Cheat Sheet
R.I.P.
Zsa Zsa Gabor Dies at 99
Suffered a heart attack at Los Angeles home.
CIVIL WAR
Report: Syrian Rebels Burn Buses
Evacuations on hold throughout the country.
TARMAC SUMMIT
Lynch: I ‘Regret’ Bill Clinton Meeting
Raised questions about the integrity of the Justice Department.
WAR OF WORDS
King: Brennan Running ‘Hit Job’ on Trump
Accuses the CIA director of leaking info on Russian hacking.
UNDER ATTACK
Gunmen Kill at Least 10 in Jordan
At popular tourist attraction in Karak.
OIL-RICH
Tillerson Directs US-Russian Oil Firm
Further cementing Russia connections.
TERROR
Suicide Bomb Kills 48 Soldiers in Yemen
ISIS has claimed responsibility.
REVERSAL
Trump: China Should ‘Keep’ Stolen Drone
Previously called the theft “unprecedented.”
GUN VIOLENCE
Toddler Killed in Road-Rage Incident
In Arkansas.
CIVIL WAR
Syrians Suffer as Evacuations Delayed
Stemming from disagreements over other evacuations.
Keep ReadingNoah and Alison finally speak to each other honestly—if it is only to finally say goodbye (or is it?), and Noah’s abuse at the hands of prison guard Gunther intensifies.
Is This How ‘The Affair’ Really Ends?
Keep ReadingThe acclaimed Aussie actor opens up about his militaristic villain in the new ‘Star Wars’ film, and the movie’s politics.
Meet the New ‘Star Wars’ Villain
Keep ReadingIn a spoof of ‘Love Actually,’ Kate McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton shows up at an elector’s door. Instead of “To me, you are perfect,” it’s something far more bleak.
SNL Hillary Gets ‘Love Actually’ Moment
Columnists
Sponsored Content
Politics
Trump’s Moment of Truth
Trump’s Moment of Truth
And so after everything—the relentless lies, the twisted misogyny, the mocking of a disabled man, the racism open enough to have won the enthusiasm of white supremacists, the invitation to a foreign adversary to find and leak information damaging ...
The post-Clinton Democratic Party may be the last institution standing that can hold the charlatan who’s about to become our next President to account.
Obama Defends Record, Lectures Media
Obama Defends Record, Lectures Media
Over one hour and twenty-six minutes, the longest press conference of his eight years, President Obama tried to tamp down some of the harsher rhetoric over Russian involvement in electing his successor.Asked whether he was prepared to call out Rus...
President Obama used his last press conference of the year to defend his decision to keep Russia’s involvement in email hacks largely under wraps during the 2016 election.
Obama: Putin Maybe Knew About Hacks
Obama: Putin Maybe Knew About Hacks
In a press conference this afternoon, President Obama all but blamed Vladimir Putin for the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta——and all but said those hacks were intended to boost Trump.When ABC News correspondent Martha R...
President Obama didn’t come right out and say it but it was pretty clear at his last press conference of 2016, that he thought the Vladimir Putin was involved in the election year em...
Watch: Obama’s Final 2016 Presser
Watch: Obama’s Final 2016 Presser
President Barack Obama will hold his final press conference of the year at the White House on Friday, December 16, at 2:15 pm EST.The press conference is set to take place before President Obama and his family depart for their annual family vacati...
President Obama will discuss recent discoveries regarding Russian election interference and likely offer advice to President-elect Donald Trump.
$7B U.S. Warship Has a $2B Ammo Problem
$7B U.S. Warship Has a $2B Ammo Problem
The U.S. Navy’s newest warship has an ammunition problem. One that could render the $7-billion ship obsolete just two months after she joined the fleet.The destroyer USS Zumwalt, commissioned into Navy service on Oct. 15, boasts two high-tech, 155...
‘We don’t have an issue with the gun, and no issue with that ship carrying the gun… We have an issue on the price point.’
Entertainment
David Foster Planning Trump Inauguration
David Foster Planning Trump Inauguration
To Gen Xers, David Foster is the kitschy uber-producer responsible for musical hits like Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” Celine Dion’s “The Power of Love,” and the soundtrack to St. Elmo’s Fire (yikes). But millennials know him best as...
The prolific music producer is a longtime pal of Donald Trump, and is said to be playing a “pivotal role” in the Trump inauguration—trying to wrangle musical talent, that is.
Will Smith Needs a Career Intervention
Will Smith Needs a Career Intervention
Collateral Beauty’s title sounds profound in a deliberately ambiguous way. Does it refer to beauty that’s provided in order to secure a loan for additional beauty? Is it the unintended beauty that comes from a catastrophic beauty attack? Or is it,...
Will Smith’s misguided passion for schmaltzy, ‘serious-minded’ roles—often fixated on parental issues, as in the god-awful ‘Collateral Beauty'—has generally led to disastrous res...
2016 College Bowl and Playoff Schedule
2016 College Bowl and Playoff Schedule
Regular season college football has come to a close and conference championship games have wrapped, but playoff season is just heating up. For the next month you can get a daily fix of college football and psych yourself up for the college footbal...
The Alabama Crimson Tide, Clemson Tigers, Washington Huskies, and Ohio State Buckeyes will compete for places in the College Football Playoff Championships while dozens of other team...
The Art of the Restaurant Takedown
The Art of the Restaurant Takedown
Early Thursday morning, the President-elect took aim at one of his many favorite media targets, Vanity Fair, on his most favorite platform, Twitter, calling out the magazine’s “really poor numbers” and its editor in 138 inane characters. “Way down...
Vanity Fair author Tina Nguyen’s elegant and brilliant trashing of the Trump Grill—eliciting an angry Tweet from Trump—is in a long tradition of restaurant takedowns.
‘The OA’: Netflix’s Top-Secret New Show
‘The OA’: Netflix’s Top-Secret New Show
It’s both a blessing and a curse for Netflix’s top-secret new show The OA that viewers might mistakenly stumble in expecting a new pop sci-fi obsession à la Stranger Things. Viral marketing for The OA has done all it can to encourage the associati...
Netflix may be hoping to lure ‘Stranger Things’ fans to a bizarre new sci-fi world, but this show is unlike any you’ve seen—ludicrous and frustrating as well as beautiful and profound.
Watch: Hollywood Christmas Parade 2016
Watch: Hollywood Christmas Parade 2016
The 85th annual Hollywood Christmas Parade will premiere as a two-hour special on Friday, December 16th starting at 8:00 pm ET on The CW Network. Whether you celebrate the holidays someplace where it snows, on the beach, or in sunny California, mo...
The 85th Annual Hollywood Christmas Parade will feature grand marshal Olivia Newton-John, the casts of ‘Days of Our Lives’ and ‘The Bold and The Beautiful,’ along with Santa Claus an...
Xmas Carpool Karaoke with Mariah & Adele
Xmas Carpool Karaoke with Mariah & Adele
The endless joy that is The Late Late Show’s Carpool Karaoke has debuted its Christmas Special, which features none other than Mariah Carey singing her celebrated “All I Want for Christmas Is You” with James Corden as their SUV makes its way throu...
This special star-studded edition of Carpool Karaoke also includes Chris Martin, Gwen Stefani, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Elton John.
World News
Mexico's Drug-War Decade From Hell
Mexico's Drug-War Decade From Hell
TIJUANA, Mexico—This week marks 10 years since the official launch of Mexico’s militarized war on drugs. One might say it has a complicated history, but at it’s core there is a simple principle summed up in Spanish by a short, fundamental question...
The United States honestly wanted to help crush the cartels, but many of its policies have only made them more dangerous.
EU Links Charities to Human Traffickers
EU Links Charities to Human Traffickers
ROME—It is no great secret that Frontex, the European Union’s border patrol, strongly disagrees with the practice of rescuing migrants and refugees at sea. For years, it’s been warning that efforts to save the lives of migrants left on foundering ...
Europe’s border guard says charities at sea are working with human traffickers.
Egypt Sits on EgyptAir Bomb Evidence
Egypt Sits on EgyptAir Bomb Evidence
Once more Egyptian officials have managed to add mystery rather than light to an air crash investigation. The country’s Civil Aviation Ministry said Thursday that traces of explosive have been found on some victims of EgyptAir Flight 804 that dive...
They have had the black boxes and more for six months, yet their new assertion that explosive traces were found on victims has no supporting analysis.
Trump Doesn’t Know It, but He’s for Iran
Trump Doesn’t Know It, but He’s for Iran
In 2007, an Iranian-backed Shia militia known as Asaib Ahl al-Haq kidnapped and murdered five U.S. servicemen in an ambush in the Iraqi city of Karbala. At the time, the group’s deputy secretary-general was Akram al-Kaabi, a man who has since said...
Trump wants to work with Russia. He wants to contain Iran. But in Syria and elsewhere, Russia and Iran are one and the same team.
Trump’s Pro-Gay Secretary of State?
Trump’s Pro-Gay Secretary of State?
Like all of Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, Rex Tillerson has come under fire from liberals. Unlike the others, though, he’s also been attacked from the right, as a few Christian conservatives think that he is too pro-LGBT to serve.Are they right? C...
The State Department wields enormous power to help the cause of equal rights around the world, and Rex Tillerson gives some reason to hope that will continue.
Schoolgirls Slaughter 56 in One Day
Schoolgirls Slaughter 56 in One Day
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria—They waited until it was the Friday before the Eid el Maulud celebrating the birth of Prophet Muhammad when the Madagali market would very busy, very crowded. And then they struck: Two schoolgirls blew themselves up.In that one ...
They may or may not be from the ranks of the Chibok girls, but teenagers have become some of Boko Haram’s deadliest weapons.
Aleppo Ceasefire Reached
Aleppo Ceasefire Reached
ISTANBUL— As the Assad regime and Iranian-led Shiite militias captured the last districts still in opposition control Tuesday night, Russia and rebel leaders agreed on a cease-fire in embattled east Aleppo that will lead to the evacuation of civil...
Russia and anti-Assad rebels announce an agreement reached with Turkish help to relieve the beleaguered city.
U.S.
Watch: Obama’s Final 2016 Presser
Watch: Obama’s Final 2016 Presser
President Barack Obama will hold his final press conference of the year at the White House on Friday, December 16, at 2:15 pm EST.The press conference is set to take place before President Obama and his family depart for their annual family vacati...
President Obama will discuss recent discoveries regarding Russian election interference and likely offer advice to President-elect Donald Trump.
Alt-Right Group Seeks Campus Safe Space
Alt-Right Group Seeks Campus Safe Space
The fake book in Columbia University’s Butler Library seemed like a too-obvious clue from an old detective novel. When opened, the hollowed-out copy of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles revealed a box full of forms branded with an eagle. “T...
Dark Enlightenment is recruiting on college campuses and trying to grab attention with stunts at Columbia and NYU—but leaders are touchy about revealing their real identities.
Hannity to Assange: You Did Us a Favor
Hannity to Assange: You Did Us a Favor
The bizarre Sean Hannity-WikiLeaks bromance has now only grown more loving.On Thursday afternoon, Hannity, the Fox News host and informal Trump adviser, once again interviewed WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange—this time on Hannity’s nationally syndic...
The WikiLeaks founder got Hannitized again Thursday, calling in for a gushing phone interview with the Fox News star who once called for his jailing.
![Polly Sheppard, one of the three survivors of the Mother Emanuel Church shooting in Charleston, SC, arrives to address the third evening session of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 27, 2016. ]](http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2016/12/14/dylann-roof-s-chilling-question-did-i-shoot-you-yet/jcr:content/image.crop.300.200.jpg/49392637.cached.jpg)
Dylann Roof Convicted in Racist Massacre
Dylann Roof Convicted in Racist Massacre
CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Dylann Roof was convicted of one of America’s most notorious crimes on Thursday, found guilty of committing a massacre of nine black worshipers who had welcomed him into the basement of Emanuel A.M.E. Church.Among a sl...
A jury took two hours to find him guilty of one of the most notorious crimes in modern American history. Now he faces life in prison or execution.
Docs: Abortions Don’t Harm Mental Health
Docs: Abortions Don’t Harm Mental Health
At a 1987 meeting of anti-abortion leaders, President Ronald Reagan called for his surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, to prepare a report on the medical and psychological effects of abortion on women. Though Koop was an ardent and vocal foe of abor...
The junk-science theory that abortion causes women psychological harm has spurred laws restricting its access in the name of ‘women’s health.’ But a new study shows they’re actually ...
Tech
Why Our Tech Moguls Will Bend to Trump
Why Our Tech Moguls Will Bend to Trump
The oligarchs’ ball at Trump Tower revealed one not-so-well-kept secret about the tech moguls: They are more like the new president than they are like you or me.In what devolved into something of a love fest, Trump embraced the tech elite for thei...
With resistance to the so-called sharing economy now centered in big blue cities, the bosses of those companies may find common cause with Trump’s regulation-demolishing approach.
Silicon Valley, Wake Up! Trump Matters.
Silicon Valley, Wake Up! Trump Matters.
“Steam seems to have killed all gratitude in the hearts of sailors.”—Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.A few months ago, the former CEO of a multi-billion-dollar tech company in Silicon Valley told a private gathering that it didn...
Does it matter that armies of Americans are not sharing the tech-progressive dream right now?
Syrian War Footage Is Now a Video Game
Syrian War Footage Is Now a Video Game
One day in late August, a lone Syrian BMP-1—a Soviet-designed cross between a tank and a tracked armored personnel carrier—made its way between the besieged Syrian Air Force Academy and advanced combat positions on the front. Throughout the summer...
Military footage captured from drones and body cameras has created a new generation of military propaganda auteurs to the point where terrorist videos posted online are as captivatin...
Pregnancy Bracelet Lets Dad Feel Kicks
Pregnancy Bracelet Lets Dad Feel Kicks
There is nothing weirder, wilder, or more magical than a baby’s movement in utero. For many mothers (it certainly was for me), the quickening, those first flutters, are the moment when a pregnancy starts to feel real, when a bump becomes a baby. A...
Thanks to the Scandinavians, fathers can choose to be even more involved in their partner’s pregnancy—now where’s that bracelet for morning sickness?
Police Warn of Online ‘Sextortion’
Police Warn of Online ‘Sextortion’
British police have warned of a dramatic rise in the number of cases of online sextortion, where unwitting men (and, less frequently, women) are lured into stripping or performing sex acts in video chats, which are being recorded without their kno...
Be careful when you agree to have webcam sex. The footage, say British cops, is being used to blackmail people in a rising number of cases.
Trump Team Wants to End Net Neutrality
Trump Team Wants to End Net Neutrality
Donald Trump has tapped two telecommunications lobbyists to head his FCC transition team. That’s bad news for net neutrality, the policy that says internet service providers must treat all data equally.Last Monday, Trump named Jeffrey Eisenach and...
The principle that internet service providers should treat data equally was championed by the Obama administration, but corporate lackeys are set to overturn that on the FCC.
I Write Fake News. Here’s What Works.
I Write Fake News. Here’s What Works.
At first, I created fake news stories stories that were meant to be head-turning: Hillary sold passport-making machines directly to ISIS. Obama won’t say the words “Radical Islam” because it would break an Islamic Spell he thinks he is protected b...
Here’s what I learned trapping trending algorithms and the people of Facebook, even when I wasn’t really trying to.
Arts + Culture
Why Meghan Might Be Perfect For Harry
Why Meghan Might Be Perfect For Harry
The blurry cellphone photographs snapped by a passerby of Prince Harry sauntering down Piccadilly with his new girlfriend Meghan Markle on Wednesday evening were a breath of fresh, winter air. Looking like any other couple, wrapped up in winter co...
Could Meghan Markle being an actress, and knowing the ways of the media, be advantageous when it comes to her and Prince Harry crafting their relationship?
The Art of the Restaurant Takedown
The Art of the Restaurant Takedown
Early Thursday morning, the President-elect took aim at one of his many favorite media targets, Vanity Fair, on his most favorite platform, Twitter, calling out the magazine’s “really poor numbers” and its editor in 138 inane characters. “Way down...
Vanity Fair author Tina Nguyen’s elegant and brilliant trashing of the Trump Grill—eliciting an angry Tweet from Trump—is in a long tradition of restaurant takedowns.
NYC’s Most Subversive Christmas Show
NYC’s Most Subversive Christmas Show
The latest installment of Justin Vivian Bond’s two-decades-plus cabaret act, currently at Joe’s Pub in New York City, is true to the spirit of its mischievous title.A cult figure with crossover appeal, Bond is a Tony-nominated performer who rose t...
Justin Vivian Bond’s ‘The Bipolar Express’ at Joe’s Pub in New York begins as a sly celebration of dysfunction, and ends as a cleverly heartwarming Christmas pageant.
New Jersey AG Tries to Muzzle Reporter
New Jersey AG Tries to Muzzle Reporter
The great state of New Jersey, which has spawned sociocultural superstars as various as naturalist-poet Joyce Kilmer, rock balladeer Bruce Springsteen, and truculent governor Chris Christie, is currently distinguishing itself in a different way—as...
The Trentonian’s Isaac Avilucea says Christopher Porrino’s attempt to prevent him from publishing a story is a reflection of the threats facing media.
Harry and Meghan’s London Date
Harry and Meghan’s London Date
Prince Harry went out on a date to the theater with his new girlfriend Meghan Markle on Wednesday evening, walking through some of the most crowded shopping streets in central London.Although Harry has already acknowledged the relationship in an o...
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle casually strolled London’s busiest shopping street Wednesday, then took in a show. It’s the clearest sign yet the relationship is for real.
2016: Sex Assault Battle Goes Mainstream
2016: Sex Assault Battle Goes Mainstream
Of all the sound and fury of the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s crowing of nonconsensual sexual advances on women still reverberates, a particularly outrageous comment from a man whose campaign was built on outrageous comments.In a leaked 2005 hot ...
From Trump’s ‘locker-room’ talk to the testimonies of survivors, 2016 has been a charged and conflicted year for how society perceives and punishes assault.
Has Fashion Finally Embraced Diversity?
Has Fashion Finally Embraced Diversity?
2016 is shaping up to be the most diverse year yet for the fashion industry, according to a new report tracking racial representation on glossy magazine covers. Released Wednesday by the Fashion Spot, a 70,000 invitation-only community of industry...
According to new figures, the number of women of color gracing the covers of glossy magazines is increasing.
U.S.