Karolina Wojtasik / MaxThere have been five—count ‘em, five!—entries in the Pretty Little Liars franchise since the pulpy teen drama, based on the popular book series, premiered in 2010. That’s 14 years, more than 150 episodes, and countless actors calling their parents to tell them that they got their big break, only for their respective series to get canceled before their SAG card could even arrive in the mail. All of the spinoffs and continuations of Pretty Little Liars have been unsuccessful, failing to generate even an iota of the massive buzz that teenagers heaped onto the franchise’s first televised iteration in the 2010s.In 2022, it looked as though the curse plaguing Pretty Little Liars had lifted. A new reboot, Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin, came in swinging, looking to rectify the mistakes that old spinoffs had fallen prey to. Original Sin was edgier, meaner, and filled to the brim with cursing and bloody violence, two things that the franchise was always missing due to the constraints of its home on network television. This new Pretty Little Liars was streaming on Max, and there, the show could go wild. Any restrictions that had previously hindered the franchises’ ambitions were removed, helping the reboot—which fashioned itself as a teen horror slasher—feel more innovative than any of the franchise’s previous spinoffs. A cast of talented young actors, some brilliantly written twists, and a devoted fan base that will follow PLL wherever it goes helped on that front, too.Original Sin’s supreme quality makes the show’s new, inferior continuation (with an equally substandard subtitle), Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, all the more disappointing. Where Season 1 of this new PLL was saucy and surprisingly brutal, Season 2 is trite and unambitious. Anyone exhausted by horror that uses grief and trauma as the basis for their frightening imagery will be completely drained by Summer School. This season takes that weary allegory and plops it on top of the events of Original Sin, hoping the two will eventually coalesce into something watchable. But despite some decently cheeky attempts at expanding the story and its characters, keeping up with Pretty Little Liars: Summer School feels more like homework than a vacation.Read more at The Daily Beast.

CNNPresident Joe Biden said Wednesday that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders an invasion of Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, then he will not supply Israel with any more American-made weapons.In an interview on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront a week after Biden paused weapons shipments, the president also acknowledged that those weapons have been used to kill civilians in the territory.“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” he said.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty Images/ReutersWhen Google co-founder Sergey Brin began openly dating Nicole Shanahan, in 2015, some members of his circle assumed it was a fling. Fresh out of law school, she was 12 years his junior, with few of the qualifications that might level the power dynamic with the world’s seventh-richest man. “I thought, okay, she’s fine,” a person close to the situation told The Daily Beast. “And then it went on.”By the time they married, in 2018, Shanahan had slingshotted into Silicon Valley stardom. She socialized with other billionaires’ plus-ones, distributed millions to pet causes—sometimes igniting controversy—and worked to distance Brin from his ex-wife, 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki, who had remained close with the billionaire, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the relationships.But almost as quickly, Shanahan’s marriage to Brin deteriorated. The couple squabbled over the right approach to raising their daughter, who was diagnosed with autism, and Shanahan chafed at Brin’s left-brain thinking. There was also the matter of her alleged affair with Elon Musk in 2021, a betrayal so profound and astonishing that the starchy pages of The Wall Street Journal might briefly have been confused for a tabloid.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Win McNamee/POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesWhile the family patriarch spends his days in Manhattan Criminal Court attempting to fend off 34 felony counts of falsifying business records involving a six-figure payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels, only one member of the Trump clan has appeared at the former president’s trial.Adult son Eric showed up in the courtroom gallery this week to observe testimony in his father’s case, but none of the other kids—or Trump’s third wife Melania—have been there to hear the twice-impeached ex-commander-in-chief’s dirty laundry being entered into the public record.Here’s what they’ve been up to while Big Papa sits through a trial which, if he’s convicted, could send Trump to prison for up to four years.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Elijah Nouvelage / AFP via Getty ImagesEven Donald Trump seemed peeved by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) ill-fated attempt to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson Wednesday, with the former president posting to his Truth Social platform that she was risking “CHAOS” in the chamber and making Republicans look bad.“I absolutely love Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s got Spirit, she’s got Fight, and I believe she’ll be around, and on our side, for a long time to come,” Trump began, before laying into her plan to eject the second GOP Speaker of the House in less than a year.“Right now, Republicans have to be fighting the Radical Left Democrats, and all the Damage they have done to our Country. With a Majority of One, shortly growing to three or four, we’re not in a position of voting on a Motion to Vacate.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Reuters/Getty ImagesAs the House Ethics Committee probes allegations that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) paid for sex with an underage teen, congressional investigators are hitting a wall: The Department of Justice.The DOJ is “stonewalling” the committee and refusing to turn over relevant information about its own sprawling criminal probe into Gaetz, frustrating the pace of the congressional investigation and leading the committee to seriously consider issuing subpoenas to the feds, according to two sources familiar with the matter.Currently, the committee has authorized multiple subpoenas to the DOJ for the information but has not served them yet, according to one source. Another source added that it is unusual for the DOJ to push back against the committee to this extent, especially when the relevant investigation isn’t active.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily BeastLast spring, pro-Trump cable channel Newsmax was riding a massive ratings surge after Fox News abruptly fired far-right primetime star Tucker Carlson, prompting disgruntled MAGA viewers to dump the conservative cable giant in protest.A year after transparently exploiting right-wing discontent over Fox’s removal of Carlson to gain a short-term boost in the cable news marketplace—which even saw the network occasionally surpass CNN in primetime—Newsmax is now experiencing a complete reversal of fortune.Despite a news cycle filled with high-profile events like Donald Trump’s hush money trial and the tumultuous pro-Palestine protests on college campuses, Newsmax’s primetime viewership has plummeted to its lowest levels of 2024. The decline is staggering, with a drop of over 60 percent in certain categories compared to the same period last year, as reported by Nielsen.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/TwitterA former New York City urologist is facing life behind bars after a federal jury found him guilty on Wednesday of sexually abusing eight patients, including six who were minors at the time.“Darius A. Paduch leveraged his position of trust as a medical doctor for his own perverse gratification,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement issued after the unanimous verdict. “For years, patients seeking needed medical care, many of them children, left his office as victims.”A lawyer for Paduch told Newsday that they “definitely” planned to appeal, and declined to comment further.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Kirby LeeThe embattled ex-interpreter for Shohei Ohtani is expected to plead guilty to bank fraud and false tax return charges next week, accepting blame for the bombshell scandal that saw him accused him of stealing millions from baseball’s biggest star. Those in Ohtani’s camp accused Ippei Mizuhara, once spotted smiling alongside Ohtani nearly daily, of using the stolen funds to place thousands of illegal bets on everything from college soccer to the NFL. Mizuhara, who prosecutors said was Ohtani’s “de facto manager” in addition to translating Japanese and English, is expected to officially enter a guilty plea guilty on May 14 during a scheduled arraignment, the Department of Justice announced. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/ReutersThe bombshell testimony of Stormy Daniels in Donald Trump’s election interference case was certainly dramatic, but other events that took place may mean we are closer than ever to the former president facing the prospect of jail time.It was the statements made by one of Trump’s lawyers that could land him an evening on Rikers Island, and also potentially get that attorney in ethical trouble herself.The coverage of the trial focused mostly on Stephanie Clifford’s (aka Stormy Daniels’) testimony, including quite specific allegations related to her supposed interactions with the former president.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Prince Williams/FilmMagic/Jerritt Clark/Getty Images for Rémy MartinRapper 50 Cent, real name Curtis Jackson, filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex-partner, Daphne Joy this week. Back in March, Joy publicly accused Jackson of raping and physically abusing her during their relationship, claims which Jackson says are baseless. Jackson claims in his suit that Joy (full name Daphne Joy Narvaez) made allegations were not only “false and defamatory,” but that were a “calculated attack”—an attack that his lawyer says was likely motivated by Narvaez's relationship with embattled hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.“Despite being given ample opportunity to retract a false and malicious retaliatory accusation, Ms. Narvaez has shamefully chosen to interfere with her 11-year-old son’s relationship with his loving father by falsely calling him a ‘rapist,’” Reena Jain, one of Jackson’s lawyers, told The Daily Beast in a statement. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesRep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) pulled the trigger on Wednesday on her motion to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from the speakership, a move that sets up a full vote in the House on his fate.While that vote will mark the second time in seven months that House Republicans have voted on removing their own Speaker—an unprecedented sign of chaos—Greene is all but certain to fail in her quest to boot Johnson as Democrats will likely help table the motion.For starters, the Georgia Republican has only garnered two additional members to publicly support her motion, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ). The latter has expressed to reporters that he does not believe the motion to vacate should be triggered this week.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesA group of Republican lawmakers introduced a bill on Wednesday which would send “any person convicted of unlawful activity” at a college or university, to do community service in Gaza for six months.The bill, dubbed the “Antisemitism Community Service Act,” was introduced by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), and backed by Representatives Jeff Dunch (R-SC) and Randy Weber (R-TX), as part of two bills which take aim at college students.The bill seeks to punish students opposing the U.S.-backed genocide, by sending them to the very place where Israel has used U.S. funds and weapons to kill over 34,700 people, obliterating homes, and displacing nearly two million of Palestinians.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Getty ImagesThe man accused of brutally killing Laken Riley as she was on a morning run on the University of Georgia campus was formally indicted Wednesday, two-and-a-half months after her killing reverberated across the country. Jose Antonio Ibarra, an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, was officially slapped with 10 charges, including felony murder, malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, and aggravated assault with intent to rape. Those charges had been expected for months, but prosecutors also issued Ibarra a surprise “peeping Tom” charge on Tuesday. His indictment alleged that he spied on an unnamed UGA staff member, going to an apartment near campus and looking through the woman’s window on the same morning Riley was murdered.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesOur long national nightmare is finally over. For the first time since the Obama administration—and lasting for more than a month—we did not have a Real Housewives series airing on Bravo.We Bravo fans did our best to survive. Checked in on each other. Gave hugs. Offered nod and knowing glances that said, “It’s going to be alright.” It’s been rough, but we’ve weathered this time together, knowing that the sunshine was coming after the storm: Finally, the new season of Real Housewives of New Jersey premiered Sunday night. We’re survivors.Of course, this is RHONJ—stormy weather is always in the forecast. And, if Sunday night’s premiere was any indication, we all would be wise to batten down the hatches for this new season.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Reuters/Grant WoodSouth Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem reacted to outrage over her revelation that she shot her family’s “hated” 14-month-old dog dead by insisting that executing animals is just an unfortunate reality of farm life.But the leader of the farmers union in her own state says that’s a steaming pile of cow pies.“This is not a common thing at all,” South Dakota Farmers Union President Doug Sombke, a self-described “working class Democrat,” told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “I don’t know where she comes off thinking that’s the right thing to do. It’s just not.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

WIN MCNAMEE/POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesDonald Trump wants everyone to know that he thinks it’s deeply unfair that a gag order is preventing him from making incendiary comments attacking witnesses, jurors, and court staff in his ongoing hush money trial.The former president took to Truth Social on Wednesday to lament the gag order, which he violated earlier this week resulting in a $1000 fine from Judge Juan Merchan, the 10th such infraction Trump has had to pay for since the trial began.“It is a really bad feeling to have your Constitutional Right to Free Speech, such a big part of life in our Country, so unfairly taken from you, especially when all of the sleazebags, lowlifes, and grifters that you oppose are allowed to say absolutely anything that they want,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersUnapologetic conspiracy theorist and out-and-proud anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been accused by clearer heads of having “brain worms.”On Wednesday, it emerged that an actual worm allegedly once set up shop in the longshot presidential candidate’s brain.“[A] worm… got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” Kennedy, 70, said during a 2012 deposition reviewed by The New York Times, which first published details of the previously unrevealed parasitic infection.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Jane Rosenberg/ReutersThe Trump defense team is expected to continue its cross-examination of actress and director Stormy Daniels. If their cross so far is any predictor, their approach seems to be a performance for their client, former President Donald Trump.Susan Necheles—the only female lead attorney on the team—is tasked with what should have been the delicate task of cross-examining Daniels, who is the centerpiece of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s election interference case narrative, because she explains why Trump was motivated to hide their interaction.The cross-examination needed to be delicate, because Daniels was likely to be viewed sympathetically by the jury based on her public demeanor and how she has come across in public appearances, including interviews. Indeed, it’s clear how worried the Trump defense team is about her likeability because they based a whole meritless motion to dismiss the case upon the mere release of a documentary film. Read more at The Daily Beast.

NBCThe Office reboot has been officially greenlit at Peacock—but it’s not going to take place at the same Scranton Dunder Mifflin offices we’ve all come to know and love.Currently untitled, the reboot is set to follow the same documentary crew that “immortalized” Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch in the original Office series. This time, they’ve found a new subject: a dying historic Midwestern newspaper. With a publisher attempting to revive the brand and a handful of volunteer reporters keeping it afloat, the paper serves as the perfect topic for a documentary.Two big names have already been announced to be starring in the project. About Time star Domhnall Gleeson and The White Lotus hotel manager Sabrina Impacciatore have been cast, which raises some eyebrows. Sure, these two are great actors. But what do two Europeans have to do with a Midwestern newspaper?Read more at The Daily Beast.

NewsmaxRep. James Comer (R-KY) has spent weeks defending his long stalled impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden to questioning conservative minds. On Tuesday night, even Newsmax had to state the obvious: Everyone thinks he’s lost the plot.Comer was appearing on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight, where host Rob Schmitt noted that Comer has apparently “laid out, you know, so much evidence” of alleged corrupt acts by the Biden family, including millions of dollars allegedly stemming from Russia and China. Still, Schmitt said, that hasn’t stopped Comer’s critics from wondering why the case hasn’t left the conservative spectrum.“[Biden’s] supporters and your detractors are out there saying that, that your case, you know, the influence-peddling cases has hit kind of a wall, and it’s leveled off,” Schmitt said. “What what do you say to that, that criticism?”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Olmsted County Sheriff's OfficeConnor Bowman, the former Mayo Clinic doctor who’s accused of fatally poisoning his wife, allegedly Googled “is widow gender neutral” just days before his wife’s murder, search warrants revealed this week.The affidavit, obtained by The Daily Beast, also accused Bowman, 32, of adding “widower” to his Bumble dating profile within weeks of his wife’s death, using it to strike up conversations with matches where he allegedly lied about the nature and timing of Betty Bowman’s death.Bowman’s Google search about the word widow came on Aug. 18, two days before Betty—a 32-year-old operating room pharmacist at Mayo—died in a Minnesota hospital after fighting for her life over the course of four days. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia CommonsThe New Hampshire lawmaker who called teenagers “ripe” and “fertile” says the uproar over his comments was an overreaction and that he will not apologize to the “haters.”Rep. Jess Edwards sparked national outcry when he opposed a bill that would raise the age of marriage from 16 to 18, saying on the House floor that outlawing marriage for people of a “ripe, fertile age” could result in more abortions.In an interview with The Daily Beast on Tuesday night, Edwards said using the word “ripe” was a mistake, but that he did not deserve the hundreds of emails he received calling him a pedophile and worse.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Toby Melville/ReutersThe settings were a celebration in a cathedral and a garden party in the grounds of Buckingham Palace—but the messages emanating from both were more brutal than cheery.Prince Harry’s exclusion from the British royal family was starkly illustrated Wednesday when not one single member of his family turned up at a church service to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Paralympic-style event he founded for wounded veterans.Instead, King Charles ordered all working royals (including Princess Anne and Prince Edward, and excluding Prince William and Kate Middleton) to attend a garden party for 5,000 people at Buckingham Palace taking place at the same time.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / GettyUnder normal circumstances, Fox News would be the safest space for Kristi Noem to rehab her image. But the embattled governor’s disastrous, neverending puppy-killer book tour is no ordinary situation.On the same day as her combative interview on Fox’s sister network, the South Dakota governor bailed on sitting down with Fox News host Greg Gutfeld because of bad weather. In turn, the primetime star brutally roasted her.A source familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast that the governor’s team specifically cited a snowstorm in her home state of South Dakota. While there was a winter weather advisory in the Black Hills, Noem was physically in New York City, having already appeared in-studio on Fox Business and Newsmax earlier in the day. Additionally, the South Dakota capital of Pierre enjoyed temperatures in the 50s on both Tuesday and Wednesday. A representative for Noem did not respond to a request for comment.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jim Bennett/WireImage/GettySteve Albini, a legend of rock n’ roll who produced albums for Nirvana, P.J. Harvey, and The Pixies, as well as his own music, has died at 61. He suffered a heart attack Tuesday night, a staffer at Electrical Audio, the recording studio he founded in the late ’90s, confirmed to The Daily Beast.Alongside his storied producing career, Albini also performed with his band Shellac. Shellac was preparing to release its first album since 2014 just next week and had scheduled tour dates for later this year. Albini’s influence on alternative rock—particularly grunge, post-punk, and its ilk—in the mid- to late ’90s can’t be overstated. While his own bands, including Shellac and Big Black, which he fronted in the 1980s, gained esteem, it’s his work as a record producer—or rather as an engineer, his preferred title—that cemented his legacy. His credits are lengthy and arguably unparalleled: In 1993 alone, Albini worked on Nirvana’s In Utero, P.J. Harvey’s Rid of Me, and Jawbreaker’s 24 Hour Revenge Therapy—each one ranking among the greatest albums ever made. Read more at The Daily Beast.

AFP via Getty Images Andrew Tate was served with a lawsuit at his home in Romania on Wednesday by four British women who say he raped and physically assaulted them.The law firm representing the women, McCue, Jury and Partners, issued a press release confirming that the social media influencer-turned-accused-human-trafficker was presented with the civil proceedings for a case in the High Court in London.The women’s identities have been kept anonymous to “protect them from harm and harassment by Tate, his associates, and followers,” the lawyers said.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyKing Charles decided not to meet his son Prince Harry in London this week because of Harry’s “cruel” remarks about his wife, Queen Camilla, in his memoir, Spare, a friend of Charles and Camilla has told The Daily Beast.Observers had thought that father and son could have met today, Wednesday, especially as both had events within just a couple of miles of each other—a ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games for Harry, and the first Buckingham Palace garden party of the year for Charles. But Harry released a statement saying Charles was too busy to see him, with the palace a couple of hours later saying Charles was making Prince William the head of Harry’s old regiment. Harry’s U.K. trip has fast become a snub pile-up.In Spare, Harry said Camilla “sacrificed me on her personal PR altar,” and described her as “dangerous.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

George Lange/NBCU/Getty ImagesJulia Louis-Dreyfus’ iconic Elaine dance from Seinfeld took a bit of finesse to “get the laugh,” the actress revealed this week.On the latest episode of her podcast Wiser Than Me, Louis-Dreyfus sat down with dance legend Debbie Allen, and the conversation naturally turned toward the “little kicks” dance immortalized on Seinfeld. Louis-Dreyfus said that while she considers herself a good dancer, everywhere she goes where there’s dancing, people watch her to see if she’ll bust out her sitcom character’s terrible moves.“I can feel people watch me, because obviously they’re expecting me to dance that horrible dance, the Elaine dance,” she told Allen. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Bonnie CashJust two days after she was brutally booed on stage at Tom Brady’s roast, Kim Kardashian found herself in yet another awkward position on stage Tuesday, this time in Germany.There, she was interrupted by a pro-Palestine protester in the crowd as she spoke on stage at the OMR business festival. Between the protesters screams, Kardashian quipped “Free everybody” while nodding her head.A clip of the incident showed the protester, a woman, repeatedly yelling “free Palestine” while she was whisked out of the crowd of 7,000 by security. Others attending remained silent, with many not turning their heads to see the protester who was seated in the crowd’s back rows. Read more at The Daily Beast.