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Tag: late night television

  • Jimmy Kimmel reacts to Trump’s Persian Gulf claim: ‘Unless you’re Jesus’

    Jimmy Kimmel took aim at President Donald Trump on Tuesday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! after the president made a puzzling claim about Middle Eastern geography.

    During a press briefing, Trump suggested that Iran and Qatar are close enough to walk between. In reality, the two countries are separated by the Persian Gulf, with the closest point across the water approximately 119 miles. Kimmel quipped, “Unless you’re Jesus, you cannot walk there.” The remarks came days after Trump received praise for brokering a Gaza ceasefire and ahead of his visit to Israel on October 12.

    Newsweek has reached out to the White House via email for comment.

    Why It Matters

    Kimmel’s jab comes amid a long-running, highly public feud with the president. Viewers were surprised to see him mock Trump just weeks after his show was suspended over remarks about the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last month.

    ABC initially announced Jimmy Kimmel Live! would go “off air indefinitely,” but it returned five days later, resuming episodes on September 23. The host’s continued satire amid these tensions underscores the clash between entertainment, political commentary, and presidential sensitivity, highlighting the cultural significance of late-night comedy in American discourse.

    What To Know

    Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One, Trump claimed that Qatar and Iran were “within walking distance,” while praising Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, calling him an “amazing man.” He added, “Other countries are there, but they’re an hour or hour and a half away, big difference. You can literally walk over from Iran to Qatar. You go ‘boom boom’ and now you’re in Qatar. That’s tough territory.” The statement drew immediate attention online for its factual inaccuracy.

    Kimmel’s Sharp Response

    Kimmel seized the moment for satire, highlighting the impossibility of Trump’s claim. “One can perhaps swim 150 miles, but unless you’re Jesus, you cannot walk there,” he said. He also mocked the president’s use of an oversized Sharpie to sign the Gaza ceasefire, joking, “Trump took part in a signing ceremony, the first U.S. president to sign a ceasefire agreement with a Sharpie the size of a subway sandwich.”

    Kimmel further poked fun at Trump’s self-proclaimed Middle East expertise and ridiculed his habit of exaggerating accomplishments in foreign policy.

    Return to the Spotlight

    Kimmel’s remarks came shortly after his brief suspension, marking a quick comeback that allowed him to continue critiquing Trump while navigating heightened tensions between late-night hosts and the president. The incident demonstrates how quickly late-night comedy can pivot to respond to real-time political events.

    Trump has repeatedly targeted late-night hosts. He previously said, “[Stephen] Colbert has no talent. [Jimmy] Fallon has no talent. Kimmel has no talent.” The latter has remained undeterred, using humor to hold the president accountable and entertain viewers, reinforcing the role of satire in American political culture.

    What People Are Saying

    President Donald Trump: “You can literally walk over from Iran to Qatar. You go ‘boom boom’ and now you’re in Qatar. That’s tough territory,”

    TV host Jimmy Kimmel: “One can perhaps swim 150 miles, but unless you’re Jesus, you cannot walk there.”

    What Happens Next

    Kimmel’s ongoing jokes highlight debates over leadership, credibility, and the role of humor in politics, while raising the question of how the president might respond to the critiques. He has even suggested he might use his Italian citizenship to leave the U.S. if tensions under Trump’s administration escalate.

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  • Jimmy Kimmel explains how he learned he was being yanked off the air — and thought he’d never return

    When ABC executives told Jimmy Kimmel last month that his show was being pulled off the air, the late-night show’s audience was seated, a guest chef had already started making food, the musical guest had performed a warm-up act, and Kimmel was in the bathroom.”It was about 3:00; we tape our show at 4:30,” Kimmel told Stephen Colbert on an episode of “The Late Show” Tuesday. “I’m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call. It’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual: They, as far as I knew, didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this.”Kimmel said he had five writers in his office at the time, and the only private place where he could take the call was the bathroom.”So I go into the bathroom, and I’m on the phone with the ABC executives. and they say, ‘Listen, we want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re going to say tonight, and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air.’”The audience booed, and Kimmel joked: “That’s what I said: I started booing.””I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ and they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a good idea.’ Then there was a vote, and I lost the vote.”Kimmel said he called some of the show’s executive producers into his office to share the news, and he turned white.”I thought, that’s it. It’s over, it’s over. I was like, I’m never coming back on the air.”Kimmel said the show had to send the seated audience home. Chef Christian Petroni’s prepared meatballs and polenta that he had been cooking before the taping went to waste. Future musical guest Howard Jones, however, taped a song for a future episode: “Things Can Only Get Better,” which Kimmel acknowledged was ironic.ABC suspended Kimmel’s show in mid-September for a few days after a controversial monologue that mentioned Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer – and the right-wing reaction to Kirk’s murder. Two days later, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, on a conservative podcast, threatened to pull ABC affiliate broadcast licenses in response. Then Nexstar — the station group which airs “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in approximately two dozen markets — announced they would not air the show. Another affiliate, Sinclair, followed suit. And hours later, Kimmel took ABC executives’ call in the bathroom.Kimmel returned to the air the following Tuesday with an emotional monologue — and mega-ratings.Colbert couldn’t get the line outColbert, who also appeared as a guest on Brooklyn taping of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday, said he could empathize with Kimmel. The CBS star said executives had made the decision to end his show while Colbert was on vacation. His manager, James Dixon, whom he shares with Kimmel, waited until Colbert returned to share the news.Recounting his desire to tell his audience about the news immediately — despite the fact that “Late Night” is set to run through the spring of 2026 — Colbert told Kimmel that at the end of the following show, he asked his audience to remain in their seats for one more segment. But he had trouble delivering his lines and flubbed the line — twice.”I was so nervous about doing it right, ’cause there was nothing in the prompter. I was just speaking off the cuff,” Colbert said. “They started going, ‘Come on Stephen, you can do it,” because I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. And then I got to the sentence that actually told them what’s happening, and they didn’t laugh.”Although CBS owner Paramount said the cancellation of “The Late Show” was strictly a business decision, many media critics — and Kimmel — questioned that rationale, and some have said it was likely a political decision to appease the Trump administration that needed to approve Paramount’s merger with Skydance.Both Colbert and Kimmel have been frequent and unabashed critics of President Donald Trump and his administration. Trump publicly celebrated when Colbert was canceled, saying in a social media post that Kimmel and NBC’s Seth Meyers were “next.” Trump again celebrated when Kimmel was pulled off the air but criticized — and threatened — ABC when it brought him back on.Meyers made an appearance on Kimmel’s show Tuesday, and the three late night hosts posed for a photograph posted to Instagram. Kimmel added the caption: “Hi Donald!”Kimmel joked with Colbert that Tuesday’s taping was, “The show the FCC doesn’t want you to see.” He introduced Colbert as, “The Emmy-winning late-night talk show host who, thanks to the Trump administration, is now available for a limited-time only.”Kimmel quipped that he was “so honored to be here with my fellow no-talent, late-night loser.” As for the rationale for inviting Colbert onto his program: “We thought it might be a fun way to drive the president nuts.”

    CNN —

    When ABC executives told Jimmy Kimmel last month that his show was being pulled off the air, the late-night show’s audience was seated, a guest chef had already started making food, the musical guest had performed a warm-up act, and Kimmel was in the bathroom.

    “It was about 3:00; we tape our show at 4:30,” Kimmel told Stephen Colbert on an episode of “The Late Show” Tuesday. “I’m in my office, typing away as I usually do. I get a phone call. It’s ABC. They say they want to talk to me. This is unusual: They, as far as I knew, didn’t even know I was doing a show previous to this.”

    Kimmel said he had five writers in his office at the time, and the only private place where he could take the call was the bathroom.

    “So I go into the bathroom, and I’m on the phone with the ABC executives. and they say, ‘Listen, we want to take the temperature down. We’re concerned about what you’re going to say tonight, and we decided that the best route is to take the show off the air.’”

    The audience booed, and Kimmel joked: “That’s what I said: I started booing.”

    “I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ and they said, ‘Well, we think it’s a good idea.’ Then there was a vote, and I lost the vote.”

    Kimmel said he called some of the show’s executive producers into his office to share the news, and he turned white.

    “I thought, that’s it. It’s over, it’s over. I was like, I’m never coming back on the air.”

    Kimmel said the show had to send the seated audience home. Chef Christian Petroni’s prepared meatballs and polenta that he had been cooking before the taping went to waste. Future musical guest Howard Jones, however, taped a song for a future episode: “Things Can Only Get Better,” which Kimmel acknowledged was ironic.

    ABC suspended Kimmel’s show in mid-September for a few days after a controversial monologue that mentioned Charlie Kirk’s suspected killer – and the right-wing reaction to Kirk’s murder. Two days later, FCC Chair Brendan Carr, on a conservative podcast, threatened to pull ABC affiliate broadcast licenses in response. Then Nexstar — the station group which airs “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in approximately two dozen markets — announced they would not air the show. Another affiliate, Sinclair, followed suit. And hours later, Kimmel took ABC executives’ call in the bathroom.

    Kimmel returned to the air the following Tuesday with an emotional monologue — and mega-ratings.

    Colbert couldn’t get the line out

    Colbert, who also appeared as a guest on Brooklyn taping of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday, said he could empathize with Kimmel. The CBS star said executives had made the decision to end his show while Colbert was on vacation. His manager, James Dixon, whom he shares with Kimmel, waited until Colbert returned to share the news.

    Recounting his desire to tell his audience about the news immediately — despite the fact that “Late Night” is set to run through the spring of 2026 — Colbert told Kimmel that at the end of the following show, he asked his audience to remain in their seats for one more segment. But he had trouble delivering his lines and flubbed the line — twice.

    “I was so nervous about doing it right, ’cause there was nothing in the prompter. I was just speaking off the cuff,” Colbert said. “They started going, ‘Come on Stephen, you can do it,” because I always messed up on the sentence that told them what was happening. And then I got to the sentence that actually told them what’s happening, and they didn’t laugh.”

    Although CBS owner Paramount said the cancellation of “The Late Show” was strictly a business decision, many media critics — and Kimmel — questioned that rationale, and some have said it was likely a political decision to appease the Trump administration that needed to approve Paramount’s merger with Skydance.

    Both Colbert and Kimmel have been frequent and unabashed critics of President Donald Trump and his administration. Trump publicly celebrated when Colbert was canceled, saying in a social media post that Kimmel and NBC’s Seth Meyers were “next.” Trump again celebrated when Kimmel was pulled off the air but criticized — and threatened — ABC when it brought him back on.

    Meyers made an appearance on Kimmel’s show Tuesday, and the three late night hosts posed for a photograph posted to Instagram. Kimmel added the caption: “Hi Donald!”

    Kimmel joked with Colbert that Tuesday’s taping was, “The show the FCC doesn’t want you to see.” He introduced Colbert as, “The Emmy-winning late-night talk show host who, thanks to the Trump administration, is now available for a limited-time only.”

    Kimmel quipped that he was “so honored to be here with my fellow no-talent, late-night loser.” As for the rationale for inviting Colbert onto his program: “We thought it might be a fun way to drive the president nuts.”

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  • David Letterman Fast Facts | CNN

    David Letterman Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at the life of former late-night talk show host David Letterman.

    Birth date: April 12, 1947

    Birth place: Indianapolis, Indiana

    Birth name: David Michael Letterman

    Father: Harry Letterman, florist

    Mother: Dorothy (Hofert) Letterman Mengering

    Marriages: Regina Lasko (March 19, 2009-present); Michelle Cook (divorced)

    Children: with Regina Lasko: Harry Joseph

    Education: Ball State University, B.A., 1969

    Letterman is the founder of the production company Worldwide Pants, which produced “Late Show with David Letterman.”

    Is a co-owner of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

    Letterman has been nominated for 50 Emmy Awards and won five.

    “Late Night with David Letterman” was nominated for 25 Emmy Awards and won three.

    “Late Show with David Letterman” was nominated for 76 Emmy Awards and won nine.

    “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman” has been nominated for four Emmy Awards.

    1969 – Begins working as an announcer and weekend weatherman at WLWI (now WTHR), an ABC affiliate in Indianapolis, Indiana.

    1975 – Moves to Los Angeles and begins performing stand-up at the Comedy Store. Later he is hired by Jimmie Walker, star of the CBS sitcom “Good Times,” as a writer.

    1978 – Appears on Mary Tyler Moore’s variety show, “Mary.”

    November 1978 – Makes the first of 22 appearances on “The Tonight Show” hosted by Johnny Carson. Letterman also serves as a guest host on “The Tonight Show” several times.

    June 23, 1980-October 24, 1980 – Hosts “The David Letterman Show,” a daytime talk show on NBC.

    February 1, 1982-June 25, 1993 – Hosts “Late Night with David Letterman” on NBC.

    September 23, 1984 – Wins the Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program.

    September 18, 1985 – Premiere of the “Top Ten” list.

    September 22, 1985 – Wins the Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program.

    September 21, 1986 – Wins the Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program.

    September 20, 1987 – Wins the Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program.

    May 1992 – Carson announces his retirement and speculation begins that Letterman will replace him.

    January 1993 – After it is announced that Jay Leno will take Carson’s place, Letterman announces he will be leaving NBC for CBS, and expresses anger over what he regards as NBC’s poor treatment of him.

    August 30, 1993-May 20, 2015 – Host of “Late Show with David Letterman.”

    September 11, 1994 – Wins the Emmy for Outstanding Variety, Music Or Comedy Series.

    March 27, 1995 – Hosts the Academy Awards.

    January 14, 2000 – Letterman undergoes quintuple bypass surgery.

    September 17, 2001 – Is the first late-night talk show host to return to air after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Instead of starting the show with a humorous monologue, Letterman mourns those lost and praises the city’s firefighters and police officers. His first guest, CBS anchor Dan Rather, breaks down in tears during the broadcast.

    March 31, 2003 – Letterman returns to his show after being out for nearly a month due to shingles.

    March 17, 2005 – Kelly Frank, a house painter who worked on Letterman’s Montana ranch, is charged with plotting to kidnap Letterman’s son for ransom. In September, Frank pleads guilty to a lesser charge and is sentenced to 10 years in prison. In 2007, he escapes, but is later recaptured.

    October 1, 2009 – Letterman admits on air that he has had sexual relationships with female staff members and that someone has been attempting to blackmail him over the affairs.

    October 5, 2009 – Letterman apologizes to his wife and female staffers in front of a live studio audience.

    March 9, 2010 – Robert “Joe” Halderman, a former CBS News producer accused of trying to blackmail Letterman, pleads guilty to attempted second-degree grand larceny and is sentenced to six months in jail, five years’ probation and 1,000 hours of community service. In September, Halderman is released after serving four months of his six-month prison sentence.

    April 2012 – Extends his contract with CBS through 2014.

    December 2, 2012 – Is honored at the Kennedy Center Honors gala along with Buddy Guy, Dustin Hoffman, Natalia Makarova and the musical group Led Zeppelin.

    October 4, 2013 – Extends his contract with CBS through 2015.

    April 3, 2014 – During a taping of “The Late Show,” Letterman announces that he will be retiring in 2015.

    May 20, 2015 – Tapes his final show. Counting his work on both NBC and CBS, this is show number 6,028 for Letterman.

    October 30, 2016 – Letterman’s segment on climate change for the “Years of Living Dangerously” series airs on the National Geographic Channel. The episode follows Letterman as he travels around India discussing India’s zealous renewable energy plan.

    October 22, 2017 – Is awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

    January 12, 2018 – In the debut of his new Netflix series “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,” Letterman interviews former US President Barack Obama. Guests scheduled for the rest of Letterman’s shows include George Clooney, Malala Yousafzai, Jay-Z, Tina Fey and Howard Stern.

    February 1, 2022 – “Late Night” host Seth Meyers welcomes Letterman to help celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary.

    December 12, 2022 – Letterman’s interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” debuts on Netflix. Letterman traveled to Kyiv for the wartime interview, which took place in an underground subway station.

    ‘Late Show with David Letterman’: Our top 10 moments

    November 20, 2023 – Returns to his former studio for the first time as a guest on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

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  • Eddie Murphy Fast Facts | CNN

    Eddie Murphy Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Oscar-nominated actor, singer, writer and comedian Eddie Murphy.

    Birth date: April 3, 1961

    Birth place: Brooklyn, New York

    Birth name: Edward Regan Murphy

    Father: Charles Murphy, police officer

    Mother: Lillian Murphy, telephone operator

    Marriage: Nicole Mitchell (March 18, 1993-April 17, 2006, divorced)

    Children: with Paige Butcher: Max and Izzy; with Melanie Brown (Mel B, aka Scary Spice): Angel; with Nicole Mitchell: Bella, Zola, Shayne, Miles and Bria; with Tamara Hood: Christian; with Paulette McNeely: Eric

    Education: Attended Nassau Community College

    Nominated for three Grammy Awards and won one.

    Nominated for one Academy Award.

    Nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards and won one.

    Murphy’s childhood heroes include Richard Pryor, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lewis.

    When Murphy was three years old, his parents split up. His father was murdered by a girlfriend five years later. Murphy was raised by his mother and stepfather, Vernon Lynch.

    His flair for celebrity voices springs from watching and imitating cartoons as a kid.

    Demonstrating his slapstick versatility, Murphy portrayed multiple characters in “Coming to America,” “Bowfinger,” “Norbit,” “Vampire in Brooklyn,” “Meet Dave,” “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” and the “Nutty Professor” films.

    Murphy’s musical output includes two Billboard Hot 100 singles, “Party All the Time” and “Put Your Mouth on Me,” as well as a duet with Michael Jackson, “Whatzupwitu.”

    November 22, 1980 – Murphy makes his first appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” He had auditioned six times before he was hired as a featured player to occasionally appear in skits. The comedian later gets promoted to the main cast and portrays such characters as a petulant version of Gumby, Buckwheat and Mister Robinson, a parody of Mister Rogers. He and Joe Piscopo are the only members of the 1980 ensemble who aren’t fired at the end of the season.

    December 8, 1982 – Murphy’s first movie, “48 Hrs.” is released. The action comedy centers on a thief (Murphy) who helps a cop (Nick Nolte) track down a murderous fugitive.

    1983 – HBO airs Murphy’s concert special, “Eddie Murphy – Delirious.”

    June 8, 1983 – “Trading Places,” a comedy starring Murphy, Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis, debuts in theaters.

    February 28, 1984 – Murphy’s live album, “Eddie Murphy: Comedian” wins a Grammy for Best Comedy Recording.

    December 5, 1984 – “Beverly Hills Cop” opens. Sylvester Stallone had been originally slated to play the main character, Axel Foley, but he quit weeks before the shoot and Murphy replaced him.

    December 18, 1987 – The comedy concert film, “Eddie Murphy Raw,” is released.

    April 11, 1988 – Presenting the Best Picture award during the Oscars telecast, Murphy criticizes the Academy for failing to recognize the contributions of Black performers throughout film history. He quips that he likely will never get an Oscar because of the remark.

    November 17, 1989 – “Harlem Nights,” directed by Murphy, is released. Two of Murphy’s childhood idols, Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx, costar in the 1930s-period piece about a wild New York nightspot.

    June 28, 1996 – Murphy makes a comeback with the release of “The Nutty Professor,” a Jerry Lewis remake.

    May 2, 1997 – The comedian gets pulled over after offering a ride to an alleged transgender prostitute. A spokesman for Murphy says the star was simply trying to help someone who appeared to be troubled and alone.

    January 10, 1999 – “The PJs,” an animated series co-created by Murphy and Larry Wilmore, debuts on Fox. The series is criticized for perpetuating black stereotypes. It garners three Primetime Emmy awards, two for voice actress, Ja’Net DuBois and one for achievement in animation. It’s canceled after three seasons.

    May 16, 2001 – “Shrek,” a computer animated fairy tale about an ogre (Mike Myers) who befriends a hapless donkey (Murphy), opens and grosses $42 million during its first weekend.

    May 19, 2004 – “Shrek 2” opens in theaters. The movie tallies $441 million in ticket sales, making it the top box office hit of 2004.

    December 15, 2006 – “Dreamgirls” opens in limited release. Critics praise Murphy for his dramatic turn as James “Thunder” Early, a fading star struggling with addiction.

    September 6, 2011 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces that Murphy will host the Oscars. On November 9, Murphy says he is stepping down as Oscar host. He and director Brett Ratner were slated to collaborate on the show but Ratner quit amid controversy over his usage of an anti-gay slur. Billy Crystal is selected as Murphy’s replacement.

    February 15, 2015 – During a “Saturday Night Live” 40th anniversary special, Murphy makes a brief appearance. He declines to participate in a sketch mocking Bill Cosby, according to a series of Tweets by writer and former cast member, Norm McDonald. Cosby expresses gratitude through a spokesman, telling NBC News, “I am very appreciative of Eddie and I applaud his actions.”

    October 18, 2015 – Murphy is awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

    September 16, 2016 – After a four-year hiatus from the big screen, “Mr. Church” opens with Murphy playing the title role.

    December 21, 2019 – Murphy returns to “Saturday Night Live” after 35 years, bringing back many of his most popular characters. The episode is the top rated show for “Saturday Night Live” in more than two years.

    September 20, 2020 – Murphy wins an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor In A Comedy Series for hosting “Saturday Night Live” in December 2019.

    March 5, 2021 – “Coming 2 America” debuts on Amazon.

    January 10, 2023 – Receives the Cecil B. DeMille career achievement award at the 90th annual Golden Globes.

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  • Why is ‘Saturday Night Live’ not new tonight? | CNN

    Why is ‘Saturday Night Live’ not new tonight? | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Due to the continued film and TV writers’ strike, “Saturday Night Live” will not air a new episode on Saturday evening, as originally planned.

    Former cast member Pete Davidson was set to return as host for the long-running NBC comedy sketch show, along with musical guest Lil Uzi Vert.

    Davidson was seen on Saturday morning in a video on social media handing out pizza to striking writers in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

    “Gotta support the writers, man!” Davidson is heard saying in the brief clip. “No writers, no shows without the writers.”

    NBC announced the cancellation of new episodes going forward on Tuesday. A rerun from March 11, featuring Jenna Ortega as host and The 1975 as musical guest, will air on Saturday instead.

    Preparation for the new episode featuring Davidson was halted when the Writers Guild of America called for a strike on Monday, after failing to reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers when the WGA’s current contract expired just before midnight.

    Other late night network programs, including “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and “The Tonight Show” have also gone dark due to the strike.

    A writers’ strike could shut down production on most television shows and cause a domino effect in the wider realm of the entertainment industry, pushing back the return of many programs set for the fall.

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  • 5 things to know for May 3: Border, Texas shooting, Writers strike, Fed meeting, Sudan | CNN

    5 things to know for May 3: Border, Texas shooting, Writers strike, Fed meeting, Sudan | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Many airline employees have gone for years without pay raises, even after enduring difficult working conditions during the pandemic. Pilots for American Airlines voted to strike this week, and Southwest pilots plan to vote as well, but they won’t be walking off the job anytime soon — if at all — due to a labor law that places considerable hurdles in the way of any union that wants to strike.

    Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day.

    (You can get “CNN’s 5 Things” delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.)

    In preparation for an expected surge of crossings at the US-Mexico border next week, the Biden administration plans to send an additional 1,500 active-duty troops to the border to free up Department of Homeland Security agents. The troops will take on strictly administrative roles, officials said, and will join around 2,500 National Guard troops already in place. The surge of migrants is expected because Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allowed authorities to quickly turn away certain migrants at the border during the pandemic, expires on May 11. Encounters between border agents and undocumented immigrants are at around 7,000 per day at the moment and are expected to rise dramatically next week, despite a warning from the State Department and DHS about a new, more punitive policy related to border crossings.

    The man suspected of gunning down five people at a neighbor’s home in Texas last week — including a mother and her 9-year-old son — was captured Tuesday after a dayslong manhunt. The suspect was found under a pile of laundry in the closet of a home just miles from the Cleveland, Texas, residence where the shooting took place, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said. “We just want to thank the person who had the courage and bravery to call in the suspect’s location,” an FBI spokesperson said, adding that authorities are now investigating whether the suspect had any help in hiding. The gunman will be held on five counts of murder and his bond is set at $5 million.

    Official describes suspect found hiding in laundry

    Popular late night shows are airing repeat episodes “until further notice” due to the film and TV writers’ strike, sources tell CNN. Several shows including “Saturday Night Live,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” began airing repeat episodes as of Tuesday. Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon, who host NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and “The Tonight Show,” respectively, previously said they would honor the strike and not air any new episodes as well. Late night shows are being especially impacted because they depend on their writers for bits, monologues and celebrity interview questions. Until an agreement is reached, analysts say the strike could shut down production on shows and cause a domino effect in the wider realm of the entertainment industry, pushing back the return of many programs set for the fall.

    exp TSR.Todd.writers.guild.strike.impacts.tv.movies_00003201.png

    Strike means TV shows and films in jeopardy

    Federal Reserve officials are expected to raise interest rates by a quarter point today. The Fed’s decision comes just two days after the collapse of First Republic Bank, the second-biggest bank failure in US history. When the Fed raises interest rates, banks need to raise the rates on their savings accounts in order to lure depositors from their competitors. That can put a disproportionate amount of pressure on mid-sized and regional banks — like the ones who saw depositors pull their money when the banking crisis began in March. Still, the Fed will move to raise interest rates today to lower inflation. To do that, it has to intentionally slow parts of the economy by making it more expensive for banks, and thereby consumers, to borrow money.

    Leaders of Sudan’s warring factions agreed to a seven-day ceasefire on Tuesday, the foreign ministry of South Sudan said in a statement. However, previous ceasefires have failed to quell the fighting between the rival factions in various parts of the country. Both sides — the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — have yet to comment on the report on their official channels. Tuesday’s announcement came after the UN’s refugee agency warned more than 800,000 people may flee to neighboring countries, as the ongoing violence blocks evacuation convoys from key ports in Sudan. More than 70,000 people have already fled Sudan to neighboring countries, a spokesperson for the agency said earlier this week.

    exp sudan ceasefire madowo FST 050312ASEG1 cnni world_00002001.png

    Seven-day ceasefire expected to begin Thursday in Sudan

    Teenage boy opens fire at Serbian school, killing eight children and a security guard, officials say

    Eight children and a security guard have have been killed after a 14-year-old boy allegedly opened fire in an elementary school in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, according to Serbia’s Interior Ministry. Several children and a teacher were also injured in the attack, officials said. The boy is in custody following the incident. 

    Cockroach at the Met Gala goes viral

    A bug on the red carpet received more buzz than some A-list celebrities. Watch the video here.

    Top 10 best cuisines in the world, according to CNN Travel

    Check out this list of appetizing cuisines. *Stomach rumbles — loudly* 

    NBA announces Most Valuable Player for 2022-2023

    Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers won the coveted award after the center topped the charts last year.

    Webb telescope detects mysterious water vapor in a nearby star system

    Astronomers detected water vapor around a rocky exoplanet located 26 light-years away from Earth. Here’s what it could mean.

    Kevin Costner and wife Christine Baumgartner are getting a divorce

    After more than 18 years, the two are going their separate ways.

    0

    That’s how many criminal charges, or lack thereof, will be filed against one of the former Memphis police officers involved in the fatal traffic stop that led to Tyre Nichols’ death. On January 7, 29-year-old Nichols, a Black man, was repeatedly punched and kicked by Memphis police officers following a traffic stop and brief foot chase. Former White Memphis police officer Preston Hemphill was part of the initial traffic stop in which bodycam footage revealed he used an “assaultive statement” after firing a stun gun at Nichols. Hemphill was not involved in the second encounter where Nichols was brutally beaten by police.

    “The public shouldn’t have their daily lives ruined by so-called ‘eco-warriors’ causing disruption.”

    — UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman, issuing a statement Tuesday on the government’s plan to take stronger action against peaceful protesters, days ahead of the coronation of King Charles III. The Home Office said parts of a controversial law will go into place today that will “give police the powers to prevent disruption at major sporting and cultural events.” For example, protestors who physically attach themselves to things like buildings could receive a six-month prison sentence or “unlimited fine,” the Home Office said in a statement.

    Check your local forecast here>>>

    Teen’s grand entrance steals the show at prom

    Most teenagers favor limousines and luxury cars for their prom transportation. These high school students, on the other hand, preferred a tank for their grand entrance. (Click here to view) 

    Tank To Prom 1

    Teen’s grand entrance steals the show at prom

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  • A twisted tale of celebrity promotion, opaque transactions and allegations of racist tropes | CNN Business

    A twisted tale of celebrity promotion, opaque transactions and allegations of racist tropes | CNN Business



    CNN
     — 

    Sitting across from Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show,” Paris Hilton, wearing a sparkling neon green turtleneck dress and a high ponytail, looked at a picture of a glum cartoon ape and said it “reminds me of me.” The audience laughed. It did not look like her at all.

    Hilton and Fallon were chatting about their NFTs – non-fungible tokens, typically digital art bought with cryptocurrency – from the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The camera zoomed in on framed printouts of the ape cartoons. “We’re both apes,” Fallon said. Hilton, with her signature vocal fry, replied, “Love it.”

    “The Tonight Show” episode from January 2022 is a YouTube time capsule showing the temporary alliance between celebrity marketing and the crypto industry. Bored Ape Yacht Club was not the biggest crypto phenomenon, but it was one of the top beneficiaries of celebrity hype. That celebrity hype, in turn, helped draw new consumers to crypto — an industry rife with manipulation and fraud, and one that US regulators are now giving more scrutiny in the wake of the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. But for a time, when crypto’s prices seemed to have no limit, the money appeared too good for some to ask questions — questions like: Why are some of those apes wearing prison clothes?

    “That was a very significant moment, because the audience for that show is very different from the typical crypto person,” explained Molly White, a software engineer and a fellow at the Harvard Library Innovation Lab. The Bored Apes — a computer-generated collection of 10,000 cartoons — were being presented as a status symbol, membership in an exclusive club. Hilton, Fallon, and other celebrities had joined — and viewers could join, too, if they bought an NFT.

    A class action lawsuit, filed in December, alleges Hilton, Fallon, and other celebrities conspired in a “vast scheme” to artificially inflate the price of Bored Ape NFTs and enrich themselves, the crypto payments company they used to get the apes, MoonPay, and the company that made the Bored Apes, Yuga Labs.

    Hilton and Fallon did not respond to requests for comment.

    In April 2021, Yuga Labs released the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection of cartoon apes with a computer-generated combination of features and accessories, such as gold fur, a sailor hat, laser eyes, 3-D glasses, a cigarette, as well as “hip hop” clothes, a “pimp coat,” a prison jumpsuit, a pith helmet, and a “sushi chef” headband. The founders were anonymous, known only by their online screen names.

    That fall, Hollywood agent Guy Oseary reached out to Yuga Labs, eventually investing in the company and joining its board. Soon celebrities started posting their Bored Apes on social media — including Oseary’s client Madonna, along with Steph Curry, Lil Baby, DJ Khaled, Snoop Dogg, Gwyneth Paltrow, and more. Bored Apes started selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Justin Bieber bought an ape for $1.3 million. By March 2022, Yuga got a $450 million venture capital investment, and was valued at $4 billion.

    Guy Oseary and Madonna at a 2016 Billboard Women In Music event. Oseary said both bought NFTs from Bored Ape Yacht Club.

    The class action lawsuit claims, “this purported interest in” Bored Apes “by high-profile taste makers was entirely manufactured by Oseary at the behest of” Yuga Labs. “In order to make the promotion of, and subsequent interest in, the BAYC NFTs appear to be organic (as opposed to being solely the result of a paid promotion), the Company needed a way to discreetly pay their celebrity cohorts.” The suit alleges they did this through MoonPay.

    When Jimmy Fallon introduced his audience to crypto, he also presented a frictionless way to buy in: MoonPay, a payments company that allows customers to buy crypto through most major payment systems like with a credit card. In November 2021, Fallon said on “The Tonight Show” that he’d bought his first NFT through MoonPay. “MoonPay? MoonPay! I did my homework — Moonpay, which is like PayPal but for crypto,” Fallon said. The following January, when Hilton showed her ape on the show, she said, “You said you got it on MoonPay, so I went and I copied you.”

    A few months later, in April 2022, MoonPay announced more than 60 celebrities and influencers had invested in the firm. MoonPay spokesman Justin Hamilton told CNN that Hilton became an investor, but not until after she spoke with Fallon on “The Tonight Show.” The FTC generally requires an endorser to disclose when they have a financial interest in promoting a company.

    The celebrity hype and unbelievable prices generated enormous media interest. “Rolling Stone” minted NFTs of the magazine with Bored Apes on the cover. Guy Oseary was on the cover of “Variety” under the headline “NFT King.”

    Independent journalists, under the names of Coffeezilla and Dirty Bubble Media, noticed blockchain ledger records suggesting not everything was as it appeared. Cryptocurrency is traded on the blockchain, a permanent and public ledger of every transaction. That means it can reveal financial relationships, if you figure out the right questions to ask.

    Hours before Justin Bieber bought an ape for the equivalent of $1.3 million on January 29, 2022, Bieber received Ethereum worth about $2.5 million in his crypto wallet, the blockchain shows. A couple weeks before Post Malone released a music video in November 2021 in which he bought a Bored Ape through MoonPay, MoonPay transferred cryptocurrency then worth about $760,000 into the artist’s wallet, and sent two more payments, worth about $640,000, a couple weeks after. MoonPay admits it paid for the placement in Post Malone’s video but says other celebrities paid full price for their service in US dollars.

    Many celebrities who got apes thanked MoonPay on social media. Gwyneth Paltrow tweeted, “Joined @BoredApeYC ready for the reveal? Thanks @moonpay concierge.” The rapper Gunna posted on Instagram, “I Bought A @boredapeyachtclub NFT worth 300K No Cap ! His Name is BUTTA Thanks @moonpay !” Lil Baby mentioned MoonPay in his song “Top Priority.”

    The blockchain shows MoonPay paying high prices for the apes, and then transferring them to purported celebrity wallets for free. MoonPay explains this as a service that helps wealthy people buy NFTs without setting up their own crypto wallet.

    The company says the “white-glove” service was created because MoonPay’s CEO, Ivan Soto-Wright, had a lot of celebrity friends, and many of them asked how they could get an NFT. Jimmy Fallon, Lil Baby — they were Soto-Wright’s friends, Hamilton said.

    CNN spoke to several former MoonPay employees who said they were skeptical the celebrities paid for their NFTs, because there was no evidence on the blockchain.

    The company’s ape purchases have been significant. Since 2021, one of its wallets, “MoonPayHQ,” has spent at least $25 million on NFTs — 60% or about $15 million of that was spent on Bored Apes. The company told CNN they had 14 apes in a cold storage wallet, which offers more safety. It said that five of those NFTs were “purchased by concierge clients that are in the process of being transferred.” The last ape was purchased in April 2022, 10 months ago, according to blockchain records.

    One influencer has said he was approached about an ape. In a Twitter Spaces audio chat last year, celebrity jeweler Ben Baller said, “Real talk: not once, not twice, three times, I’ve been offered a Bored Ape through MoonPay. … The fact that some of these super top-tier all-star NBA players have them? And I was like, ‘Yo this is all cap [lies.]’ They didn’t buy this sh*t.” Baller did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. MoonPay’s spokesman said this didn’t happen.

    Oseary, the Hollywood agent and MoonPay/Yuga investor, texted CNN in response to a question: “NO ONE is paid to join the club and Yuga do NOT and have NOT given away any apes.” He said he paid full price for his Bored Ape, and so did Madonna.

    Yuga Labs declined an on-the-record interview with CNN. In a statement, the company said, “In our view, these claims are opportunistic and parasitic. We strongly believe that they are without merit, and look forward to proving as much.” Hamilton, MoonPay’s spokesman, said of the lawsuit, “We look forward to it being dismissed.”

    “The fine art market is a scam – that’s OK, at least there’s art going on,” said Max Gail, who’s been a blockchain developer since 2010, and founded Omakasea and Eth Gobblers.com. (Gail hosted the Twitter Space in which Baller discussed Bored Apes.) The NFT market, he said, “is like a parody of the fine art market. They took the same strategies that had been employed in the fine art market, but then distorted it with some strange crypto economics.”

    Anonymous buyers and sellers dealing in items whose values are difficult to calculate has made the fine art market susceptible to money laundering, a Senate investigation found in 2020. In 2022, an average of more than half of NFT trading volume on the Ethereum blockchain was “wash” trading, according to an analysis at Dune Analytics. (Most NFTs are on Ethereum.) Essentially, wash trades are a transaction in which the buyer and seller are the same person, or they’re working together. Wash trading has been illegal in traditional finance since the Great Depression, because it can distort the market by making people believe there is a high volume of interest in the investment. The ability to open many anonymous cryptocurrency wallets makes wash trading NFTs easier. A Chainalysis report found one “prolific NFT wash trader” made 830 sales to self-financed wallets in 2021.

    Though NFTs have been celebrated as the future of digital art, and a way for artists to earn royalties, many NFT collections operate more like securities — a financial instrument, like stocks or bonds, that hold some monetary value. “People will say that the technology itself has provided this whole new way of creating digital art,” Harvard’s Molly White said. “It’s not that unique. The unique part of it is the speculative bubble.”

    Mad Dog Jones' SHIFT// goes on view as part of 'Natively Digital: A Curated NFT Sale' at Sotheby's in June 2021. NFTs have been celebrated as the future of digital art.

    The NFT marketplace does not always make sense even to those who benefit from it. “Bored Apes have gone from $100 to $100,000 in a year. Nothing appreciates that fast,” a successful NFT artist said. The artist’s own works had gone from a couple hundred dollars to tens of thousands. One of the artist’s major collectors “treats me as a commodity and my art is a commodity and he’s always pumping and dumping it. … It’s being treated as a financial vehicle.”

    But there is pressure not to raise questions about the system. The NFT artist did not want to go on the record, saying it would be career suicide. “The big collectors watch for artists that FUD. And as soon as an artist FUDs, they get cancelled,” the artist said. FUD is “fear, uncertainty, and doubt,” or criticism of crypto.

    Beyond how the Bored Ape NFTs are traded, what they depict is at issue in yet another Yuga Labs legal battle.

    In the fall of 2021, accusations began swirling on social media that the Bored Ape Yacht Club contained visual references to racist memes from the troll site, 4chan. The artist Ryder Ripps — who’s worked with stars like Kanye West and Tame Impala — started tweeting about the claims of racist imagery. Ripps claims Guy Oseary, the Hollywood agent on Yuga’s board, called to pressure him to stop talking about the claims. (Oseary told CNN, “I can’t speak on active litigation.”)

    Ripps doubled down and made a website cataloging the claims. Then, in an act he says was meant to protest the alleged racism and comment on the idea you can’t copy an NFT, Ripps made copycat NFTs he sold as RR/BAYC. Yuga sued Ripps for trademark infringement, and argues that his maligning of the Yuga apes is nothing more than a profiteering tactic. Ripps says Yuga is trying to silence its critics, and has doubled down on his claims as part of his defense in the trademark suit.

    Yuga Labs called the accusations “the incoherent ramblings of a small group of for-profit conspiracy theorists.” However, the Yuga lawsuit against Ripps could affect the class action lawsuit against Yuga. Ripps’s lawyers have issued subpoenas to Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon.

    To assert its trademark rights, Yuga must show that consumers associate its logos with its products, and it did so in a legal filing, in part, by pointing to celebrity owners “including TV host Jimmy Fallon…”

    Ripps’s lawyer, Louis Tompros, asserts Yuga compensated celebrities for promoting its NFTs, and they did not disclose it. “And by doing that, in our view, they have gotten this public notoriety for their brand improperly,” Tompros told CNN. “And so having gotten it improperly, they now can’t go and assert that they have these rights.”

    This week Yuga co-founder Wylie Aronow published a 24-page letter explaining that he was stepping back from the company and addressing widespread rumors that the company and its products were connected to the alt-right.

    “I will soon call out this utter bullsh*t under oath,” he wrote.

    So what are the racist references alleged by Ripps and others? To start, there’s what’s right on the surface: some of the NFTs are pictures of apes in “hip hop” clothes, a “pimp coat,” a prison uniform, a bone necklace, gold and diamond grills. Record executive Dame Dash, a crypto enthusiast, pointed out on a podcast last year that monkeys and apes are old racist tropes.

    “Think if you were a racist, like ‘Guess what I’m gonna do? I’mma get Black people to love monkeys so much that they gonna buy them, wear them on their neck… go to something called ApeFest and they’re gonna like it!’ Wouldn’t that sound funny?” Dash said on the podcast. “That’s what’s happening.”

    Dash told CNN he hadn’t intended to target Yuga directly. But he’d started to wonder if he was being trolled, given the ubiquity of apes in crypto. “Racism is different these days — you can’t be so overt about it. You have to kind of troll,” Dash said.

    This week Yuga agreed to settle a lawsuit with a developer who worked with Ripps, with the developer agreeing to pay them $25,000 and saying he would reject all disparaging statements against Yuga Labs.

    Ryan Hickman, a software engineer who also worked with Ripps on RR/BAYC, is also being sued separately by Yuga. Hickman, who is Black, thought the Bored Apes looked like stereotypical portrayals of Black people as stupid or lazy. He said he thought this would be obvious to most people the second they saw an image of a Bored Ape. But, he said, “then somebody says, ‘Well, it’s worth $100,000.’ They say, ‘Okay well, tell me more.’”

    In a statement, Yuga said, “Our company and founders strongly condemn the spread of hate, in any form, against any group.” Hollywood agent Oseary said he’d never been on the troll site 4chan.

    The crypto community has adopted a lot of terms — rekt, frens, wagmi — that were popularized on 4chan, and it’s not always clear if the person using them understands where they came from. “I doubt that they were a massive alt-right troll campaign,” Harvard’s Molly White said. “I do think it’s likely that the creators of the project basically included some nods to 4chan.”

    “It’s not one thing that makes it racist. It’s everything together as a package,” programmer and 8chan founder Fredrick Brennan said, looking at comparisons between Pepe the Frog memes and Bored Apes. Brennan took an interest in the claims that Yuga referenced 4chan memes, because he’d seen them so often when he was running 8chan, a similar troll site. He quit 8chan in 2016, and in 2019 pushed for it to be taken down because it had become a hub for extremist violence. He began to suspect the Yuga founders were like the people he used to know.

    Take one of the apes’ characteristics, which Yuga calls a “sushi chef headband.” Brennan reads and speaks Japanese, and saw the headband actually said “kamikaze,” which has been used as a slur against Japanese people. A similar headband appeared on a Pepe meme. “That one was the most shocking,” he told CNN.

    In a legal filing connected to the Ripps case, Yuga said the apes reflected a combination of many traits, “not any person’s purported racism.”

    “I was hoping, in my eternal optimism,” Brennan said, “that people would become a lot more skeptical of tech bros. … And that liberal — so-called — celebrities in Hollywood would view these people with suspicion. Apparently not.”

    – CORRECTION: This story has been updated to clarify when Paris Hilton invested in MoonPay. Jimmy Fallon is not an investor, a company spokesman said.

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  • Cecily Strong to exit ‘Saturday Night Live’ | CNN

    Cecily Strong to exit ‘Saturday Night Live’ | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    “Saturday Night Live” is saying farewell to another longtime cast member.

    Cecily Strong, who has impersonated figures like Melania Trump and members of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, is set to leave the long-running sketch show following Saturday’s new episode, “SNL” announced on its official social media accounts.

    “Tonight we send off one of the best to ever do it. We’ll miss you, Cecily!” the post read.

    CNN has reached out to “SNL” for further comment.

    Strong joined “Saturday Night Live” in fall 2012 and went on to be a stalwart at the series, which earlier this year said goodbye to high-profile cast members like Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Pete Davidson.

    The move, while a gut-punch to the show’s lineup, comes as no surprise, as Strong has already set the stage for her post-“SNL” pursuits.

    She leads the comedy ensemble on Apple TV’s musical parody series “Schmigadoon,” which is executive produced by “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels and is set to return for a second season.

    As of Saturday evening before the show’s airing, Strong had made no mention of her exit on social media.

    In her time on the series, Strong established many memorable characters, like Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started A Conversation With At A Party and a British singer named Gemma.

    Last year, Strong memorably dressed as character named Goober the Clown, who led a conversation on abortion in light of the controversial Texas law that barred most abortions at the onset of a fetal heartbeat.

    During the Weekend Update segment, the actress explained the clown costume was to make the topic a little more palatable for the audience and shared a story of a woman seeking an abortion on the eve of her 23rd birthday.

    Talking to “The View,” Strong said she was “surprised and moved by the reaction” the sketch received.

    “I had so much anxiety and frustration, and it was like, ‘I’m either gonna write, every night, essays for nobody, or I can finally just put this on the show.’ And luckily … right away, the show was very supportive. I think it was the only thing I’ve ever done where I haven’t had any notes. I don’t think anybody wanted to give us notes.”

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  • Jay Leno performing at California comedy club, two weeks after burn accident | CNN

    Jay Leno performing at California comedy club, two weeks after burn accident | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Jay Leno is returning to the comedy stage Sunday night, two weeks after sustaining significant burn injuries in a gasoline fire.

    The former “Tonight Show” host will perform in front of a sold-out crowd at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, California, according to a spokesperson for the club.

    Leno, an avid car collector, had been working underneath a vehicle on November 12, when he was burned.

    The 72-year-old underwent two surgical procedures to treat his injuries, his physician, Dr. Peter Grossman, said. Leno suffered burns to his face and hands.

    His doctor noted that Leno was walking around and cracking jokes during his stay at the Grossman Burn Center.

    The hospital announced in a November 21 news statement that Leno had been released.

    “Jay will receive follow-up care at the Grossman Outpatient Burn Clinic for burns to his face, chest and hands he received during a fire at his home garage,” the statement said.

    Grossman said he was pleased with Leno’s recovery and “optimistic that he will make a full recovery.”

    “Jay would like to let everyone know how thankful he is for the care he received, and is very appreciative of all of the well wishes,” the hospital added. “He is looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with his family and friends and wishes everyone a wonderful holiday.”

    Leno is slated to perform three additional shows at the Comedy and Magic Club in December.

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  • Jay Leno released from the hospital after burn injuries | CNN

    Jay Leno released from the hospital after burn injuries | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Jay Leno has been discharged from the hospital after sustaining burn injuries in a gasoline fire about nine days ago.

    The former “Tonight Show” host, 72, was discharged from Grossman Burn Center in Los Angeles on Monday, the Center announced in a statement, along with sharing a photo of the comedian with some members of his care team.

    “Comedian Jay Leno was released from the Grossman Burn Center today,” the hospital said in a press release. “Jay will receive follow-up care at the Grossman Outpatient Burn Clinic for burns to his face, chest and hands he received during a fire at his home garage.”

    Leno, an avid car collector, had been working underneath a vehicle on when he was burned. He has undergone two surgical procedures to treat his injuries, Dr. Peter Grossman, his physician, previously announced.

    “I am pleased with Jay’s progress, and I am optimistic that he will make a full recovery,” Grossman said Monday.

    “Jay would like to let everyone know how thankful he is for the care he received, and is very appreciative of all of the well wishes,” the hospital added in their statement. “He is looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with his family and friends and wishes everyone a wonderful holiday.”

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  • Bruce Springsteen to take over ‘The Tonight Show’ hosted by (his best impersonator) Jimmy Fallon | CNN

    Bruce Springsteen to take over ‘The Tonight Show’ hosted by (his best impersonator) Jimmy Fallon | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Bruce Springsteen is about to take the stage at a place where he’s often been talked about.

    The legendary entertainer is set to take over “The Tonight Show” for four nights of performances, also participating as a guest of host Jimmy Fallon – who has done a killer Springsteen impersonation over the years.

    Springsteen will appear on “The Tonight Show” from Monday, November 14 through Wednesday, November 16, and then again on the special Thanksgiving episode on November 24, NBC announced Monday.

    On each episode, the legendary rocker will perform music from “Only the Strong Survive,” his new covers album that comes out on Friday.

    The appearances will mark The Boss’s third time on the show, but his first as a musical guest.

    Late night funnyman Fallon, meanwhile, has made a bit of a side-career off of his Springsteen impersonation, even performing alongside the real deal on multiple occasions.

    Other musically gifted stars who have done takeovers of “The Tonight Show” include Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

    “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on NBC.

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  • Jimmy Kimmel says he was going to quit his show if ABC asked him to stop making Trump jokes | CNN

    Jimmy Kimmel says he was going to quit his show if ABC asked him to stop making Trump jokes | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Jimmy Kimmel claims he was ready to walk out on his longtime late-night hosting gig if his bosses at ABC asked him to stop making jokes about then-presidential hopeful Donald Trump.

    The comedian, who has been hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on the network since 2003, said on the most recent episode of Sticher’s “Naked Lunch” podcast that he was willing to quit his job if the constraint was placed on him.

    Kimmel said concern was “hinted at” by executives “right around the beginning of this whole Trump thing,” when he says the network’s research found he’d lost half of his fanbase – “maybe more” – as he began making more jokes about the former reality star.

    “Ten years ago, among Republicans, I was the most popular talk show host. At least according to the research they did,” Kimmel said.

    But regardless of that slip in popularity among certain circles, Kimmel said at the time that he was simply not willing to refrain from making jokes about Trump.

    “I said, ‘If that’s what you want to do, I understand, I don’t begrudge you for it, but I’m not going to do that. If you want someone else to host the show, that’s fine with me. I’m just not going to do it like that,’” Kimmel remembered saying.

    CNN has reached out to ABC for comment.

    Kimmel has previously credited people like David Letterman and former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart for being leaders in how to address more difficult subjects, including hot-button political issues.

    “You watch the news all day, you see what’s going on, how do you walk on stage and ignore it? It just doesn’t work anymore,” Kimmel said in 2019. “I wish I could. It’s hard for me to talk about serious subjects. It takes a lot out of me. I do want to be funny. That’s fun.”

    Kimmel renewed his deal with ABC earlier this year that will keep him in his hosting chair for three more years. His contract had been set to expire in 2023.

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  • Selena Gomez cancels ‘Tonight Show’ appearance after catching Covid | CNN

    Selena Gomez cancels ‘Tonight Show’ appearance after catching Covid | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Selena Gomez is trying to keep her hands – and everything else – to herself for a while.

    The singer on Wednesday shared on Instagram that she has contracted Covid-19 and was forced to cancel a planned appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

    “I’m not going to be on Fallon tonight,” she wrote on an Instagram story. “I ended up getting Covid but am resting and feeling ok.”

    Gomez shared the message along with a picture of herself cuddled up on a couch with her dog nearby.

    “A friendly reminder Covid is still out there. Get updated on your boosters,” she wrote. “I was actually scheduled to get mine this week.”

    Gomez is not alone.

    This week, President Joe Biden received his booster and urged other eligible Americans to do the same as the nation prepares for a winter case surge.

    Gomez was likely set to appear on Fallon’s show to promote her upcoming documentary “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me,” which releases globally on Apple TV+ on November 4.

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  • ‘I made a rude comment and it was wrong’: James Corden addresses Balthazar incident on ‘Late Late Show’ | CNN

    ‘I made a rude comment and it was wrong’: James Corden addresses Balthazar incident on ‘Late Late Show’ | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    James Corden used his opening monologue in Monday’s “The Late Late Show” to address the recent incident that saw him temporarily banned from a New York brasserie.

    The British host of the CBS talk show said it was never his intention to upset anybody, and that he would like to “apologize in person.”

    Corden told the audience that he had been adopting a “British attitude” of keeping calm and carrying on as things get written about him, following his motto: “Never complain. Never explain.”

    But, as his dad – who was seated in the audience – reminded him, he “did complain, and so (he) might need to explain.”

    Corden said he had been having breakfast with friends at Balthazar in New York, during which his wife explained she had a serious food allergy. He said she had been brought an incorrect order three times, when he “in the heat of the moment…made a sarcastic, rude comment about cooking it myself.”

    “It’s a comment I deeply regret,” he added.

    Corden said he didn’t realize he had done anything wrong because he didn’t “shout or scream.”

    “I didn’t get up out of my seat. I didn’t call anyone names or use derogatory language. I’ve been walking around thinking that I hadn’t done anything wrong, right, but the truth is I have. I made a rude comment and it was wrong, it was an unnecessary comment, it was ungracious to the server,” he said.

    When he read an Instagram post from the owner of Balthazar, Keith McNally, banning him from the restaurant, he immediately called him up to tell him how upset he was to have hurt anyone, which cleared the air.

    After initially banning Corden last week citing abusive behavior, McNally posted that the comedian had “apologized profusely” in a call, and all was resolved.

    Corden concluded the monologue by saying he would like to go to Balthazar when he was back in New York and apologize in person.

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  • James Corden breaks his silence about that restaurant ban | CNN

    James Corden breaks his silence about that restaurant ban | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    When it comes to all that drama surrounding being temporarily banned from a famous New York City restaurant, James Corden finds it all “so silly.”

    In an interview with the New York Times to promote his forthcoming Amazon series “Mammals,” Corden commented on another patron at the restaurant where he was dining with the Times reporter having words with her server about not liking her eggs.

    “Happens every day,” Corden said. “It’s happening in 55,000 restaurants as we speak. It’s always about eggs.”

    “Can you imagine now, if we just blasted her on Twitter? Would that be fair?,” he added. “This is my point. It’s insane.”

    Earlier this week, the late-night host was briefly “86’d” from Balthazar by its owner, Keith McNally, who posted on Instagram that Corden was “the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago.”

    One of the incidents he cited was Corden allegedly throwing a fit after “a little bit of egg white” ended up in an egg yolk omelette with gruyere cheese that his wife had ordered.

    Soon after McNally posted that, Corden had called him and “apologized profusely,” according to the restauranteur, and all was resolved.

    “I haven’t done anything wrong, on any level,” Corden told the Times, adding that he wouldn’t have canceled the interview over the awkwardness of having to discuss it.

    “I was there. I get it,” he added.

    “I feel so Zen about the whole thing. Because I think it’s so silly,” Corden said. “I just think it’s beneath all of us. It’s beneath you. It’s certainly beneath your publication.”

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  • Opinion: Protecting parody is no joke | CNN

    Opinion: Protecting parody is no joke | CNN

    Editor’s Note: Nicole Hemmer is an associate professor of history and director of the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Center for the Study of the Presidency at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of “Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics” and the forthcoming “Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s.” She cohosts the history podcasts “Past Present” and “This Day in Esoteric Political History.” The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    “Americans can be put in jail for for poking fun at the government?”

    The satirical newspaper The Onion issued a rollicking, tongue-in-cheek amicus brief this week, arguing that the Supreme Court should hear a case on parody, free speech and police harassment. In its brief, which opened the summary of its argument with the question quoted above, the publication sided with Anthony Novak, an Ohio man who was jailed and prosecuted by local police over a Facebook page that parodied their department.

    Novak has sued the department for violating his civil rights, but the Sixth Circuit recently ruled that the police are protected under qualified immunity. Novak is now appealing to the Supreme Court.

    Defending Novak, The Onion offered a robust defense of parody as a critically important form of political speech: “Parodists can take apart an authoritarian’s cult of personality, point out the rhetorical tricks that politicians use to mislead their constituents, and even undercut a government institution’s real-world attempts at propaganda.” To protect police officers who jail parodists – or to demand parodists “pop the balloon in advance” by slapping “parody” labels on their work – would neuter parody as a political tool, the brief argues.

    Such a move would be particularly damaging to contemporary political discourse in the US. As The Onion notes, parody has been a form of political commentary for millennia.

    But parody has also taken on special importance in the US in the past 30 years, as political entertainment has become a central means by which Americans understand and debate politics. As such, Americans have come to expect politics to come wrapped in parodies, punchlines and primetime pizazz – which has opened the door for satirists and comedians to become valuable political activists. To threaten to stymie parody is, as The Onion’s brief points out in its 23 pages, to fundamentally imperil Americans’ ability to engage political discourse writ large.

    The brief’s argument deserves a fuller historical understanding of humor’s central position in the blend of politics and entertainment that has increasingly defined political life in the last few decades. That blend – particularly the move toward goofier, spoofier comedy bits – became more noticeable in during the 1968 election, when Richard Nixon, then a former vice president and Republican presidential candidate, popped up on the variety show “Laugh-In.” In the 1970s, comedian Chevy Chase portrayed President Gerald Ford on “Saturday Night Live.” But it was in the late 1980s and 1990s when Americans became accustomed to entertainment – especially comedy – as a primary mode of political expression.

    Chevy Chase (as Gerald Ford) at desk With Ron Nessen, Ford's real Press Secretary, on 'Saturday Night Live' in 1976.

    In 1992, presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Ross Perot relied on cable programs and late-night television to project their authenticity; Clinton answered questions from an audience of hundreds of young people on MTV, while Perot announced his plan to run for president on “Larry King Live.” While these and other appearances were among the most visible signals that politics and entertainment were in a new relationship, a more enduring transformation was happening with new programming developments on radio and television (and to a lesser extent, print and Internet sources).

    The conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh entered national syndication in 1988 – the same year that The Onion debuted as a print parody paper – mixing comedy bits with political news in a way that felt revolutionary for national radio. Millions of listeners flocked to his radio program, and then to his best-selling books and late-night television show, for the addictive quality of his jokey, parodic, right-wing approach to politics.

    Rush Limbaugh in His Studio During His Radio Show, January 12, 1995.

    But it was on television that the real transformation was underway. Comedy Central, a scrappy startup cable network developed by Time-Life, debuted in 1991. It offered reruns of comedic movies, stand-up specials and a smattering of original programming. But in 1993, the channel found its voice with the show “Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher.”

    Modeled after the popular PBS show “The McLaughlin Group,” the show parodied the roundtable politics shows that had become a staple of news programming. It featured a monologue by Maher followed by a panel that mixed actors, comedians, activists and politicians, all vying for the biggest laugh line.

    Despite the channel’s tiny viewership, “Politically Incorrect” became a hit, mixing outrage, politics and comedy in a way few Americans had experienced before. The show was so popular that it was soon bought by ABC, where it would run after the news show “Nightline” until its cancellation in 2002.

    After ABC poached “Politically Incorrect,” Comedy Central sought to recreate its combination of provocative parody-politics. It landed on “The Daily Show,” which hit its stride with Jon Stewart as its host, becoming one of the most important political shows on television in the 2000s.

    In particular, liberals frustrated with the administration of George W. Bush but also dissatisfied with the programming offerings on cable news came to rely on Stewart not just for entertainment but for information. A Pew poll in 2004 found that as many as 21% of young people got campaign news from shows such as “The Daily Show” and “Saturday Night Live”: “For Americans under 30, these comedy shows are now mentioned almost as frequently as newspapers and evening network news programs as regular sources for election news.”

    Former US President Bill Clinton speaks with host Jon Stewart on Comedy Centrals

    The same pattern repeated itself with “The Colbert Report,” which debuted in 2005 with former “The Daily Show” correspondent Stephen Colbert as its host. Stewart and Colbert identified as comedians, but their positions at the helm of political comedy shows eventually converted them into activists. Stewart became a passionate advocate for 9/11 first responders and veterans, repeatedly testifying before Congress on their behalf. Colbert used his popular show to shed light on the dangers of Super PACs, providing far-reaching education on a complex issue and eventually testifying – in character – before Congress.

    Programs like “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” became sites not just of entertainment but education and activism (which is in part why they have so many imitators in conservative circles and in the podcast space). In the process, they became places where politics became palatable, while calling attention to profoundly important issues and even at times becoming political actors themselves.

    Television personality Stephen Colbert during a taping of Comedy Central's

    In the years that followed, the parody approach to politics became a mainstay of entertainment and commentary in the US. Clips from John Oliver’s show “Last Week Tonight” (which airs on HBO, which shares a parent company with CNN) flitted around Twitter on a weekly basis, while Trevor Noah took over Stewart’s role at “The Daily Show” and “Daily Show” alum Samantha Bee launched her own show (which aired on TBS, which also shares a parent company with CNN). It’s worth noting that although Noah just announced his impending departure and Bee’s show was recently canceled, indicating that while late-night is certainly in transition, it’s unlikely to get uncoupled from politics any time soon.

    As political podcasts proliferated, comedy and parody shows like Jon Lovett’s “Lovett or Leave It” and the conservative podcast “Ruthless” gained large followings. The Onion, meanwhile, has evolved into a touchstone for tragedy, covering every mass shooting with a new article headlined “‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.” (The Onion has also underscored the difficulty of parody in an era when politics has gone off the rails, a point it nailed beautifully in its amicus brief with the line, “Much more of this, and the front page of The Onion would be indistinguishable from The New York Times.”)

    At times when politics are both absurd and dangerous, when members of Congress muse about Jewish space lasers starting forest fires and when a pillow salesman becomes the lead architect for election conspiracies, parody has an even more important role to play in puncturing authority and keeping people engaged – which is why The Onion’s amicus brief, though often jokey and unserious, is a vitally important appeal to the Supreme Court.

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  • ‘Saturday Night Live’ gets a Manningcast for its season premiere episode | CNN Business

    ‘Saturday Night Live’ gets a Manningcast for its season premiere episode | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN Business
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    “Saturday Night Live” kicked off its 48th season on Saturday night with host Miles Teller as former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning and Andrew Dismukes as his brother, Eli.

    In the sketch, the two were doing an analysis of the season premiere of the NBC variety show.

    “Ok, we got an establishing shot of Mar-a-Lago,” Dismukes’ Eli said.

    “Oh good! Trump sketch,” Teller’s Peyton said. “Way to mix it up.”

    This led to the two watching a Trump sketch starring James Austin Johnson as the former president.

    Peyton (Teller) and Eli (Dismukes) were not happy with the sketch.

    “Okay, time out,” Dismukes’ Eli said, pausing the sketch. “What the hell was that?”

    Teller’s Peyton asked why there were no fun impersonations of Anthony Fauci or Rudy Giuliani.

    “Those were all Kate McKinnon,” Dismukes’ Eli informed Teller’s Peyton. McKinnon left the show last season.

    Bowen Yang then entered the sketch and flubbed a line, which the two former faux quarterbacks called out.

    “He was supposed to take a step up this year,” Dismukes’ Eli said. “But you can tell the pressure is getting to him.”

    Teller’s Peyton said that the show is in a “rebuilding year for sure.”

    The two then went over the show’s stats so far, which were “14 attempted jokes, 1 mild laugh and 3 chuckles.”

    “Thank God they have Kendrick Lamar because that’s the only reason anyone is tuning in,” Teller’s Peyton said – the joke being that Teller is also the host.

    The two then brought out former host Jon Hamm as a guest and asked him what he’s seen so far tonight.

    “I don’t know, but it’s not comedy,” Hamm said.

    Hamm, Teller’s co-star in “Top Gun: Maverick,” then remarked that the show can’t even get famous hosts anymore.

    “Well, I heard they rarely put the host in the cold open, so when they do… it’s special,” Teller’s Peyton said.

    The whole cast then said the show’s signature catch phrase, “Live… from New York. It’s Saturday Night!”

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  • Trevor Noah’s ‘Daily Show’ exit signals a changing view of the late-night throne | CNN

    Trevor Noah’s ‘Daily Show’ exit signals a changing view of the late-night throne | CNN



    CNN
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    Johnny Carson’s 30-plus-year reign as late-night TV’s king hosting “The Tonight Show” exerted enormous influence over the hosts who followed him, who behaved as if reaching that “throne” was the pinnacle of show-business success, battling over it accordingly.

    Trevor Noah’s decision to walk away from “The Daily Show,” following James Corden announcing his plans to leave CBS’ “Late Late Show” next year, indicates that for a newer generation of comedians, reaching the late-night perch is no longer necessarily considered a life sentence.

    The direct heirs to Carson, David Letterman and Jay Leno, clearly saw “The Tonight Show” as the most coveted prize in TV comedy. The third member of the trio who ascended as part of the late-night shift after Carson bid everyone “A very heartfelt goodnight” in 1992, Conan O’Brien, exhibited the same workhorse mentality, hanging around (albeit in different venues), like his idol Letterman, for more than three decades.

    Those who took the baton pass from that trio, spiritually if not literally, seemingly remain equally committed to their seats, with Jimmy Kimmel recently extending his ABC contract through a 23rd season, and Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon ensconced at CBS and NBC, respectively.

    Yet that reflects a mindset rooted in an earlier era of television, where people were perceived to be creatures of habit, going to bed watching Carson year after year, regardless of who the guests were or how many weeks of vacation he took toward the end of his run.

    In that sense, “Saturday Night Live,” while a somewhat different animal, represents a symbol of the inertia that ruled television when it made its debut during Gerald Ford’s administration, plugging new faces into the machinery but rolling onward as the show prepares to launch its 48th season.

    Still, having taken the reins from Jon Stewart seven years ago, Noah made clear he still has comedic hills to climb that don’t include sitting behind a desk.

    “After seven years, I feel like it’s time,” he said. “I realized there’s another part of my life I want to carry on exploring.”

    On the plus side, more turnover in latenight will create opportunities for fresh voices and diverse talent, at a time when there has been some retrenchment in latenight series after everyone seemed to be piling into the boat.

    Notably, the recent generation of latenight talent is dominated by those who got their starts working on Stewart’s version of “The Daily Show,” including Colbert, perennial Emmy winner John Oliver, Noah, and Samantha Bee.

    After a time in the wilderness Stewart has settled on his version of a second act, one that has included plenty of activism for causes he believes in – highligted by his advocacy on behalf of veterans – as well as a show for Apple TV+. Letterman and Leno, too, haven’t emulated Carson’s choice to truly retire when he left “Tonight.”

    Where Noah and Corden go from here remains to be seen. Compared to the era of late night that Carson defined, though, we’ve moved into a different game of thrones.

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