Daily Beast

CNNA sex trafficking survivor slammed Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) after the lawmaker inaccurately used her story in a response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address as part of an attack on his border policies.Britt’s communications director confirmed that Britt was talking about Karla Jacinto Romero, a woman who has previously testified before Congress about being forced to work in brothels in Mexico 20 years ago. Speaking to CNN, Romero said no one from Britt’s camp or anywhere else contacted her asking for permission to use her story in the GOP’s SOTU response, and she also confirmed allegations from a viral TikTok video that Britt’s telling of that story was, at best, completely misleading.In an interview Sunday, CNN’s Rafael Romo asked Romero if she felt her story had been used for “political purposes” in the U.S. “Yes,” Romero, speaking from Mexico City, said in response. “In fact I hardly ever cooperate with politicians because it seems to me that they only want an image. They only want a photo, and that to me is not fair.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersWeeks after Republicans suffered major losses in the 2018 midterm elections because of their failed attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, then-conservative commentator Mark Robinson accused the law of attempting to “enslave” people.Around two hours and 43 minutes into the YouTube program Politics and Prophecy—as an image displaying “Bloodlines of the Illuminati” is shown on screen—Robinson makes his declaration.“It is not just Black people,” Robinson, who is Black, said on the YouTube show. “It is a concentrated effort to, to, uh, to enslave everybody.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Diego Herrera Carcedo/Getty ImagesKUPYANSK, Ukraine—Ukrainian troops in Kupyansk are running low on ammunition and weapons as they fight to remain in control of a city that doesn’t even want to be saved from the Russians. In this eastern town, soldiers say that they are afraid that pro-Russian civilian collaborators might help to poison, bomb, or otherwise kill them because they believe that life under Vladimir Putin’s occupation would be better than living in a free Ukraine.Located in the eastern Kharkiv region, Kupyansk was once nicknamed “Little Russia” and has become known for its pro-Russian sentiment. It was the first city to surrender to Russian forces at the start of the full-scale invasion, and it did so without a single shot being fired, which was partially due to Kupyansk’s pro-Russian mayor, Hennadiy Matsehora, who told residents to “avoid human sacrifices and destruction of our infrastructure,” according to Deutsche Welle at the time.By Feb. 27, 2022, Kupyansk was already occupied, and it would remain under Russian control until September 2022, when Ukraine’s rapid counteroffensive saw Kyiv reclaim 1,160 sq miles of land in just two months.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/ReutersNo doubt about it: The Israel-Hamas War has radically altered the trajectory of the Middle East’s politics and injected a level of volatility into developments not seen in decades. The conflict marks not only a new phase in a century-long conflict between Jews and Palestinians, but one more chapter in Iran’s 45-year shadow war against the United States, Israel, and their allies in the region.Over the long course of the shadow war Tehran’s objectives and its strategy for reaching them have been remarkably consistent. Its chief foreign policy goals since the formation of the Islamic Republic in 1979 have been forcing the United States out of the region and preventing Israel from normalizing relations with its neighbors by inciting chaos, violence, and deep-seated resentments. A leading scholar of the U.S.-Iran conflict, Suzanne Moloney of the Brookings Institution, points out that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in power since 1989, “has never wavered in his feverish antagonism toward Israel and the United States. He and those around him are profoundly convinced of American immorality, greed, and wickedness; they revile Israel and clamor for its destruction, as part of the ultimate triumph of Islamic world over what they see as a declining West and an illegitimate ‘Zionist entity.’”Tehran’s primary method for pursuing these ends is a unique protracted war strategy that combines political mobilization, coercive diplomacy, and information warfare with offensive military operations conducted by a formidable array of proxy forces—most of them composed of Shia militia groups—which Iran calls the Axis of Resistance.Read more at The Daily Beast.

HBOJohn Oliver slammed North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson on Sunday night, outing the 55-year-old–who won the GOP nomination Tuesday for the state’s upcoming gubernatorial election–as a prime example of how Republicans have radicalized over social media.“It was just a matter of time before online trolls crossed over from ranting about policy to writing it,” Oliver said on Last Week Tonight.Oliver pointed out that Donald Trump boosted Robinson’s political ambitions by calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids” at a rally earlier this month. The former president also described him as “Martin Luther King times two” and decided that Robinson “should like” the comparison. “Do you know how racist you have to be to give a Black person a compliment that starts by quantifying their human value, and then ends with a demand?” Oliver said Sunday in response. “It’s a lot.”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Disney/Gilles MingassonBradley Cooper may not have picked up the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Maestro—that went to Oppenheimer’s Cillian Murphy instead—but he did get something equally as wonderful: a cameo on Abbott Elementary. Between an Oscar and a chance to meet the cast of Abbott…actually, no. I’d take the Oscar. Sorry, Bradley. At least this is half as cool!Cooper stars as himself in the episode, titled “Willard R. Abbott.” He’s just visiting the Philly area when he runs into one of Melissa’s (Lisa Ann Walter) students at a nearby sandwich shop.“Whenever I’m in Philly, you know the deli across the street?” Cooper asks, greeting a flurry of starry-eyed teachers. “That’s my first stop. My dad used to always take me there. They have the best hoagies in the city!”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty ImagesPolice in California shot and killed a 15-year-old boy after he chased a sheriff’s deputy “in an attempt to assault him” with a garden tool, they said a day after the Saturday incident.The fatal shooting occurred shortly before 5 p.m., the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a press release. Deputies from the Apple Valley Police Department responded to a local residence after a 911 caller reported that the teenager “was actively assaulting family members and damaging property.”The first deputy on the scene was confronted by the boy, identified as Ryan Gainer, who “was armed with an approximate five-foot-long garden tool, with a sharp bladed end,” the sheriff’s department said.Read more at The Daily Beast.

Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesDonald Trump sounded off on Jimmy Kimmel’s hosting of the 96th Academy Awards Sunday, and Kimmel wasted no time using the former President’s Truth Social rant for a bit.Just before the last award of the night, Kimmel took a minute to share. “I was told we had an extra minute,” he said. “I’m really proud of something and I was really proud of something and I was just wondering if I could share it with you.”“‘Has there ever been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars,’” Kimmel started, reading one of Trump’s latest Truth Social posts, “‘His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be.’”Read more at The Daily Beast.

Getty ImagesOppenheimer has won Best Picture at the 2024 Academy Awards, making it Christopher Nolan’s first win in the biggest Oscar category of the night.The most bizarre aspect of this moment, however, was Al Pacino’s abrupt reading of the winner. After taking center stage, the Scarface star wasted no time to wrap up the night. Pacino didn’t even read the list of nominees before uttering, “My eyes see Oppenheimer.”But let’s be honest—if anyone could get away with changing the classic line, “And the Oscar goes to…,” it would be Pacino, who won an Oscar in 1993 for Scent of a Woman. Audiences online were blown away by Pacino’s bizarre announcer technique. Hey, at least he got the winner right!Read more at The Daily Beast.

Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesEmma Stone teared up as she took to the stage to accept her second Best Actress Oscar on Sunday for Poor Things. The actress, who previously won for La La Land in 2017, thanked director Yorgos Lanthimos, the entire team behind the film, her husband, and her daughter.“Boy,” Stone said on stage, clearly flustered. “My dress is broken. I think it happened during ‘I’m Just Ken.’ I’m pretty sure.” Later on, after she regained her composure, she recalled a conversation she’d recently had with Lanthimos.“The other night I was panicking, as you can kind of see happens a lot,” she said. But she recalled that the director told her, “Take yourself out of it.” That insight hit home. “It’s not about me,” Stone said. “It’s about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its parts, and that is the best part of making movies—is all of us together. I am so deeply honored to share this with every cast member, with every crew member, with every single person who poured their love their care and their brilliance into making this film.”Read more at The Daily Beast.