Daily Beast

Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty/UniversalThis weekFill Out Your ScorecardsThis is a rare year for the Oscars. Not only are the nominees—this never happens—actually good, but every detail we’ve heard about the show makes me excited. (Former winners as presenters! Ryan Gosling performing!) We’re so conditioned to complain about the Academy Awards telecast. This year, it might actually be fun!Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/NBCThe chaotic brilliance of Deal or No Deal has returned. But it’s back with a Survivor-style twist. Deal or No Deal Island may sound like a title ripped from 30 Rock—I feel like I write this every week at this point, with reality shows about twins dating, MILFs, and polyamory always popping up—but it’s 100 percent real and about to debut on NBC.Deal or No Deal Island, which premieres Monday night on NBC at 9:30 p.m. ET, was a show made for anyone who still watches reruns on the Deal or No Deal Roku Channel that airs reruns at every hour of the day. (So, me. I’m unapologetic about this fact—Deal or No Deal rocks.) It was made for people who want to scream, “Don’t make that deal!” at confused contestants who think a measly $83,000 is better than a potential million bucks hiding within their case. Even without Howie Mandel, Deal or No Deal Island is a dreamlike, messy, absurdist concept that ties in facets of the original Deal or No Deal with ease.At first, one might not expect such high praise for Deal or No Deal Island. The series is shoddily made, with iPhones replacing the iconic landline phones to contact the banker. Joe Manganiello takes the place of Mandel as host, a C-minus replacement at best. The models who present the cases—Meghan Markle used to be one—are no longer present; instead, two unfashionable “banker’s assistants” do that job. The ever-present techno thrums of the stressful Deal or No Deal music have vanished too.Read more at The Daily Beast.

HBOAlabama’s Supreme Court ruling last week that frozen embryos fertilized in test tubes legally qualify as living, breathing human beings sent Republicans scrambling to clarify their positions so as not to lose votes from women in the 2024 elections—and John Oliver wasn’t about to let them get away with it.On Last Week Tonight, Oliver said equating in vitro fertilization (IVF) with actual people was “wrong for a bunch of reasons—mainly if you freeze an embryo, it’s fine. If you freeze a person you have some explaining to do.”But the Alabama court ruling carries “massive implications” nationwide, as an estimated 2 percent of Americans are born through IVF. The ruling prompted many of that state’s fertility clinics to immediately stop treatments out of fear they could be sued for wrongful death for any unused, discarded or destroyed embryos. That, in turn, prevents countless couples from continuing their efforts to have kids. “IVF cycles take weeks of careful monitoring and expensive treatments. You can’t just hit pause and wait out a court case,” Oliver said.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Samir Hussein/GettySarah Ferguson has said she is “resting with family at home” as she expressed her “shock” at receiving a malignant melanoma skin cancer diagnosis just months after she underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer.Writing on Instagram, Fergie, the ex-wife of Prince Andrew, said she had been “taking some time to myself” following her “second cancer diagnosis within a year.”She said it was thanks to the “great vigilance of my dermatologist that the melanoma was detected when it was.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Amr AlfikyVice President Kamala Harris drew a line in the sand on Saturday, declaring that the “under no circumstances” would the Biden administration “permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, the besiegement of Gaza, or the redrawing of the borders of Gaza.”She made her remarks during a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, according to a White House readout of the conversation.The meeting took place in Dubai, where world leaders are gathered for the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, known as COP28. Read more at The Daily Beast.

Bryan Anselm For The Washington Post via Getty ImagesFox News host Greg Gutfeld on Friday railed against what he described as the “censorship industrial complex,” made up of technology companies, the government and the news media.His central example of censorship: Fox News’ ouster of Tucker Carlson.“The fact is, Musk may be the last man standing between real freedom of speech and the suffocating block of this censorship industrial complex, which is made up of government, media, and tech forces,” Gutfeld said during Gutfeld!Read more at The Daily Beast.

Reuters/Alexander ErmochenkoThe Jerusalem Post removed an article on Saturday that accused another outlet of misrepresenting a doll as a dead Palestinian baby. After the article was originally published, social media users assailed the Post, arguing that the image did indeed depict a human infant. The Post issued a statement following the retraction blaming the issue on “faulty sourcing.” Read more at The Daily Beast.

Scouted/The Daily Beast/Jones Road Beauty. Scouted selects products independently. If you purchase something from our posts, we may earn a small commission.I’m a travel and beauty writer, which means two things: 1) I’m pretty much always on the go, and 2) I’m constantly testing skincare and makeup products, which, given my ultra-sensitive skin, can sometimes cause more harm than good. My skincare routine is pretty no-frills and low maintenance: I cleanse and moisturize, and, on a good day, I’ll lather on SPF and eye cream.I try my best to maintain my lazy girl skincare routine while on the road, but sometimes, the in-room, property-branded cleansers don’t quite cut it when it comes to removing makeup. I also don’t like to travel with liquid products for fear of accidentally spilling them. So, when getting ready for bed aimlessly scrolling my TikTok feed one night about a week before I was set to jet to France for a work trip, I was psyched to come across a video featuring Jones Road’s The Cleansing Stick. The product isn’t exactly new—it was released a little over a year ago—but seeing it in action was enough to convince me to shell out a cool $34, a charge my husband definitely wasn’t expecting to see on our credit card bill (sorry!).Read more at The Daily Beast.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesSpeaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Saturday said the expulsion of George Santos by an overwhelming majority of House lawmakers marked a “regrettable day” in the House, before adding that he would be forging ahead with Republican’s efforts to impeach President Joe Biden.The House voted 311-114 on Friday to send Santos packing after his dizzying web of fabrications and fraud was unearthed by news reports, federal investigators and the House’s own Ethics Committee.Still, neither the revelations that Santos spent donor funds on OnlyFans, Botox, clothes and rent; misrepresented his relationship with a campaign organization he founded to other lawmakers for profit; broadly misrepresented himself to voters; lied about founding a charity for animals; lied that his grandmother was a Holocaust victim; nor the various criminal charges that allege he lied to get unemployment benefits, faked a $500,000 loan, committed identity theft as well as several other brazen fraudulent schemes and more were enough to convince Johnson that Santos shouldn’t remain a federal lawmaker.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Comedy CentralAll eyes are on Michelle Wolf this week as she makes her triumphant return to The Daily Show, where she worked as a writer for two years of Trevor Noah’s tenure from 2016 to 2018.Wolf has made a career out of fearlessly ruffling feathers, and did just that on her first night as guest host with Jamie Foxx, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, and the artist formerly known as Puff Daddy among her targets.“Last year, New York passed a law that gave people a one-year window to file lawsuits for sexual assault that otherwise would’ve been past the statute of limitations,” Wolf explained. “Last weekend was the deadline, and boy did the lawsuits come rolling in!”Read more at The Daily Beast.