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One day before voters in North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District head to the polls in a crowded GOP primary, former President Donald Trump reiterated his support for scandal-ridden incumbent Madison Cawthorn . The show of support comes a week after Rolling Stone reported that Trump has been “totally weirded out” by some of the images and video that have been leaked of Cawthorn in the run-up to the primary. The freshman congressman, Trump said Monday in a post on Truth Social, deserves a “second chance,” adding that he has “made some foolish mistakes, which I don’t believe he’ll make again.” Trump comes to the defense of Rep. Cawthorn and says that while he’s recently made “some foolish mistakes” he deserves a second chance pic.twitter.com/7x1oaoGdRM — Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) May 16, 2022 Cawthorn’s recent issues include attempting to carry a loaded gun through airport security (for a second time), driving with a revoked license, and getting … [Read more...] about Trump Says Scandal-Ridden Madison Cawthorn Should Get ‘Second Chance’

UPDATE (22/3/2022): Amanda Bynes is a free woman. Nearly nine years after the Easy A actor was placed in a court-ordered conservatorship that gave her mother decision-making power over her healthcare and security, a judge terminated the guardianship arrangement Tuesday. “The court finds that petitioner has provided facts that the conservatorship is no longer needed or required, therefore the petition for termination is granted,” Ventura County Judge Roger Lund said at the morning hearing that Bynes did not attend. “She’s done everything the court has asked over a long period of time,” the judge said. “She’s excited. She was looking forward to a favorable result, and she got it,” Bynes lawyer, David Esquibias, told Rolling Stone immediately after the hearing. He later released a statement from his client. “Words can’t even describe how I feel. Wonderful news. Following today’s decision by the judge to terminate my conservatorship, I would like to thank my fans for … [Read more...] about Amanda Bynes’ 9-Year Conservatorship Ends: ‘She’s Done Everything the Court Has Asked’

Viacom ’s Bob Bakish has one of the toughest jobs in media today as the company board officially took the word “acting” off the CEO title he picked up last month when he became the third person to have the gig in the past four months. The decision follows Sumner and Shari Redstone ’s announcement this morning that they want to scuttle the plan they’d proposed to merge Viacom with CBS — likely putting its CEO Les Moonves in charge of a combined company. Viacom says that it has “discontinued the exploration of a potential combination with CBS.” “While there is much work to do, I firmly believe that Viacom has a bright future, and that confidence is underpinned by senior management’s commitment to innovation and a more coordinated, global approach to managing our brands,” Shari Redstone says following Bakish’s title change. Board Chairman Tom May says the CEO “has impressed the Board of Directors with the decisive steps he has taken. He has moved quickly to deliver upon the … [Read more...] about Viacom Names Bob Bakish Permanent CEO As He Tries To Chart A Future Without CBS

Donald Trump has had a question for his friends and advisers in the past several weeks: “Is Google trying to fuck me?” The source of his paranoia, according to two people with knowledge of the ex-president’s query, was the absence of an Android app for his struggling social media app, Truth Social . Since it launched in February, the app has been available only on Apple devices, leaving Android users — roughly 40 percent of the U.S. mobile device market — without access to the platform. This has left Trump with questions about the status of the product and whether his perceived enemies at Google had any plans to reject it. “He keeps hearing about how Google and YouTube have it out for him … including on Truth Social, and I think he’s taking [it] seriously,” says one source who’s discussed the topic with the twice-impeached former president. (In some instances since last month, Trump has instead asked if Google is trying to “screw with me” on Truth Social or has simply … [Read more...] about ‘Is Google Trying to Fuck Me?’ Trump’s Tech Paranoia Hits New Level

On the day Lisa Grippa turned 16, The Who came to town. When she headed to Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum on Dec. 3, 1979, with her ticket in hand — a birthday gift from a friend — she had no idea 11 of her fellow concertgoers, some as young as 15, were about to die. And she obviously had no way of knowing, either, that Gerry Craven, a young roofer and part-time rugby player from Reading, Ohio, would save her life that night — all before the Who played a single note. This is a story that Gerry — known to all of us in the sprawling Queen City extended family I married into simply as “Uncle Gerry” — has told many times over the decades. It’s a story that Lisa has told, and retold, ever since that infamous night. And as if to pile on the layers of Cincinnati family lore — that my wife, Elizabeth , has heard “a bunch of times” over the years — my then-future father-in-law, Keith Brown, was also at the show. Indeed, the experience and the aftermath of the evening … [Read more...] about They Survived the Who Concert from ‘Hell.’ Now, They Finally Have Closure

B ackstage at the Rolling Thunder Revue , Allen Ginsberg (who has just dedicated his book of First Blues to “Minstrel Guruji Bob Dylan “) asks the convener of these revels, these winds of the old days, “Are you getting any pleasure out of this, Bob?” The convener, who can use words as if they were fun-house mirrors when he’s pressed, fingers his gray cowboy hat and looks at the poet. The first he had ever heard of Allen Ginsberg and the kind of people he hung out with was in Time around 1958 while he was still a kid in Minnesota. (“I’m Allen Ginsberg and I’m crazy.” “My name is Peter Orlovsky and I’m crazy as a daisy.” “My name is Gregory Corso and I’m not crazy at all.” That had broken up the kid in Minnesota.) Now, here on the road with this hooting, rocking carnival of time present and time past, both perhaps present in time future, is Allen, who has survived serene and curious, in a business suit. “Pleasure?” Dylan finds the word without taste, without … [Read more...] about On the Road With Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and the Rolling Thunder Revue

“Welcome to my partyyyyyy,” a vaguely Eastern European-accented voice drones, as a crowd of reporters, influencers, and hangers-on whip out their phones to capture the magic. “Shut up! I’m a masterpiece. I’m a masterpiece. I am Annaaaaaaa. Am I gorgeous or what? And don’t you worry. The wire money is coming. The wire money is coming, baby.” The voice on the loudspeaker is from an Anna Delvey impersonator, but a few minutes later, the real Anna speaks in a prerecorded message. “You’ve heard so many voices already, but this is just the beginning of me telling my story, my narrative, from my perspective,” she concludes, with whoops of approval from the crowd. Immediately, Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights” blares over the loudspeaker as a bevy of swan-necked models in black BDSM masks parade down a narrow corridor carrying various crudely drawn sketches. There’s an image of inmates swanning around in Hermes and Bottega Veneta on the stairs of a penitentiary, with the caption … [Read more...] about I Have Seen the Death of Culture, and It Was Anna Delvey’s Art Show

Budapest, HUNGARY — In a surprise appearance early Friday morning, former president Donald Trump videoconferenced into CPAC Hungary to praise the gathering, its organizers, and the country’s authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban . Trump, who did his damndest to keep power in the U.S. despite losing the 2020 election, boasted that he and Orban were “very close.” “He’s a great leader, a great gentleman, and he just had a very big election result,” Trump said, appearing onscreen here via a cell-phone video from his office in Mar-a-Lago. “I was very honored to have endorsed him. A little unusual endorsement. Usually I’m looking at the 50 states but here we went a little bit astray — and I did that only because he really is a good man and he has done a fantastic job for his country.” Trump pledged to help his fellow right-wingers in their struggle and framed it globally. “We’re looking to stop a lot of problems going on in the world: socialism and, really, communism … [Read more...] about Trump Finds a New Autocrat to Suck Up To in Video Appearance at Europe’s CPAC

At an empty beach bar in Corozal, a shaggy town of a few thousand people just minutes from where northern Belize meets Mexico’s share of the Yucatan Peninsula, waves crash into a jagged, rocky breakwater. It’s 9 p.m., the kitchenis about to close, and the only people left are some young, very loud, and very sober American missionaries. Another languid Caribbean day is winding down, but my dinner companion, Moses Michael Levi “ Shyne ” Barrow, has no desire to linger over a meal and conversation. He’s shoveling in his fried fish, rice, and beans faster than an escaped hostage, and brushing off my questions about his remarkable life — from Brooklyn-raised rapper to convicted felon to Orthodox Jewish convert to prominent politician here in the country of his birth — with blunt rejoinders. “I want you to be more specific, rather than just sitting here having a therapy session,” he grumbles, raising his hand to make a drink order. Folks come to Corozal to fish, visit … [Read more...] about Guns, Rhymes, God, and Politics: Shyne’s Epic Fall and Rise