logo
Don't cry for Stephen Colbert — he should have been axed years ago

Don't cry for Stephen Colbert — he should have been axed years ago

Times2 days ago
S econds after the news broke on Friday that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert was being axed in May next year, fans were crying foul.
Jimmy Kimmel — the ABC late-night host paid a whopping $15 million a year to tell jokes to an average 1.7 million viewers — wrote on his Instagram stories: 'F*** you and all your Sheldons, CBS.' Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont, railed against the decision on X. The former TV host Katie Couric published a lengthy statement on her Instagram page. The actress Jamie Lee Curtis told the Associated Press that 'it's bad' and called Colbert 'a great guy'.
It's true that the optics were awful.
Only days before he was axed, Colbert slammed the CBS owner, Paramount, for paying President Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit. Trump had claimed the network had edited an interview with Kamala Harris in a favourable light to help her win the election. Paramount needs approval from Trump's Federal Communications Commission to close a multi-billion-dollar merger.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Pedro Pascal will not shave for a role unless it's ‘completely necessary'
Pedro Pascal will not shave for a role unless it's ‘completely necessary'

The Independent

time23 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Pedro Pascal will not shave for a role unless it's ‘completely necessary'

Pedro Pascal expressed strong dislike for his clean-shaven appearance as villain Maxwell Lord in the 2020 film Wonder Woman 1984. The actor stated he was 'appalled' by his look in the DC Comics movie and has since vowed not to shave his facial hair unless absolutely essential. Pascal's portrayal of Reed Richards with a mustache in the upcoming Fantastic Four film has drawn mild criticism from some superhero purists. Lindy Hemming, costume designer for Wonder Woman 1984, revealed that Pascal's character's look was partly inspired by Donald Trump's 1980s persona. Director Patty Jenkins confirmed Trump was one of several inspirations for the character, emphasizing that the influence was not intended to be political.

Columbia University agrees to pay more than $220M in deal with Trump to restore federal funding
Columbia University agrees to pay more than $220M in deal with Trump to restore federal funding

The Independent

time23 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Columbia University agrees to pay more than $220M in deal with Trump to restore federal funding

Columbia University has reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay more than $220 million to the federal government to restore federal research money that was canceled in the name of combating antisemitism on campus, the university announced Wednesday. Under the agreement, the Ivy League school will pay a $200 million settlement over three years, the university said. It will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 'This agreement marks an important step forward after a period of sustained federal scrutiny and institutional uncertainty," acting University President Claire Shipman said. The Trump administration pulled the funding, because of what it described as the university's failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel- Hamas war that began in October 2023. Columbia then agreed to a series of demands laid out by the Republican administration, including overhauling the university's student disciplinary process and adopting a new definition of antisemitism. Wednesday's agreement — which does not include an admission of wrongdoing — codifies those reforms while preserving the university's autonomy, Shipman said. The school had been threatened with the potential loss of billions of dollars in government support, including more than $400 million in grants cancelled earlier this year. 'The settlement was carefully crafted to protect the values that define us and allow our essential research partnership with the federal government to get back on track," Shipman said. "Importantly, it safeguards our independence, a critical condition for academic excellence and scholarly exploration, work that is vital to the public interest.' As part of the deal, Columbia agreed to a series of changes previously announced in March, including reviewing its Middle East curriculum to make sure it was 'comprehensive and balanced' and appointing new faculty to its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. It also promised to end programs 'that promote unlawful efforts to achieve race-based outcomes, quotes, diversity targets or similar efforts.' The university will also have to issue a report to a monitor assuring that its programs 'do not promote unlawful DEI goals.' The pact comes after months of uncertainty and fraught negotiations at the more than 270-year-old university. It was among the first targets of President Donald Trump's crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests and on colleges that he asserts have allowed Jewish students be threatened and harassed. Columbia's own antisemitism task force found last summer that Jewish students had faced verbal abuse, ostracism and classroom humiliation during the spring 2024 demonstrations. Other Jewish students took part in the protests, however, and protest leaders maintain they aren't targeting Jews but rather criticizing the Israeli government and its war in Gaza. Columbia's leadership — a revolving door of three interim presidents in the last year — has declared that the campus climate needs to change. Also in the settlement is an agreement to ask prospective international students 'questions designed to elicit their reasons for wishing to study in the United States,' and establishes processes to make sure all students are committed to 'civil discourse.'

Trump administration canceled a $4.9B loan guarantee for a line to deliver green power
Trump administration canceled a $4.9B loan guarantee for a line to deliver green power

The Independent

time23 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Trump administration canceled a $4.9B loan guarantee for a line to deliver green power

The Trump administration on Wednesday canceled a $4.9 billion federal loan guarantee for a new high-voltage transmission line for delivering solar and wind-generated electricity from the Midwest to the eastern U.S., but the company indicated that project would go forward anyway. The U.S. Department of Energy declared that it is "not critical for the federal government to have a role' in the first phase of Chicago-based Invenergy's planned Grain Belt Express. The department also questioned whether the $11 billion project could meet the financial conditions required for a loan guarantee. President Donald Trump has repeatedly derided wind and solar energy as unreliable and opposed efforts to combat climate change by moving away from fossil fuels. The Department of Energy also said Wednesday that the conditional commitment to Invenergy in November was among billions of dollars' worth of commitments "rushed out the doors" by former President Joe Biden 's administration after Biden lost the election. Two prominent Missouri Republicans, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and state Attorney General Andrew Bailey, have been vocal critics of the project, describing it as a threat to farmland and landowners' property rights. Hawley said on July 10 that he had secured a pledge from U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright to cancel the loan guarantee in a conversation with him and Trump. 'To ensure more responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources, DOE has terminated its conditional commitment,' the agency said in a statement. A federal loan guarantee generally makes borrowing money less costly. A statement issued for the Grain Belt Express expressed disappointment, calling the new transmission line 'America's largest power pipeline.' Construction has been set to start next year. The statement added: 'A privately financed Grain Belt Express transmission superhighway will advance President Trump's agenda of American energy and technology dominance while delivering billions of dollars in energy cost savings, strengthening grid reliability and resiliency, and creating thousands of American jobs.' Invenergy has said its project would create 4,000 jobs and new efficiencies in delivering power, and that it would save consumers $52 billion over 15 years. The line would deliver electricity from western Kansas about 800 miles (1,287 kilometers), across Missouri and Illinois and into Indiana, connecting there to the power grid for the eastern U.S. It could deliver up to 5,000 megawatts of electricity. "When electricity demand and consumer power bills are soaring, it's hard to imagine a more backward move,' said Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, a nonpartisan, Washington-based group supporting renewable energy. The decision to cancel the loan guarantee came the same day Trump unveiled a plan for U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence that includes speeding up the permitting of new data centers and factories that will boost the demand for electricity. 'This gross mismanagement of our country's energy needs will increase power bills for hundreds of millions of people while making the electricity grid less reliable,' said Laurie Williams, director of a campaign against fossil fuels for the Sierra Club environmental group. Jigar Shah, who headed the Department of Energy office handling loan guarantees under Biden, said that if an applicant meets the requirements of a conditional commitment, the department is obligated to follow through. 'This decision is illegal,' he said in a post on the LinkedIn social media platform. Hawley and Bailey have called the Grain Belt Express a 'scam." Critics object to what Hawley labels an "elitist land grab,' the company's ability to use lawsuits against individual landowners along the line's route to compel them to sell their property. Online court records show that the company filed dozens of such lawsuits in Missouri circuit courts in recent years. The Missouri Farm Bureau's president posted on the social platform X Wednesday that the project threatened to 'sacrifice rural America in the name of progress.' 'We've won a major battle in the war for Missouri's private property rights and farmers," Bailey said. 'At our urging, the DOE saw this boondoggle for what it was.' Bailey acknowledged in his comments that the project still could go forward with private funding and no loan guarantee but added, 'If Invenergy still intends to force this project on unwilling landowners, we will continue to fight every step of the way.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store