Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesHakeem Jeffries, the House minority speaker, and other top Democrats have announced that they will come to the aid of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), agreeing they won’t let the embattled Republican lose his job.Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) put forward a motion to vacate Johnson from the speakership over a month ago, in an ultimately fruitless effort to stop the House from passing an aid bill for Ukraine.On Tuesday morning, Jeffries (D-NY), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA), and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-CA) released a statement declaring their intention to shoot down Greene’s motion, and “turn the page on this chapter of Pro-Putin Republican obstruction.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

DNCC via Getty ImagesFox News appears to be taking Hunter Biden’s lawsuit threat quite seriously.The network has quietly pulled down its six-part “mock trial” series from its digital streaming service Fox Nation after lawyers for the presidential scion warned the network of their intention to sue for defamation.Besides quietly taking down The Trial of Hunter Biden from its streamer, the network also deleted a promotional video promising Fox News viewers an “inside look” at the “mock trial,” which was presided over by former reality-TV star Judge Joe Brown.Read more at The Daily Beast.

COURTESY OF NETFLIXComedian John Mulaney has had a chaotic past couple of years, having spectacularly fallen apart in the public eye via his rehabilitation for drug and alcohol abuse, the collapse of his marriage to now-ex-wife Anna Marie Tendler and his resurrection, of sorts, via the excellent Netflix comedy special Baby J (2023), in which he dives deeply into his issues with drugs—but stays away from touching the ex-wife stuff. On the latest episode of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, the talk show launched by David Letterman years after the conclusion of his legendary run of the Late Show, Mulaney shared how a well-timed phone call from Saturday Night Live’s Lorne Michaels kept him in line as he worked towards recovery while in rehab. Mulaney said that Michaels told him: “I knew John Belushi for seven years. I’ve been talking about him for 48 years. That’s the shrapnel that happens when someone goes down like that. John didn’t want to die. He didn’t plan to. Just because it’s a story, just because it’s set in stone like history, people don’t want to die from this.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

ParamountKamala Harris stopped by The Drew Barrymore Show on Monday to chat about being the vice president and, perhaps more importantly, a step-mother. In the day since the quick interview, Drew Barrymore has gone viral for inching so close to Harris on the production couch and her plethora of questions about becoming “Momala.”Momala, in case you haven’t heard, is the pet name Harris’ step-children (Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s biological kids) call her. It certainly sounds a whole lot nicer than “step-mother,” which sounds like an antagonist in a Disney princess movie, or anything of that sort. Momala has been around since Harris campaigned for vice president with Joe Biden, but following this interview, the title is really having its moment.“You are a step-mother to Ella and Cole,” Barrymore begins, sounding a little weepy to be chatting with such an influential woman. “I have such an investment in this question, because I too am in a beautiful dynamic.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Scouted/The Daily Beast/Balate Dorin/iStock.Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.I vividly recall the terror that crossed my mother’s face when I shared my plan to backpack solo across Europe for a month. She was playing into that typical mom-drama where they think you’re going to die at any moment. For context, I had just graduated college and felt it was the most appropriate time to venture alone and see a little slice of the world. What I didn’t know then was that I was going to be so extremely bored for 75 percent of the trip. I had unknowingly signed myself up to wander aimlessly in a foreign land with nobody to share this amazing experience with. To give some credit to my mother, I even did feel a bit unsafe at times (You were right, Mom!). Okay, and maybe I met a few cool people at the hostels I was staying at or in the pub, but our travel plans never seemed to line up, and so I would eventually be on my own again. Enter the solution: Contiki. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Denis Balibouse/ReutersA Russian zoo has attempted to do its part in the country’s war against Ukraine by sending two peacocks to the battlefield to “inspire” troops in intense combat.The Lipetsk Zoo announced the special delivery in a post to the social networking site VK on Tuesday. “For guys in difficult combat situations, the beauty of birds inspires and brings a piece of joy. This is not an advertisement for the zoo, but a gift from the heart. We hope that the beauty of these birds will brighten up soldiers’ everyday life in combat,” the zoo wrote.A brief video shared with the post showed a masked soldier standing in front of an enclosure with the peacocks. He said every soldier would have a chance to gaze at the birds and get a bit of “spiritual peace.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Giorgio Viera/AFP via GettyAfter weeks of bellyaching and carrying on about how he would “not be allowed” to take a day off from his criminal hush-money trial to attend his 18-year-old son Barron’s high school graduation, Donald Trump will, in fact, be permitted to go, Judge Juan Merchan said Tuesday. Following the first day of proceedings earlier this month, Trump lambasted Merchan, ranting, “[I]t looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son.” Moments later, he expressed displeasure because the trial made it so “that I can’t go to my son’s graduation.” The former president also took to Truth Social to slam Merchan well in advance of any ruling, writing: “Who will explain for me, to my wonderful son, Barron, who is a GREAT Student at a fantastic School, that his Dad will likely not be allowed to attend his Graduation Ceremony, something that we have been talking about for years, because a seriously Conflicted and Corrupt New York State Judge wants me in Criminal Court on a bogus ‘Biden Case’ which, according to virtually all Legal Scholars and Pundits, has no merit, and should NEVER have been brought.” Read more at The Daily Beast.

The Telegraph / YouTubeA 14-year-old boy died Tuesday after being stabbed in a sword attack in London that hurt several other people, including police officers, local authorities said.The deceased child has not been identified, but his death was confirmed by police after a 36-year-old man was arrested following the disturbing incident in the Hainault area of northeast London. The Metropolitan Police said its officers were first called shortly before 7 a.m. “to reports of a vehicle being driven into a house” and warnings that “people had been stabbed.”Chief Superintendent Stuart Bell, who leads Scotland Yard’s local policing for the East Area Command, said in a later update that the boy had died after being taken to a hospital. “The events of this morning are truly horrific and I cannot begin to imagine how all those affected must be feeling,” Bell said.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBOBrian Cox gave his take on the world’s most popular book this week in an interview on The Starting Line podcast with Rich Leigh, slamming the Bible as the “worst book ever.”The Succession star said he thinks religion “holds us back because its belief systems, which are outside ourselves, they’re not dealing with who we all are, they’re dealing with well, ‘if God says this and God does that.’”Cox has become known for his very strong, unfiltered public opinions. Most recently he stated that Joaquin Phoenix was “truly terrible” in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon and added that he could’ve “played it a lot better.” Now, he’s got some spicy words for the Bible and religion, which he ultimately calls “stupid”—mostly because of the “patriarchal” lens it puts on the world.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Caitlin Ochs/ReutersPro-Palestinian protesters stormed into a Columbia University building and barricaded themselves inside early Tuesday, the latest dramatic escalation in the ongoing demonstrations denouncing Israel’s war in Gaza currently blazing at campuses across the country.Dozens of protesters used tables and chairs to block the entrances to Hamilton Hall in the early hours, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator. Activists inside the building—which was once occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protest—reportedly unfurled banners reading “Free Palestine” and “Hind’s Hall” in reference to Hind Rajab, the 6-year-old Palestinian girl who was found dead in February after making a desperate phone call for help.Columbia started suspending students on Monday if they broke a 2 p.m. deadline to vacate an encampment nearby. Such students won’t be able to graduate or return to university housing. It’s not year clear how many individuals have been hit by the suspensions. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Julieta CervantesAlicia Keys’ musical Hell’s Kitchen and David Adjmi’s critically adored play Stereophonic, about a 1970s band rehearsing and combusting in an atmospherically rendered recording studio, each picked up 13 nominations Tuesday, leading the contenders for theater-land’s Oscars which will be televised on CBS on June 16. The Outsiders musical, based on S.E. Hinton's classic 1967 novel, picked up 12 nominations.One notable snub was for movie star Steve Carell, locked out of the Best Actor Play category for his title role in Uncle Vanya—his co-star William Jackson Harper beat him to the nomination instead. (Danny DeVito was also snubbed for his role in the poorly received I Need That.) Also nominated were Leslie Odom Jr. for Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, Succession star Jeremy Strong for An Enemy of the People, Liev Schreiber for Doubt, and Michael Stuhlbarg for Patriots.The Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play category is a vibrant list of boldface names: Sarah Paulson for Appropriate, Rachel McAdams (Mary Jane), Jessica Lange (Mother Play), Betsy Aidem (Prayer for the French Republic), and Amy Ryan for Doubt: A Parable.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Seth Winnig/Getty The third week of Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York got off to an aggressive start on Tuesday morning, when the former president was swiftly fined $9,000 by the judge for repeatedly making public comments about jurors and witnesses—ignoring the court’s gag order that sought to stymie an ongoing MAGA intimidation campaign.New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said prosecutors had clearly proven that Trump was violating his court order in nine out of 10 instances, fining him $1,000 for each violation.“The people met their burden of proof and demonstrated contempt,” Merchan said with little fanfare.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Martin Mlaka / Sky UKThe Holocaust is the wound that never heals because the hate that fueled it is always here, and one need only look and listen today—with Jews persecuted and demonized at home and abroad, and with vehement calls for their expulsion and extermination as commonplace as they were in the 1930s and 1940s—to be reminded that antisemitism is the world’s eternal ugliness. Thus, Peacock’s six-part limited series The Tattooist of Auschwitz arrives at a particularly auspicious moment. Inspired by both Heather Morris’ best-selling 2018 book and the memories of its main character, it’s a stirring tribute to the perseverance of one man and, by extension, to all who survived the horrors of Hitler’s genocide, and who were rewarded for their triumph with a lifetime of pain, guilt, heartache, and ghosts that refuse to go quietly into the terrible night.Spearheaded by director Tali Shalom Ezer and writer Jacquelin Perske, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which premieres May 2, is, in several ways, a familiar tale refracted through a novel lens, and at times, its framing device proves a tad clunky. Nonetheless, such intermittent gracelessness is overshadowed by the proceedings’ complexity, poignancy, and horror. In Melbourne, Australia circa 2003, hospital worker Heather (Melanie Lynskey) visits the apartment of Lale Sokolov (Harvey Keitel), a widower and Holocaust survivor to whom she’s been referred by a friend. Lale wants someone to pen his life story and Heather is an aspiring writer. Despite not being Jewish or having any first-hand relationship with the atrocities of WWII, she agrees to the task, sitting with Lale in his sunlit living room as he slowly recounts his unthinkable ordeal.That begins in 1942 Slovakia, where twentysomething Lale (Jonah Hauer-King) hears that one member of each Jewish household must report to the authorities for work duty. Lale volunteers and is promptly loaded into an overcrowded train and transported to Auschwitz II—Birkenau, the most infamous of the Third Reich’s numerous concentration camps. Upon arriving, he displays courage to the man tasked with giving him his forearm number, and following a nearly fatal illness from which he recovers thanks to his friend’s bravery, he lucks into a job as a tattooist. Through this assignment, he eventually meets Gita (Anna Próchniak), and it’s love at first sight. Amour doesn’t blossom easily in this environment, however, and their ensuing attempts to forge a bond, and to help keep each other alive, involves compromises and choices of a dreadful sort, many of them enabled by a sociopathic Nazi guard named Stefan Baretzki (Jonas Nay) who takes Lale under his wing.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Chip Somodevilla/GettyWith the nation still reeling from South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s literary boasts about shooting her puppy to death, Kimberly Guilfoyle has decided that now is the time to pull the trigger on promoting her new dog-themed children’s book.Guilfoyle, an adviser on Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign and now the fiancée of his son Don Jr., unveiled her forthcoming book The Princess & Her Pup on Monday. The work’s self-described “pro-God, pro-America” publisher says the book follows the story of “Princess Kimberly” who is “afraid of almost everything” until she “meets a little pup who’s scared too.”Guilfoyle also announced on X that 10 percent of the proceeds from the book will go to supporting Furry Friends, a nonprofit “which provides complete care for abused and abandoned dogs and cats.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

via X / Tucker Carlson Tucker Carlson has interviewed a Russian fascist philosopher whose ideas, he falsely brags, are “so dangerous” that “Amazon won’t sell his books.”“Aleksandr Dugin is the most famous political philosopher in Russia,” the ousted Fox News host wrote in teasing the 20-minute interview he shared on X late Monday with a man dubbed “Putin’s brain” by some and dismissed as a fringe crackpot by others.In hyping up Dugin, Carlson went on to stress that “the Ukrainian government murdered his daughter,” referring to Daria Dugina, who followed in her father’s footsteps and cheered on attacks on Ukraine until she was killed in a car bombing near Moscow in August 2022.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Caitlin Ochs/ReutersLast Thursday, Donald Trump stood in the hallway of a Manhattan courtroom, where he is on trial for falsifying his business records, and once again attempted to rewrite history. Comparing the antiwar protests now spreading across college campuses to the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017, Trump claimed Charlottesville was “nothing...[like] the kind of hate that you have here.” The night before, Trump had written on Truth Social, “Charlottesville is like a peanut compared to the riots and anti-Israel protests that are happening all over our country.”Meanwhile, Trump has been echoed by a chorus of politicians, including Democrats like Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), who tweeted, “Add some tiki torches and it’s Charlottesville for these Jewish students,” and Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), who opined that, “I know the people saying this aren't, you know, white Aryan males with tiki torches, but they have the same message.”From the standpoint of those who lived through these events, the comparison is not only unwarranted. It is not only unreasonable. It is, ultimately, unconscionable.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Sergey Smolentsev/ReutersAt least five people have died after a Russian missile attack hit an ornate mansion in Ukraine affectionately known to locals as the “Harry Potter Castle,” officials said Tuesday.Ukraine’s State Emergency Service shared a video showing the building in a seafront park in the southern city of Odesa engulfed in flames after the strike Monday. The agency initially said four people had been killed and another 32 injured, including two children.On Tuesday, regional governor Oleh Kiper said another man had died in the hospital. He added that eight people are still in serious condition and that four of those are in an “extremely serious condition, including a four-year-old girl.” He also said that a day of mourning had been declared throughout the Odesa region.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Suzanne Plunkett/ReutersKing Charles III looked cheerful and happy Tuesday, as he carried out his first official public engagement since being diagnosed with cancer.He was accompanied by his wife, Queen Camilla, as he visited a cancer treatment center in London, England.The royal couple arrived at University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre shortly after 11 a.m. in the state Bentley, a ceremonial vehicle fitted with extra large windows that Charles has been using while traveling in London on state and personal business in recent months to make sure he can be easily seen and photographed.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Adam Gray/ReutersThe third week of Donald Trump’s hush money trial will get underway in Manhattan on Tuesday morning with more testimony from a private banker who took the stand last week to talk about his work for Michael Cohen, Trump’s erstwhile attorney and fixer.Gary Farro, Cohen’s contact at First Republic Bank in 2015, has spoken about opening two accounts for Cohen—including the one which Cohen used to make a $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels to stop her speaking out about an alleged 2006 one-night stand with Trump. Trump has denied having sex with the porn star.That payment is at the heart of the case. Prosecutors claim that Trump engaged in an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 election in which damaging stories about him were bought and buried in a “catch and kill” scheme, and that he sought to cover up the true purpose of the payments. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Scouted/The Daily Beast/Retailers.MOScouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.New Kids on the Block helps you navigate all the latest and exciting launches from our favorite brands and retailers, all in one place.Somehow, April is already drawing to a close, which means that Gemini season (and summer, of course) is on the horizon. April brought forth many spring showers, a once-in-my-lifetime solar eclipse, and a slew of new product drops that have become new obsessions. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Wikimedia CommonsA Monday gathering of dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University was broken up by law enforcement officers in riot gear and gas masks, who witnesses said moved in on the “Liberated Zone” with tear gas and zip ties. The Richmond Times-Dispatch and ABC 8News reported that several arrests had been made, but it was not immediately clear on Monday night how many protesters had been detained or transported to jail. The protest began that morning on a grassy patch outside the school’s James Branch Cabell Library, with protesters waving signs, setting up tents, and chanting “Free Palestine.” Read more at The Daily Beast.

NewsmaxPresident Joe Biden’s eating habits are no longer just the subject of Fox News host Jesse Watters’ invaluable scrutiny, after Newsmax host Eric Bolling grew increasingly angry Monday with the president eating salad at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner over the weekend.Bolling, channeling his inner Sean Hannity, concluded his opening monologue by saying that Biden isn’t fit enough for the job he holds.“Here is the president of the United States, the man with the nuclear codes at his fingertips, grappling with a bowl of lettuce. He can barely feed himself,” Bolling insisted, instructing his audience to watch a clip of Biden eating.Read more at The Daily Beast.

NBCGiven the speed at which the news cycle is moving these days, it would be impossible for a late-night host to take a two-week vacation and not miss some pretty major stories; like a former president dozing off during a certain, historic criminal hush-money trial—and more than once.It’s a lesson Seth Meyers learned the hard way this month, but he was back with a vengeance on Monday and ready to recap all the wildest news stories he missed. While Donald Trump’s courtroom siestas were an obvious topic of conversation for the Late Night host to catch up on, he was much more interested—and outraged—in Kristi Noem’s bizarre decision to write about the time she murdered her puppy.In a new memoir, aptly titled No Going Back (which likely sums up her chances of being named Trump’s running mate), the South Dakota governor described the 14-month-old wirehaired pointer named Cricket as “untrainable,” “less than worthless… as a hunting dog,” and “dangerous to anyone she came into contact with.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesOne of the three winners of the record-breaking $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot is a 46-year-old immigrant from Laos who has been battling cancer for the last eight years.Speaking to the press at the Oregon Lottery headquarters in Salem on Monday, Cheng “Charlie” Saephan said he and his friend, Laiza Chao, 55, went in together on a batch of tickets that contained the winning numbers. Saephan and Chao will split the money, with Saephan sharing his half with his wife, Duanpen, 37.They are taking a lump sum payment of $422 million after taxes, according to the Associated Press.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Hulton Archive/GettyThe war is in Gaza, not Vietnam, as it was when Mark Rudd became the iconic leader of the protests that rocked Columbia University more than a half century ago.But 76-year-old Rudd says the anti-war protesters who are now encamped on a lawn in the heart of the Columbia campus share an essential motivation with those of his time.“They're pretty much the same as we were,” Rudd told The Daily Beast. “The basic impetus of the students, I think it's not that complicated. It's that they see a moral tragedy and moral crime going on, and they want to try to do something to stop it.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

MSNBCRep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appeared to criticize MSNBC anchor Katy Tur during a discussion Monday about job losses during the Trump administration by suggesting she was an “apologist” for the former president for mentioning the COVID-19 pandemic—a charge which Tur promptly denied.On Katy Tur Reports, the former House Speaker began by stating that Trump hasn’t shown that he “ever valued or did anything to support a democracy.”“I have sympathy and respect for everybody who votes. I’m just glad people vote. I know some of them will always reject those of us who might look different to them in leadership or the rest, and that’s that,” Pelosi then said.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Khadejeh Nikouyeh/The Charlotte Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesThree members of a U.S. Marshals fugitive task force were shot and killed in Charlotte, North Carolina on Monday when gunfire erupted as they were trying to serve a warrant, authorities said. Five other law enforcement officers were wounded, with one in critical condition on Monday evening.The suspect the officers were pursuing was also killed in the shootout. That person was not immediately identified.During a news conference at which Johnny Jennings, the chief of police for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, laid out the timeline of events, he said that four of the officers shot had been task force members. Three died. The other four officers shot were members of Jennings’ police department, he said.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesSouth Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s gruesome recounting of how she killed her dog may have also killed something else: her hopes to be Donald Trump’s running mate.In Trump’s orbit, Noem’s decision to disclose in her forthcoming memoir that she once shot and killed a family dog is being seen as pure political self-immolation—part of a series of “lapses in judgment” and a sign of “desperation that President Trump especially doesn’t like,” according to a over a half-dozen GOP sources who spoke to The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity to detail confidential conversations.“Everyone around Trump is talking about this,” said a MAGA operative.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Daniele Venturelli/WireImage via Getty ImagesBob Bakish is stepping down as chief executive of Paramount Global, the company said Monday. The 60-year-old, who has spent nearly half his life at Paramount, is exiting amid ongoing talks regarding a merger deal with Skydance Media.There are no immediate plans to replace Bakish. Instead, Paramount said that it would install an “Office of the CEO” made up of three division heads: Brian Robbins, Paramount Pictures CEO; George Cheeks, CBS CEO; and Chris McCarthy, who heads the conglomerate’s entertainment brands, including Showtime and MTV.Shari Redstone, the chair of Paramount’s board, said in a statement that she had “tremendous confidence” in Robbins, Cheeks, and McCarthy. “They have both the ability to develop and execute on a new strategic plan and to work together as true partners,” she said.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Suzanne Cordeiro/Getty ImagesMore arrests are underway at the University of Texas at Austin, where state troopers, city police, and university officers seized several nonviolent protesters from the school’s “Gaza solidarity encampment” on Monday.One video from the scene showed state troopers in riot gear closing in on the protesters, who had locked arms and sat close together on the grass.“You failed Uvalde!” protesters shouted at the officers, a criticism meant to highlight the difference between the Texas Department of Public Safety’s inaction at the 2022 elementary school shooting and the use of force on unarmed protesters.Read more at The Daily Beast.