Denmark ramps up security —and calls in the sled dogs — in Greenland after Trump threatens takeover
Aaron Rodgers Says To Ask Jets Owner Woody Johnson if He'll Be Back in 2025
Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers wants people to ask the team owner about his future, not him.
newsweek.com
Judge Blocks New Hemp Product Ban
The temporary injunction stopped testing rule changes to determine what Tennessee hemp is considered legal until February.
newsweek.com
San Francisco Hotel Workers Agree Pay Rise After 3-Month Strike
Hilton Hotel workers voted 99.4 percent in favor of the new agreement on Christmas Eve.
newsweek.com
Ukraine War Map Reveals Russian Christmas Eve Advances Across Front Line
Russian troops appeared to have made inroads into Ukranian territory on Christmas Eve, as well as striking the city of Kharkiv.
newsweek.com
Toni Storm Joins ROH After Confusing AEW Return
Superstar Toni Storm is already jumping to another promotion after her bizarre return to AEW.
newsweek.com
Passenger airliner crashes in Kazakhstan
A passenger airliner crashed this morning in Kazakhstan after a bird strike caused an emergency. Dramatic video shows the plane plummeting before bursting into flames, but officials say more than 30 of the 67 people on board survived.
cbsnews.com
Pope Francis marks Christmas with plea for peace
Pope Francis gave his traditional Christmas Day blessing and address to the world this morning from his balcony at St. Peter's Basilica, after striking a somber tone at last night's Christmas Eve Mass. He urged Christians to reflect on global conflicts.
cbsnews.com
Immigrants are California's lifeblood. They need support now more than ever
Immigrants are California's lifeblood. With the mass deportation on the horizon, it’s more important than ever to support immigrants and recognize the vital role they play in our society.
latimes.com
FDA issues highest-level recall for Costco eggs over salmonella risk
The FDA has raised the level of a Costco egg recall, warning of the risk of severe illness or death due to potential salmonella contamination. Over 10,000 cartons of Kirkland brand organic eggs sold at stores across the South are affected. Customers are urged to discard or return eggs marked with Julian code 327 and a use-by date of Jan. 5, 2025.
cbsnews.com
The top five absurd tips from liberal pundits for surviving holidays with Trump-voting family
Liberal outlets offered advice on "Trump-proofing" Christmas, from canceling holidays altogether to awkward scripts for family talks, sparking debate over festive unity.
foxnews.com
Mario Lopez 'not ashamed' of his faith as he builds more 'spiritual muscle' in Hollywood
Mexican American actor Mario Lopez shared with Fox News Digital how he leaned on his faith growing up as a child star in Hollywood.
foxnews.com
Reese Witherspoon tried to make gingerbread house from scratch: 'Epic disaster'
Reese Witherspoon recently said she once tried making her own gingerbread house from scratch, calling the idea an "epic disaster" as it ended up falling apart.
foxnews.com
BISHOP ROBERT BARRON: Logos and love – A meditation for Christmas
St. John’s account of Christmas is austere in the extreme. It comes down to one line: “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." What precisely is the “Word" that the evangelist is referencing?
foxnews.com
Awe-Inspiring Satellite Images Show a Year of Change and Wonder
From natural disasters and humanitarian crises to advances in space exploration, here's how 2024 was seen from space.
newsweek.com
'Anxious' College Student Texts Mom 600 Miles Away, Tears at What Happens
When Breanna Lambert messaged her mom about the stress of finals week, she could never have predicted what would happen next.
newsweek.com
The 5 Best Romcoms Currently Streaming
From classics to new releases, here's what different streaming services have to offer right now.
newsweek.com
Boxer Claressa Shields on How The Fire Inside Captures Her Real Life Story
Boxer Claressa Shields on how her real life story is told in 'The Fire Inside'
time.com
Bob Dylan Broke Rules. A Complete Unknown Follows Them.
The gift of Bob Dylan’s music is to make the world seem weirder, or rather to reveal the world to be as strange as it really is. He sings of life as a flow of jumbled-up signs and sensations, some real and some not, carrying meaning beyond words. Even at his most strident, he wheezes out an anti-narrative: Thou shalt not simplify, classify, categorize.A Complete Unknown, James Mangold’s biopic focused on the bard’s early career, understands this—and betrays it. The film portrays Dylan as a prophet bringing independence and idiosyncrasy to a world of rule-enforcers and followers. Timothée Chalamet does excellent work striking Dylan’s balance of unworldliness and humanity. Yet no movie about unconventionality should be as blandly conventional as this one is.The problem starts at the level of conception. Mangold has chosen to examine the most chewed-over chapters of Dylan’s career: his early days in the New York City folk scene, beginning in 1961 and leading up to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when he shocked acoustic-guitar purists by going electric. Newsie cap on his head, Dylan blows into Greenwich Village at the film’s start, gigs around, and quickly wins the admiration of his idols—Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Johnny Cash—as well as of the scene’s rising star, Joan Baez. Rebellion brings acclaim, which brings public expectations, which brings more rebellion: a cycle that’s true to Dylan’s life, but also that of many previous iconoclasts portrayed on film.Mangold knows the rules of biopics well; his 2005 Cash exploration, Walk the Line, set the modern template for how to bend a complex individual’s life into a satisfying arc. Here, the director and his co-writer, Jay Cocks, diverge from the template in one intriguing way. Dylan’s habit of lying and misdirection has made the question of who the man born Robert Zimmerman really is, and why exactly he does what he does, one of music’s enduring mysteries. Rather than try to crack the case with backstory providing psychological cause and effect, A Complete Unknown just lets Dylan be … unknown. When he tells Baez that he used to be a carnie, she exasperatedly replies that he’s full of it. He may well be. But he’s living out an idea that he professes in a key bit of dialogue: To succeed onstage, you have to inspire the same fascination as a freak show.[Read: Bob Dylan reveals himself through 66 songs]Chalamet does just that. He plays Dylan with heavy-lidded stillness, making him seem perpetually on the verge of dozing off, mumbling as if in a dream. The film overflows with performance scenes in which Chalamet captures Dylan’s controlled erraticism, singing in a way that spins folk conventions into a galactic spiral of feeling. The real-life Dylan of the 1960s was a bit lighter and funnier than the solemn figure Chalamet cuts, but his prankster soul flashes through occasionally, such as when he announces himself to be God and then breaks into a grin. And though Dylan himself had some input in the movie, Chalamet doesn’t dull the artist’s cruel edge; at one point, with glassy anger in his eyes, he tells Baez her songs are pretty like paintings in a dentist’s office.Unfortunately, the rest of the movie has that same antiseptic quality that Dylan stood against. New York looks as stagey and cheerful as an amusement park. Dylan’s romance with Sylvie Russo—a fictionalized version of his real-life girlfriend Suze Rotolo, played by Elle Fanning—mostly seems to exist to give trivia about Dylan’s love songs. Historical giants are sketched in 2-D: Ed Norton’s Seeger is a gentle idealist with a hint of cunning; Monica Barbaro’s Baez is all confidence except for when she’s all insecurity. Most irritating are the groan-worthy winks to the audience. “Be careful on that thing!” Seeger admonishes as Dylan rides his motorcycle, a few years before the singer’s career-altering, still-mysterious crash of 1966.Thanks to Chalamet’s performance, the film’s hokiness isn’t totally fatal to the viewing experience. But if A Complete Unknown is Hollywood’s grand, Oscar-baiting summation of Dylan’s legacy, then the implication is sad: Even when trying to celebrate originality, the entertainment industry insists on predictability. The film need not be an art-house riddle—Todd Haynes already took that approach to Dylan in 2007 with I’m Not There—but a shaggier, more naturalistic version would have better suited its subject. The film does convey one true idea, at least: Worshipping an artist is different from listening to what they have to say.
theatlantic.com
The Most Distant Known Galaxy
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Olmsted, S. Carniani, JADES CollaborationDay 25 of the 2024 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: the most distant known galaxy. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have found a record-breaking distant galaxy observed just 290 million years after the Big Bang. In October 2023 and January 2024, an international team of astronomers used Webb to observe galaxies as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) program, obtaining a spectrum of the record-breaking galaxy featured in this image, highlighted by the small square at center, surrounded by an ocean of thousands of other galaxies.Merry Christmas, everyone!See this year’s full advent calendar here.
theatlantic.com
Winter Weather Warnings in 7 States: 3 Feet of Snow To Fall on Christmas
Vigilance and preparation are important, say forecasters at the NWS, as wintery weather brings hazardous travel conditions.
newsweek.com
Plane Crash Today: Video Shows Passengers Emerge From Wreckage
There are dozens of survivors and many feared dead after an Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed down in Kazakhstan.
newsweek.com
Washington pols trim their ‘Christmas tree’ with outrageous tax-funded goodies
Perhaps Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk can do something about the misspending that has led to an unsustainable $36 trillion debt — but DC is not called "the swamp" for nothing.
nypost.com
The end of the energy war: AI’s insatiable needs put every fuel source in play
AI demands a lot of power. It’s difficult to conceptualize how much electricity AI will need in just a few years.
nypost.com
Reason Dog Was Returned to Shelter Breaks Hearts: 'Please Don't Leave Me'
"What she really wants is a warm lap to cuddle up in this holiday season!" the shelter said.
newsweek.com
Syria’s New Leaders Try to Unite Rebel Factions Under a Single Government
The fighters who ousted Bashar al-Assad are aiming to transform their revolutionary movement and assert control over the country.
nytimes.com
The gift of content: Fox Nation launches new Christmas specials to stream
Celebrate your Christmas Day by streaming new holiday themed specials, including "Broadmoor Christmas," "Welcome to Santa School with Abby Hornacek" and "Lights, Camera, Christmas."
foxnews.com
Psychics predict ‘nothing good’ for 2025 — expect a ‘deeply transformative phase’
The crystal ball is looking bleak. With the countdown for New Year’s upon us, many are turning an eye and a mind to 2025 and whether the future will be bright or blight. As we edge ever closer to 2K25, top seers, soothsayers, astrologers, mediums, and psychics at Psychic World have gathered their top predictions...
nypost.com
Not-So-Silent Night
Depictions of a quiet, peaceful manger scene miss the point of Christmas.
theatlantic.com
A Bob Dylan mega-fan detangles the Timothée Chalamet biopic for us
Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown. | Macall Polay, courtesy of Searchlight Pictures While he may be known for being an iconoclast, Bob Dylan has a public persona — aloof, remote, borderline misanthropic — that doesn’t exactly lend itself to the typical Hollywood treatment. That hasn’t stopped the new Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, from trying. Based on the book Dylan Goes Electric and starring Timothée Chalamet doing his own live singing and performing as Dylan, the film has picked up rave reviews for its performances. But some critics have had misgivings about the film’s many fictional liberties as well as the relatively little context we’re given for the beats of his life — not enough to either satisfy Dylanites or explain what’s happening for Dylan newbs. Why exactly was it such a big deal when Dylan “went electric” — plugging in his guitar and moving away from the folk music he made when he started out? What does his musical and personal legacy mean, and why should audiences care? Fortunately, I found a longtime Dylanhead who was able to fill in many of the gaps for me. Bill DeVille, a 40-year radio industry veteran, DJs near-nightly for Minneapolis public radio station The Current, in the city where Dylan first got his early start before traveling to New York. DeVille walked me through the context I was missing, and waxed rhapsodic about the experience of seeing the film as A Dylan Guy. I may be a Dylan fan now through sheer osmosis. Aja Romano: One of the central tensions of the film is this supposed tension between folk and rock. I know that’s part of the longstanding narrative around Bob Dylan, but when you were watching the film, did you feel like it’s an authentic narrative? Bill DeVille: I think it is. I think his musical love wasn’t necessarily folk music right out of the gate. I think it was blues and rock ‘n’ roll. I don’t want to say rock, because to me, rock is Journey. Rock ‘n’ roll is the real stuff. Fats Domino, Little Richard, Buddy Holly — I think that was the music that he really loved. He discovered Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie and stuff like that, and it took him toward folk. Plus, he didn’t have a band at the time, so it was easy to go out and just busk with your acoustic guitar at the coffee houses in New York. So folk was more of a detour for him. I get that impression. The first gigs he had were under the name Elston Gunn back in the latter ’50s. He was playing in Bobby Vee’s band — he was the piano player. He’s always talked about his love for Little Richard, too. That was his hero, more so or as much as Woody, I would imagine. It sounds as though it was the culture of folk, more than the music itself, that took him on his way. I think there’s some truth to that, but you’re constricted by this timeline. It’s a nifty timeframe, when he rolls out of Minneapolis in 1961 and immediately heads to the Big Apple. In the movie, they said he did it solo, but apparently he did it with a friend. That gets into the tropes the movie’s playing with — a small-town boy goes to the big city, right? Can you set the stage for us in terms of what the actual New York scene was at the time? Well, it was the coffee house scene. It was Dave Van Ronk and Pete Seeger. And Joan Baez was around in that scene, too, and Cisco Houston and some of the old folk guys and Dylan — in the film, it shows him just knocking ’em dead right out of the gate. And Joan Baez saw something — they saw something special in each other, which was pretty cool to see. It just seems like Bob had a handful of songs he was already working on at that point. Plus he was doing a lot of covers back then, too. The first album came out and it was pretty much all covers except for “Song to Woody.” The first time I heard that Bob Dylan song, “Song to Woody,” it made me cry. And man, in that movie, when it’s performed by Timothée, believe it or not, when he sang the song, it was just like, oh my God, this is so good. It sounds so much like Bob. He was very believable. I think people have been really surprised at the authenticity of that performance. I don’t think it’s something people would’ve expected from him. He’s gone the extra mile. At the big rollout red carpet deal, he shows up as Bob Dylan incognito. Yes! That was the New York premiere of A Complete Unknown, where Chalamet cosplayed Dylan’s notorious 2003 fashion at the Sundance premiere of his then-panned movie Masked and Anonymous. He had bangs and a stocking cap on and a scarf and a leather jacket that was pulled straight from Dylan. It was hysterical. He apparently had five and a half years to study the role, because of the pandemic and the strike. I don’t know that he was ever even any kind of a musician, but he sings with authenticity and plays the harmonica and the guitar. All the songs were performed live in the movie, which is pretty incredible too. That’s the draw. Most people are not going to go to this film being like, “I want to know all about this Pete Seeger dynamic. I want to know all about the Newport Folk Festival.” Most people are going to come for the music, and for them to nail that really shows a level of respect. Were there some moments that threw you? Too much fan service? I do feel like you have to approach this film with several layers of Dylan knowledge. I saw it maybe as a bit too much of a fanboy. I was in love with the film. Some of the younger generation, I don’t think, got it. But so much of it is based on things that really did happen. Like Newport Folk, when Pete — they didn’t really get into the cutting of the power too much, but Pete really thought about doing it. He didn’t, obviously, but he considered it. That moment — when Edward Norton as Pete Seeger looks pointedly at an axe during Dylan’s electric set at the Newport Folk Festival — did baffle people. And especially when you look at the commentary for the time, historians are divided on whether his decision to play electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival was actually the controversial thing. When you look at primary sources, some people said that they were booing because the sound was bad and they just couldn’t hear what was happening. That it was not actually about him playing electric. I do think there was a pretty good round [of controversy]. That whole tour of ’65, it seemed in particular — like the person yelling, “Judas!” — that actually happened in [Manchester], England. And they put that in the film too, even though it happened across the pond, not Newport, Rhode Island. But I think there was some truth to the idea that people wanted him to be this folk purist. I think for Dylan that whole thing was a little too precious. He just wanted to rock. Why do you think the film ended on that particular note? I don’t know, but I think it was important. It could have gone either way. I mean, think about it: Bob could have been this legendary folk musician, purist guy, and he could have been twice as popular as Pete Seeger, but he chose not to. I don’t think he wanted to be constrained by the folk thing. The folk canon is good enough, but Bob had all these songs. He wanted to do it his way. He didn’t want to be manipulated, and his way was to play rock ‘n’ roll, I think. He wasn’t an old guy. He was in his really low 20s when he first started busking with his acoustic guitar. And the British invasion was just happening too. I think he saw that rock ‘n’ roll was what was going on, and he wanted to be a part of it. Nobody wants to be pigeonholed or typecast, and he was more than a folk traditionalist. I think the fact people didn’t want him to do it made him want to [play rock music] even more. It spurred him on. And he still continued to play some folk songs, so it wasn’t as bad as it was made out to be. Maybe it was back then, but I never found it to be that big of a deal. It was, “there are two kinds of music, good and bad.” The film positions Pete Seeger in this role of mentor-doppelgänger, almost. When the film opens, Seeger is appearing in court on contempt charges for his conduct before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Then we see Dylan meeting Guthrie and Seeger at Guthrie’s hospital bedside. Though he did meet both artists soon after his arrival in New York, neither of these details is true. I guess it’s about setting Pete Seeger up as a kind of rebel in his own way. He was like the kingpin at the time. Woody was laid up with Huntington’s disease, so he wasn’t well. I think Woody was more of a mentor to him than Pete was, although the film doesn’t necessarily show it like that. Obviously he idolized Woody, but in the film, Pete took care of him, and he stayed at his house a few different nights. Pete didn’t really write songs like Bob Dylan did — that wasn’t his thing. He maintained the folk canon. But I do think that Seeger had a huge admiration for and was sort of a hero to Dylan. Folk was a vital form of resistance at that time, so it makes sense that, character-wise, Dylan would be drawn to that. Yeah — and the [1963 March on] Washington with Joan Baez, that was huge. But you see in [Martin Scorsese’s Dylan documentary] No Direction Home that the press were questioning him like he was some sort of radical, and he really wasn’t very radical. The film treated Johnny Cash as a giant Easter Egg, with Boyd Holbrook playing him as Dylan’s penpal. What did you make of their relationship? [Cash] just spurred him on. He loved it. And that is kind of true, because he took [Dylan] under his wing when he had The Johnny Cash Show back in the late ’60s, after Dylan made the Nashville Skyline album. I think that Johnny Cash had a great, great respect for Bob, and it was mutual. They wrote letters back and forth over the years. I do think that relationship contributed to the film’s commentary about the genre mixing. Especially to younger generations who are coming to see the film — they may not be as familiar with Dylan, but they’re definitely familiar with Johnny Cash’s many rock covers and other genre-mixing, and they’re bringing that context with them into the film. If I’m coming into this film for the first time, what should I know about Dylan’s legacy and influence? You should know that he’s one of the most important songwriters ever. I’d listen to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan and Highway 61 Revisited and Bringing It All Back Home. Those are the three albums that are focused on most in the movie. I couldn’t believe how blown away I was when he sat down in the care center, in front of Woody and Pete, and he did “Song to Woody.” And you realize the importance and significance of him meeting his hero, and how important it was that he found him and was able to play a song for him. I didn’t really expect that. I expected the big moments of the electrified stuff at the end of the film, but it was a touching sweet little moment. I was just so captivated after seeing that that I just loved the whole experience of seeing the film. It didn’t strike you as cocky? It probably was cocky. But I think it took everything he had to muster to do it. And he did it.
vox.com
New York Subway Fire Death: What We Now Know
The NYPD is still working to identify the woman who was set on fire while she slept on the New York City Subway last weekend.
newsweek.com
Pope Calls for Peace on Christmas as Church Begins Jubilee Year Celebrations
Pope Francis’ Christmas message was a plea for reconciliation, peace and care for others.
nytimes.com
It’s way past time to end the left’s ‘perversion of compassion’ and get help for the seriously mentally ill
How many subway incidents will it take for state lawmakers to ditch their perverse "compassion"?
nypost.com
Manhunt for "desperate" murderer who escaped from Mississippi prison
Authorities in Mississippi are searching for Drew Johnson, a convicted killer they say escaped from prison who they say is "desperate."
cbsnews.com
Pope shares Christmas message, marking start of church's Holy Year
Pilgrims lined up to walk through the great Holy Door at the entrance of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome as Christmas marks the start of the 2025 Holy Year celebration.
cbsnews.com
Argentinian police set to interview Liam Payne’s girlfriend Kate Cassidy: ‘She wants the right people to be brought to justice’
"She's going to help in any way she can," said a friend of the 25-year-old influencer.
nypost.com
'Landman' Series Makes Scathing Bud Light Joke
The TV show is set in the oil fields of Texas and the latest episode appears to have poked fun at the beer brand.
newsweek.com
Pope Francis addresses Ukraine, Middle East in Christmas Day message: 'May the sound of weapons be silenced'
Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, delivered the "Urbi et Orbi" Christmas message and blessing from the Vatican at noon local time.
foxnews.com
How adorable pooches are helping NYC students boost their confidence
A new breed of educator is helping teach Big Apple kids that anything is paws-sible.
nypost.com
Prince Louis Arrives for Xmas Church Clutching Mom's Hand
Prince Louis looked pleased to have Princess Kate by his side as walked past royal watchers into church on Christmas morning.
newsweek.com
Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan headlines Santa Anita opening day on Thursday
Mystik Dan had to make a 1,900-mile van ride to Santa Anita to run in the Malibu Stakes. He's the first Derby winner to race at Santa Anita as a 3-year-old since 1997.
latimes.com
What Happens When Parents Don't Want Their Kids on Social Media?
No social media, no problem? Not necessarily. Two parents weigh in on the challenges of keeping their kids offline.
newsweek.com
Giants rookie Dru Phillips proving he ‘can hang’ among NFL’s elite corners
Phillips is keeping esteemed company as the No. 6-ranked cornerback in the NFL, according to Pro Football Focus’ play-by-play grading system.
nypost.com
Knicks vs. Spurs odds, predictions: NBA Christmas Day best bets, picks
The Knicks are big favorites on Christmas Day as they prepare to throw Karl Anthony-Towns opposite Victor Wembanyama.
nypost.com
I’m a therapist — my calming Christmas tree trick will calm your holiday stress
More than a quarter of Americans confess to experiencing more stress than they did at this time last year.
nypost.com
Where To Watch ‘Disney Parks Magical Christmas Day Parade 2024′: Start Time, Channel, Live Stream Info
Julianne Hough and Alfonso Ribeiro host this year's Christmas Day event!
nypost.com
What A Complete Unknown Gets Right and Wrong About Bob Dylan
What the Bob Dylan movie 'A Complete Unknown' gets right and wrong about the singer
time.com
Orca Who Carried Dead Calf 1,000 Miles Gives Birth Again
The whale who made headlines for carrying her dead calf for 17 days in 2018 just had a new baby, according to researchers.
newsweek.com
Former All-Star 'Can Get Revenge' on Mets By Signing With Hated NL Rival
Jose Quintana was a crucial part of the New York Mets' success in 2024. Will he pitch against them in 2025 as a member of the Atlanta Braves?
newsweek.com