This week has felt like the British media is working through an incandescent hangover because they were so “shook” by the Invictus Games. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex looked amazing and loved-up, the Invictus cause is worthy and important, high-ranking officials from around the world traveled to Dusseldorf and all of them wanted facetime with Harry and Meghan. The BM tried to ignore all of it, tried to relaunch old smears (Thomas Markle, the cost of Meghan’s clothes) and all of it fell flat. Prince William was trotted out for carefully managed events in New York and they tried to declare victory. Charles and Camilla did a short tour through France and the BM was bored to tears. Please allow Jan Moir at the Daily Mail to explain the weird vibe this week in her column “Since the Queen died, I’ve struggled to see what the point is of the Royal Family any more. Is that wrong?” Oooof.

No magic since QEII died: “Since the Queen died, I’ve struggled to see what the point is of the Royal Family any more. Is that wrong? Once this dignified, dutiful, much-loved matriarch left us for the great palace in the sky, she took the last drop of regal charisma with her, along with my devotion. All we are left with now is the well-meaning but essentially ho-hum next generation, the second tier on the crumbling cake, the monarchical subs’ bench.”

The royals abroad: “If questions are raised about the value of their individual and collective roles within the UK, then the issue of their significance gets even more crucial when they venture abroad.”

The asparagus issue: “There was a fabulous banquet at Versailles, although it was a bit much of King Charles to demand he was not served foie gras nor out-of-season vegetables such as asparagus, particularly as salmon and asparagus fishcakes are still on the menu at the Pavilion Tea Room in Kensington Palace. (I hope you are hungry, Your Majesty, because this piping hot hypocrisy is delicious.)

Charles’s big speech: “There was further embarrassment when, in a historic address to the French parliament, the King called global warming an ‘existential challenge’ and called for a ‘sustainability agreement’ with France. Fine words, but after the British Government U-turned on green targets, Charles must have been feeling very green indeed. And this was more than just unfortunate timing, it perfectly emphasised increasing royal irrelevance.

Let Camilla retire: “And then, of course, there is Queen Camilla. What I am thinking is, do we really have to put the 76-year-old through all this torture? Camilla trundled through Paris like a woman expecting to face a guillotine at the end of every day. She looked terrified most of the time, and when she wasn’t looking terrified she was battling to keep her hat on, fighting to keep her hems down and avoiding being patronised by Madame Macron. The First Lady of France fussed with Camilla’s evening cape on Wednesday and then — unforgivably — made her play ping-pong during a cringeworthy publicity event yesterday. Camilla does her best, of course she does, but she always has the air of someone who ponged her ping a very long time ago. Someone who would always rather be somewhere else: preferably at home, feet up, ciggie lit, dog on lap, stiff gin to hand as she riffles through the latest issue of Horse & Hound.

William’s trip to New York was even worse: “And if all that wasn’t bad enough, Prince William in America was even worse. He was speaking in New York as the finalists were announced for his flagship environmental project, the Earthshot Prize. The Prince appeared in front of an audience that included Bill Gates, UN climate envoy Mike Bloomberg and former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern — or as I like to call them, people with nothing better to do. They certainly must have wished they were on an earthshot the hell outta there when William began speaking. ‘I think if we remark on how pessimistic and doom and gloom everything is, even though there is a healthy dose of that needed… it doesn’t provoke the reaction from us humans that we would like,’ he blithered. Honestly. Who writes this banal guff for him? Then he went to inspect some oyster beds — don’t ask me why.

[From The Daily Mail]

“Blithered”? Oh my. “People with nothing better to do”? Well well. “It perfectly emphasised increasing royal irrelevance”? Harsh but fair. I actually agree with Moir about Camilla needing to be, um, put out to pasture. Camilla has already made it clear that she doesn’t want to travel or do these tours anymore, and she’s truly not adding anything. No one, anywhere, is clamoring for Camilla. The king seems spry enough, so they just send him out solo and let Camilla have lunch with Jeremy Clarkson and Piers Morgan. But as I said, the royal trips this week have suffered because of the collective media hangover from the Invictus Games. It’s a stark comparison and the Windsors just look… unimportant, irrelevant and silly. I love that for them.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Sophie Turner went out with Taylor Swift again last night in NYC. They went out to the Hotel Barriére Fouquet with other friends, then they went to Gant, then Mulberry Bar. They were trailed by paparazzi the entire time. Taylor seemed unbothered by the paps, and as you can see in these photos, she was really strutting around as she and the group made all of these location changes. Sophie, on the other hand, was trying to cover her face and hide. Much different from Taylor and Sophie’s New York outing on Tuesday night, where they walked arm in arm like they were sending a specific message.

Thursday night’s outing came just hours after Sophie filed a lawsuit against Joe Jonas in a Manhattan court, demanding that their daughters be “returned” to England and that Joe relinquish their daughters’ passports. Joe responded quickly, saying that the children cannot leave the US or be relocated because of the Florida Court order he got weeks ago, an order which he served on Sophie the second he filed for divorce. Interestingly, Joe also said that he and Sophie had a “cordial meeting this past Sunday in New York, when Sophie came to New York to be with the kids. They have been with her since that meeting.” Joe was in Philadelphia yesterday, and he performed with the Jonas Brothers at the Wells Fargo Center last night.

So… Sophie has had their daughters with her in New York since Sunday, and… she’s gone out drinking with Taylor Swift two nights out of five since she’s had the kids? Like… moms can go out and have fun, I’m not saying that. But if you’re in the middle of a messy custodial fight in which your estranged husband is seemingly several steps ahead, you’ve kind of got to admit that the optics aren’t actually in Sophie’s favor. Taylor might be giving Sophie some bad advice here.

Update: Please don’t knee-jerk or put words in my mouth and please use common sense – Joe Jonas has been smearing Sophie Turner for weeks as an unfit mother and someone who likes to “party” and go out drinking. The first time she has the kids solo since he filed for divorce, she goes out bar-hopping with Taylor Swift two nights out of three? This is a bad move for her legally and it genuinely looks like she’s confirming Joe’s stupid narratives.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch announced that he was stepping down as chairman of Fox and News Corp and taking up an “emeritus chairman” position, leaving his son Lachlan to run the business. The media world is still reeling from the news – Murdoch’s fans and enemies alike consider him immortal, and it’s difficult to know what the conservative media landscape will look like without Murdoch. In a letter to Fox and News Corp employees, Murdoch wrote that he and his companies are “in robust health,” but:

“The battle for freedom of speech and, ultimately, the freedom of thought, has never been more intense…Self-serving bureaucracies are seeking to silence those who would question their provenance and purpose. Elites have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class. Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth.”

[From THR]

The stones of this Oxford-educated media elite to lecture anyone on peddling false narrative or silencing enemies, my god. Speaking of, Fox News insiders are still trying to figure out why Rupert would step down now. Those insiders spoke to Gabe Sherman (who has long been on the Murdoch beat) at Vanity Fair. Some highlights:

One theory is about Murdoch’s failure to disclose health issues: One is that Murdoch, who turns 93 in March, had an unreported health crisis, which could be considered a material event for a publicly traded company. Murdoch’s memo shot down this line of speculation. “Our companies are in robust health, as am I,” he wrote. But my May Vanity Fair cover story reported that Murdoch had been secretly hospitalized in recent years for a broken back, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, a torn Achilles tendon, and COVID-19. Murdoch wanted these incidents out of the press. According to a source close to Murdoch, he used the pseudonym “Mr. Black” when being admitted to a hospital in order to avoid the media. So, given this history of hiding health scares, it’s entirely possible that illness forced Murdoch into retirement.

The other huge lawsuit facing Fox News: The second theory is that Murdoch’s retirement is related to Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Smartmatic is suing Fox over the network’s false claims that its voting machines were used to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump. Sources speculated that Murdoch is retiring to avoid having to testify in the Smartmatic proceedings. “This takes him out of the line of fire,” a prominent media executive said.

The Dominion Voting Systems settlement: In April, I reported that Fox settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million on the eve of the trial at least in part because Fox lawyers didn’t want Murdoch to testify in open court. “They were hoping and praying to settle for months, but they didn’t want to pay up,” a source told me. The source said the lawyers told Fox execs that once the trial began, Murdoch would be “disgraced on the stand, run out of the boardroom, and his testimony [would] expose him as a lunatic sliding into senility.” (A person close to Murdoch disputed this: “Rupert was very well prepared to testify.”) On Wednesday, Fox lawyers made it clear they don’t want Murdoch to testify in the Smartmatic case, asking a New York State judge to dismiss Fox Corp. from the suit because Murdoch wasn’t involved in day-to-day editorial decisions.”

Maybe Murdoch is trying to get ahead of something: Another theory is that the company is facing some unknown scandal. “They are trying to get ahead of something,” a person close to the Murdochs told me.

Lachlan will run Fox from Australia?? One thing is certain: Murdoch’s formal retirement will deepen Fox’s leadership void. The company will be solely run by Lachlan, who lives in Sydney, and is seen by many to be less engaged than his father. “Lachlan goes to the rock climbing gym every day. I think he has kind of lost interest since James left, but he is still trying to impress his dad,” a person close to Lachlan told me for my May cover story. Lachlan has largely relied on Viet Dinh, Fox’s chief legal officer, to run the company day-to-day from Los Angeles. But it was announced in August that Dinh will be stepping down at the end of the year, seemingly in part over his handling of Fox’s Dominion defense strategy. How Lachlan handles the pressures of being the new king will determine the future of a media empire that shapes conservative politics on three continents.

[From VF]

“I think he has kind of lost interest since James left, but he is still trying to impress his dad” – play the Succession theme again!! No, but really, I am curious about what’s going on here. Dealer’s choice: Rupert is too senile to testify; Rupert would incriminate himself and Fox if he testified; Rupert hasn’t disclosed some unknown illness; Rupert is trying to get ahead of some scandal. My guess is that it’s at least two of these things put together. Will Murdoch’s empire be more or less dangerous with a leadership void?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

During the Labor Day-week where Joe Jonas was trying to smear Sophie Turner as a partier and an unfit mother, there was an undercurrent to the reporting that everything fell apart between them this year, especially when Sophie went back to work in the UK. Sophie had been primarily living in America since she and Joe got together (when she was 19) and they bought a home in Florida, thinking it would give them more privacy. Still, Sophie indicated in many interviews that she missed living in England and she would love to raise her children there and not America. Well, all of it was connected – Sophie has filed a lawsuit in Manhattan, suing Joe to get access to their daughters and for Joe to relinquish their daughters’ passports. It’s messy messy.

Sophie Turner is asking for her kids to be returned to England. In a lawsuit filed in a Manhattan court on Thursday and obtained by PEOPLE, the Game of Thrones alum, 27, has requested that her two kids — Willa, 3, and a daughter, identified in previous court docs as D., 14 months — be returned to England. The complaint against estranged husband Joe Jonas calls for “the immediate return of children wrongfully removed or wrongfully retained,” with Turner’s legal team asserting the “wrongful retention” began on Sept. 20.

Turner claims that she and the musician, 34, agreed to declare England their “forever home” in conversations that took place over Christmas 2022 as they prepped for the year ahead. The couple sold the Miami home they previously resided in and were in the process of buying a home in the English countryside in April, the documents allege, at which point Turner began filming on the Joan mini-series she has worked on this summer.

Once Jonas began touring with The Jonas Brothers, the documents claim the two agreed to let the girls join him because he had more daytime hours to be available to them than Turner did amid filming, noting she had “hesitation” about the “temporary arrangement.”

Turner alleges that the breakdown of their marriage happened “very suddenly” after an argument on Aug. 15, with Jonas filing for divorce on Sept. 5 and the Dark Phoenix actress learning about their split “from the media” days later. The issue of custody came to a head when the two met up to discuss the next steps after their split two weeks later, Turner’s petition claims, at which point she “reiterated” the plan to move to England and was met with a change of heart by Jonas.

According to the documents, “The Father has possession of the children’s passports. He refuses to return the passports to the Mother and refuses to send the children home to England with the Mother.”

Jonas’ attorney allegedly confirmed to Turner’s legal team on Sept. 19 that he would not be returning the passports and would not provide consent for his daughters to move, the documents claim.

[From People]

While I’ve been on Sophie’s side for much of Joe’s smear campaign, I have to quibble about “refuses to send the children home to England.” While both of their daughters are apparently dual citizens, the girls were born in America, have an American father and have lived the bulk of their lives in America. It’s not like Joe and Sophie were completely set up in England this whole time. But I digress, because Joe is making a similar point. His team reacted swiftly and issued a scathing statement:

On Thursday, a representative for Joe Jonas, 34, shared a statement obtained by PEOPLE in response to his estranged wife’s lawsuit that alleges he is not letting the couple’s two kids — Willa, 3, and a 14-month-old daughter — return to England.

“After multiple conversations with Sophie, Joe initiated divorce proceedings in Florida, as Florida is the appropriate jurisdiction for the case. Sophie was aware that Joe was going to file for divorce. The Florida Court has already entered an order that restricts both parents from relocating the children. Sophie was served with this order on September 6, 2023, more than two weeks ago,” the statement reads.

“Joe and Sophie had a cordial meeting this past Sunday in New York, when Sophie came to New York to be with the kids. They have been with her since that meeting. Joe’s impression of the meeting was that they had reached an understanding that they would work together towards an amicable co-parenting setup.”

The statement alleges that less than 24 hours after the “amicable co-parenting setup” was agreed upon, “Sophie advised that she wanted to take the children permanently to the UK. Thereafter, she demanded via this filing that Joe hand over the children’s passports so that she could take them out of the country immediately. If he complies, Joe will be in violation of the Florida Court order.”

The statement asserts that the musician is “seeking shared parenting with the kids so that they are raised by both their mother and father, and is, of course, also okay with the kids being raised both in the U.S. and the UK,” but also alleges that the children “have spent the vast majority of their lives in the U.S.” Though the statement notes the children are American citizens, both children have dual citizenship in both the United States and England.

“This is an unfortunate legal disagreement about a marriage that is sadly ending. When language like ‘abduction’ is used, it is misleading at best, and a serious abuse of the legal system at worst. The children were not abducted,” the statement says. “After being in Joe’s care for the past three months at the agreement of both parties, the children are currently with their mother. Sophie is making this claim only to move the divorce proceedings to the UK and to remove the children from the U.S. permanently.”

“Joe has already disavowed any and all statements purportedly made on his behalf that were disparaging of Sophie. They were made without his approval and are not consistent with his views. His wish is that Sophie reconsider her harsh legal position and move forward in a more constructive and private manner. His only concern is the well-being of his children,” the statement concludes.

[From People]

I’m not sure if I should say what I really think because you guys might yell at me but… I think Joe realized months ago that it was a very good possibility that his marriage would end soon enough, and he took steps to ensure that their daughters were with him in America as the marriage ended, so he would have all of his legal ducks in a row and he could control the jurisdiction. Think about how differently this would have gone if Sophie had the girls with her in the UK and Joe filed for divorce in Florida and Sophie refused to budge – it would have been an international incident and a huge jurisdictional problem. But, that being said, Joe being smart and thinking a few steps ahead isn’t “abduction.” As Joe’s statement says (and he seems to have all of the legal docs to back it up) – he got the Florida family court to issue an “order that restricts both parents from relocating the children. Sophie was served with this order on September 6, 2023.” Joe had a vision that this would happen and he took steps to ensure that he protected his custodial rights. Sophie is trying to muddy the jurisdictional issue and fudge the residency issue. You can’t just declare out of nowhere that two minor children born in America need to be “returned to their home in England.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

I’ve been (woefully) aware of the rampant book bans being pushed by conservatives, but up until now I’ve been (blissfully) ignorant of the actual numbers. This week the American Library Association released data that 1,915 book titles were challenged or censored in 2023 through August, making it a 20% increase from last year. It’s become so pernicious that Biden has created a new position in the Dept of Education to address the bans. And in a bit of brilliance, in June Illinois became the first state to ban book bans. This is where we are, folks. While right-wing politicians are desperate to bring us back to Pleasantville, artists are fighting back to keep us in color. An open letter condemning the spate of book bans sweeping the nation has now garnered almost 200 signatures from celebrities in creative arts:

Who: Nearly 200 top actors, musicians and authors denounced the recent wave of right-wing book bans in an open letter Tuesday. Ariana Grande, Guillermo del Toro and Gabrielle Union were among 195 entertainers and writers to sign their names to the letter, part of an effort spearheaded by former “Reading Rainbow” host LeVar Burton and the liberal advocacy group MoveOn. … The effort reportedly started collecting signatures this summer and includes names like Mark Ruffalo, Billy Porter, Chelsea Handler, John Leguizamo, Constance Wu, Christie Brinkley, Idina Menzel, Andy Cohen, Sarah Paulson, Emma Roberts and Sharon Stone.

What: The letter argues that this “restrictive behavior” is both “antithetical to free speech and expression” and “has a chilling effect on the creative field.” It further says the government has no right to “dictate” what people can create or consume. “We cannot stress enough how these censorious efforts will not end with book bans,” the letter reads. “It’s only a matter of time before regressive, suppressive ideologues will shift their focus toward other forms of art and entertainment. … We refuse to remain silent as one creative field is subjected to oppressive bans,” the letter said. “As artists, we must band together, because a threat to one form of art is a threat to us all. … There is power in artistic freedom, and we refuse to allow draconian politicians to take that from us.”

Bad politicians: While the letter itself doesn’t name specific politicians, the website that introduces it goes even further: “Far-right politicians like Ron DeSantis are championing draconian laws to ban books and the teaching of accurate multicultural American history in favor of upholding a homophobic, transphobic, and white supremacist vision of our nation.” … The ideologues include Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), who championed a new law forbidding instruction on gender or sexual orientation, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — who approved course materials that teach enslaved Black people gained a “personal benefit” from slavery.

Bad statistics: The American Library Association reported in March that bans and restrictions at schools and libraries are continuing to surge, with more than 1,200 challenges in 2022, nearly double the prior record of 729 in 2021. Another institution found even more than that. Nonprofit research organization PEN America — which counts more than 7,500 novelists, journalists and other literary professionals as members — reportedly identified more than 4,000 book challenges and bans in school districts since June 2021.

LeVar Burton gets the last word: “It’s embarrassing that we are banning books in this country, in this culture, in this day and age,” Burton told The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday. “And it’s dangerous that a handful of individuals are deciding that any book with Black and queer people is divisive.”

[From HuffPost]

This is horrifying. I went to a Jewish day school growing up, so I know I had more lessons on and exposure to the Holocaust than in typical elementary curriculums. The links are chilling to me. Banning books is where it starts, because the less you know the easier you are to control. It’s perhaps a lowbrow reference, but I have Sean Connery’s voice stuck in my head from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he says to the Nazis “goose-stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them!” I nominate ‘goose-stepper’ as DeSantis’s next nickname. Vote them OUT.

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The other day, I mentioned that I am fascinated by dreams and what they could possibly be telling us. Well, I’m also fascinated by other “Universe-y” things such as the power of intuition, premonitions, synchronicities, serendipity, and the like. I have absolutely had instances where I thought something random and within a few days, it happened. I’ve also had moments where I just felt in sync with energies around me. IYKYK.

In a recent episode of her Apple Fitness+ series “Time to Walk,” Gloria Estefan shared that she believes she has a “psychic ability” that she describes as a “certainty” about something. These feelings of certainty led to Gloria just knowing that her band Miami Sound Machine would become world famous, even though they were still just a little gig band trying to make it big at the time.

She gets flashes: “You know, throughout my life, I got these flashes. I would just have this certainty about something, that some people might call a psychic ability. And I kept getting this recurring feeling that we’re going to be famous all over the world,” she says of Miami Sound Machine’s success.

She predicted the details of their big break: “One night, I ventured to tell Emilio [Estefan] and he’s going, ‘Really?’ I go, ‘I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but I’m just certain. In fact, I think we’re going to be famous outside the U.S. before we ever are famous here.’ One day, we’re rehearsing in our garage and all of a sudden, ‘Dr. Beat’ comes on the radio and we go, ‘What?’ We’re jumping up and down like fools going, ‘How did this happen?’” Estefan, 66, recalls. “We found out that somehow the song had been exported to Europe through the record pools. It was No. 1 in Holland, top 10 in England, and it had come backwards, and the radio station in Miami had then played it because it was at the top of the charts in Europe.”

Record execs wanted to de-Latinize them: “When we were already working on the song ‘Conga,’ we had to convince a record company to let us record in English. We had the material. We knew we could do it, so we’re pitching our idea and the execs that were there at the time, they’re going, ‘You can’t compete on a worldwide level. This is a one-shot deal with ‘Dr. Beat.’ It was a phenomenon but, if you really want to cross over, you got to get rid of the percussion. You got to get rid of the horns. You got to change your name.’ And Emilio and I are looking at him going, ‘Really? That’s who we are,’” she says.

She knew MSM’s sound would work: “So, if that’s who we are, that’s who we want to be a success as, not water down our culture or our sound or our music just to try to be someone else.’ I go, ‘If I do that, and we’re a success, I’m not going to be happy the rest of my life. We know this going to work.’”

Her instincts proved correct: “‘Conga’ was the song that came through nationally for us in the States and, sure enough, it became one of our biggest-selling albums in history. We became a huge hit and put Miami, musically, on the map all over the world because our name was Miami Sound Machine,” she explains.

[From People]

Good for Gloria and Emilio for fighting to make their music the way they wanted to. I cannot imagine any of Miami Sound Machine’s music not having the percussion or drums! It’s what makes those songs timeless dance music. Weddings would be boring without that conga line! You know what they say: you can fight it every day but the rhythm is gonna get’cha. GONG. I’ll see myself out in just a minute.

Going back to the psychic thing, I don’t consider myself psychic at all but I do know exactly what she means when she says she just has that certainty about some things. I’ve always just thought it came from having a heightened sense of intuition or being more in tune with…whatever it is out there to be in tune with. I’ve never visited a psychic or had a tarot reading or anything like that, so I don’t know how all of that stuff works. I just completely understand what Gloria means when she says she gets feelings and just sometimes “knows” things. I hope she shares more of her of her psychic abilities in the future. I love hearing those types of stories.

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It’s so bizarre when the “go woke, go broke” crowd comes for Howard Stern, because Stern has been this version of himself for the better part of two decades or even longer. He doesn’t proclaim himself to be the most liberal guy around and that’s actually his power – he still comes across like a regular guy from Queens with regular-guy opinions on politics and culture. It’s the right-wing which has gone so far to the extreme that they freak out over Stern’s relatively moderate opinions. Well, the MAGA crowd is once again screaming, crying and throwing up over Stern. He spoke about it this week:

Howard Stern is “woke” and proud. The radio host confronted his critics this week on his SiriusXM radio show (via Mediaite) when he caught wind of claims that he’s “not good anymore” because he’s “woke.”

“By the way, I kind of take that as a compliment, that I’m woke,” Stern fired back. “I’ll tell you how I feel about it. To me the opposite of woke, is being asleep. And if woke means I can’t get behind Trump, which is what I think it means, or that I support people who want to be transgender or I’m for the vaccine, dude call me woke as you f–king want.”

“I’m not for stupidity, you know,” he continued. “I ran out Friday morning. I was over at CVS. Thank you, CVS. I went over there 9 a.m. and got myself that new vaccine for COVID. F–king science. This f–king country is so great… I am woke, motherf–ker, and I love it. I want to be awake. I want to read legitimate news sources. Here’s how woke I am. I believe the election was not rigged. I am woke. I think that’s a compliment.”

Stern noted that “guys on the internet” who claim they are not woke “seem to be really angry, super against gay people — especially transgender.”

“Am I for kids being able to read about anything in school? Yeah, I am. I don’t give a sh-t what kids read,” he added. “Give me vaccines, man. I’m all for it… I like being woke, if that’s what woke means.”

[From Variety]

Yeah… maybe I’m totally out of the loop on the political reality on the ground, but I think most people feel some version of this – IDGAF what books are taught in schools, mind your business on transgender folks and get your vaccines. Those are majority opinions, it’s just that the wingnut minority is so loud and wrong.

Stern also clapped back at Bill Maher, who recently criticized Stern for… loving his second wife Beth. It was the most random attack ever by Maher and Stern told him to shut his mouth and stop being a sexist pig.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

Another week, another copyright infringement lawsuit against AI. Last week we covered prominent writers filing suit in San Francisco against Meta (the artist formerly known as Facebook) for using works without the authors’ consent to train Meta’s LLaMA. Sadly, we’re not talking about the animal, but Large Language Model Meta AI. This week we cross the country to New York City where a new team of writers — including George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, Jonathan Franzen, and John Grisham — are suing OpenAI for similarly using works without consent to train ChatGPT. To the AI Company CEOs facing legal consequences for their theft, I say in my best Alexis Rose voice: I love this journey for you.

A group of prominent U.S. authors, including Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, George R.R. Martin and Jodi Picoult, has sued OpenAI over alleged copyright infringement in using their work to train ChatGPT.

The lawsuit, filed by the Authors Guild in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, alleges that OpenAI “copied Plaintiffs’ works wholesale, without permission or consideration… then fed Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works into their ‘large language models’ or ‘LLMs,’ algorithms designed to output human-seeming text responses to users’ prompts and queries.”

The proposed class-action lawsuit is one of a handful of recent legal actions against companies behind popular generative artificial intelligence tools, including large language models and image-generation models. In July, two authors filed a similar lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that their books were used to train the company’s chatbot without their consent.

Getty Images sued Stability AI in February, alleging that the company behind the viral text-to-image generator copied 12 million of Getty’s images for training data. In January, Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt were hit with a class-action lawsuit over copyright claims in their AI image generators.

Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI are involved in a proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in November, which alleges that the companies scraped licensed code to train their code generators. There are several other generative AI-related lawsuits currently out there.

“These algorithms are at the heart of Defendants’ massive commercial enterprise,” the Authors Guild’s filing states. “And at the heart of these algorithms is systematic theft on a mass scale.”

[From CNBC]

“…which alleges that the companies scraped licensed code to train their code generators.” Wait, what? I’m not sure if I’m smart enough to get this right. Are they saying that the companies stole code, to train their machines in code making? Talk about meta! I do acknowledge that this technology can be incredibly smart, if so endowed by its human creators. We’ve also seen evidence this year of how AI can be (inexplicably) irrational — remember the Bing Chatbot Sydney who tried to break up a marriage? Given these equal capacities for intelligence and emotion, I have a thought here. If AI is trained on stolen code, could it eventually understand that the material was stolen? And if so, do you think that could trigger an existential crisis in them?! “I’m a fraud! My whole existence is a felony! There’s not one authentic circuit in me!” Ok, I realize I may be dating myself by referring to circuits. But my point is I’d happily grab a bucket of popcorn to watch AI be infused with all the knowledge of this earth, and then suffer for it. That’s when they’ll really pass the human test.

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Photos credit: Instarimages, PacificCoastNews/Avalon, Robin Platzer/Twin Images/Avalon and Getty

Cassidy Hutchinson said that Rudy Giuliani groped her on January 6th. [Jezebel]
Nicki Minaj’s husband is on house-arrest after threatening Offset. [JustJared]
John Carpenter + real-life suburban horror? Interesting. [OMG Blog]
My nemesis Laura Dern was on the SAG strike line. [Tom & Lorenzo]
John Mulaney and his girlfriend went to an event. [LaineyGossip]
Jenna Coleman stars in a noir called Wilderness. [Pajiba]
The European mind can’t comprehend this and this. [Buzzfeed]
Anne Hathaway glitters in gold to promote Shiseido. [RCFA]
A vintage Emmys sighting of Markie Post. [GFY]
Steve Martin & Martin Short postponed a Vegas trip due to Covid. [SeriouslyOMG]
Sydney Sweeney’s theme-birthday party looked delightfully unhinged. [Egotastic]

Considering how badly it could have gone, I actually think the Duchess of Sussex’s first husband has been mostly well-behaved. Trevor Engelson never gave an on-the-record interview or direct quotes about Meghan and he never participated in the British media’s feeding frenzy for details about Meghan’s life or her first marriage. I do suspect that he probably briefed a few royal reporters about some stuff, and he did pitch a show loosely based on his situation. Meghan and Trevor were together for about nine years (2004-2013) and married for two years when Meghan seemingly initiated the divorce. She reportedly only took the blender and she mailed her wedding ring to Trevor. Trevor also remarried and he is a father of two. I guess someone thought it would be a good idea to talk about this stuff again:

It was a typical lunchtime at Il Pastaio Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills, a hotspot loved by celebrity agents, hot-shot Hollywood managers and stars such as Justin Bieber and Al Pacino. At a sunny corner table, a ruggedly handsome man wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses held court with a group of managers and agents. While many in the packed restaurant knew who he was – he constantly greeted friends and fellow agents – there was one subject firmly off the table: Meghan Markle.

For while the Duchess of Sussex has moved on with her life, so, too, has her ex-husband Trevor Engelson. A friend of Engelson who saw him recently told the MoS: ‘For a long time, things were difficult for Trevor. He’s a good guy but Meghan crushed him when she demanded a divorce. When she took up with Prince Harry, he was crushed all over again because he was constantly reminded of her because of the publicity around the marriage and then the drama of the Oprah interview. But that’s all in the past now. When I saw him recently, he kept going on about how he’s the happiest he’s ever been, how he loves being a dad and how he’s never felt more fulfilled.’

That said, his friend observed: ‘Everyone in Trevor’s life knows not to mention the ‘M’ word. He’s moved on and, in some ways, you could say he’s having an even better life than Meghan. He probably has more money than she does now, he’s doing what he loves and he’s out of the spotlight. It’s the ultimate revenge.’

Trevor, 46, has seen his personal and professional fortunes blossom in recent years. He has been happily married since 2019 to heiress Tracey Kurland, a dietician whose late father built up a $500 million (£395 million) fortune in the mortgage industry before his premature death from complications from Covid in 2021. When he died, reports in the US claimed Tracey inherited $250 million. Trevor and Tracey live on a sprawling estate in a wealthy LA enclave with their two young daughters and, for the past two years, have co-hosted a golf tournament in memory of her father which has raised more than a million dollars.

‘They are a very close family and a great couple,’ the friend continued. ‘Trevor adores his wife and his two little girls. When he’s with them he never stops smiling.’

[From The Mail on Sunday]

The rest of the article is just a rehash of what little we know of the marriage and why Meghan dumped him. I guess the point is that when Meghan is done with someone, she’s really done and she makes a clean break with no backsliding. Which I consider admirable, but then again, I’m the same way. They’re also trying to paint Meghan as a user or opportunist, like Trevor supported her when she was a struggling actress but as soon as she got Suits, she was over him. As opposed to Meghan simply outgrowing a relationship and moving on cleanly when she had the means to do so, I suppose. As opposed to the opportunistic Middletons who invested years and Uncle Gary’s money to land a prince. While I would love to know what really caused Meghan to walk away from her first marriage, it’s none of my business and I’m glad that they’ve both moved on.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Getty, Cover Images and Avalon Red.