Politics

Elizabeth Frantz/ReutersIrish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar made an emotional speech Wednesday to announce he was stepping down, telling reporters outside government buildings in Dublin he was leaving office for “personal and political, but mainly political” reasons.It’s a shock move by Varadkar, who just last week traveled to the U.S. and met with President Joe Biden during St. Patrick’s Day celebrations to discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza. He’s Ireland’s first openly gay taoiseach and the youngest ever to hold the position, having been first elected in 2017, when he was 38.Now 45, Varadkar said its time for him to leave public office. He conceded he didn’t have a “real reason” for the move but insinuated that the nastiness of politics had pushed him to a breaking point.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Randall Hill/ReutersDespite exiting the race back in January, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ name still appeared on the ballot for his state’s Republican primary Tuesday—though he might now be wishing it hadn’t.Donald Trump, who DeSantis endorsed after ending his own campaign, unsurprisingly won the Florida primary after already securing his status as the GOP’s 2024 presumptive nominee. But incredibly, DeSantis finished a dismal third, getting fewer votes than Nikki Haley in his own backyard.The former South Carolina governor—who ended her own bid for the White House earlier this month—got 13.9 percent vote in Florida compared with DeSantis’ paltry 3.7 percent, according to the Associated Press. DeSantis can console himself, however, that he managed to fare slightly better than some of his other erstwhile rivals for the Republican nomination including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (0.8 percent) and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (0.3 percent).Read more at The Daily Beast.

C Flanigan/FilmMagic via Getty ImagesFitness icon Richard Simmons on Tuesday revealed that he’s been diagnosed with a common form of skin cancer.The 75-year-old said he went to a dermatologist after becoming concerned about a “strange looking bump” under his right eye and that tests confirmed the diagnosis. Simmons’ announcement about his illness on his Facebook page came the day after he’d alarmed fans with a post in which he’d said he is “dying,” only to later clarify that his message had been intended as a call to embrace life and that he is not, in fact, terminally ill.In his Tuesday post, Simmons wrote that he’d called his dermatologist after the bump below his eye hadn’t been cleared up by an over-the-counter treatment. “I sat in his chair and he looked at it through a magnifying mirror,” Simmons wrote. “He told me he would have to scrape it and put it under the microscope. Now I am getting a little bit nervous. He comes back about 20 minutes later and says the C word. You have cancer.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Jaap BuitendijkFew legacy sequels are as depressingly unimaginative as 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, what with its dreary blend of hip young Gen-Z kids (including a boy named Podcast, for maximum under-18 appeal!) and paycheck-motivated old timers, as well as its gross use of CGI to resurrect the late Harold Ramis for squishy across-the-universe bathos. Helmed by Jason Reitman, son of the original films’ director Ivan, it bleakly connected its story to its predecessors, got the band back together (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson) alongside a collection of new members (precocious teens, Paul Rudd, and Carrie Coon), and squeezed the last drops of nostalgia from a beloved (if past-its-prime) property, all while forgetting that what made Ghostbusters such a unique hit in 1984 was that it was a comedy dressed up like a supernatural thriller, not the other way around.And now, as ordained by the great and terrible circle of IP life, it has its own dispiriting follow-up.Directed by Gil Kenan, who co-wrote its script with Reitman, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, premiering Mar. 22, rights the course of this wayward series insofar as it wholly ditches Oklahoma in order to situate its action in Manhattan, where it can spend time in the Ghostbusters’ firehouse HQ and stage scenes of the Ecto-1 racing through bustling city streets after screaming and whooshing specters. Otherwise, however, this return engagement is another sloppy and mirthless adventure that prioritizes action and family drama over humor—a state of affairs that’s exacerbated by the lack of suspense or excitement generated by this latest tussle between the multigenerational Ghostbusters and an undead foe bent on annihilation. So lamely modernized that it fully transforms its mini–Stay Puft Marshmallow Men into de facto Minions (all high-pitched gibberish and goofy hijinks), it’s a retro-contemporary rehash of the feeblest kind.Read more at The Daily Beast.

KCRA 3/YouTubeA dozen people were arrested on Tuesday night during a Sacramento City Council debate about a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.Mayor Darrell Steinberg made multiple warnings from the dais and called two recesses during the session after outbursts from the audience. Pro-Palestine protesters refused to clear the chamber during the second recess—which lasted two hours—at which point Sacramento Police Department officers entered and arrested those who refused to disperse, according to KCRA-TV.The council eventually approved the resolution 6-1 just before midnight when the session resumed.Read more at The Daily Beast.