New Mexico State PoliceNew Mexico police are hunting for a 10-month-old baby girl who they believed was abducted by the person who killed her mother and another woman and left her 5-year-old sister wounded.An Amber Alert was issued for Eleia Maria Torres after the grim discovery at Ned Houk Park in Clovis on Friday afternoon.Police found the two women, Samantha Cisneros and Taryn Allen, shot dead, a child covered in blood, and an empty stroller and other baby supplies that led them to believe Cisneros’s infant, Eleia, had been kidnapped.Read more at The Daily Beast.

NBC/screengrabSaturday Night Live has just returned from a three-week break, and the big story everyone was hoping they’d cover was Kristi Noem and her poor dog, Cricket. South Dakota’s Republican governor (and VP hopeful) sparked viral outrage recently when she announced in her novel, with seemingly little prompting, that she’d once murdered her 14-month dog Cricket. While it seemed she revealed this to sound tough, it instead made her seem like a psychopath, even to the fellow GOP peers she was trying to impress.Early into this week’s episode it almost seemed like the SNL writers were planning to let the whole story go. Colin Jost got a fun burn early into “Weekend Update” where he compared Noem shooting poor Cricket with Trump wanting to put down Mike Pence. “Something tells me Trump would fully support killing disobedient pets,” Jost muses, as Pence’s picture displays beside him. Dua Lipa’s monolgue also involved a brief Noem impression by Heidi Gardner, but the host jokingly shut her down quickly.Read more at The Daily Beast.

NBC / SNL It wasn’t completely unexpected when this week’s Saturday Night Live focused its cold open on the massive wave of student protests throughout America, but the exact direction it chose was still a surprise. Rather than a news report or a sketch involving protester characters themselves, SNL chose to open up with a fake talk show.Called “Community Affairs,” the talk show focuses on a concerned host played by Michael Longfellow and two white, well-off parents played by Heidi Gardner and Mikey Day. At first, the conversation’s focused on the parents trying to be supportive of their kids, even as the protests have grown increasingly dangerous and volatile.“I’m all for free speech, but I don’t understand what they think they’re accomplishing, and that’s really putting a strain on me and my daughter’s relationship,” says Gardner’s character. Day’s character adds, “Yeah, I want to let my son make his own choices, but to be honest, it’s a little scary.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Erin O'Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesListen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.White supremacist and proud incel Nick Fuentes has shockingly suggested he may accidentally kill his wife—that is if he ever finds a woman who would voluntarily choose to marry him.“I totally see myself accidentally killing my wife ‘cause I just get mad, you know. We’ll be like years into the marriage, I’m gonna be angry about something. It’s gonna be a little bit too hot in the house. It’s gonna be one of those days where I haven’t slept all night, I haven’t eaten in a day. So I’m like in the worst possible mood and she’s gonna say something and I’m gonna just accidentally kill her. I’m just gonna hit her and she’s gonna hit her head on the counter and she’s just gonna like die,” he said. “She’s gonna say something, I’m gonna lose control. I’m gonna blast her and... no, I’m kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding, kidding. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. These are just jokes. I would never put my hand on anyone. I’m a lover. I don’t attack people... but you know, women do piss me off a lot.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesIt’s been six years since Bari Weiss published a long, glossy, and much-discussed New York Times profile, titled, “Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web.” The subheading declared an “alliance of heretics is making an end run around the mainstream conversation” and asked: “Should we be listening?”Despite the occasional caveat throughout almost 3,700 words, Weiss made it clear that her answer to this question was “Yes.”Weiss listed “three distinct qualities” that members of the IDW shared: their commitment to civil discourse, even about controversial subjects; their fearless pursuit of the truth, regardless of what was “politically convenient”; and their expulsion from “institutions that have become increasingly hostile to unorthodox thought.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Courtesy of Uninterrupted“I think every community embraced that shoe: hustlers, drug dealers,” Pharrell Williams says near the beginning of the new documentary Who Is Stan Smith?, about the legendary tennis star whose Adidas sneaker bearing his name (and face) became a cultural touchstone across three generations and counting. “If we’re gonna be real, we’re gonna be real.”As a kid growing up in the late-1970s, Stan Smith’s were the shoe to have. Stylish, cool and, best of all, affordable, they’d quickly grown in popularity far beyond anything Adidas had envisioned in the early-70s, when they signed Smith, who along with his friend Arthur Ashe dominated professional tennis at the time, to a deal for a branded shoe.This was long before the era of Air Jordan’s, of course, when Adidas, Nike and Puma were duking it out for preeminence in the newly burgeoning athletic wear market. And while Nike and Puma had an undeniable cool factor on both the playing field and school playground, it was Stan Smith’s that would explode in popular culture.Read more at The Daily Beast.

AFP via Getty ImagesWhen The Daily Beast reported on the plans to make the Republican National Committee “white again” in March, the party was quick to deny that it was deprioritizing voters of color—even though the committee was scrapping plans to open new minority outreach centers.Since then, there’s been little word about what exactly Republicans have in mind when it comes to attracting voters of color, who have traditionally supported Democrats by wide margins. That’s especially true when it comes to Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters, who make up a small but rapidly growing 6 percent of the electorate.But sources with knowledge of RNC efforts to win over these voters told The Daily Beast that Republicans aren’t abandoning outreach programs for AAPI voters. They’re actually doubling down—quietly.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Everett CollectionWelcome to modern rom-com week at The Daily Beast’s Obsessed! In honor of two big romance releases this week—The Fall Guy and The Idea of You—we’re celebrating everything we love about the last 15 years of romantic comedies.Jennifer Lopez has the work ethic of 100 people, 15 horses, three donkeys, and me after two cans of sugar-free Red Bull. That’s why she needs to dance with a cane: She’s a lot of woman to support! Hopping between an action movie about an assassin stricken with maternal guilt, to an album all about your marriage (complete with accompanying short film and documentary, lest we forget), to an upcoming sci-fi thriller about a dystopian universe where AI has taken over would be a daunting task for anyone. And yet, Lopez has persisted, making it look as easy as rocking up to the bodega counter and ordering her preferred meal of ham and cheese on a roll and a bag of chips.Lopez seems consumed by the need to prove to the world that she can do anything and be anybody. It’s a commendable effort, especially when something like her childhood bodega order can be lambasted online in Reddit threads questioning the veracity of her love of orange drink. For years, J.Lo has been the butt of the internet’s joke, a favorite to pile on whenever carpal tunnel-ridden thumbs need something new to post about. Various threads on X detail all of the “stolen” songs in her discography—a common misconception about the standard music industry practice of using vocals recorded in a demo as backing vocals in a finished song. Other times, a venture at audience connection will be an outright failure, like when her attempt to start the #LoveDontCostAThingChallenge was met with crickets, along with plenty of observations over how loudly those crickets were chirping.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesLaw Roach is no stranger to controversial looks. Whether the renowned celebrity stylist and image architect is showing up bulge-first to the 2023 CFDA awards or dressing his longtime client Zendaya in ostentatious tennis couture for her Challengers press tour, Roach is unafraid of risk on the red carpet. That confident conviction extends to his larger body of work, too. Last year, Roach shocked the fashion and entertainment industries when he announced he would retire from styling to pursue his own ventures. And though he still works closely with Zendaya (and will occasionally pop up to style a friend and client like Celine Dion for her surprise appearance at this year’s Grammys), navigating uncharted waters has been tricky.“I’m figuring it out!” Roach tells me over Zoom, laughing to himself. “As far as my style and the way I want the world to see me, it’s changing a little bit. I think that’s okay.” Roach is promoting his latest gig outside of the world of styling, a new E! Network reality show called OMG Fashun, which he’s hosting alongside megawatt multihyphenate, Julia Fox. While this is far from Roach’s first foray into reality television, it’s certainly his most exciting yet. The series is a design competition that pushes for sustainability in the fashion industry through outlandish, upcycled looks that viewers could easily replicate and remix at home. (Think Project Runway for the Brooklyn club kid scene.) It’s the perfect addition to Roach’s portfolio, which already boasts a slew of outrageous and exciting styling decisions and branding tactics that have made him as famous as his A-List clients.Despite all of that fame and recognition, Roach is amiably humble. His small voice livens up and practically floats through the Zoom window when we discuss OMG Fashun and Fox, whom he credits with creating a work environment where he felt he could be authentically himself. If Roach has had trouble nailing down exactly who he is and where he wants to be, it would be hard to know just from listening to him speak. He talks about his career and next moves with the brazen self-assurance of someone unafraid of making mistakes, an attitude he partially attributes to his success. “If there is any critique [online] that I somewhat agreed with, I take that, and use it for the next go-around,” Roach says.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesActions taken in 2011 by senior executives of Rupert Murdoch’s London tabloids, following revelations about industrial-scale hacking in their newsrooms, have come back to bite them.New reporting in the British magazine Prospect, by Nick Davies, who first revealed the criminal activity in The Guardian, gives a detailed account of what he alleges was a giant cover-up, a sustained and rigorous operation to destroy evidence of wrongdoing.One of the executives at the center of that operation, according to Davies, was Will Lewis, who took over as CEO and publisher of The Washington Post this year.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesElon Musk is flying high across the world stage making business deals, getting high profile photo-ops, and making enemies out of world leaders along the way.Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla and owner of X, jetted off to China earlier this week to meet with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in a bid to get self-driving cars approved in the country. The multi-billionaire went on a walk-and-talk with Qiang, and had a sit-down photo op with him reminiscent of the kind of side-by-side chats the President of the United States has with his counterparts.While the surprise visit could see Tesla garner more praise and approvals in China, home of the world’s largest auto market, not everyone was thrilled with the trip. Musk was originally scheduled to visit India and announce a $3 billion investment in a car plant, but ended up canceling the trip to make the China meeting happen.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Mandel Ngan/GettyA GOP fundraiser in Colorado that was supposed to be headlined by Kristi Noem has been scrapped because of threats triggered by the revelation that she shot a dog she “hated” years ago.In a statement posted to social media, Jefferson County Republican Party Chair Nancy Pallozzi said the group thought “the timing was perfect” when the South Dakota governor agreed to appear at the May 4 event just before her book’s publication.But then The Guardian reported that the memoir contains Noem’s bizarrely boastful account of shooting dead her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, for killing a neighbor’s chickens and trying to bite her.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Apple TV+(Warning: Spoilers ahead!)Colin Farrell is an alien. Okay, the actual Colin Farrell is not an alien (as far as I know), but he plays one in the Apple TV+’s neo-noir Sugar. Considering the streamer’s penchant for space-related science-fiction stories, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. However, the blue-face bombshell at the end of the sixth episode is a big swing that unsettles everything that comes before it.John Sugar (Farrell) is a private investigator looking into the mysterious disappearance of Olivia Siegel (Sydney Chandler), the granddaughter of legendary Hollywood producer Jonathan Siegel (James Cromwell). The whole Siegel family has ties to the movie biz: Olivia’s half-brother David (Nate Corddry) was a kid star now embroiled in a scandal, and Olivia’s actress mother died in a car accident years ago. A wealthy family enveloped by tragedy is a familiar set-up. A cinephile PI concealing his alien identity is more unusual—to put it mildly.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Shareif Ziyadat/Getty Images Doubling down on his belief that it takes offensive material to reach some heights of comedy, Marlon Wayans compared a sour movie deal with the Weinstein brothers to the scores of women who accused Harvey Weinstein of rape and sexual assault.The comments came from an interview with The New York Times’ David Marchese, released just nine days after the shock overturn of Weinstein’s New York conviction. Marchese asked Wayans if it irritated him that a new Scary Movie had been announced, since Wayans and his brothers had created that project only to be shut out of the franchise by the third installment. Wayans initially responded that it didn’t bother him, but followed up with a dig at the Weinsteins when Marchese asked if he still got paid from those projects.“No, that’s a whole ’nother conversation. I like to say that you know, those Weinsteins,” Wayans chuckled, “they raped everybody.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesJ.K. Rowling has been on the anti-trans train for years, but her ramblings have gotten so exhausting that even anti-LGBT loudmouth Elon Musk wants her to move on.Replying to a verbose (700+ words!) post by the Harry Potter author from nearly a month ago, Musk voiced his agreement with the general thrust of her points—which amounted to several blocks of reheated ideas on why she thinks transgender women aren’t women—but gently guided her to other endeavors.“While I heartily agree with your points regarding sex/gender, may I suggest also posting interesting and positive content on other matters?” the billionaire, who has tirelessly platformed right-wingers and fascists, wrote.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Win McNamee/Getty ImagesSen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has seen that viral stand-up bit about him, and he’s not laughing.On the most recent episode of Meghan McCain’s podcast ‘Citizen McCain,’ the Republican Senator from Texas got the opportunity to respond to a hilarious story from Tom Segura’s latest Netflix special Sledgehammer, where the stand-up comedian says Cruz is his neighbor and that the U.S. senator once asked him about the origin of the word “motherfucker” when he saw Segura walking in front of his house.Segura claimed the politician later reappeared outside his house and apologized for their awkward encounter, before once again pontificating on the origins of the curse word. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Nic Antaya/Getty ImagesDozens of pro-Palestine student protesters briefly interrupted Saturday’s commencement ceremony at the University of Michigan, according to The New York Times. Students opposing Israel’s deadly military campaign in Gaza, marched toward the stage, shouting “Regents, regents, you can't hide! You are funding genocide!” Other students flashed Israeli flags and caps adorned with the Star of David. Overhead one plane flew by, carrying the message “Divest from Israel now! Free Palestine!” while another flew by with a banner that said, “We stand with Israel. Jewish lives matter.” Read more at The Daily Beast.

HBOBill Maher ripped “Attorney Genial” Merrick Garland a new one during Friday night’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher for allowing Donald Trump to continually skirt federal prosecution for his alleged crimes. “And finally, new rule: At the top levels of our federal government, giving a guy a job because he got screwed over for another job, isn’t a good reason to give a guy a job. Especially if the job is Attorney General. And especially if it’s during a time when we need a tough AG to catch a real criminal.”Maher was of course talking about Attorney General Garland, “who, spoiler alert, sucks,” according to the talk show host. But Maher didn’t just turn his ire on Garland who he dubbed “Attorney General Barney Fife,” but on the Democrats who appointed him. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Alex Slitz/Getty ImagesA southern California man was charged with sending death threats to Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis over her prosecution of Donald Trump, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia announced Friday.Marc Shultz, 66, of Chula Vista, made his first federal court appearance in San Diego on Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement. He had been indicted by a federal grand jury on April 24 and will be formally arraigned in Atlanta in June.Shultz allegedly threatened Willis’ life in several comments posted to YouTube livestream videos on Oct. 4 and Oct. 5, vowing to violently murder her. In the comments, he lobbed racial slurs at the D.A. and said she “will be killed like a dog,” according to the indictment and the U.S. Attorney’s release.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Instagram/Francis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford Coppola has unveiled the first teaser for his upcoming sci-fi film Megalopolis, dedicating the release to his late wife Eleanor.In a post made to Instagram, Coppola celebrated his wife’s birthday while introducing the world of Megalopolis. Eleanor was a documentary filmmaker and mother to Sofia, Roman, and Gian-Carlo, and passed away this year on April 12 at the age of 87.“Megalopolis has always been a film dedicated to my dear wife Eleanor,” Coppola wrote in the caption on the post. “I really had hoped to celebrate her birthday together this May 4th. But sadly that was not to be, so let me share with everyone a gift on her behalf.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Christopher Polk/Billboard via Getty ImagesDrake and Kendrick Lamar drifted ever closer to mutually assured destruction on Friday, as the two rappers went nuclear in a set of dueling diss tracks.The two rappers have been beefing since March, when Lamar hopped onto a Future and Metro Boomin’ track called “Like That,” to push back on Drake and J. Cole’s suggestion that the three of them were in the same league. Since then, the rappers have fired off a volley of diss tracks, slowly escalating from insults to allegations. On Friday, Drake readied his missiles, while Lamar went straight up nuclear.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Gregory ShamusCaitlin Clark has starred in her WNBA debut game Friday night for the Indiana Fever as she scored a team-high of 21 points. Despite the Fever losing 79-76 to the Dallas Wings, Clark put on a fine display scoring a deep 3-pointer for her first basket as a professional just a minute into the game.The two-time NCAA women’s basketball player of the year led all first-half scorers with 16 points in 16 minutes. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty imagesBrittney Griner, the 6-foot-9-inch WNBA player known for having broken barriers in women’s basketball, including for being the first openly gay athlete to score a Nike deal, recounts the miserable 10 months she spent imprisoned in Russia in her new book Coming Home, which she wrote alongside frequent celeb memoir collaborator Michelle Burford.On Feb. 17, 2022, Griner was detained in Russia en route to join her team UMMC Ekaterinburg when nearly empty cannabis vape pens were discovered in her luggage. She was held in various Russian jails for 10 months, before escaping the nine-year prison sentence from a Russian court in August 2022. She was ultimately released via prisoner swap, after Russia agreed to her release in exchange for arms dealer Viktor Bout in December that year.Griner’s wife Cherelle Griner, an attorney who had to graduate law school and pass the bar without wife Brittney by her side, championed her release by making public pleas in the media and calling out President Joe Biden for not helping more swiftly (the book describes how Biden warned Cherelle that Putin sees her criticisms of him in the media, which could work to their disadvantage). Two years after reuniting, the couple are now expecting their first child—but Griner hadn’t told the full story of her experience, until now.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Netflix I had no idea what to expect when I tuned into the first episode of John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A. on Friday night, but by the end, I emerged convinced that Netflix needs to give this man his own talk show. This bizarre, free-wheeling experiment in live streaming feels like the apotheosis of Mulaney’s comedic evolution. As guest Jerry Seinfeld put it, “This is the weirdest show I have ever been on in my life.”Everybody’s in L.A. is a six-part comedy special debuting as part of Netflix Is a Joke Fest. The first episode premiered Friday, and the subsequent five will debut Monday through Friday at 10 p.m. ET. Episodes will feature a mix of live work from Mulaney, alongside pre-taped interstitial skits. They’ll each also have a theme—in this week’s case, “Coyotes.” Aesthetically, the vibe here is low-budget morning show—a living room set that, as Mulaney put it, “looks like the kind of house where you’d spend a half hour trying to connect the Sonos.” And thematically? Anything goes.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures“Why do you want to talk about Brian?” Alexis Bloom, the co-director, with Svetlana Zill, of the new documentary Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg, asks when I raise the specter of Brian Jones, the ill-fated founder of The Rolling Stones and Pallenberg’s lover during the 60s heyday of the band. “They were young, they were on drugs, he was dazzling, he was a good musician. But he beat her. He beat everyone else. It’s like, she was going to stay around?”For decades, the “cool kids” amongst Stones fans have fought for what they’ve felt was founder, l’enfant terrible and drug casualty Jones’ rightful place of pride in the history of the band’s rise, while others have wrung their hands over whether it was keyboardist, roadie and founding member Ian Stewart or Brian Epstein protégé and early manager Andrew Loog Oldham who was more deserving of the “6th Stone” moniker.But maybe they’ve had it wrong all along.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustrator by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesNumerous scary details came out of Donald Trump’s recent interview with Time magazine, but few were more eye opening than an exchange that, in my opinion, didn’t garner the attention it deserved.When asked about his authoritarian rhetoric regarding being a “dictator for a day” and “suspending the Constitution,” Trump responded, saying, “I think a lot of people like it.”Now, in fairness, Trump insisted that he was only joking and “being sarcastic” when he said these things. Moreover, he suggested that normal people get it, while the overwrought press (who find joking about these things dangerous and are worried about “norms” and the “social fabric”) keep getting trolled by him.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Fox NewsFox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy made a bizarre quip Friday about Paul Pelosi after a colleague hypothesized about Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients awarded by a Democratic administration, saying that Pelosi—who was struck in the head with a hammer during a home invasion in 2022—perhaps “needs the hammer instead of the medal.”The comment came during a Jesse Watters Primetime segment about how President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 people on Friday, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the former Speaker of the House.After guest host Pete Hegseth made a point to tell viewers that Biden flubbed the name of the award as the “presidential freedom of medal,” he and Campos-Duffy complained about Biden’s choices, which featured the late civil rights leader Medgar Evers, John Kerry, and Simone Biles. After wistfully remembering how Donald Trump presented Rush Limbaugh with the honor, they thought of recipients they felt would have been more deserving.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily BeastCome Monday night, will Lauren Sánchez go overtly demure, or all out for flesh-showcasing attention at the Met Gala? How is Anna Wintour masterminding the final look? The questions are fascinating fashion-watchers because of the headlines around a White House State Dinner in April, where Sánchez turned heads in a low-cut ruby red corset dress with sheer detailing from Rasario, an independent brand established in 2012 by designer Rasida Lakoba.Once images of Sánchez in the dress began circulating on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), users had a lot to say. Some commented saying Sánchez’s look was “totally inappropriate” and “embarrassing.”Sánchez is known for her risqué fashion choices. In January, at husband Jeff Bezos’ 60th birthday during Milan Fashion Week, she wore a low-cut sheer floor-length dress with lace detail that was very revealing.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty Images and InstagramThis week:I Get It, BabsI’ve never felt more of a kinship with Barbra Streisand than when she accidentally commented on Melissa McCarthy’s Instagram not realizing that everyone in the world could see.Read more at The Daily Beast.

StarzAs if there weren’t enough power struggles being waged from week to week on Mary & George, real war is brewing for the English in 1618, and Mary Villiers (Julianne Moore) and her son George (Nicholas Galitzine) are on the proverbial frontlines. Episode 5 of the deliciously provocative seven-episode limited series dials back its sexual overtones for the first time since its premiere. If Mary & George were a lesser show, those who come to this period piece for all of its licking and lusting—of which there is so much—might be disappointed by this week's lack of copulation. But by dialing up the life-and-death stakes, and putting a sizable wedge between mother and son for the first time, Mary & George Episode 5 shows us that this series can be just as persuasive when it turns its focus from brothels to battles.At the top of the episode, Sir Walter Raleigh (Joseph Mawle)—a soldier and explorer who was responsible for proliferating the legend of the golden city of El Dorado among the English people—has just recovered from a failed, rogue attack on Spanish troops. In a period of peace following the Anglo-Spanish War, Raleigh’s assault was treasonous to England, and Raleigh kills his captain to cover it up, but must be shipped back to England regardless to explain the organized strike on Spanish troops to King James I (Tony Curran).Read more at The Daily Beast.