the day's events, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) remained the villain of the riots, though it was Milley—"the homosexual-promoting-BLM-activist Chairman of the military joint chiefs"—who delayed the deployment of the National Guard, Gosar claimed.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 24, 2023
Fox NewsEven Fox News had to ask Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Sunday: Why do you want to shut down the government?
Gaetz appeared on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, where she uncharacteristically pressed the Republican congressman on whether his opposition to a short-term stopgap bill to avert a shutdown was a continuance of his personal vendetta against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
She pointed out that McCarthy had already caved to Gaetz's demand to split up spending bills by allowing the House Appropriations Committee to bring up four separate bills this week.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 24, 2023
Tim Clayton/Corbis via GettyThe family of a young Black gymnast has slammed the sport's governing body in Ireland for offering a weak apology after a young Black gymnast was snubbed at medal ceremony in a viral incident that has even prompted star gymnasts Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles to weigh in.
A video, which was taken during the March 2022 ceremony but resurfaced recently and went viral over the weekend, showed an official clearly bypassing the only Black girl while handing out medals, leaving the girl looking confused and embarrassed.
Gymnastics Ireland issued a statement on Friday saying the organization had settled the issue via mediation with the girl's parents last month. They claimed that they had "immediately" contacted the family back in March 2022 to "express concern and reassure them that the matter was being investigated."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 24, 2023
REUTERS/Mario AnzuoniThe Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers reportedly sent a "best and final" offer to WGA members on Saturday evening, leading to reports on Sunday that a deal to end a 145-day strike was imminent.
With the most recent round of negotiations reportedly yielding major progress, the two sides were set to meet again on Sunday to continue bargaining. Studio sources told the Los Angeles Times that they hoped to ink a deal by the end of that day's meeting.
"The intention was always to wrap this up by the weekend," an insider told Deadline. "That was the desire on both sides of the table."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 24, 2023
GettyUsher will headline the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show, sponsor Apple Music announced on Sunday in a clip that inexplicably featured Kim Kardashian. The NFL confirmed the news in a separate tweet.
The streaming service deployed a roster of stars, including Kardashian, Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., and former Super Bowl champions Deion Sanders and Marshawn Lynch, to tell a young Usher in a clipped-together phone call that he would be the star of the halftime show. One clip even included a present-day Usher calling his younger self from the promo shoot for the announcement.
"It's an honor of a lifetime to finally check a Super Bowl performance off my bucket list," Usher said in a statement, according to ESPN. "I can't wait to bring the world a show unlike anything else they've seen from me before. Thank you to the fans and everyone who made this opportunity happen. I'll see you real soon."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 24, 2023
Piroschka Van De Wouw/ReutersWelcome to this week's edition of Royalist, The Daily Beast's newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.
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Where can Prince Harry call home in the U.K.? That is the preoccupation of a weekend of feverish reporting—first, a reported snub by Harry to King Charles over staying at Balmoral; another story has Charles offering Harry a residence for when he stays in the country, while a third claims that Harry will have to give notice when he wants somewhere to stay.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyListen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
Amanda Litman, the co-founder of Run For Something, announced this week that the group would pump $10 million into local school board races that are being hijacked by the conservative Moms for Liberty group.
Litman tells The New Abnormal co-host Danielle Moodie she is determined to see progressive voices on school boards, adding that there is a very short list of qualities that potential candidates need in order to be supported by her organization.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyPeter Thiel's floating city in French Polynesia. Elon Musk's self-sustaining city on Mars. Bill Gates' smart city in Arizona. Long before a host of the biggest players in Silicon Valley set their sights on creating a new city in Solano County, California, many billionaires thought they could start their own utopia. But one man, a retired AT&T executive from Georgia, has actually been able to do it—for better or for worse.
Oliver Porter, 85, is the architect of Sandy Springs, Georgia, a city of 108,000 people outside Atlanta that set off a wave of similar new towns when it incorporated in 2005. Porter has assisted in creating nearly a dozen new cities in Georgia and several others around the world. The legacy of that movement, which has improved services for some while icing out others, carries important lessons for those attempting to start their own private paradises today.
Porter joined the Sandy Springs planning committee in the late 1990s, more than 25 years after residents of the neighborhood started pushing for independence from the government of the surrounding Fulton County. The fight started in 1965, when Atlanta attempted to annex the wealthy, white enclave just outside the city limits and was met with resounding resistance from homeowners—in part for fear that annexation would require racial integration. (Reps for the suburb
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Warner Bros./20th Century Fox/
The below is an excerpt from ‘"You Talkin' to ": The Definitive Guide to Iconic Movie Quotes' by Brian Abrams.
Though it's true (it's twoo! it's twoo!) that Mel Brooks became comedy royalty after an impeccable run of game-changing hits with Gene Wilder—especially Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein—the Brooklyn-born rascal always took his funny business seriously. He constantly combed the desert for gags, thought up absurd cameos and sidekicks, and never ever accepted notes or direction from suits on the studio lot.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyWhat if Cinderella hadn't come to the ball to marry the prince, but to kill him?
That one thought, sparked from listening to the "intense" music in Cinderella, was the catalyst behind Sarah J. Maas' eight-book fantasy series Throne of Glass. Enter Aelin Galathynius: the most famous assassin in the world, armed with a heart of gold, a wicked sense of humor, and a divine love for live opera (oh, and please don't touch her expensive lavender-scented soap).
"Aelin came into my head—someone who loved dressing up for the ball but also had a very vicious job to do," Maas told The Daily Beast of her series' beloved protagonist. "Her character grew and changed from there, but I always wanted her to be a woman who was fascinating and complicated, like all women are."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/ReutersIn 2022, fringe right-wing congressional candidate Joe Kent had a little trouble convincing the far right that he was the genuine article and not, in fact, a deep-state plant.
This go-around, the "America First" conservative appears to be getting ahead of that narrative as he makes another run for Congress. This time, he's shoring up his radical credentials by calling to gut the FBI.
The FBI, Kent suggested in a video last month, is essentially operating "as a secret domestic intelligence agency," which will "continue to take us down this road towards total authoritarianism." He has repeatedly called to defund the agency, even as it faces mounting threats from the MAGAsphere, and has pushed the false claim that "deep state" infiltration was to blame for the Jan. 6 attack.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyFirst there was the finger-banging in the kitchen. Then there was the strap-on.
It's tempting to joke about "where you were" when And Just Like That, the sequel series to Sex and the City, first aired its now-infamous sex scene between Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Che Diaz (Sara Ramirez)—like it's a collective trauma we've all gone through together. The scene was jarring in many ways, not least of which was that it represented a seemingly out-of-character spontaneity and reckless abandon from sure-headed, emotionally intelligent Miranda, a character fans thought they knew—and thought they knew would never do this.
That "this" was getting fingered by Che in her best friend Carrie's (Sarah Jessica Parker) kitchen, physicalizing an emotional affair she'd been having with the nonbinary comedian while still married to her devoted husband, Steve (David Eigenberg). Worse, Miranda was supposed to be at the apartment to care for Carrie, who was convalescing from a surgery—and ends up peeing herself when she's too startled by what's going on in her kitchen to make it to the bathroom.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyIf you believe Eric Lamaze, which fewer and fewer people do, the Olympic champion was given two hours to live in 2020 before he absconded from the hospital and went home to recover on his own. His vitals were failing, he says; the bleeding ulcer in his stomach was the largest the doctors had ever seen. As he left, his story goes, the needles were still in his arm.
"I told my cleaning lady, ‘Put the TV as loud as you can and throw a bucket of water on me every 30 minutes,'" Lamaze, one of the greatest show jumpers in history, claims to The Daily Beast.
Morning came, and light poured in. "For a second, the sun—whoom—went in front of me, and I swear to God, it was like an angel just flew by. My color changed," he says, "I could breathe." Three years later, he's still alive.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/NetflixSex Education has been redefining how sex is talked about on screen for years now, on the way becoming one of Netflix's most surprising and bonafide smash hits. The show has discussed an array of sexual experiences that had felt taboo to bring up in pop culture, breaking them down in earnest and honest fashion—which has frankly revolutionized television for teens.
But all good things must come to an end. On Thursday, this weird, unexpected show premiered its fourth and final season. The cast is bigger than ever, though we still focus on Otis (Asa Butterfield) and his quest to provide at-school sex therapy, and his best friend Eric (Ncuti Gatwa), who is ready to explore a new school and is continuing coming into his queerness. And my word, Season 4 delivers more queerness than you can throw a glittery disco ball at! Highlighting that rainbow watershed is its exceptionally profound storyline that finds Eric finally finding his people—and a queer community that's always eluded him.
Finding your community is something that, from the outside, seems to come naturally to straight people. Seeing yourself reflected in those around you goes a long way in helping you feel like less of an outcast. That's something I never really experienced growing up as a closeted gay teenager; that's not to say every interest gay and straight people have are diame
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/HuluOne of the greatest love stories of our times is currently playing out on TV—and no one seems to be talking about it.
It's the story of two frustrated, aging artists whose talents have never been recognized. Their paths have crossed before, but, like ships (or perhaps more like ferries) in the night, they've always just missed each other. And so, they've been traipsing around New York City, their matching statement scarves tossed artfully over their shoulders, trying against all hope to make their dreams come true. When they finally meet, it's like lightning has struck—instantly, they see the artistic potential in each other that no one else could. "Where have you been," he asks her.
I am talking, of course, about the improbable love story of Loretta and Oliver in Only Murders in the Building.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Erin O'Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesThe late philosopher Herbert Marcuse once wrote that a true democratic marketplace of ideas is impossible in a society with social inequities. His prescription was as simple as it is chilling: We must restrain the liberty of "self-styled conservatives" who create the inequities, even if doing so requires "undemocratic means."
In his new bestselling book, America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything, conservative journalist and activist Christopher Rufo accurately observes that critical theorists like Marcuse call for suppressing speech based on "a racial and political calculus." He correctly concludes this would be "tyranny."
But while Rufo presents himself as a critic of Marcuse and his ilk, he is all too willing to employ critical theory's tyrannical means for his own ends—trading constitutional principles for political expediency.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/ReutersHe coulda been somebody. He coulda been a contender.
I once had high aspirations for Ron DeSantis. But those of us who were hoping he'd be an instrument to stop Donald Trump from winning a third Republican presidential nomination look to be out of luck, as the promise of DeSantis recedes with the summer of 2023.
A recent CNN/University of New Hampshire poll, for example, shows DeSantis plummeting 13 points since their last survey in July, putting him at just 10 percent in the "first in the nation" primary.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
ReutersIn a letter sent on Friday, Mayor Dan Gelber of Miami Beach laid into presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis, saying the governor's advice to Florida residents under 65 to avoid the newly available COVID vaccine is "entirely based on the politics of the Republican primary and not on what's best for [his] Florida constituents."
"I have seen politicians do many things I thought were expedient, political, or simply gutless," Gelber wrote to DeSantis, "These days, people expect as much. But urging your residents not to avail themselves of the one thing that can protect them from severe illness and death in order to revive your struggling campaign, is all of those things and worse. It is simply craven."
On Sept. 13, DeSantis and Florida's Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo told Floridians the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration were trying to use them "as guinea pigs" to test the new COVID vaccine that "has not been proven to be safe or effective." Breaking with the advice of the White House and federal agencies, DeSantis advised residents of the state under the age of 65 to avoid getting the new shot.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 23, 2023
Alex WongJustice Clarence Thomas once championed the Supreme Court line of precedent giving deference to federal agency expertise—the so-called "Chevron deference" doctrine—writing in 2005 that the Federal Telecommunications Commission was "in a far better position to address these questions than we are" in a case involving regulation of broadband internet service given that the "subject matter [that] is technical, complex, and dynamic."
Thomas' decision in that case—one known as Brand X—was no outlier given that the Chevron case from which the precedent arose has been cited more than 15,000 times since being decided by the high court in 1984. But 15 years later, Thomas announced that his own decision in that case was wrong because it added to the "constitutional deficiencies of Chevron and exacerbates them." Unusually, Thomas announced his change of heart in a dissent where he advocated that SCOTUS should have accepted a case for the purpose of overruling his own opinion.
What changed?
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Sep 23, 2023
Brendan McDermid/ReutersThe internet might have labeled Abigail Elphick "Victoria's Secret Karen" in 2021, but according to a new report from The New York Times, the real story is more complicated than that label might indicate.
Two years ago, Ijeoma Ukenta, who is Black, posted a video to her YouTube channel with the title "Karen Goes Crazy Part 1." At the start of the video, Elphick, who is white, seems to be reaching for Ukenta's phone as she films. She then sinks to the floor in tears, covering her face and denying Ukenta's claims that she'd tried to hit her. Passersby in the store remain silent while Elphick begs, "Don't record my mental breakdown—please, please, please." The video has netted 2.6 million views on YouTube.
Ukenta had been shopping at Victoria's Secret when Elphick began standing too close, the Times reports; when Ukenta asked Elphick to stand six feet away, she reportedly complained to a cashier, at which point Ukenta began filming.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Everett CollectionFrom a brash Clint Eastwood in the classic spaghetti Western For A Few Dollars More to a conscientious Robert De Niro in Midnight Run, pop culture depicts the bounty hunter as a kickass, gun-toting white man. Sometimes it's portrayed by former convicts like reality TV's Dog the Bounty Hunter and Giovanni Ribisi's con man who invades a family in the bail bond business in the Amazon's series Sneaky Pete. Nevertheless, it's usually a white guy. How realistic is this picture? Let's examine it with the help of a real bounty hunter.
First, the job title. While "bounty hunter" is universally understood since the days of the Wild West, professionals dislike it. "We never use the term bounty hunter because it is not the legal name we can use in Ohio," said Dana Acy, bail bonds agent and owner of an eponymous bail bonds agency in Cleveland.
Acy prefers "fugitive recovery agent." Alternative job titles include bail enforcement agent, fugitive apprehension agent, and bail enforcer, which is also the title of Bob Burton's seminal book that the U.S. Department of Justice uses as a training manual.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Anna Moneymaker/GettyIn the ballroom of a Washington, D.C. hotel last Friday night, hundreds of people swayed and raised their hands to catchy contemporary Christian music.
There's nothing that our God can't do
There's not a mountain that He can't move.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyAri Paez, 29, had been dating her boyfriend Jake* (not his real name) for about six months but had increasingly grown suspicious of his interactions with his ex-girlfriend.
"I would see her name pop up on his phone quite often," she says. "At first I was a little sketched out so I snooped on his phone but it all seemed very friendly, the messages weren't really flirtatious, so I tried to be the cool girl and be like ‘some people are friends with their ex' it doesn't mean anything."
But the uneasy feeling in her stomach that something was awry only continued to grow when Jake and his ex would go on trips together.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Apple This week:Nicole Beharie Is the Performer of the WeekI wouldn't call the way The Morning Show tackles anything "nuanced." The Apple TV show tends to rile up its impressive cast—Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Julianna Margulies, Jon Hamm, Greta Lee, Billy Crudup, and Karen Pittman—and has them charge at various ripped-from-headlines issues like a prestige television running of the bulls.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Handout/GettyUganda's Murchison Falls National Park is home to much dangerous wildlife. The rivers teem with crocodiles and tusked hippos. Lions and leopards stalk the night. There are elephants that can crush anything in their path and massive cape buffalos with razor-sharp horns more than three feet across.
When 21-year-old Dutch medical student Sophia Koetsier disappeared here under mysterious circumstances in the autumn of 2015, authorities tried to blame it on an animal attack, according to Dutch media reports.
Eight years later, however, a potential new lead has surfaced. And the new director of the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) in Uganda has reopened the investigation into Sophia's mysterious disappearance. Instead of a croc or a big cat, it now appears that Sophia may have fallen prey to the most dangerous species of all: man.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Erin O'Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesIn the last two months, I've read many stories celebrating the 50-year anniversary of
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Erin O'Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesIn the last two months, I've read many stories celebrating the 50th anniversary of
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyI wasn't even looking to work at the Center for Antiracist Research. I was a junior faculty member at Boston University with a modest public profile, so didn't expect an invitation to the party. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi was an academic rockstar, after all.
To my surprise, the Center reached out to interview me. When I got the job, I felt like Percy Jackson being summoned to Mount Olympus.
Fast forward two years. I had left the Center, like so many others, and was recovering from the experience. Then I got word about the mass layoffs. All the old feelings came flooding back.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersComedian Sam Jay opens her new HBO stand-up special, Salute Me Or Shoot Me, by admitting not only that she's wearing Spanx, but because she doesn't know how to pee in them, she's standing before the audience now with a wet ass. Whether any of that is true or not is irrelevant, because she literally has made herself the butt of the joke.
Hasan Minhaj, on the other hand, found himself clowned upon and debated this past week not because he acknowledged in a New Yorker profile that he had lied in his comedy specials, but because he lied for the wrong reasons.
What's the difference?
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily BeastThe kit arrives in your mailbox in a cardboard box stamped with a modern, serif-font logo. It's the kind of sleek, clean design so often associated with direct-to-consumer brands that fill your social media feeds with ads. A hip makeup line could easily be inside, or a set of razors with a cutesy name.
Instead, you open the box and find a pair of gloves, a specimen collection jar, and an organic cotton tampon.
NextGen Jane, a health tech startup founded in 2014, sends these kits to menstruators who volunteer to participate in one of the company's clinical studies. Users wear the tampon for a specified amount of time before removing it and depositing it into the collection jar. Once the jar is sealed, a solution in the container activates to keep the sample's DNA and RNA intact in ambient temperatures for up to two weeks. Users pack the jar in a supplied, self-addressed box, and drop it in the mail to be sent to NextGen Jane's lab in Oakland, California for analysis.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersI wasn't sure a celebrity could have a worse week than Drew Barrymore did after three separate announcements—two of them, apologies—regarding the now-delayed return of her talk show during the WGA strike. Then walks in our Nepo Baby of The Week, Emma Roberts, who was called out for being transphobic and an overall mean girl by one of her former co-stars this week. This PR catastrophe occurred the same day as the premiere of her latest acting gig, which has also caught heat for strike-related reasons. Can these spoiled, Hollywood-bred girls do anything right?? (The answer is obviously no.)
On Wednesday, television mogul Ryan Murphy unleashed his latest cursed project onto the world, American Horror Story: Delicate, in which Roberts plays an actress trying to conceive through IVF. Its arrival, however, has been anything but delicate. That's not to mention that some of the next-morning reviews were pretty harsh.
First, there's the alleged scabbiness of it all, as Murphy and FX kept the show in production after the Writers Guild of America announc
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Sep 22, 2023
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via GettyAfter nearly a year of anticipation, the most shocking thing about the federal indictment of Sen. Robert Menendez that dropped Friday is how clumsy it makes the senator and his co-conspirators look.
According to the indictment, the Democrat, his wife, and their alleged accomplices left fingerprints—literal, digital, and figurative—all over the purported plot to take bribes in exchange for local, national, and international favors. So far, Menendez and two of the other defendants have denied wrongdoing.
None have yet disputed U.S. Attorney Damian Williams' evidence. And that evidence, if accurate, would appear to indicate that not only is Menendez a crook, but an incredibly bad one.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersAs he helped propel the government towards a shutdown, far-right Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles took a moment to announce urgent legislation to counter what he views as a threat to the American way of life.
"Biden's war on everyday appliances is not over," Ogles tweeted amidst a national crisis on Thursday. "Now, he's having his bureaucrats come after your water heater."
While responsible members of Congress were worried about the immediate impact a shutdown would have on everything from child care to cancer research, Ogles was concerned about a federal energy conservation measure for new water heaters that would not take effect until five years after final approval.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Reuters / U.S. Army The Biden administration is nearing a decision to send long-range munitions to Ukraine known as Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) that could give Ukraine an edge in the fight against Russia's invasion, according to U.S. officials.
President Joe Biden has told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Washington will be sending a small number of long-range missiles to Ukraine, NBC News reported Friday. Senior national security officials have also been discussing whether to send the ATACMS missiles armed with cluster bomblets instead of a single warhead in recent days, according to The Washington Post.
ATACMS, which can fire about 190 miles, could provide Ukraine the firepower it needs to reach important logistics, stockpiles, command and control centers, and other Russian targets far inside Russian territory.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesHouse Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) isn't finished caving to the far-right in his conference, even as they continue to sabotage his attempts at passing party-line spending bills ahead of an imminent government shutdown.
The latest instance came on Friday—just eight days out from a shutdown—when McCarthy bowed to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-GA) demand to remove $300 million in aid for Ukraine from a Pentagon spending bill. The bill was voted down by Greene and other hardliners twice this week, despite usually being one of the easiest government funding measures to pass, and one McCarthy hoped would chart a way forward for passing a wider resolution to divert a shutdown.
The concession underscored the lengths to which McCarthy has been forced to go to appease hardline conservatives who, because of the razor-thin margins in the House, effectively have a gun to the speaker's head allowing them to get whatever they want at the expense of effective governing.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
REUTERS/Aude GuerrucciLongtime TV host and reality personality Sharon Osbourne is known for being outspoken, but this week, the wife of rock star Ozzy Osbourne peeled back yet another layer of vulnerability on the Piers Morgan show when she revealed a dramatic 30-pound weight loss, which she says is due to taking injections of Ozempic.
Many suddenly-skinnier celebrities have aroused suspicion that they're on the drug, which is intended to be prescribed to diabetics but which has had a huge surge in popularity due to its weight loss capabilities, but Osbourne is one of the few who's copped to taking it.
Other celebrities who've spoken out about taking Ozempic include Tracy Morgan and Amy Schumer—along with Chelsea Handler who claimed to have taken it accidentally.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Parisa Taghizadeh/Searchlight PicturesWriter-director Andrew Haigh has made a name for himself in the realm of sad, gay cinema. The director's 2011 breakout hit, Weekend, became a lightning rod for some members of the queer community, with discussion of the film being a go-to icebreaker on first dates—well, at least for me. Weekend, for all of its fans, was a film that never connected with me, no matter how hard I tried. Bringing it up on dates was an effective litmus test for whether or not I might click with someone as a prospective partner. But it speaks to Haigh's talent as a filmmaker that, although his most beloved feature could never pierce the veil for me, I've greatly enjoyed his other work, particularly 2015's stunning 45 Years.
In the case of Haigh's latest project, the sublimely emotional All of Us Strangers—which screened Thursday at the New York Film Festival—things are very different. Here, Haigh takes the queer experience and makes it universal; the specificity of gay trauma is merely a catalyst for Haigh's characters to embark on a journey through their best and worst selves. It's at those extremes that Haigh crafts his most accessible film yet, a tender treatise on the undying power of love and what happens when we ignore its force.
All of Us Strangers is loosely based on
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Sep 22, 2023
Scouted/The Daily Beast/Plufl.Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.
I have five dogs (and four cats), which means I own a lot of pet beds in varying sizes. Like most pet owners, I love to snuggle, nap, and even sleep with my fur children, which has resulted in some pretty comical photos of me trying to contort my lanky 5'8 frame into one of their pet-sized beds to lay beside them. Naturally, I was instantly intrigued when TikTok served me a video featuring Plufl, the original human dog bed. This oversized fuzzy napping bed looks exactly like a premium dog or cat bed—only larger—68 inches long and 33 inches wide, to be exact.
Unlike your standard cat or dog bed, however, the Plufl really is designed for human use, which means its base is made from mattress grade and orthopedic memory foam (hence the $400 price tag), so you feel like you're sleeping in a mini version of your real bed—not your pet's. This also means you can actually plop down on it without breaking your back when you hit the ground... it's that padded.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Timothy A. Clark/AFP/GettyFor one week each year, as world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meetings, the biggest stories in international affairs all seem to be laid out, side-by-side for Americans to view up close. This year, the spectacle and related developments here in the United States had to leave most rational observers more shaken than stirred.
On Wednesday, speaking at a climate conference, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said environmental challenges facing the planet had "opened up the gates of hell."
The unsettling week also saw congressional Republicans move to cut future funding to help stop Russian aggression in Ukraine, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman crowing on U.S. television about his $2 billion investment in Jared Kushner and his embrace of the benefits of "sportswashing," Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu cozying up to one of the world's leading enablers of anti-Semites,
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Sep 22, 2023
Kenny Shaw/CMUUse your hands for a moment. Grab that bottle on your desk and unscrew the cap. Or get a pencil or pen and write your name. You might already be using your hand to read this story on your phone—that works too. As you do, notice each movement that your hands and fingers make, and the tiny changes in pressure you apply as you go through the motions.
Pay close enough attention and you'll see that your hands are doing a lot more than you realized. But it's something that you tend not to think about. After all, you've probably made these motions countless times in your life.
However, Kenny Shaw thinks about these motions a lot. As a robotics engineer at Carnegie Mellon University, he's devoted his research to figuring out how hands work—and how to replicate them in machines.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Adrian Edwards/GettyIn his announcement on Thursday that he was stepping down as chairman of News Corp and Fox Corp. and handing the reigns to Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch assured staff that his eldest son was "absolutely committed to the cause."
According to Fox News' far-right media rivals, that apparent cause is wokeness.
In the wake of the 92-year-old media mogul's decision to fade into the background, mainstream and liberal media have contemplated just how much the younger Murdoch will continue his father's legacy of peddling outrage porn, grievance, and deception for profit. "I fear Fox will only be worse under son Lachlan & that this is a means to solidify his power before Dad's death," journalism professor Jeff Jarvis noted.
Read
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Sep 22, 2023
Kevin MazurA man named John Hetherington finally got to see Beyoncé perform live last night after an airline failed to accommodate his wheelchair last week, forcing him to miss the singer's concert in Seattle.
On Friday, Hetherington, who has cerebral palsy, expressed his gratitude to Beyoncé and her online fanbase, known as the BeyHive, for getting him to her Renaissance World Tour show in Arlington, Texas.
"We partied, we sang, we danced… HARD," he wrote in a caption. "BeyHive, you made this happen. You pushed and tagged like the internet has never seen. Tonight for the first time ever, I had a seat on the floor of a concert."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Justin Sullivan/GettyEach day, you leave digital traces of what you did, where you went, who you communicated with, what you bought, what you're thinking of buying, and much more. This mass of data serves as a library of clues for personalized ads, which are sent to you by a sophisticated network—an automated marketplace of advertisers, publishers and ad brokers that operates at lightning speed.
The ad networks are designed to shield your identity, but companies and governments are able to combine that information with other data, particularly phone location, to identify you and track your movements and online activity. More invasive yet is spyware—malicious software that a government agent, private investigator or criminal installs on someone's phone or computer without their knowledge or consent. Spyware lets the user see the contents of the target's device, including calls, texts, email and voicemail. Some forms of spyware can take control of a phone, including turning on its microphone and camera.
Now, according to an investigative report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, an Israeli technology company called Insanet has developed the means of delivering spyware via online ad networks, turning some targeted ads into Trojan horses. According to the report, there's no defense against the spyware, and the Israeli government has given Insanet approval to sell the technology.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
REUTERS/Scott MorganFormer President Donald Trump's lawyers and New York state investigators duked it out in court Friday morning, as both sides sought to score a decisive victory ahead of a trial that threatens to topple his real estate empire and drain his bank accounts.
"There was rampant fraud in preparation of Trump's personal financial statements," said Andrew Amer, a lawyer at the New York Attorney General's Office. "The defendants used those fraudulent statements repeatedly and persistently with banks and insurance companies in transactions seeking financial benefits."
Amer argued that Trump has "ultimate responsibility" over the way he faked personal financial statements to inflate the value of his properties to augment his net worth by $2.2 billion or more. The former president's own records for the backbone of the $250 million lawsuit the AG's office last year against Trump, his top lieutenants, and the heirs he appointed as Trump Organization executives.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Al Drago/ReutersSen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has been charged with bribery in a federal indictment to be formally unsealed Friday at 11 a.m.
The indictment, which has already been added to the federal docket and is available for public review, accuses Menendez—the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—with accepting "hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using Menendez's influence as a Senator to seek to... benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt."
The alleged payoffs came from three New Jersey businessmen, and included cash, gold bars, payments toward a home mortgage, a no-show job, a Mercedes, and "other things of value," according to the indictment.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Al Drago/ReutersSen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has been charged with bribery in a federal indictment formally unsealed Friday at 11 a.m.
The indictment accuses Menendez—the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—with accepting "hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using Menendez's influence as a Senator to seek to... benefit the Arab Republic of Egypt."
The alleged payoffs came from three New Jersey businessmen and included cash, gold bars, payments toward a home mortgage, a no-show job, a Mercedes, and "other things of value," according to the indictment.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
REUTERS TVThe headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean city of Sevastopol was in flames Friday after being hit by a Ukrainian missile.
The latest Ukrainian success against Russian naval targets in the occupied peninsula was confirmed by the city's Russian-appointed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, who urged locals to avoid the city center in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
Videos posted on social media showed the naval HQ in flames and reports suggested a large number of ambulances had been sent to the scene.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
NetflixLove Is Blind has never felt more chaotic than it does in Season 5, which premiered its first four episodes Friday on Netflix. This season has everything: midseason break-ups, a confounding argument over make-up that'll leave you scratching your head for days, and, as viewers who've seen the first four episodes already know, a shocking revelation that rocks multiple cast members to their core.
So, why does this season also seem like the most orchestrated, highly "produced" entries yet? The answer might just lie in the twist itself. (For those who have not yet seen the first batch of episodes and want to remain unspoiled, this is your cue to stop reading!)
For the uninitiated, Love Is Blind sends its cast members into individual "pods," where they blind-date each other through a wall. After a couple weeks of narrowing down to one potential suitor, cast members must propose through a wall before meeting in person for the first time. Then, it's time to move in together, meet the friends and family, and, ultimately, face one another at the altar in what often unfolds like a game of emotional "Chicken."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Scouted/The Daily Beast/Tecovas.Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.
Texas-based bootmaker Tecovas is at it again with another fantastic collaboration that'll have you rocking western wear wherever you go. Hot on the heels of its recent collab with country musician Thomas Rhett, Tecovas has partnered with Texas-born fashion designer Kristopher Brock to release a limited-edition women's capsule collection, and we're in love with all the whimsical, '70s-inspired western pieces.
The feminine, frontier-inspired collab includes eight dresses, one blouse, three boots, and a must-have ranch scarf that incorporates Tecovas' signature western style and craftsmanship with Brock's unmistakable tailoring and modern aesthetic.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyListen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
The latest move by a Georgia judge ruling that two defendants could be tried separately from Donald Trump and 16 others in the Georgia 2020 election case could prove problematic for the former president.
That's according to MSNBC legal analyst and host of the Justice Matters podcast Glenn Kirschner, who joins The New Abnormal this week to spell out Trump's latest legal challenges stemming from the separation of Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro's cases.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty/BravoThis is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast's Obsessed, written by editor Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here.
There are four words that send a sharp chill up my spine, tingling my entire body—nay, soul—with a thrilling cocktail of giddiness, fear, and excitement: "dinner party from hell."
When the aliens (who apparently exist and we somehow don't spend every waking moment talking about) return from Earth to their home planets, they will report back on our society's greatest cultural achievements in this medium they discovered called "television." They will speak about the masterful comedy talents of Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, and Mary Tyler Moore. They will go on and on about great HBO dramas like The Sopranos, The Wire, and The Leftovers. One will mention Oprah, and the rest will bow their heads in solemn respect. And then the sagest of the group, the one who took the most time to understand what makes great human TV, will chime in: "And let us not forget the classic dinner scenes from The Real Housewives."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/ReutersWelcome to Trail Mix, a fun but nutritious snack for your election news diet. See something interesting on the trail? Email me at jake.lahut@thedailybeast.com.
This week, we pull back the curtain on the GOP's increasingly fraught electability debate over abortion, with exclusive reporting on more white supremacist involvement in the New Hampshire governor's race and the mystery of a Michigan Senate candidate's auto manufacturing job experience. Plus, a vibes-based theory gets put to the test, and how many times can Ted Cruz plug his podcast in under a minute?
Inside the GOP's War Between Anti-Abortion Wins and Winning ElectionsRead more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyRoyalist is The Daily Beast's newsletter for all things royal and Royal Family. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Sunday.
54 weeks ago, Prince Andrew's prospects looked bleak. He had already been expelled from the family, stripped of his office and his monthly allowance. Now he was stricken by the death of his mother, his last and greatest protector, the woman who had always indulged her favorite child and overlooked his mistakes.
It seemed unlikely we would ever see much of Andrew on the public stage ever again, especially as it was his brother, King Charles, who had been almost entirely behind the moves to defenestrate Andrew over the preceding decade.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
Adali SchellThey may have been good to me, but the ‘90s were not great.
As someone who, as a correspondent for MTV News, had a fairly high-profile perch to the music, pop culture, politics and social change (such as there was any) of the Clinton Era, I am here to tell you the decade is regularly, falsely, rose-colored-romanticized—often by people who lived through it, and often by straight white cis men. To this day I will be approached by a stranger of a certain age with a question like, "Hey man, things aren't like they were 25 years ago, huh?" My reply is usually a more polite version of: "No, they're not, and thank God for that."
For all of the revisionist tendency to present the era as somehow progressive in all of its alt-ness, the idea that it was freer and more accepting toward women, people of color, queer folk and other marginalized is utter horseshit. The golden age of rap? The "grunge era?" It was also, to be sure, a golden age for misogyny and homophobia. If you were there, you know, and if you somehow remember it fondly in all its crassness, casual cruelty and celebration of bro-culture because your take is, say, "Less language policing and PC-ness, hell yeah!"—well, that says more about you.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 22, 2023
CNNCNN host Abby Phillip tore into Rupert Murdoch and "the mess left behind," describing the legacy of the 92-year-old Australian billionaire who announced Thursday that he is ending his run as chairman of Fox News' parent company, Fox Corporation, as "outrage porn, partisan red meat, stoking relentless culture wars."
What followed was a six-minute compilation of cringey video clips of current and former Fox hosts like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Brian Kilmeade spouting off about a variety of topics. In one Fox & Friends clip from 2010, for instance, Kilmeade says, "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims."
The montage also includes several instances of bogus election-related conspiracies being floated on the network after the 2020 presidential election—comments for which Fox paid dearly, as the network ended up shelling out $787.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems earlier this year.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyElon Musk insists the emerald mines he once boasted about never existed.
But his father, Errol Musk, was only too happy to tell The Daily Beast tales of covert arrivals, killer crocodiles and a litany of exotic diseases from when he struck it big in the gemfields of Zambia 40 years ago.
He says he survived his stints in the bush on a diet of bullrush maize meal and dried kapenta, a freshwater sardine found in Lake Tanganyika.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
CNNRepublican presidential candidate Chris Christie, who has made a point to not shy away from calling out Donald Trump, challenged the former president Thursday to "stop hiding behind" his "failed social media site" and participate in the second GOP debate next Wednesday at the Reagan Library in California.
Trump, who did not attend last month's Fox News debate, made a series of posts critical of the former New Jersey governor on Truth Social late Wednesday, prompting CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer to ask Christie to respond to Trump's broadsides—including being called a "grifter."
"He doesn't like when people stand up to him and call him out on the nonsense that he's involved in," Christie said, egging on the perhaps-too-frequent poster to "keep it coming."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/BravoAfter a pretty humdrum premiere—yes, Taylor screaming at Craig over her ex-boyfriend Shep's infidelity was ultimately more sad than amusing—the cast of Southern Charm gets right to work in tonight's riveting whodunit—or didtheydoit, rather—episode.
Unfortunately, for viewers waiting for the downfall of "Craige," Craig nips last week's rumor about Paige cheating on him right in the bud. Luckily, though, a new cast member named JT (not to be confused with creepy Keebler Elf JD) launches his own investigation into Austen after finding out Taylor slept over his house one night. It's a clunky but hilarious start to what will ultimately be the show's less buzzy attempt at their own Scandoval.
Before we dig into things, I'm going to break a cardinal rule of mine and say that I actually enjoy Paige's limited presence on this show. Maybe it's because the typically grating Summer House star has less power on this series (and is seemingly despised by the fanbase) that I can finally stomach her antics. I especially enjoy her withdrawn-ness from Craig, like this phone conversation at the beginning of the episode where he suggests they go on a double date with Madison and Brett. She responds, clearly paying attention, "Oh, wow
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Sep 21, 2023
Apple TV At face value, it's easy to compare Still Up—the new Apple TV romantic comedy series about two chronic insomniac best friends, navigating life and love together over the phone at all hours of the night—to another genre benchmark: Sleepless in Seattle. After all, Nora Ephron's beloved 1993 film also followed a restless man who was beholden to the telecommunications industry (before that became every single one of us, around a decade ago). But Still Up, which premieres Sept. 22, is very different from the film it'll be measured against.
For starters, the show is set in London, which is famously not Washington's rainy metropolis, in case you're not up on your geography. Unfortunately, it also doesn't enchant in the same way that Ephron's film does; Sleepless in Seattle slowly shades in the details of its fated romance, but Still Up unspools them at a vexingly slow pace over its eight-episode first season. That's not to say the show is without its charms—in fact, it's full of them, thanks to its two perfectly cast leads. But the series has an air of unsustainability, like a scrapped pitch for a Quibi show that has been stretched into half-hour doses instead of 10-minute bites. While Still Up will no doubt delight rom-com fans, its rote storylines and flat jokes will leave most viewers drowsy.
The first few episodes, however, are intriguing enough—until your Ambien kicks in. We're introduced to Lisa (Antonia Thomas) and Danny (Craig Roberts) at the start of one o
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Sep 21, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyBy now, you're likely well familiar with the GOP's current 2024 election party line—the one about how a vote for (too old, nearly dead) President Joe Biden is really a vote for (too unprepared, heartbeat away) Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) kicked off his podcast earlier this week by pushing the same tired mantra—but then road-tested a prediction seemingly crafted for maximum fear mongering effect.
"In August of 2024, the Democrat kingmakers [will] jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama," Cruz stated. "That ought to scare the hell out of anyone who is unhappy about the direction this country is going and doesn't want us to go even crazier, in an even worse direction."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Scouted/The Daily Beast/Retailers.Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.
At 14, I was diagnosed with Alopecia Areata, which is a disease that can occur when one's immune system attacks hair follicles, resulting in hair loss. After finally getting diagnosed after battling sudden hair loss, I began treatment with bi-weekly visits to the dermatologist to have shots injected into each bald spot multiple times to promote regrowth. It took a lot of time and multiple treatments to see visible regrowth, and oftentimes, new bald spots would appear while others were finally going away, which can be both discouraging and infuriating.
While I've since gotten my alopecia areata under control, I've noticed that my hair has slowly begun to lose volume as I get older. While this thinning is more even than the patches of baldness from my teenage years, it always freaks me out to see huge chunks of hair in the shower after washing my hair. Terrified of re-experiencing acute alopecia areata, I recently decided it was time to invest in some preventative—and corrective—hair loss products to help keep my hair intact and prevent future flare-ups. While I'm not a dermatologist or alopecia expert, these over-the-counter hair care products have helped my hair look thicker and healthier.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
NBCLeslie Jones might be one of the most memorable cast members in Saturday Night Live history, but her time there wasn't always easy. When the show initially hired her in 2014, she came aboard as a writer and struggled to get her pitches accepted. Only months later did she join the cast, and even then, as she noted during a recent NPR interview to promote her new memoir Leslie F*cking Jones, the show often kept her in the same roles: In her words, "either I'm trying to love on the white boys or beat up on the white boys, or I'm doing something just, like, loud."
When she was first coming aboard as a writer, Jones recalled, Kenan Thompson and Chris Rock both assured her that Michaels wouldn't let her walk away. Speaking with Tonya Mosley, she recalled that she wasn't worried about getting upstaged by other comics on the show; it was the writing that wasn't easy, because she came from a stand-up background rather than sketch comedy. It took time to learn "that when you're writing a joke in a sketch, it has to have foundation. It has to have a story. It has to have character names. It has to have, you know, a flow."
Mosley noted that Jones' book discusses how the show treated Jones, in Mosley's words, "like a caricature" once she made it into the on-screen cast. Jones didn't dispute that notion, although she did perhaps temper it with some context.
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Sep 21, 2023
SnapchatA school district in Alabama has been getting hammered by critics online after high school students allegedly exchanged racially violent and threatening messages—including remarks about lynching Black people—on social media.
On Tuesday, SnapChat messages circulated between students within the Oneonta City Schools district, sparking an investigation after three students reported the horrific exchange of messages to administrators.
"This afternoon, three students reported a Snapchat message from the previous evening occurring off campus between several other students that were offensive and divisive," Oneonta City Schools posted on its Facebook page Wednesday. "I'm proud of the students for reporting this to their administrators as it speaks highly of them and their rapport with their administrators.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
LionsgateIt's been nine years since The Expendables 3 seemingly put the nail in the coffin of Sylvester Stallone's old-action-star franchise. Nonetheless, despite only intermittently participating himself, Stallone assembles another collection of tough guys (and Megan Fox?!) for Expend4bles, whose title's silly spelling is indicative of the film's goofiness. What few fans remain will be happy to hear that, unlike its PG-13 predecessor, Scott Waugh's sequel fully embraces its R rating. Maturity, however, remains in short supply, as this latest series entry is merely more of the same gung-ho corniness, delivered with a chintziness and wink-wink self-consciousness that undercuts its aggro appeal.
It only takes a single minute for Expend4bles (in theaters Sept. 22) to begin indulging in the fake-looking explosions and helter-skelter shootouts that are its stock and trade. The initial setting is Muammar Gaddafi's former chemical weapons plant in Libya, where malevolent terrorist Suarto Rahmat (The Raid's Iko Uwais) and his army of faceless mercs are trying to acquire a nuclear-device detonator. Suarto is the type of one-note villain who promises to spare a general's son in return for a keycode, and then reneges on the deal once he has what he wants and murders the boy in cold blood in front of his father. Uwais' martial arts skills are by now
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Sep 21, 2023
Selcuk Acar/Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesTelevision mogul Kerry Washington has revealed that she contemplated suicide while battling an eating disorder.
In a clip from an upcoming Good Morning America interview for her memoir Thicker Than Water, out Sept. 26, Washington tells Robin Roberts about her past issues with food and body dysmorphia that led her to an extremely dark place.
"I was good at control," Washington tells the GMA anchor. "I could party all night and drink and smoke and have sex and still show up and have good grades. I knew how to manage. I was so high-functioning. And the food took me out. Like, the body dysmorphia, the body hatred, it was beyond my control, and really led me to feeling like I need help from somebody and something bigger than me or I am in trouble, because I don't know how to live with this."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Reuters/Eduardo MunozSam Bankman-Fried's criminal trial is scheduled to begin next month, but he is already racking up a series of legal losses.
The latest: On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan excluded testimony from all seven of the disgraced wunderkind's expert witnesses. He simultaneously denied Bankman-Fried's motion to exclude one of the government's witnesses.
Kaplan rejected the testimony for multiple reasons, including because their disclosures were inadequate, they sought to improperly give the jury legal instructions, or their statements would have involved "semantic camouflage" to influence jurors about Bankman-Fried's state of mind.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyRupert Murdoch's decision to step down as chairman of the Fox Corporation and News Corp ends an era that has upended American politics and defiled a once-proud Republican Party that I knew and loved—a reality that will probably endure for many years to come.
It would be wrong to blame Fox News for all of the anger that has come to define the GOP and America since the channel's inception (there are numerous factors). But as I recently noted, only about 10 percent of Republicans held a "very negative" view of Democrats in the mid-1990s. Today, that number has risen to 62 percent. (Fox News went on the air in 1996.)
Count me among the conservatives who were initially cheering on the network's arrival. As a fan of Rush Limbaugh's radio and TV shows (executive producer Roger Ailes would go on to co-found Fox News and serve as its C.E.O.), I believed that libe
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Sep 21, 2023
REUTERS/Phil NobleA 77-year-old retired teacher who died Thursday afternoon when a charter bus carrying high school band students rolled down an embankment in New York was remembered by her daughter as "the glue of this family."
Brooklyn native Beatrice Ferarri, who taught for 32 years at Farmingdale High School on Long Island, was accompanying the youngsters as they headed to band camp in Greeley, Pennsylvania. The annual trip is a tradition for the school district, which NBC New York reports has ballooned to include as many as 300 students every year. "Grandma Bea" had actually stopped teaching 17 years ago but continued to volunteer as a chaperone, daughter Dina LoPresto told Newsday.
She had become close with Farmingdale HS band director Gina Pellettiere, who, like Ferrari, also did not survive the crash.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
REUTERS/Phil NobleAt least one person was dead and 46 hurt on Thursday afternoon when a bus carrying music students from a suburban New York high school rolled down an embankment in Orange County.
The group was headed to band camp in Greeley, Pennsylvania, according to a statement from the Farmingdale School District on Long Island.
"Police and emergency responders [are] on the scene, as well as district administration," the statement said. "We will provide another update when more information becomes available. We ask for your patience as we gather more details."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
REUTERS/Phil NobleTwo adults have died and dozens more were injured Thursday afternoon when a bus carrying students from a suburban New York high school marching band rolled down an embankment in Orange County, authorities said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news briefing that a preliminary investigation revealed that a faulty front tire may have been to blame for the devastating crash, which left five students in critical condition and as many as 46 requiring medical attention. An investigation into the crash remains ongoing.
"Imagine the fear, the screams and the aftermath when these high school students, many of them freshmen, were surrounded by this chaos," Hochul said at the press conference.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
NewsmaxAmerican Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp, who is currently facing a multi-million dollar sexual battery and defamation lawsuit for allegedly groping a GOP strategist, suggested with a straight face on Thursday that his ubiquitous Fox News appearances dried up because the network became too "woke."
During a Newsmax panel discussion on Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch stepping down, Schlapp wove a far-fetched narrative that his particular brand of MAGA conservatism had become unwelcome in recent years because Murdoch had steered the conservative cable giant to the left.
"This is really amazing news. Fox News has played a critical role in championing conservative causes for a very long time," he noted. "I was on Fox practically every day for years and years and years."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Maxim Shemetov/ReutersRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov openly joked about how isolated Russia is at the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York City.
"Everything is fine, we are only suffering from isolation," Lavrov said during a meeting with the Secretary General of the League of Arab States, Ahmed Abu al-Gheit, in response to a question at the UN confab about how he was doing, according to RBC.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova, however, took a different tune, claiming that Russia still has allies at the United Nations interested in conducting diplomacy with Moscow.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/GettyIn Britain, where he laid the foundations of his global media empire and his own omnipotence, Rupert Murdoch never met a political leader of either of the main parties he couldn't manipulate to his own ends. He grew used to that pernicious sense of power.
He thought the same of Donald Trump. Like many others, Murdoch did not see a Trump presidency coming in 2016, but when it arrived he still believed—for the first time—there would be a man in the Oval Office whose ear he would capture and who could serve to make him America's dominant media mogul.
Now that he's relinquishing control of Fox Corp and News Corp to his son, Lachlan, the valedictory verdict on Murdoch's skills and reputation must be that, like so many others who got too close to Trump, Trump destroyed him.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Jonathan Ernst/ReutersWith a government shutdown just nine days away, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was left with egg on his face again on Thursday as he conceded that far-right saboteurs in his own party were hellbent on "burn[ing] the place down."
After a nightmare week of being steamrolled by conservative hardliners, and subsequently slammed by fed-up moderates, McCarthy suffered another humiliating defeat when a vote to bring a defense spending bill to the floor failed on Thursday morning.
Funding the Pentagon is usually one of the easiest things for House Republicans to pass, and the vote was, according to Politico, supposed to show that the party has a path to possibly passing a wider spending bill that would avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Jonathan Ernst/ReutersWith a government shutdown just nine days away, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was left with egg on his face again on Thursday as he conceded that far-right saboteurs in his own party were hellbent on "burn[ing] the place down."
After a nightmare week of being steamrolled by conservative hardliners, and subsequently slammed by fed-up moderates, McCarthy suffered another humiliating defeat when a vote to bring a defense spending bill to the floor failed on Thursday morning.
Funding the Pentagon is usually one of the easiest things for House Republicans to pass, and the vote was, according to Politico, supposed to show that the party has a path to possibly passing a wider spending bill that would avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Jonathan Ernst/ReutersWith a government shutdown just nine days away, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was left with egg on his face again on Thursday as he conceded that far-right saboteurs in his own party were hellbent on "burn[ing] the place down."
After a nightmare week of being steamrolled by conservative hardliners, and subsequently slammed by fed-up moderates, McCarthy suffered another humiliating defeat when a vote to bring a defense spending bill to the floor failed on Thursday morning.
Funding the Pentagon is usually one of the easiest things for House Republicans to pass, and the vote was, according to Politico, supposed to show that the party has a path to possibly passing a wider spending bill that would avert a government shutdown on Oct. 1.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Scouted/The Daily Beast/Our Place.Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.
Following the success of her first collaboration with social media-famous cookware brand Our Place, Selena Gomez is at it again with another must-have colorful collection that'll have you flocking to the kitchen.
The singer and Only Murders in the Building actress made a splash as a surprising culinary personality with her popular Covid-era cooking show, Selena Chef, and now we have a chance to snag even more versatile, game-changing pieces from her favorite cookware collection that we're already a major fan of.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Hollywood To You/Star MaxApparently, not everyone on Dancing with the Stars is content to cross the WGA's picket line. Actor and writers guild member Matt Walsh has decided to sashay away from the show in deference to his union, as pickets continue outside the studio.
In a statement posted to his verified Instagram account, the Veep alum wrote that he's "taking a pause from Dancing with the Stars until an agreement is made with the WGA." He added that he'd initially joined the show "under the impression that it was not a WGA show and fell under a different agreement.
On Thursday morning, however, the union apparently informed Walsh that DWTS "is considered struck work," at which point, he wrote, he walked out of rehearsal.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Wikimedia Commons / Sarah Ashton-Cirillo An American woman serving as an official spokesperson for Ukraine's military has been suspended after a Republican U.S. lawmaker raised concerns about her "threat of violence" against Russian propagandists.
Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, the English-language spokesperson for Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, was suspended Wednesday over public statements "that were not approved by the command," the TDF said in a statement.
"The command of the TDF will conduct an official investigation into the circumstances of these statements," the statement said, without specifying which statements landed Ashton-Cirillo in hot water.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Prince Williams/Wireimage/GettyAfter riling up Halle Berry over the weekend, Drake is continuing his gross antics toward women by seemingly dissing Megan Thee Stallion (again) at a concert in her hometown.
At a recent stop in Houston on his It's All a Blur Tour, the Canadian rapper gave a warm shoutout to a woman in the audience named Meg, while taking a dig at the Grammy-winning musician of the same name.
"I got to give a shoutout to somebody here who's been with me since the beginning of my career," Drake says in a now-viral video from the concert. "Her name is Megan… Real H-town love. Shoutout to Meg one time for real—not that Meg, this Meg."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via GettyDavid Brooks, a columnist for The New York Times, was roundly dunked on by most of the internet on Thursday for complaining about the cost of dining at Newark's international airport—with even the restaurant jumping in on the roast.
Brooks shared a photo of his airport meal on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday, complaining that it cost him $78. "This is why Americans think the economy is terrible," he wrote.
But social media sleuths quickly unraveled Brooks' claim—matching the table, glass, chair, sheet and cut of fries to 1911 Smokehouse Barbeque in Newark's Terminal A, where a burger and fries costs a far more reasonable $17.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
The Island Packet/GettyConvicted double murderer Alex Murdaugh pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges on Thursday, saying he wants his son—the one he didn't kill—to see him "take responsibility."
Murdaugh's courtroom confession came with tears.
??"I want to take responsibility. I want my son to see me take responsibility," said Murdaugh, clad in an orange jumpsuit, according to the Associated Press. "It's my hope that by taking responsibility, the people I've hurt can begin to heal."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Mario Anzuoni/ReutersSophie Turner has filed a petition against Joe Jonas for the return of their two children to England, according to court documents filed in the Southern District of New York.
The musician filed for divorce from the actress earlier this month.
Jonas, Turner says, is wrongfully retaining their two children in New York City from their habitual residence in the U.K.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
SPUTNIKVladimir Putin's backyard just got a whole lot smaller.
A year and a half after the Russian president's rash, illegal, blundering invasion of Ukraine, Russian peacekeepers have been forced to admit defeat in the faraway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, handing control back to Azerbaijan after a 24-hour military offensive, which killed a senior Russian officer.
For Azerbaijan, which began talks with Karabakh's Armenian separatist leaders on Thursday to formally take back control of the region, it looked like a surprisingly swift conclusion to a 35-year conflict that has cost thousands of lives.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Mike Segar/ReutersRupert Murdoch announced in a memo sent to all staffers on Thursday morning that he is stepping down from his role as chairman and CEO of News Corp and chairman of Fox Corp.
"I am writing to let you all know that I have decided to transition to the role of Chairman Emeritus at Fox and News," Murdoch, 92, wrote in his announcement. "For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change. But the time is right for me to take on different roles, knowing that we have truly talented teams and a passionate, principled leader in Lachlan who will become sole Chairman of both companies."
The memo, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, continued: "Neither excessive pride nor false humility are admirable qualities. But I am truly proud of what we have achieved collectively through the decades, and I owe much to my colleagues, whose contributions to our success have sometimes been unseen outside the company but are deeply appreciated by me."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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Sep 21, 2023
Tucker Carlson/TwitterTexas Attorney General Ken Paxton dropped a number of conspiracy bombs in his first interview since his acquittal on corruption charges at his impeachment trial over the weekend.
The state's top lawyer spoke to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a pre-recorded interview that aired Wednesday night. Carlson congratulated the 60-year-old on avoiding the impeachment conviction and claimed he was "fascinated" by the case, despite Paxton's own staff blowing the lid on their boss for allegedly giving real-estate tycoon and donor pal Nate Paul special treatment.
Carlson made no attempt to broach the allegations throughout the 46-minute interview. Paxton allegedly intervened on a federal fraud probe into Paul, accepted bribes from Paul, ordered staff to research for Paul, and invented fake COVID-19 gathering restrictions to postpone Paul's foreclosure auctions.
Read more at The Daily Beast.
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