Democrats probably won’t be able to kill Jeff Sessions’s confirmation prospects. But they’ll try to make him bleed.Barring something extraordinary, Sen. Jeff Sessions will have little trouble getting confirmed as Donald Trump’s attorney general. B…

Jeff Sessions will likely be the next attorney general—but Democrats won’t let him get there without leaving a mark.

Since the presidential election, the whole nation has been talking about fake news and Donald Trump’s loose relationship with the truth. But in the health world, we’ve been dealing with a “post-truth” era for awhile.Food companies exaggerate the h…

Anti-vaxxers. Cleanses. The health world has been dealing with active ignorance and misinformation for a long time—and now it’s seeped into our political realm.

Every so often, the value of liberty must be relearned and such a time may be upon America.In 1750, my fifth great-grandfather and great-grandmother, Archibald McMullin and Martha Richards, departed Ireland and braved the Atlantic Ocean in search …

History shows us that extreme polarization opens the door to authoritarianism. It’s not too late—but we’re standing right at that door now.

Dems Aim to Hobble Jeff Sessions

By Betsy Woodruff

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It was extraordinary that Walter Shaub, the director of the nonpartisan Office of Government Ethics, wrote that letter to Senate leaders last week about the slipshod vetting of many Trump Cabinet nominees. He said that he couldn’t recall any prior…

Capitol Hill Republicans may not love Trump but they know he gives them their best shot to do what they’ve been trying to accomplish for 30 years—dismantle the New Deal—so they’re ru…

President-elect Donald Trump broke an inauguration-related fashion scoop in an interview with the New York Times on Monday: “All the dress shops are sold out in Washington,” Trump declared, due to what he forecasted will be an “unbelievable, perha…

PEOTUS claimed that ‘all the dress shops are sold out in Washington’ ahead of his inauguration. But there are still plenty of gowns to buy.

While the rest of late-night television was freaking out over Donald Trump’s feud with Meryl Streep, James Corden and his guest Neil Patrick Harris went in a different direction.Interrupting Corden mid-show, Harris accused him of blowing up his sp…

The two Tony Award winners met for a Broadway showdown on Monday night’s ‘Late Late Show.’

The 2017 Golden Globes had the potential to be many things, from a full-length musical directed by Damien Chazelle to a three-hour-long circle jerk. But of all the possible outcomes, we didn’t predict—but probably should have—that the show would r…

With more than a decade of TV appearances and hosting gigs under his belt, a dying franchise and a Razzie award is all Trump’s got to show for his efforts.

Calling Meryl Streep “overrated” was just a bridge too far for Stephen Colbert.The Late Show host used his monologue Monday night to address what has somehow become the biggest story of the day with a week and a half to go until Trump’s inaugurati…

The ‘Late Show’ host is done tolerating President-elect Trump after he called Meryl Streep ‘overrated.’

With just 10 days to go until Donald Trump’s inauguration, even the president-elect’s biggest media boosters are starting to tire of his incessant Twitter habit.Remarkably, it wasn’t Trump’s decision to label Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer “…

Donald Trump’s decision to rant against Meryl Streep on Twitter is getting ripped apart across all media bubbles.

Donald Trump’s Hollywood Vendetta

By Amy Zimmerman

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Meryl Streep gave a powerful, politically charged speech at the Golden Globes and, while it was obvious whom she was speaking about, never mentioned Donald Trump by name.In response, President-Elect Donald Trump made a series of tweets dismissing …

People who repeatedly say Hollywood and awards shouldn’t be platforms for politics and social justice need a new script. That includes, apparently, Twitter-happy president elects.

Diehard fans need not weep over the end of the college football season just yet. The NCAA championship game will feature two of the most exciting—not to mention skilled—teams in the league: Alabama Crimson Tide and the Clemson Tigers.Set for Monda…

Alabama Crimson Tide and the Clemson Tigers will face off in Arizona for the NCAA College Football Championship title. Here’s how to watch live.

In a series of dramatic early-morning raids, French police have arrested 16 people suspected to be connected to the robbery of Kim Kardashian, three months after she was bound, gagged, and robbed by a masked gang in a brutal Paris attack.Kim was f…

Three months after a gang pulled off an audacious and terrifying robbery of Kim Kardashian, French cops picked up 16 suspects, the oldest of whom is 72.

The Ridiculous Meryl Streep Backlash

By Kevin Fallon

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Reza Haghighat Nejad, Iran Wire
The passing today of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, president of Iran from 1989 to 1997 and a key figure from the 1979 Islamic Revolution, will have earthshattering consequences not only for Iranian reformis…

With the death of reformist leader Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, there are few politicians left to act as a check on the supreme leader and his hardliners.

The new ISIS terror weapon is fire. “This is a quick option for anyone intending to join the just terror campaign,” says the latest issue of the ISIS magazine Rumiyah. This tactic requires neither guns such as were used in San Bernadino and Orland…

In the latest issue of its magazine, ISIS is calling for its followers to use arson to spread fear—and it targeted a specific Dallas church.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated throughout with new information.Dramatic changes in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, first reported in The Daily Beast, have continued in the past 24 hours.The vessel scouring the depths …

With time running out, the vessel looking for the jet dashes north to the area where scientists say it went down, suggesting that something significant has shown up.

The celebration of the New Year is a traditional time for taking stock, reappraising, and redirecting one’s life. Many resolutions focus on professional and interpersonal goals and dreams, but others are about transforming one’s own appearance. Di…

It’s the new year, which means it’s a time for new goals, new resolutions, and in some cases new bodies.

ISIS Has a New Weapon: Fire

By Michael Daly

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ROSARITO, Mexico—A week of protests in Mexico has devolved into looting, vandalism, and violence after a double-digit increase in gas prices that landed with a bang as the New Year began. On Saturday, hundreds of protestors descended on the border…

One week into 2017, and Mexico is already descending into chaos.

“In studying Americans, our Residency in Italy identified a number of places visited by Americans working in target installations of interest to our Intelligence Service. It was possible to determine that Americans in Rome systematically frequent …

An old Soviet field manual for spies tells us a lot about the mindset of today’s agents, and not only the Russians. Could an American president be the ultimate “dangle”?

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—At 3:57 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, the clatter of gunfire broke the quiet of a middle-class neighborhood in Petionville, the upscale residential niche overlooking the capital of Port-au-Prince.Within moments, word spread tha…

The story behind the flamboyant ex-soldier and coup plotter the Americans once thought they could make president. Even Graham Greene couldn’t have dreamed this guy up.

Inside the Madness at Mexico’s Gas Pumps

By Andrea Noel

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Today Jeff Sessions claims credit for prosecuting a lynching by the Ku Klux Klan as proof that he is not a racist, but an attorney working for him claimed 30 years ago his boss wanted to drop the case.Confirmation hearings will begin Tuesday for D…

Trump’s attorney-general pick allegedly signaled an assistant U.S. attorney working for him in the ’80s not to prosecute two whites who murdered a black man.

A Pennsylvania man and woman raped and dismembered the woman’s adoptive daughter as part of a disturbed “fantasy,” police said this weekend. Then the couple collected the teenager’s Social Security payments for months, profiting off her death.14-y…

After a suicide pact gone wrong, a Pennsylvania couple has been charged with the rape, murder, and dismemberment of an adopted disabled 14-year-old girl.

About half an hour before recess, the 25 students of Dana Campo’s fifth and sixth grade combo class move their chairs—most of them grumbling—into an uneven circle at the front of the room. There were 13 girls and 12 boys, and by Dana Campo’s estim…

What started out as a class discussion about bullies among fifth- and sixth-graders ended up being about the biggest bully of them all, the one they see on TV.

Sessions Tried to ‘Drop the Case’ vs KKK

By Kenneth Lipp

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Editor’s Note: This story has been updated throughout.The gunman who attacked Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Friday was being prosecuted on charges of domestic violence, The Daily Beast has learned. Esteban San…

Esteban Santiago was already facing charges for domestic violence when he allegedly opened fire Friday, killing five people and injuring more.

As Donald Trump’s inauguration looms, I am already impatient for some quick and angry fiction writer to publish a novel dealing with the Artist of the Deal. Writing before the election, the veteran political novelist Thomas Mallon outlined in the …

A vicious, albeit artful satire about the execution of the Rosenbergs, Robert Coover’s searing novel predicts our ugly mash-up of politics and entertainment.

As highlighted by Donald Trump’s rhetoric and Hillary Clinton’s treatment by some in the media (and even our living rooms), sexism is still alive and well. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that artificial intelligence (AI)—something coded by hum…

Want to make the new transformative piece of technology? Hire women. Lots of them.

Sometimes, in his covert influence campaign against America, Vladimir Putin need do nothing but sit back and chuckle mirthlessly while U.S. officials shoot themselves in the foot. Such was the case last week when the Department of Homeland Securit…

There’s a ton of evidence tying Moscow to the DNC hack. Somehow, Washington managed to screw up its presentation of that evidence.

CES holds itself out as a showcase of human innovation’s pinnacle, which is why it’s so funny that it occurs in Las Vegas, a place by and for the stupid. For one week every year, the vision of self-anointed genius is unleashed on a town that looks…

Being a female afterthought in a Vegas tech orgy by and for men.

LAS VEGAS—“Tickle him,” the man in the green striped tie says.I’m not sure how to tickle a robot. I haltingly place my hands beneath the small android’s arms, where its ribs would be. The robot’s anime-saucer eyes do not twinkle. Its jointed limbs…

A depressing future awaits, where we won’t need human contact, and our home devices will be smarter than we are.

U.S. Hobbles Its Hacking Case vs. Russia

By Kevin Poulsen

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Fake news is more dangerous than you’d think. Deliberately falsified news reports aren’t just being used as propaganda to sway the gullible. Some of the Russian hackers blamed for infiltrating the Democratic National Committee are weaponizing fake…

Some of the Russian hackers blamed for infiltrating the DNC are using bogus news to get inside the networks of the unsuspecting.

“No computer is safe,” Donald Trump told us over the weekend. And nobody knows that better than the world’s terrorists. But at the end of the day, just like the rest of us, they still stay online—and in many cases, fortunately, that costs them.As …

From the Taliban to the so-called Islamic State, computers, cellphones, and social media are used as vital weapons—and offer critical vulnerabilities.

Regina Elsea was just starting her life. The Alabama bride-to-be had a new job, bought a brand-new car, and was two weeks from her wedding day.But in June 2016, the 20-year-old was crushed to death while trying to fix a machine at the automotive p…

Regina Elsea was killed just two weeks after U.S. inspectors found two dozen safety violations at a South Korean-owned plant.

Russian Hackers Weaponizing ‘Fake News’

By Jana Winter

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The first thing that will strike anyone going to see the play Holden at New York City’s New Ohio Theatre are the logs of wood. They are stacked, intricately, as a boundary for the stage and the walls of the cabin or writing shed in which the novel…

In Anisa George’s ‘Holden,’ Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley Jr. take up residence to encourage the reclusive Salinger to complete a novel.

President-elect Donald Trump broke an inauguration-related fashion scoop in an interview with the New York Times on Monday: “All the dress shops are sold out in Washington,” Trump declared, due to what he forecasted will be an “unbelievable, perha…

PEOTUS claimed that ‘all the dress shops are sold out in Washington’ ahead of his inauguration. But there are still plenty of gowns to buy.

Just when it seems like fashion has finally eschewed a trend—chokers, for instance, or the Ugly Shoe—some stylish A-lister tries it on again, prompting Vogue to make a fuss (it’s back!) and other fashionable influencers to reintroduce it into thei…

They may make most wearers look like a circus-bound Aladdin, but the harem pant can look chic rather than ridiculous.

Noah Solloway (Dominic West) is a mess, as everyone agrees, and tells him. As of tonight, he is a mess who possibly just sexually assaulted his ex-wife. Let the debate begin.The Affair’s battered, flawed lead male character is a crucible of crisis…

Noah’s torture at the hands of Gunther continues, as Helen does everything to win Noah back. But her damaged husband may damage her too.

There Is No Inauguration Dress Shortage

By Lizzie Crocker

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Yes, that really is Cate Blanchett on top of a table dancing to thunderous pop music. Yes, she has got a gun. Yes, she will fire it into the eaves of the theater. And yes, her character, Anna Petrovna, has just told everyone else at her 40th birth…

Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh are the firecracker, should-be-perfect match in Andrew Upton’s fast and funny adaptation of Chekhov’s ‘Platonov.’

The Golden Globes kicked off with the usual celebs attired gorgeously and not-so gorgeously—and Evan Rachel Wood supreme in a custom tux.

The Golden Globes kicked off with the usual celebs attired gorgeously and not-so gorgeously—and Evan Rachel Wood supreme in a custom tux.

Widely seen as both the father of the modern American way of warfare and its most formidable practitioner, Ulysses S. Grant remains an enigma more than 150 years after the guns of the Civil War fell silent. More than 200 biographies of Grant have …

He lacked ambition, failed at most things he tried, and then Grant found himself and his calling with the coming of the Civil War, where he reinvented modern warfare.

Cate Blanchett Blows Up Broadway

By Tim Teeman

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