Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / Photo by Mark Peterson / Getty What do you call a lawyer who obeys Donald Trump’s advice?Felon.Okay; I’m just kidding. Some of the crimes are misdemeanors, and a few people have been indicted but not yet convicted.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Phillip Faraone/WireImageTwo weeks later, we’re still talking about Ryan Gosling’s latest Saturday Night Live hosting gig. It broke records on Peacock; Gosling is talking about it in interviews; the sketches are still gaining traction on YouTube. But the episode’s biggest cultural impact lies with one sketch, an instantly viral hit that became so massive, Gosling just reprised the character at his new movie’s Los Angeles premiere.“Beavis and Butt-Head,” in which Gosling and cast member/writer Mikey Day play guys that just happen to look like the famous MTV cartoon characters, has been viewed more than 13 million times on YouTube. Its popularity stems not just from its inherently silly premise—how do two people look exactly like Beavis and Butt-Head without realizing it?—but also the incredible amount of breaking that happens. When SNL stalwart Heidi Gardner loses it upon the sight of Day’s incredibly authentic Butt-Head makeup, it’s impossible not to laugh along with her.One could argue that it’s Gardner’s reaction that made the sketch iconic, but Gosling and Day’s take on the characters is certainly the most recognizable element. That’s why it immediately became news (of the best, most fun variety) when they donned the hair, makeup, and costumes once more to walk the red carpet of The Fall Guy last night.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast / XThis is a movie—well, sort of. The viral clip of actor Robert De Niro screaming at unseen people that “This is not a movie!” on a Manhattan set for Netflix’s limited series Zero Day, The Daily Beast has confirmed, is just him performing a scene from the upcoming project. But the clip took on a life of its own this week, after pro-Israel activists shared it as proof the actor had “had enough” of pro-Palestine protestors.In the clip, originally posted on Sunday, April 28, De Niro can be heard saying, “This is not a movie! This is real,” in the muffled audio. “Let ‘em get their job done,” he also says before telling the unseen people he’s addressing to “stay behind the barricades” and “If you’re going to keep talking nonsense, then you gotta go home.” The most suspicious part of the speech is when he says “They say they’re gonna do it again! We don’t want that, you don’t want that, none of us want that.” As De Niro has previously expressed support for Israel, activists were all too excited to interpret the words as shouting down pro-Palestine supporters. The video was shared widely with the caption, “Robert De Niro Stands With Israel!” and pro-Israel voices on X praised him for going after “pro-terrorism supporters” and “standing up to the Hamas supporting rabble protesting.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesAfter over a month of trying to win GOP support, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) says she is coming for House Speaker Mike Johnson as soon as next week. During a press conference outside of the Capitol on Wednesday morning, the MAGA Republican lawmaker announced that she “absolutely” plans to call for a vote on her motion to vacate Johnson from the speakership next week. “I can’t wait to see Democrats go out and support a Republican speaker and have to go home to their primaries and have to run for Congress again,” she said, according to NBC. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Moscow News Agency/Handout via Reuters A far-right Russian philosopher who’s called for Russia to expand its borders and rise up against the West says his interview with Tucker Carlson shows Americans are ready to accept his fascist ideas.Alexander Dugin, dubbed “Putin’s brain” for supposedly influencing the Russian leader’s geopolitical crusades, took to Telegram in the wake of his interview with the former Fox News host to note that he’d made it into the “American mainstream” by sitting down with Carlson, and that the “American public is a little ready for my ideas.”He claimed there’d been a “defamation” campaign against him hatched by “globalists” and “left-wing liberals” who portrayed him as “Dr. Evil” and “the most dangerous philosopher in the world.” Of course, Carlson himself used precisely those descriptors in trying to hype the 20-minute interview on X, falsely claiming Dugin’s ideas are “so dangerous” that “Amazon won’t sell his books.” (In fact, several of his books are currently available for purchase on Amazon in Russian.)Read more at The Daily Beast.

Curtis Means/ReutersWe regret to inform you that Donald Trump is just asking questions about the true motives behind the pro-Palestinian protests currently taking place on campuses across the country.“Do you think that the Radical Left Lunatics that are causing all of the CHAOS at our Colleges and Universities are doing so in order to take the FOCUS away from our Southern Border, where millions of people, many from prisons and mental institutions, are pouring into our Country?” the former president posted on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday morning. “Just askin’…???”Trump’s latest comments about the protests against Israel’s war in Gaza followed remarks made in a Fox News interview on Tuesday night, in which he claimed that he believes there are a “lot of paid agitators” among the demonstrators. Read more at The Daily Beast.

WKBW TV/YouTubeDemocratic state Sen. Timothy Kennedy on Tuesday won the special election for the New York congressional seat vacated by a retiring Democrat, further narrowing the GOP’s slender majority in the House.Kennedy comfortably defeated his Republican opponent Gary Dickson in the race for the Buffalo-area district seat by a margin of more than 36 percentage points, according to the Associated Press. When Kennedy is officially sworn in to succeed the retiring Brian Higgins, the GOP House majority will be cut to 217-213, affording Speaker Mike Johnson just a single vote to spare on partisan issues.Republicans will nevertheless take comfort from three upcoming special elections in the next two months for vacant GOP seats, including in the California district most recently held by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Bob Strong/ReutersNovelist Paul Auster has died at the age of 77 due to complications from lung cancer, his friend and fellow author Jacki Lyden confirmed.A New Jersey native who ultimately made Brooklyn his home, Auster wrote 34 books throughout his career, including the New York Trilogy, which began with City of Glass, the 1985 novel that wound up being Auster’s breakthrough (after it was first rejected by 17 publishers, according to The New York Times).Highly regarded as a leading figure in literary postmodernism, Auster was influenced by Franz Kafka and Samuel Beckett, and like Beckett, he lived for a time in Paris, where he translated French literature.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Scouted/The Daily Beast/Murad.Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.While a consistent topical skincare routine is essential for maintaining healthy skin, there are many other elements that contribute to the health of our skin, from diet to environment and even lifestyle factors like stress and anxiety. Murad’s new supplement is formulated to help combat the impact of stress on our skin health. Recent studies have found that stress can increase your ‘biological age’ internally and even make you look up to three years older than you actually are—not to mention the associated increased risk of cardiovascular issues and mood disorders. This research is precisely what led Murad to formulate its latest supplement, Stress Less, which contains a blend of clinical-grade adaptogens, including ashwagandha and L-theanine, along with skin-boosting ingredients like hyaluronic acid.“Murad’s Stress Less Supplement was formulated with a focus on addressing everyday stress, knowing how much it can affect the core of our well-being. This is something Dr. Murad has long been aware of and continues to study,” Emily Philen, Senior Manager of R&D Scientific Affairs at Murad, tells The Daily Beast. The goal was to create a stomach-friendly, easy-to-swallow supplement that helps the body manage responses to stress with a little boost of skin-enhancing ingredients.Read more at The Daily Beast.

David Swanson/ReutersPolice officers were called to quell violent scenes that broke out on the UCLA campus late Tuesday as opposing groups of protesters brawled inside the pro-Palestine encampment.The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed early Wednesday that its officers were helping to “restore order and maintain public safety.” It said it was acting at the request of UCLA “due to multiple acts of violence within the large encampment on their campus.”The trouble started shortly before 11 p.m. Tuesday when a group of counter-protesters surrounded the encampment, according to KABC, hours after the university declared the encampment “unlawful” and urged students to leave or face sanctions. Barricades around the encampment were torn down by counter-protesters, and people were seen throwing fireworks and using sticks as weapons during the ensuing clashes.Read more at The Daily Beast.

via YouTube / Associated PressThe first Chinese scientist to publish a genomic sequence of the COVID-19 virus—without permission of government health authorities—says he has been allowed to return to his lab following a sit-in protest he started after he claimed to have been locked out of the facility over the weekend.Virologist Zhang Yongzhen on Wednesday wrote online that the medical center where his lab is located had “tentatively agreed” to permit him and the rest of his team to return and resume their research activities. In an earlier post that has since been deleted, Zhang said he and his colleagues had been suddenly informed last Thursday that their lab had been closed for renovations, according to the Associated Press.Zhang started sitting outside the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center where his lab is hosted after guards prevented him from entering over the weekend. Images shared online show Zhang lying on a piece of cardboard in front of the entrance to the facility. His protest was widely discussed on Chinese social media, putting the actions of local authorities under scrutiny.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyNow that Judge Juan Merchan has ruled that the World’s #1 Dad, Donald Trump, is permitted to skip a day of his criminal trial to attend his youngest son Barron’s high school graduation, I thought it might be a nice idea for a professional writer to prepare some remarks for the former president to deliver to the graduates. Just a few words of life advice from an old man who has seen and done it all.And, because I’m a generous spirit, I decided to take up the assignment myself.I’ll set the scene. As the high school band performs a stirring rendition of The Village People’s “YMCA,” President 45 strides onto stage, perhaps performing his “I’m flossing the space between my ears” dance. Magic.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily BeastFor nearly two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Florida was the last safe haven for people in need of abortions in the South. As of today, that’s no longer true.It’s hard to adequately convey the devastation of a six-week abortion ban taking effect in one of the country’s most populous states.Last year, one in three abortions in the South happened in Florida. Already this year, 1,300 people have traveled from other states to Florida to access abortion. As of today, if you’re more than six weeks pregnant and living in south Florida, the closest abortion clinic will be in Charlotte, North Carolina—a 14-hour drive away. Beyond 12 weeks and you’ll have to drive 17 hours to Virginia.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Chingis Kondarov/ReutersWhile Kremlin-appointed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov reportedly circles the drain with a terminal diagnosis of necrotizing pancreatitis, the spotlight has shifted to his three notorious sons, including his 16-year-old teenager Adam, who was reportedly given a major promotion this week.On Sunday, just a week after news of Kadyrov’s diagnoses broke, the Chechen leader announced that his 16-year-old son, Adam Kadyrov, will become the supervisor of a Chechen special forces training school in Gudermes, according to the Current Time. “He is closely familiar with the activities of the famous university, so I believe that he will cope with his assigned responsibilities very well,” Kadyrov said in a post on social media.Ramzan Kadyrov’s effort to prop up his son isn’t a surefire sign that he is grooming him to take on larger responsibilities in the region. For the people of Chechnya, however, the looming power vacuum and possible succession fight could determine the the future of a republic that has been wracked with countless reports of human rights violations, kidnappings, and torture incidents. (The United States has sanctioned Kadyrov for alleged involvement in “gross violations of human rights,” including extrajudicial killings.)Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesThe firm that has repped ex-President Donald Trump and his campaign in multiple battles with high-profile women has asked a federal judge to let them abandon the embattled politician in a sex discrimination suit by a former female adviser—even if he and his team protest.The firm, LaRocca, Hornik, Greenberg, Kittredge, Carlin & McPartland, unsuccessfully defended the former commander-in-chief against rape allegations by writer E. Jean Carroll and in the 2016 NDA case brought by one-time aide Jessica Denson. But on Friday the firm submitted a motion in Manhattan federal court to withdraw as his attorneys as yet another suit advances. The lawyers withheld details about why they wanted to pull out, except to say that their rapport with the campaign had suffered “an irreparable breakdown.The firm asked to explain its exit request to the bench in private, and signaled that the campaign might fight to keep them onboard.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesMost people tend to know Netflix best for their explosive docudramas on cults and killers, or for reviving mid TV shows from other networks, or for titillating sex and violence, or even for mind-bending sci-fi. But for the past decade, there is no genre the global streaming giant has thoroughly dominated more than stand-up comedy.If the key to comedy remains timing, then this week’s kickoff of the second Netflix is a Joke Fest across Los Angeles feels most auspicious.Set aside anything Jerry Seinfeld has said as fuel to gin up publicity for his own Netflix movie (Unfrosted, premiering Friday) and his Hollywood Bowl shows Wednesday and Thursday where he shares a bill with Jim Gaffigan, Sebastian Maniscalco, and Nate Bargatze. Fans of all political persuasions keep watching old Seinfeld episodes and snapping up tickets to his live shows. Nobody at the 17,500-seat amphitheater in the Hollywood hills is likely to make much of a fuss—especially after paying up to $700 for a ticket.Read more at The Daily Beast.

FXIt turns out that Elisabeth Moss is a great celebrity to weather your first Los Angeles earthquake with. I learned this back in February, as she calmly informed me that the hotel meeting room where we were speaking was shaking not because of a large truck driving past the window or a low-flying airplane, but because there was a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere, creating seismic waves.Actually, what she said was, “Oh, this is an earthquake,” while very coolly bracing herself on the velvet couch across from me, where she was sitting alongside executive producer Denise Di Nova of their new FX series The Veil. “I’m pretty sure.”As the ground beneath us violently trembled, the walls rattled, and the phalanx of agents and publicists screamed in terror while ducking for cover—OK, perhaps more realistically there was some light, though definitely noticeable, quivering—the Emmy winner sensed what must have the look of sheer panic in my face.Read more at The Daily Beast.

The Daily Beast/Amazon MGMEvery moment of The Idea of You feels like the first day of summer vacation: dreamy, sun-soaked, and unbelievably horny, if you have an…adult taste in getaways. In watching the steamy new romance, we are living vicariously through someone who has achieved every teenage girl’s fantasy—sleeping with the world’s biggest, hottest celeb. In this case, the A-lister is Harry Styles at the peak of his One Direction fame—or at least, the lead love interest is loosely inspired by him. Swoon. That’s the ideal life.Based on Robinne Lee’s spicy 2017 novel of the same name, The Idea of You (May 2, Prime Video) starts out with a sunny desert getaway in Coachella. Solène (Anne Hathaway), the 40-year-old mother of Izzy (Ella Rubin), is tasked with taking her teenage daughter and their friends to the music festival when she quite literally stumbles into the headlining act. Trying to find an open, clean restroom—quite the feat at Coachella—Solène accidentally finds herself in Hayes Campbell’s (Nicholas Galitzine) trailer. Oh. My. God.Wait, you don’t know Hayes Campbell? The Hayes Campbell? As in, 24-year-old frontman for August Moon, dreamboat and womanizer extraordinaire? Yeah, that’s him. After five minutes in his trailer, Solène is smitten—but Hayes even more so. The connection is instant. We feel it as much as the characters do. They lock eyes again at a VIP ticket holders meet-and-greet; then, Hayes is on the Coachella mainstage singing odes to a woman he just met. “I know that you’re a little bit older,” Hayes croons, “but baby, rest your head on my shoulder.” We can guess who that’s about!Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty ImagesWelcome 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.Love isn’t particularly funny in the “ha ha” sense—unless the first thing that comes to mind when you think of “funny ha ha” is Nelson Muntz pointing and laughing at someone. But romantic comedies have long tried to prove otherwise, finding humor (I’d call it “gallows;” you might call it “light and frothy”) in what I’d argue is one of life’s more traumatic, if valuable, experiences. It’s a noble pursuit, making someone laugh in the face of horrible vulnerability and awkwardness. But that once-successful endeavor is becoming less and less so with every passing year.Let me put it this way: Romantic comedies aren’t funny anymore.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Janus Films Although its title sounds fit for a horror movie, Evil Does Not Exist (which hits theaters May 3) is far from a conventionally scary affair—which isn’t to say that, beneath its placid surface, it doesn’t thrum with unnerving tension. Maintaining the slow, deliberate pace and studied formal devices (if not the lengthy runtime) of his Oscar-nominated 2021 gem Drive My Car, Japanese auteur Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s latest generates simmering anxiety from the clash between modernity and nature. Its tranquil poeticism infused with dissonant undercurrents that grow increasingly pronounced and disturbing as it ambles along its woodland path, it’s a masterful film that invites contemplation and, in return, delivers lyrical beauty, haunting mystery, and more than a bit of unexpected terror.In the small rural enclave of Mizubiki, widower Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) works as a “jack of all trades” for his community. Introduced chainsawing and chopping firewood with quiet, methodical focus, Takumi lives in a cabin with his 8-year-old daughter Hana (Ryo Nishikawa), who attends a nearby daycare center. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Netflix/MGM/ParamountI have played tennis approximately three times in my life and embarrassed myself each time. As such, it takes a lot to get me to watch tennis—even on film. Fortunately, Challengers, Luca Guadagnino’s steamy tennis drama, has granted us a vehicle to pretend we’re innocently watching sports, when we’re all really here to see Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor make out while Zendaya watches.While Challengers is hot, it also features a lot of tennis (of the non-tonsil variety)—which is surprising coming from a director who professes to dislike the game. It got me thinking: If I can’t get paid to write a list of the questions raised by this being the second film about a love triangle to come out of the marriage between Celine Song and Justin Kuritzkes, perhaps there’s something to be said about how surprisingly excellent Challengers’ sports sequences are and what other similar sporting moments can be found in TV and film? What moments were so shocking or so good that they made me consider buying a pair of shorts and slithering outside? I don’t mean the best sporting moments or even the most iconic—but the moments in TV and film that are most memorable for their quality and, importantly, absurdity.Top Gun’s homoerotic beach volleyballRead more at The Daily Beast.

CBSBy the time The Late Show began airing on Tuesday night, police in riot gear had already breached and cleared Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall–which had been occupied by pro-Palestinian student protesters in the early hours of Tuesday morning–while reportedly making dozens of arrests. But just a few miles downtown at the Ed Sullivan Theater, Stephen Colbert was making his support for the young demonstrators known.“Of course, one of the biggest stories right now is the nationwide, pro-Palestinian student protests around college campuses in the United States,” Colbert explained on Tuesday. “In what’s being called ‘perhaps the most significant student movement since the anti-Vietnam campus protests of the late 1960s.’”The host went on to explain that tension between students and school administrators, at least at Columbia, began to ramp up a few weeks ago when students began setting up an encampment in order to protest the political happenings in Gaza. In response, university president Minouche Shafik called upon authorities to help remove the students involved, and Colbert is not OK with that.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Fox 2During an interview that touched on immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, a Detroit news anchor challenged Donald Trump to support his claim about rapidly falling crime in Venezuela—which fact-checkers have previously noted is false.In his interview with Fox 2 anchor Roop Raj, which will air in its entirety on Thursday, the former president closed with a shot at President Joe Biden regarding immigration, a topic that Trump has signaled he wants to use to help his campaign at the expense of relevant legislation.“One stat before we go: Venezuela was very crime-ridden. They announced the other day 72 percent reduction in crime in the last year,” Trump asserted. “You know why? They moved all their criminals from Venezuela right into the good old USA, and Biden let them do it. It’s a disgrace.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyJurors on Tuesday got the sense that Donald Trump isn’t being prosecuted in New York for masterminding an airtight hush money deal—he’s actually on trial for faking paperwork in a bungled rush job all because of his sloppy greed and his right hand man’s desperation.The third week of the former president’s first criminal trial in New York City got underway with testimony from Keith Davidson, a Los Angeles lawyer who opened up about his sleazy world of hush money deals.“It was very frustrating that it was on again, off again... delays in funding, cancellations, disengaging from clients,” Davidson recalled.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jeenah Moon-Pool/Getty ImagesDonald Trump reacted with praise Tuesday night after officers in the New York Police Department were spotted entering a Columbia University building through a second story window, with the former president gushing about “the way they walked in” and how “they were not afraid of anything.”Police used an elevated bridge to access Hamilton Hall, where pro-Palestinian student protestors had broken into and occupied in the early hours Tuesday. In a statement, the university said it had allowed law enforcement to enter the building to “restore safety and order to our community.”Calling in to Fox News as the drama unfolded, Trump had plenty of nice things to say to Sean Hannity about the police force.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Octavio Jones/ReutersThe place to be earlier this month in Central Florida was the 242-seat Planned Parenthood Orlando Benefit Dinner, a pink-and-black themed event titled “Brave.” It even had a waiting list.“It was the who's who of Central Florida,” Florida state Rep. Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando), who attended the April 18 fundraiser, told The Daily Beast. “It was a sold-out event.”The dinner did not feature a celebrity speaker like other recent Planned Parenthood events in the area—actress Amber Tamblyn keynoted a dinner in Sarasota and author Judy Blume headlined one in West Palm Beach—or raise as much as a Naples soiree in February that raked in a million bucks.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyIn the universal outrage over South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem executing her wire-haired pointer Cricket, another victim of her cruelty seems to have been forgotten: the male goat she dragged to the same gravel pit and shot dead.Based on Noem’s own description of the incident in her upcoming memoir, it seems likely that the animal died a terrifying death. Its crime? It had a “disgusting, musky, rancid” smell and butted her children so they fell down and got their clothes dirty.It’s unclear why Noem, who loves to talk about how she was raised on a farm, was surprised by this behavior: Male goats in rut—a state of arousal during breeding season—become more aggressive and urinate on themselves to generate a smell that only a female of its species could love.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Alex Kent/Getty ImagesOfficials at the Portland State University in Oregon announced the closure of the campus on Tuesday over an “ongoing incident at the library,” a reference to students who, protesting the ongoing war in Gaza, broke into and took over the building late the previous night.At a late-night news conference, school and local officials said that they had requested the city police’s help in the matter, suggesting that the occupation was illegal.“Unfortunately tonight with the breaching of the library it has become a criminal event not a free speech event,” Portland Police Bureau Chief Bob Day said.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty ImagesOfficers in the New York Police Department entered Columbia University after sunset on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after students protesting the war in Gaza broke into and occupied a campus building, according to its student radio station and The New York Times.Police entered Hamilton Hall through a second-story window after erecting a ladder-bridge with an emergency services truck. Other officers swept an all-but-abandoned encampment on a nearby lawn, shining flashlights into tents as they searched for occupants.Student journalists at WKCR reported that they were being forcibly herded away from the scene as officers began clearing student protesters out of the building. Columbia earlier issued a campus-wide order to shelter in place.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/GettyRep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) isn't exactly warm and fuzzy. He once threatened to fight an online stranger who challenged his rejection of the 2020 election results. He's a firearms enthusiast who has publicly suggested that Black Lives Matter protesters should be met with force by police. More recently, Higgins personally manhandled a progressive activist at a press conference.But even Higgins knows: you don't brag about shooting a puppy.Yet that’s exactly what South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem did. In her new memoir, Noem recounted how she once brought a 14-month old wirehaired pointer named Cricket that she “hated” to a gravel pit on her family farm and shot her dead.Read more at The Daily Beast.