The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman seemed puzzled by Donald Trump’s latest social media posts about Mexico and how, for instance, “Mexico will stop people from going to our Southern Border, effective immediately.“ Trump’s declaration might not amount to much, she said. ”I have no idea what that actually means," Haberman told CNN’s John Berman. “He has made statements like that before, when he was president, and it didn’t actually amount to the closure of a border. You know, it comes a day after he made some very aggressive tariff threat against Mexico and Canada. And so, I think that’s probably not a coincidence, although who knows?” Trump, who recently pledged new tariffs on goods imported from Mexico, said he had spoken over the phone with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and that it was a “productive” call. “Who knows what actually happened in that call?” Haberman said. “At some point we may find out, but everything with him is the opening bid of a negotiation. And I look at this, plus the tariff threat, most likely as a combined push toward Mexico to try to get what he wants.” Sheinbaum was later forced to clarify in a post on X, saying Mexico’s position is not to “close borders” but to “build bridges between governments and between peoples.”

Alabama A&M University falsely announced the death of a football player critically injured in a game, forcing the school to retract the news and apologize. “Upon hearing from a representative from UAB hospital this afternoon, we learned that he remains alive,” said Alabama A&M. “We express our immediate regret for disseminating false information however, we hold complete joy in knowing that Medrick remains in stable condition.” Twenty-year-old footballer Medrick Burnett Jr., a California native, played in seven games for the university before an accident tragically cut his football career short. In late October during a game against Alabama State, he suffered a severe head injury during a collision, resulting in brain bleeds and swelling. “He had to have a tube to drain to relieve the pressure, and after 2 days of severe pressure, we had to opt for a craniotomy, which was the last resort to help try to save his life,” said Burnette’s sister Dominece James.

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Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong grew “combative” while being asked about his intention on adding Trump-defending CNN commentator Scott Jennings to the publication’s editorial board, former CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy wrote in his Status newsletter Tuesday. Soon-Shiong, who didn’t allow the Times editorial board to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, praised Jennings in a post on X earlier that day. When Darcy asked about how Jennings' commentary is “at its core, dishonest,” the billionaire owner said it was mere “opinion” that president-elect Trump lies more often than other politicians. “If you want to talk about Donald Trump, that’s not the conversation I started with,” Soon-Shiong said, according to Darcy. The billionaire would go on to label Darcy a “so-called reporter“ and accuse him of having ”bias.“ The account of the call then states that after Darcy asked him about including on his editorial board “voices that are inherently dishonest,” Soon-Shiong “accused me of arguing that his entire editorial board will be dishonest...” Eventually, after Darcy disagreed with Soon-Shiong by saying he hadn’t answered all his questions, the billionaire’s spokesperson “ended the interview, signaling to Soon-Shiong to hang up the phone,” as Darcy described it.

Elon Musk criticized actor Ben Stiller for voting for Kamala Harris with a slur in a post on X Wednesday. The tech mogul shared a post comparing a headline of Stiller saying that “woke America” killed edgy comedy with a photo of his character Simple Jack from the 2008 satire Tropic Thunder. “Damn he went full r----d,” Musk captioned the picture, a reference to a scene in the movie. Stiller previously said that he “proudly” voted for Harris over Donald Trump in the November election. The post referenced an interview Stiller did with Collider, where he said that he didn’t think Tropic Thunder would get made today. “Even at the time, of course, it was dicey too,” he added. “The only reason we attempted it was I felt like the joke was very clear in terms of who that joke was on—actors trying to do anything to win awards.” The satire also featured Robert Downey Jr. in blackface.

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Cher has told many tales of her love life in part one her new memoir, including of a horror first date with KISS frontman Gene Simmons that led to a two-year relationship. The 78-year-old singer said Simmons asked her out to a concert to which she brought good friend Kate Jackson, one of the original Charlie’s Angels. Simmons impressed neither of them though when he flirted with them both. However, he later apologized to Cher and called her from Japan, speaking long enough to rack up a $2,800 international phone bill and telling her that he loved her. “We didn’t do so much as kiss at first, because I didn’t want to yet. I’ve always felt that I don’t want to sleep with someone until I’m sure I’ll be happy to wake up next to them the next morning.” Cher’s sister Georganne LaPiere even started a romance with fellow KISS member Paul Stanley. Cher and Simmons did not have a monogamous relationship, and called it quits after two years, when he called up Diana Ross for advice on what to get Cher as a gift and ended up dating her instead.

Pop star Ariana Grande, who plays Glinda in Wicked, reportedly put the kibosh on composer Stephen Schwartz’s plan to make the movie’s marquee tune “Popular” more hip-hop. “In the spirit of being open to new things for the movie, my music team and I thought, let’s refresh the rhythm. Let‘s, maybe, I don’t know, hip-hop it up a little bit,” Schwartz explained. Yet Grande said “Absolutely not, don’t do it,” reportedly telling Schwartz, “I want to be Glinda, not Ariana Grande playing Glinda.” She wanted to fully immerse herself into Glinda, and when it came to the vocalization of the songs, Schwartz said she needed some convincing to switch things up. “I had this idea for a new vocal ending,” explained Schwartz, “Ariana was a little hesitant about it, but I told her that if I had thought of it for the original show, this is how it would have been.” And with a little reassurance, Grande was on board to put her own vocal spin on the music. When Grande was cast in the role of Glinda, she reportedly told director Jon M. Chu, “I love her so much,” adding, “I’m gonna take such good care of her.”

The Académie Française, the top French council that sets the standards for the country’s language, has been asked by a leading human rights organization to amend several racist, bigoted and outdated entries in its latest official French dictionary. The Ligue des droits de l’homme (LDH) wrote Tuesday that it found “with amazement and dismay that many definitions are part of a vision of our world that is at best archaic.” Among them: the word “yellow” (jaune) is said to be okay to refer to people of certain races, heterosexuality is defined as a “natural” relationship between sexes but homosexuality is not, while multiple outdated slurs which refer to Black people are not defined as discriminatory or pejorative. Meanwhile, a woman is described as a human “defined by her sexual characteristics that allow her to conceive and give birth to children,” which the LDH said would exclude sterile and menopausal women. “The French language deserves better,” wrote the LDH. The Académie Française did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

Newscaster Dan Rather is mourning the death of his wife, Jean Rather, the artist to whom he was married for 67 years. According to a statement from a family friend, the 89-year-old died from cancer in the couple’s Austin home, having been “on hospice care for some time.” The Rathers met while working at a Houston radio station, though she would go on to pursue a career in visual art, creating paintings and collages that “were shown in galleries and private collections across the United States,” according to her obituary. She also served as the vice chair of the New York City Art Commission and held board positions at several nonprofits. “Jean lived a full life as an incredible wife, mother, friend, and artist—and a true Texan," the statement says, noting that “today is the saddest of days for Dan and the extended Rather family.”

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Ringo Starr revealed that Barry Keoghan has been tapped to play him in the Beatles biopic. “I think it’s great,” Starr said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight Wednesday. “I believe he’s somewhere taking drum lessons, and I hope not too many.” For the first time, Starr, Paul McCartney and the estates of John Lennon and George Harrison have granted full life and music rights to produce a four-part biopic about each Beatle which will be directed by Sam Mendes. Other stars floated for the project include Harris Dickinson (John Lennon), Joseph Quinn (George Harrison) and Paul Mescal (Paul McCartney). A source close to the film told Variety that nobody has been officially signed to the project yet, including Keoghan. Starr’s advice to Keoghan is to develop his own drumming style. “I’m not asking you to play like me, but you have to have the movement to do this stuff,” Starr said. “A lot of people come to the gigs we’re doing and say, ‘My son is taking drum lessons,’ and I say, ‘Not too many I hope.’ You’ve got to let them get their own feel.”

Investigators are looking into whether a Chinese ship that dragged its anchor for over 100 miles, severing critical data undersea data cables, did so on purpose and at the behest of Kremlin saboteurs. The 225-meter-long Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier was loaded with Russian fertilizer and, in recent months, dramatically altered its usual routes to take in ports in Vladimir Putin’s country, the Wall Street Journal reported. The hulking vessel departed the Russian Baltic port of Ust-Luga on November 15 and, last week, ripped two data cables in the Baltic Sea in Swedish waters. The country, which joined NATO after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, opened a probe but a Kremlin spokesperson blasted the suggestion of Russian involvement as “absurd, unsubstantiated accusations”. NATO ships belonging to Denmark, Germany and Sweden now flank the vessel. “The fundamental change in the ship’s operating region to Russian ports after years operating solely in Chinese waters should be a key area of investigation,” Benjamin L. Schmitt, senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, said.