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Terry Jon Martin has waited two decades for the other shoe to drop. In 2005, he stole one of Hollywood’s most recognizable bits of memorabilia: a pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz. But the law didn’t catch up to him until 2023, when the septuagenarian was indicted. In new court filings, his defense attorney revealed Martin’s motive in the crime, an apparent confusion over exactly what made the iconic pumps sparkle so.

The tale begins in Grand Rapids, Minnesota in 2005, when child actor turned collector Michael Shaw lent the shoes to that city’s Judy Garland Museum. That August, someone “entered the building through a window and broke into the small display case holding the slippers,” the Guardian reported at the time, but there were no suspects to be found. 

“There’s not a whole lot of evidence,” the town’s police chief said, but in the years following, many suspected Shaw—who’d collected an $800,000 insurance settlement—of the theft. “Inside job! No question!,” actor Jerry Maren (at his death in 2018, the movie’s last surviving Munchkin) once said on the record. 

Even a million dollar reward, offered up in 2015, wasn’t enough to bring the shoes to light. It wasn’t until 2018 that the slippers—one of four known pair from the film—were recovered, in an FBI sting operation. But even then, the thief remained unknown.

It wasn’t until last May that federal prosecutors in North Dakota named Martin as their suspect, indicting him with one count of theft of a major artwork. Martin, who lived 12 miles from the scene of the crime, told the Associated Press “I gotta go on trial. I don’t want to talk to you.”

He remained similarly tight-lipped in the months that followed, but agreed to a plea deal in October, the Department of Justice confirmed. But even then, many details of the crime remained a mystery.

That changed with a memo filed by Martin’s defense attorney, Dane DeKrey, and reported by the AP. According to the filing, Martin was a reformed former mobster who turned over a new leaf after his release from prison in 1996. But in 2005, an associate from his past life suggested to Martin that the shoes were covered in real rubies, making them a ripe target for theft—he could simply steal the shoes, pull off the gemstones, and sell them off piece by piece.

But just as alluring as the money was the thrill of it, DeKrey said. “At first, Terry declined the invitation to participate in the heist. But old habits die hard, and the thought of a ‘final score’ kept him up at night,” DeKrey wrote in the filing. “After much contemplation, Terry had a criminal relapse and decided to participate in the theft.”

According to DeKrey, Martin hadn’t ever seen The Wizard of Oz, and didn’t realize the notable nature of the shoes. So, after taking a hammer to the display case and hustling the shoes to a fence—who informed him the shoe’s sparkles were mere glass—he “got rid of the slippers less than two days after he took them.”

That means there’s still abundant mystery surrounding the shoes, even now, as their whereabouts between when Martin tossed them in 2005 and the FBI caught wind of them over a decade later remain unknown. In the intervening years, federal officials have declined to provide details on the sting operation that uncovered the slippers, or what led them to Martin. 

“The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of North Dakota will have no additional comment or statements until sentencing has been completed,” the agency said when pressed for details, but perhaps more will soon be revealed. Martin, who at age 76 is in hospice care due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, is set to be sentenced on January 29. 

For nearly a decade, singer Taylor Swift has enjoyed Manhattan living from a $50 million compound in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood, an 8,300-square-foot duplex she assembled from a set of adjoining Franklin Street homes. On Saturday, the peace on her cobblestone street was briefly shattered, but the commotion wasn’t caused by the star’s comings and goings. Instead, a man some outlets are referring to as a “suspected stalker” prompted a police response after he was photographed on Swift’s doorstep.

A witness who spoke with Page Six, says the man “went up to Taylor’s door” at around 1 p.m. Saturday. “I’m not sure if he knocked or rang the doorbell,” the person said. Around that same time, a New York Police Department spokesperson says, a call to 911 was placed, citing a “disorderly person” in the area. “Upon arrival, [police] were informed that the individual attempted to open a door to a building at the location,” Page Six quotes an NPYD source as saying. Photos from the scene confirm that the man was at Swift’s door.

This wasn’t the first time the man was seen in the area, unnamed witnesses tell Page Six. One said he’s been “sleeping on the stoop,” while another said he’s been seen in the area “for a month.” Another neighbor, also unnamed, told the paper that “When he arrived before Christmas, my husband asked what he was doing here, and he said, ‘I want to see Taylor.’” 

However, his arrest was spurred not by any alleged threats to Swift, but by an unrelated incident seven years ago, TMZ reports. An arrest warrant for the man was reportedly issued in 2017, after he allegedly failed “to answer a court summons in Brooklyn.” The man, who has not been publicly identified, apparently evaded law enforcement ever since. (Vanity Fair requested comment from NYPD, but has not received a response as of publication time.)

It’s unclear who summoned the police or if Swift was at home when the incident occurred, but the singer is no stranger to threats and unwanted advances from strangers. Her beachside mansion has been a target of stalkers since Swift bought it in 2013, most recently when a 54-year-old woman refused to leave its Rhode Island gates last July. 

And in 2018, a man named Roger Alvarado broke into the same home police were summoned to Saturday, where he took a shower and fell asleep in one of Swift’s beds. He was sentenced to six months in prison in 2019. In 2022, a Brooklyn man named Joshua Christian reportedly believed Swift was being held hostage at the home, and allegedly entered the building through an unlocked door. A judge ordered him to stay away from Swift in a subsequent hearing.

The issue is persistent enough that Swift addressed it in an essay entitled “30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30.” In the piece, she writes, “Websites and tabloids have taken it upon themselves to post every home address I’ve ever had online,” and that “you get enough stalkers trying to break into your house, and you kind of start prepping for bad things.”

That said, Swift wrote, “We have to live bravely in order to truly feel alive, and that means not being ruled by our greatest fears.” To that point, Swift is still expected to make an appearance in New York just a few hours from now, as her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, takes the field in New York’s Orchard Park for the AFC championship game against the Buffalo Bills. The game begins at Highmark Stadium at 6:30 p.m. ET.

Though ousted congressman George Santos recently claimed that he’s making $80,000 a day via his new video messaging business, it appears that the serial fabulist and alleged federal criminal hasn’t forgotten that some of his fans can’t afford the $500 he charges for a custom piece of content. The disgraced New Yorker continues to have an active selfie-based presence on X (formerly Twitter), where he most recently did what we all do on X this time of year: He ranted about the indignities of air travel.

But in Santos’s case, his beef wasn’t with delays or a stale packet of complimentary Sun Chips,. Instead, he began with the “nightmare” he experiences when his name is improperly displayed on his boarding pass.

“So, like everyone knows, I’m a big Delta Airlines guy,” Santos begins. “But after this new revelation that people literally with no name, no ID is printed and allowed on their boarding pass—meanwhile, because my name is long, George Anthony Devolder Santos, that if–God forbid–it’s not in the format on how I registered my SkyMiles, and it’s just ‘George Santos,’ it becomes a mismatch, it’s a nightmare.”

Addressing Delta’s CEO, Santos continued, “I want to ask Ed Bastian, somebody who up until recently I thought was a pretty good CEO, handled COVID well, did very good with his employees, what gives, Ed? You have a very good reputation as one of the airline CEOs, but this is bullshit.”

“This is bullshit” is likely what you’re thinking at this point, but not for the reason Santos seems to intend. His confusing remarks, the Daily Beast surmises, are a reiteration of claims made by right-wing commentator Ashley St. Clair that migrants to the US travel on Delta flights. (As noted by the Daily Mail, those claims have not been confirmed.)

“How ‘bout you tell us how many people you’ve transported under this ‘no name, no ID given.’ And why is TSA allowing undocumented, unidentified people to travel alongside us in airlines? This is a fucking crime. Who is going to do something?”

Santos appears unaware of the irony that a person who faces 23 criminal counts of crimes like wire fraud and conspiracy is now claiming that the transport of passengers is “a fucking crime.” Then again, has he ever seemed like he is in on the joke?

After calling Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (the Republican who officially introduced the resolution to expel Santos) a “meatball” (I’ll admit it, I laughed), Santos really wound himself up, saying “Congress is a joke, security is a joke, our Homeland Security is falling apart.”

“We need to revamp all, not just some, but all of government at this point,” Santos said, abruptly ending the video

While it’s unlikely Santos will have a place in the current, or any sort of revamped government (but who knows!), we certainly haven’t heard the last of him. Though he has claimed he is innocent of the federal charges he faces, recent court filings suggest a plea deal is in the works. 

Until then, his monied fans will still have Cameo—where Santos will, blessedly, read a script penned by the purchaser. The rest of us will have to settle for X, where Santos is unlikely to be banned, and his impromptu messages from the heart will be presented just as coherently as the one we saw this week.

John Schneider has never been quiet about his struggles as a vocal conservative in contemporary society. According to the actor, who rose to stardom for his role as a Confederacy-worshipping bootlegger in the ‘80s-era TV series The Dukes of Hazzard, he’s experienced bias in court and has struggled to find work, all due to his far-right views. Now Schneider is under a new level of scrutiny after publishing a tweet—since deleted—that many view as a threat against President Joe Biden.

Schneider was revealed to be the man behind the doughnut mask on the Fox singing competition The Masked Singer Wednesday, where he placed second behind singer NE-YO. “I’m a pretty strong guy, but I’m also a very emotional guy,” the actor told People the next day. “Being out there on that stage dressed like a doughnut, singing some of the greatest songs ever written, and having people respond to the songs and the performance with no notion that it was me, really, really helped John Schneider.”

What likely didn’t help John Schneider was a tweet he posted that same day. As first noted by Deadline, Schneider responded to a tweet from Biden about presidential rival Donald Trump by saying (sic throughout) “Mr. President, I believe you are guilty of treason and should be public hung. Your son too. Your response is..? Sincerely, John Schneider.”

That tweet was deleted shortly after, with Schneider denying it contained any threats. “Seriously, folks?” Schneider asked Deadline. “I absolutely did not call for an act of violence or threaten a US president as many other celebrities have done in the past. I suggest you re-read my actual post and pay attention to the words before believing this nonsense.” Vanity Fair has reached out to Schneider for comment but has not received a response as of publication time.

According to the Department of Justice, threats against the US president or their immediate family can result in federal Class D felony charges, which are punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 

The US Secret Service, which is responsible for presidential protection, says that the agency “is aware of the comments made by Mr. Schneider, and as a matter of practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence.”

“We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees.”

Schneider’s actual post does appear to be a departure from his attitude in 2018, when he was jailed for non-payment of alimony. As Fox News reported then, Schneider “alleged that his conservative values may have hurt him in court,” but said—in reference to previous president Barack Obama—“I supported the last president [even though] I didn’t vote for him, but I supported him because I believe that’s my duty as a United States citizen.” 

Speaking with Fox Business in 2021, Schneider said that after his conservative viewpoints put a damper on his acting career, he launched an independent production company with his wife, Alicia, who died of breast cancer earlier this year. The company’s products include a film called Christmas Cars, which, per its trailer, mounts a vigorous defense of the use of the Confederate flag.

Another film, entitled To Die For, appears to claim that people can be arrested for flying the American flag. He also seems to sell his own line of CBD products.

It’s likely those other revenue streams will become more useful for Schneider in the coming months, as even Fox appears to be turning its back on him. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the network has canceled all of Schneider’s press appearances following his troubling tweet. Then again, Schneider might dispute that characterization, too. As he said in an interview on Varney & Co. in 2021, “I like to say, you can’t cancel me. I quit.”

After a Taylor Swift fan died Friday during a sweltering Rio de Janeiro stop in her Eras Tour, the singer took to Instagram to express her grief. But Rio’s mayor is demanding more than platitudes, and is seeking changes to how concerts are run in the Brazilian city.

The concert was the first of three Swift shows planned for Estádio Olímpico Nilton Santos, a 16-year-old, 70,000-seat venue in Rio. The region is experiencing a record-breaking heat wave, according to the Weather Channel, with a daily high of around 103 degrees Fahrenheit, but with a heat index that makes it feel like 125. As Estádio Nilton Santos is an open-air stadium, that means fans are unprotected from the evening heat, which typically drops from daytime by only 15 degrees.

Those are the circumstances faced by 23-year-old Ana Clara Benevides Machado, a Swift fan who collapsed at Friday’s show, event organizers Time for Fun announced via an Instagram post written in Portuguese. 

“Last night, Ana Clara felt unwell and was promptly attended to by the team of firefighters and paramedics, being taken to the medical center at the Nilton Santos Stadium for first aid protocol,” the post reads. 

“Given the situation, the medical team chose to transfer her to Salgado Filho Hospital, where, after almost an hour of emergency care, she unfortunately died. To the family and friends of Ana Clara Benevides Machado, our sincere condolences.”

Even before Machado’s name was known, Swift had announced her passing, in an Instagram story set to expire on Saturday evening. “I can’t believe I’m writing these words, but it is with a shattered heart that I say we lost a fan earlier tonight before my show,” Swift wrote.

“I can’t even tell you how devastated I am by this. There’s very little information I have other than the fact that she was so incredibly beautiful and far too young.” (Vanity Fair contacted a Swift representative for comment, but has not received a response as of publication time.)

Though George Clooney and Rande Gerber famously sold their private label tequila brand, Casamigos, in a billion-dollar deal six years ago, the party didn’t end when they deposited that check. Every year, the booze brand’s founding team throws a star-studded Halloween bash that the spirits company terms “infamous.” Though that descriptor, like a nickname, seems like the sort of thing one should wait for others to apply to you, it’s true that people with a certain level of fame—and who you might not otherwise see in a room together— do attend the event. This year, costumed revelers included Ed Norton, Megan Fox, Justin Bieber, and many more.

Though its unlikely that one would wear a patterned shirt and loose shorts to swim, Bieber chose that outfit—along with unwieldy footwear and a snorkel and mask—for his party attire.

(L-R) Jessica Alba, Kelly Sawyer Patricof, Edward Norton and Shauna Robertson attend the Annual Casamigos Halloween Party on October 27, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Norton and his wife, film producer Shauna Robertson, perhaps inspired by the recent Netflix documentary, dressed up as David and Victoria Beckham. Jessica Alba also channeled the zeitgeist with a costumed tribute to Britney Spears‘s “Toxic” look…and she wasn’t the only one tipping a hat to the memoirist/singer.

Evangelo Bousis, Paris Hilton and Peter Dundas attend the Annual Casamigos Halloween Party on October 27, 2023 in Los Angeles.

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images