Yankees third base coach, ex-Mets manager Luis Rojas can’t help but wonder about Subway Series: ‘What if?’

Is Donald Trump well enough to serve as president?The question is not temperamental or philosophical fitness—he’s made clear long ago that the answer to both is no—but something more fundamental.The election is in three weeks and Pennsylvania is a must-win state for both candidates, but during a rally in Montgomery County, northwest of Philadelphia, last night, Trump got bored with the event, billed as a town hall, and just played music for almost 40 minutes, scowling, smirking, and swaying onstage. Trump is no stranger to surreal moments, yet this was still one of the oddest of his political career.“You’re the one who fights for them,” gushed Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor and animal-abuse enthusiast, who was supposed to be moderating the event. But it soon became clear that Trump wasn’t in a fighting mode. The event began normally enough, at least by Trump standards, but, after two interruptions for apparent medical emergencies in the audience, Trump lost interest. “Let’s just listen to music. Who the hell wants to hear questions?” he said.[David A. Graham: Has anyone noticed that Trump is really old?]He eventually pivoted for good to a playlist of his favorite songs: “Hallelujah,” “Rich Men North of Richmond,” “Nothing Compares 2 U,” Elvis’s rendition of “Dixie.” At one point, he asked his staff to play Pavarotti and display the immigration chart that he was about to discuss when an assassin tried to kill him this summer.To watch the event is to see signs of someone having a breakdown. Like Joe Biden’s disastrous debate against Trump in June, when the president’s fumbling performance and struggle to get sentences out made it impossible to believe he was up to the task of serving for four years, Trump’s rally last night would force any reasonable person to conclude that he is not up to the grueling task of leading the world’s greatest nation, handling economic crises, or dealing with foreign adversaries.Which isn’t to say that some people didn’t try to reason through it. Reporters still seem unsure how to deal with Trump’s stranger behaviors. Journalists are trained to take information and make sense of it, even amid chaos. The problem is that doing so conjures logic where none exists.Here’s how The New York Times described the night: “Mr. Trump, a political candidate known for improvisational departures, made a detour. Rather than try to restart the political program, he seemed to decide in the moment that it would be more enjoyable for all concerned—and, it appeared, for himself—to just listen to music instead.” ABC News: “Former President Donald Trump's town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania, on Monday evening was interrupted twice by medical emergencies in a very warm Greater Philadelphia Expo Center and Fairgrounds before he cut the program short.” NBC News: “Former President Donald Trump turned a town hall event in front of supporters in Oaks, Pennsylvania into an impromptu listening party Monday night, playing an unlikely selection of tunes for more than 30 minutes after the event was paused for medical emergencies.” The Associated Press: “Donald Trump’s town hall in the Philadelphia suburbs turned into an impromptu concert Monday after the former president was twice interrupted by medical emergencies in the room.”Trump’s Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, was blunter. “Hope he's okay,” she posted on X. Her reaction is self-interested, but she’s right that he really may not be okay. A presidential race is exhausting for even a young and vigorous person, which Trump, 78, is not. He has campaigned far less this time around than he did in his past two runs. In the last few weeks, as the election has neared, he has ramped up his time on the trail, and the wear is showing. His rallies have been so scattershot and rambling that even major outlets that long shied away from questions about Trump’s fitness have had no choice but to address them. In the wee hours of the morning yesterday, he used Truth Social to demand that Harris take a cognitive test. He’s lacing into his own donors at private events. He has been blocked from his usual outlet of playing golf because of security concerns after two assassination attempts.[David A. Graham: Trump’s West Point stumbles aren’t the problem]Reporters have noticed Trump’s supporters leaving rallies early in recent weeks, yet many people hung around as Trump bobbed on the stage and said nothing last night. In a way, the moment seemed to distill a 2024 Trump rally down to its essence. No one is there to hear policy ideas. Trump has transgressed so far, for so long, that he can barely shock anymore. Kristi Noem isn’t a big draw. Instead, people come to say they saw Trump. At one point, he announced that he’d play “YMCA” and then the event would end, but attendees stayed, so Trump just kept rolling. The event only wrapped up around the time that an aide brought Trump a note during “November Rain.”As horrifying as it all was, no one expects to see a reaction like the concerted push for change that followed Biden’s debate collapse. It’s too late in the campaign to change candidates, and it wouldn’t matter anyway. Democrats forced Biden out, even though they like him, because they want to win. But Republican officeholders are terrified of Trump, because rank-and-file Republican voters worship Trump in an entirely different way—something demonstrated by them hanging around for his DJ set and Noem’s obsequious “sir”s all night. “Total lovefest at the PA townhall!” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung posted on X. “Everyone was so excited they were fainting so @realDonaldTrump turned to music. Nobody wanted to leave and wanted to hear more songs from the famous DJT Spotify playlist!” Somewhere, Baghdad Bob was blushing.But Trump’s musical selections sometimes reveal more than his words or his aides do. During the 2016 campaign, his choice of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” as exit music seemed like a pointed message to his political adversaries and the nation. Last night, he might have been sending a pointed message to himself, with the help of an Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman hit: “It’s time to say goodbye.”

The brazen June 2023 assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada sparked a diplomatic row with India that continues to escalate.

The figure represents about 9.5 percent of the pharmacy chain’s 12,500 locations worldwide.

John “MrBallen” Allen, the Navy SEAL-turned-social media sensation sat down with Page Six hosts Danny Murphy and Evan Real to discuss his first graphic novel, “MrBallen Presents: Strange, Dark & Mysterious.” He also opened up about his decision to take his storytelling on tour and revealed the true crime cases he’s like to unpack in...

The retired Eagles center mingled with Bills Mafia before the team's "Monday Night Football" matchup against the Jets.

Georgia law says county election superintendents 'shall' certify ballot results by 5 p.m. on the Monday after an vote.

Dabo Swinney’s team is building two-way cohesion and consistency, and there’s still time for this relatively young but uber-talented squad to grow, peaking in January en route to Swinney’s third title. 

Indictments against eight terrorists arrested during the investigation were set to be filed later in the day.

For decades, the hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has been one of the most influential men in the music industry. Last November, the singer Cassie Ventura, Combs’s former partner, filed a staggering 35-page lawsuit accusing the rapper of raping, drugging, and physically abusing her over the course of a decade. He and Ventura settled the suit out of court just one day later, with Combs not admitting to any wrongdoing. Six months later, after CNN published a graphic hotel-surveillance video that shows Combs assaulting Ventura in 2016, he claimed “full responsibility.”In the weeks after Ventura’s accusations came out, several other women filed lawsuits accusing Combs of sexual assault, which he categorically denied. And in September, the singer Dawn Richard, a former member of two musical groups started by Combs, filed a 55-page lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting her, depriving her and her fellow Danity Kane bandmates of basic needs while requiring them to remain under his watch, and routinely refusing to pay his artists wages or royalties. (In a statement responding to the lawsuit, one of Combs’s lawyers said Richard had “manufactured a series of false claims all in the hopes of trying to get a payday.”) Last month, Combs was indicted and arrested on federal charges that include sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, and racketeering. Combs, who pleaded not guilty to all the charges, is now detained in New York City after being denied bail twice.Central to Richard’s lawsuit is Combs’s alleged behavior during Making the Band, the competition series that he produced and hosted from 2002 to 2009. The MTV series attracted millions of viewers during its run; Richard’s lawsuit references numerous incidents that were filmed for the show, and included in the final product. Along with Ventura’s allegations, the suit prompts a broader reassessment of Combs’s cultural power—and pushes audiences to reconsider the hostile behavior that he often willingly broadcast to the public.Though the worst of Richard’s allegations about Combs’s behavior were not depicted on Making the Band, the series did help lay the groundwork for many of the invasive, burdensome expectations of the modern music industry. Today’s young artists readily anticipate that their fans—and, more pressing, their record labels—want them to entertain the masses with their lives, not just their music. However benign a viral TikTok trend may seem now, Making the Band was an early experiment in training audiences to enjoy watching just how much control record labels wield over vulnerable musicians. The series laundered Combs’s open hostility toward a group of young women he was responsible for as an eccentric style of artist management—and his label, Bad Boy Records, profited from viewers’ interest in his abrasive displays of authority.By 2005, when Richard joined Making the Band 3, Combs had already formed (and disbanded) a coed group that featured in an earlier iteration of the show. During the first run, Combs subjected contestants to outlandish, demoralizing tasks that had nothing to do with making music. One, which was later parodied in a famous Chappelle’s Show skit, required the artists to walk more than five miles to fetch him cheesecake from a Brooklyn restaurant. “Honestly, my feet felt broken and my knees felt like all the cartilage was gone,” one former band member told Essence in 2017. When they returned to the Midtown Manhattan studio to find that Combs had left, she said, “I wanted to cry.”With Making the Band 3, Combs attempted, for the first time on the show, to create an all-female group—and his ruthless approach to artist development seemed to take a darker turn. Richard’s suit contends that the show’s environment enabled Combs to maintain alarming control over the young women, and that a TV-friendly version of his cruelty was projected to millions of viewers. One accusation is that Combs routinely made “disparaging gender-based remarks such as calling them ‘fat,’ ‘ugly,’ ‘bitches,’ and ‘hoes’” throughout filming and after the group was formed. Revisiting the show and how Combs promoted it at the time, I’m struck by just how often Combs tossed around similar language. Even when he used less objectionable words, he nonetheless conveyed the message that the women were not his equals. “I don’t think no human being has been able to just figure out the woman,” he told the Associated Press ahead of a season premiere, adding that he anticipated great TV because the female competitors would all need to deal with “having their monthly cycle coming together, and emotions and moodiness and competitiveness.”[Read: The cruel social experiment of reality tv]Making the Band 3 spent an inordinate amount of time focusing on the young women’s bodies, and how Combs saw them. He treated the contestants’ physical presentation as alternately a disqualifying embarrassment, a reflection of his own star-making prowess, or an invitation to leer. The very first time Richard appears on-screen, during a group audition, Combs points to her as though he’s eyeing a romantic interest. “With the jeans on—she’s exceptional,” he says. After every stage of the selection process for the girl group, which ended up being called Danity Kane, Combs attempted to police how the women looked. For example, once the contestants made it past auditions and into a smaller cohort, the remaining contenders were constantly corralled into the gym, having food taken away from them, and belittled for not having six-pack abs. (It’s notable that not even five minutes into the first episode, one young woman swears, “I’ll work out ’til I kill myself.”)Even after the final group was chosen, Richard alleges, Combs continued to exert authority over the musicians’ bodies. When she or “her Danity Kane bandmates requested meals or rest, Mr. Combs refused and chastised them with derogatory comments like ‘you bitches don’t want this’ or ‘y’all are not hungry enough’ or ‘I’m paying you bitches to work,’” the lawsuit claims. Although some of his belittling comments made it onto the air, Combs’s casual delivery belied the apparent severity of his off-camera control over the women’s basic needs: Richard alleges that Combs often sent his associates to wake the Danity Kane members in the middle of the night so that he could watch them rehearse; the studio sessions sometimes went on for three to four days, during which the singers felt forced to choose between eating and sleeping.Part of why Combs’s televised mistreatment of Making the Band contestants didn’t draw much mainstream pushback at the time is that he was hardly alone in his valorization of hard work—and he was adept at reframing workplace abuse through the language of artistic self-sacrifice, often by referencing his own career. “It’s a blessing to be in the recording industry … but there’s a lot of misconceptions,” he says at one point. “A lot of times when people get into this, they don’t realize how hard they’re gonna have to work to achieve the goal.” As Combs’s business empire expanded in the new millennium, he presented himself as the bootstraps exemplar—a poor Black boy from Harlem who’d hustled his way into becoming a multimillionaire. (In a statement issued after his arrest, Combs’s lawyers leaned on some of these tropes, defending their client as “a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children and working to uplift the Black community.”)On Making the Band 3, Combs sometimes praised the contestants’ vocal abilities—but more often, he reminded them that any natural artistic inclination mattered far less than a Sisyphean work ethic. By creating a false dichotomy between talent and dedication, Combs justified the show’s grueling demands of contestants, his role as their kingmaker, and his explosive anger when the women failed to meet his expectations. Combs appeared to relish the opportunity to degrade the women, often criticizing them in front of one another and then pausing to let the harsh words sink in for the whole group. “Some of you are gon’ be broken on your own; some of you are gon’ step up to a challenge and shine,” he warned them after showing up unannounced in their dormlike living quarters one night.[Read: What did hip-hop do to women’s minds?]Making the Band purportedly offered the young women a clear, albeit grueling, path to stardom. But in practice, the show seemed to prioritize providing Combs access to them: In his host commentary, Combs gleefully remarked on the fact that he had “19 girls under one roof!” In hindsight, his blithe delivery accentuated his seeming confidence that neither MTV executives nor the show’s audience would raise significant concerns about his televised mistreatment of the young musicians. During the show’s run, Combs’s on-screen cruelty was all but unremarkable: Hip-hop, and the music industry more broadly, has a long history of devaluing women as expendable sex objects. Women who raise objections to alleged abusive conditions have often been met with indifference, skepticism, or outright hostility, including being shut out from work. When Combs equated the breaches of his artists’ autonomy with the pressures of making it in music, he played directly into this familiar dynamic.Competition shows such as Making the Band also tapped into a much more widespread belief that fame—or the chance to attain it—justifies any pains that may be suffered as a result. When the series premiered, it joined a growing number of reality-TV programs that drew viewers in by glamorizing the benevolent tyrant chosen to host—and by disguising the soul-crushing takedowns they regularly meted out to contestants under the guise of constructive criticism. Richard’s suit alleges that Combs’s behavior created “an atmosphere of uncertainty and intimidation.” That assessment could have been applied to other reality-TV judges, on shows such as America’s Next Top Model, The Apprentice, The Biggest Loser—and there’s no shortage of clips in which a host excoriates a young participant over something trivial.For viewers who consumed a relentless stream of media that surveilled and antagonized celebrities, perhaps the judges’ treatment of the artistic hopefuls seemed to be part of life in the public eye. Some of these audience attitudes persist today, despite the evidence of how damaging such environments can be for contestants: Former cast members from several modern reality series have filed lawsuits alleging that the production staff on their respective shows subjected them to inhumane working conditions, depriving them of sleep, food, and other basic needs to make them more vulnerable to camera-friendly conflict. Now, 15 years after Making the Band ended, it’s clear how the series—and Combs’s star power—was key to ushering in an era of entertainment predicated on humiliating young people as they pursued their artistic ambitions.Combs’s apparent disdain for the aspiring musicians on his show still pervades multiple spheres of culture, including newer platforms. Audiences who tune in to vocal-competition series may not run major record labels, but they have their own kind of power now: Because algorithm-driven social-media feeds function as de facto audition stages for entertainment-industry hopefuls, individual listeners can change the trajectory of an artist’s career just by proselytizing online. And dedicated fans are not the only ones wielding these newer tools. Stirring up negative sentiment about an artist, especially through baseless mockery, has become its own pastime, rewarded by the thrill of a negative feedback loop. And on modern reality-TV shows, participants often find themselves navigating destructive conditions optimized to extract drama for viewers’ amusement. If there’s anything that Making the Band proves now, it’s that suffering is easy to ignore when an entire industry treats it like a joke.

Eleven months after the zoo sent its three wildly popular pandas — Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub Xiao Qi Ji — back to China, a new pair of bears arrived in the United States on Tuesday.

The three-part docuseries is based on a 2022 Vanity Fair article by Evgenia Peretz.

The “Flow Joe” rapper made the admission after revealing in a July 2023 interview that he once weighed in at 470 pounds.

My usual strategy here has backfired.

Iran has developed the so called "Ring of Fire" around Israel to further expand its influence throughout the region. Experts note that violent terror groups sit across the Jewish state's borders.

How shoe brand P448 became an unlikely ally in the battle to tackle invasive species.

Mark Block, former chief of staff to Republican 2012 presidential candidate Herman Cain, says that a total of $884.38 was given in his name and without his knowledge between May and October.

The "Real Housewives of Orange County" star is predicting a "rough few months" as she undergoes "a lot of huge changes" in her life.

The designer and the "Ugly Betty" actress worked together to fashion Miranda Priestly, the Anna Wintour-esque editor in chief of Runway magazine, for the stage.

Detroit Pastor Lorenzo Sewell slammed Vice President Kamala Harris for playing into 'identity politics' as she struggles to shore up support with Black male voters ahead of Election Day.

The Yankees are in their Taylor Swift era.

Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers and Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin argued over EV mandates, abortion, immigration, and gun control during a tense debate in Michigan.

The Amazins are back in the Flushing groove.

Two in five Americans pretend to be influencers on vacation (39%), according to new research. A survey of 2,000 social media users found that these respondents would take vlog-style videos, post more than when not on vacation and caption their posts creatively. Most respondents see using social media when traveling as a good thing (58%)...

In one video posted to X, a bartending bot at the event told a guest: “Today, I’m assisted by a human. I’m not yet fully autonomous.”

The NBA regular season hasn't even begun and the Philadelphia 76ers are already dealing with major injury concerns.

A former Missouri math teacher who pleaded guilty to having sex with a 16-year-old student while other students served as her "lookouts" may only spend about three months behind bars.

We asked health experts what they like about the trendy salads—and how to make a really good one.

In a viral clip, the "Perfect Couple" actress appears to push Hayek's hand away while posing for photos with Katy Perry.

UK Outlet "The Guardian" deleted its review of a Oct. 7 documentary following backlash it earned for stating the film was too harsh on Hamas and Palestinians.

With just weeks to go until the presidential election, a Georgia judge has ruled that certification of election results by county officials in the state is "mandatory."

A new AARP poll finds that Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are tied in the 2024 battleground state of Michigan, with voters split along generational and gender lines.

The shootings occurred on Highway 4 near Yavne, with the assailant neutralized by an armed citizen.

The National Zoo’s two new giant panda, who arrived Tuesday after an 8,000-mile flight from China, will now settle into their new home before going on display.

Gansert has addressed the situation, calling it "a very low point in my life."

For the past 1,640 days, Maryland grandfather Tom Schruben has written a "bad dad joke" on a sign in his front yard. He started this tradition during the pandemic to lift his spirits and it has become a community favorite.

House Republicans' campaign arm is out with a new digital advertisement reminding voters that the election is 21 days away.

Travis Kelce took Taylor Swift out to a different kind of ball game! The couple was spotted keeping a low-profile at Game 1 of the American League Championship Series. Despite their attempt to blend in, people couldn’t help but notice their PDA as they were spotted being affectionate with kisses and hand holding. Watch the...

MSNBCMSNBC host Joe Scarborough slammed Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin Tuesday for attempting to downplay Donald Trump’s comments about using the military against his political opponents.The former president spoke in a Fox News interview Sunday about potentially using the National Guard or the military to deal with “the enemy from within”—a group which Trump characterized as “sick people, radical left lunatics”—when asked about his expectations for Election Day. In an interview with CNN the day after, Youngkin insisted Trump wasn’t really saying what he appeared to be saying. CNN’s Jake Tapper pointed out that Trump later specifically named Adam Schiff as one of the “lunatics”—as a congressman, Schiff led the first impeachment trial of Trump. Tapper became visibly frustrated as Youngkin continued to claim Trump was not talking about his political enemies, accusing Tapper of “misinterpreting and misrepresenting” the Republican nominee’s words.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Three books for $3? You can't beat this deal.

Goldman Sachs reported a 45% surge in quarterly profits on Tuesday, boosted by a rebound in dealmaking that beat analysts' expectations.

Democrats on a low-profile House committee have been meeting and designing a plan against any attempt to interfere with the Electoral College certification on Jan. 6, 2025​.

Xinhua News Agency/GettyA man whose boat had been missing for more than two months has miraculously been found alive, though the ordeal sadly claimed the life of two of his relatives.Authorities in the Far East region of the Russian Federation announced on Tuesday that they had located a catamaran-style sailing boat in the Sea of Okhotsk, a roughly 610,000-square-mile expanse off Russia’s easternmost coast and north of Japan.Inside officials discovered a 46-year-old man, identified by Russian state media as Mikhail Pichugin, and two bodies, according to CNN. The waters in which the vessel was found are reportedly considered the coldest in East Asia.Read more at The Daily Beast.

"You are the grouchiest!"

Tim Robinson and Sam Richardson’s brilliant show Detroiters feels ripe for a rediscovery.

Donald J. Trump’s official campaign committee has a payroll of fewer than a dozen and has found ways for another account to pick up the tab for his rallies.

The New York Jets are set to acquire wide receiver Davante Adams in a blockbuster trade with the Las Vegas Raiders, according to multiple reports on Tuesday.

" It truly is a miracle," one expert said.

Wolff's new movie, The Line, does a deep-dive into the toxic hazing culture at fraternities.