Politics

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersIt was one of the most chaotic days in the history of the House of Representatives and, at the end of it, Republicans were left with a pressing question: Who’s next?Just hours after Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) became the first House Speaker ever to be voted out of the position, he promptly announced at an emergency meeting that he would not seek the gavel again, a decision made so swiftly that it shocked GOP lawmakers.Suddenly, the Republicans who had entered the meeting swearing they would only vote for McCarthy—as many times as it took, until he was back in power—were left in the previously unthinkable situation of finding someone else to lead the party.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/GettyWhen Sam Bankman-Fried began promoting cryptocurrency exchange FTX in earnest, he made a list of celebrities he wanted to flog the company, according to The New York Times. At the top of his list was former NFL quarterback Tom Brady.Now, Brady is on another list: celebrities being sued for promoting the now-bankrupt business.Bankman-Fried faces a long jail term if he is convicted of misappropriating some $8 billion in customer funds before his company went bankrupt last year. The former billionaire faces decades in prison if convicted on all seven charges.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty/HandoutKYIV—A star journalist who won a prestigious award for her courageous reporting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has gone missing, The Daily Beast can report.Family and friends say they have not heard from Victoria Roshchyna, 26, since Aug. 3, when she was returning to Russian-occupied territory hoping to report once more on the brutality of the invading forces.Her family fears she is being held by the Russians.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty ImagesThere was a moment of silence as Sister Helen Prejean pondered being described as a pop culture icon. Then she let out a hoot of laughter. “What does that even mean?” she said in her raspy Southern drawl. “I don’t know what that means!”Well, it means the fame that her 1993 book and 1995 movie Dead Man Walking has brought her (Susan Sarandon won an Oscar for her role as Prejean); Jake Heggie’s opera of the same name now playing at the Met in New York (until Oct. 21); the fact she, a nun at 84, is still fighting determinedly—after accompanying six felons to the execution chamber—to rid America of the death penalty.“Yeah, OK,” Prejean said, in a warily conceding tone. “You know what ‘pop culture icon’ means to nuns? It means you do more work!”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Everett Collection(Warning: Spoilers for the Saw franchise, including the latest film, Saw X, follow.)Over two decades and 10 films, there’s only one major reason that the Saw franchise has managed to garner such a massive cult following: its brutal, mystifying traps. These contraptions, at first the work of serial killer Jigsaw, aka John Kramer (Tobin Bell), changed hands as the franchise went on and Jigsaw’s apprentices took over his work. While none of his apprentices could come close to the level of genius of John’s traps, they were often clever—or, at the very least, comically cruel.According to John, any Jigsaw trap must have one crucial element in its execution: It must be winnable. Victims should have a chance at their survival. It’s the one thing that John believes separates him from actual killers and makes his mission a noble one: Surviving leads to the reformation of his victims. (The veracity of that is, of course, arguable). Any ranking of every trap in the Saw franchise must consider John’s foremost principle, but we also have to factor in the ingenuity, the gore, and the fun of it all. Any trap that gives us those four things instantly is among the series’ best. And any that don’t? Well, let’s just say there are more than a few of those.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Lucasfilm Ltd.[Warning: Spoilers for the Ahsoka Season 1 finale ahead!]Even though the title is very C.S. Lewis-coded—“The Jedi, The Witch, and The Warlord”—Episode 8 of Ahsoka made up for the lack of action and forward movement in last week’s episode 10 times over. The final stage of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s departure from this other galaxy far, far away is in full swing. Still, he really wants to make sure Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson), Ezra (Eman Esfandi), and Sabine (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) are stranded for good once he takes off. Part of this plan includes rewarding Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto) for her devotion to his cause with some Great Mother magick.The Great Mothers grant Morgan Elsbeth the “gift of shadows,” which makes her more powerful and a lot more sinister-looking with black eyes and burned-in markings on her face. Her reward also comes with the Blade of Talzin, which is a sword belonging to Mother Talzin—Maul’s mother and the Clan Mother of the Nightsisters on Dathomir in Star Wars: The Clone Wars—and has been known to withstand lightsaber duels (more on that later).Read more at The Daily Beast.

Okaloosa County Sheriff's OfficeIn 1994, an inmate crew working off Interstate 10 in Holt, Florida, found the skeletal remains of a woman among the trees. It was the start of two mysteries—one that would be solved two years later, and another that would not be solved until this year.The first mystery was who killed the woman. The answer came in 1996 when Keith Jesperson, a long-haul trucker better known as the Happy Face Killer, told police he had murdered a woman and dumped her in that spot.The second question was the identity of the victim, and it would take advances in DNA tracing to answer it. But now, police said, they know Jane Doe’s real name: Suzanne Kjellenberg—who was 34 and hitch-hiking across the country when she was killed.Read more at The Daily Beast.

CBSShortly after being ousted from his position as Speaker of the House on Tuesday—and almost immediately confirming that he would not attempt to win back the job—Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) claimed to be feeling “great.”While not everyone was buying his high spirits, many people were genuinely delighted by the news, and Stephen Colbert was among them.Word that McCarthy had been given the boot reached The Late Show host just moments before he stepped onto the stage, and he could not hide his utter glee.Read more at The Daily Beast.