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The 2026 Nobel Prize for Peace was just announced in Oslo, Norway.
Guess who didn’t get it?
War mongering, violence encouraging racist, accused rapist, philanderer, 34 time convicted felon, best friend of Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump.
The honoree is South African Born Navi Pillay International Jurist and Human Rights Advocate.
This should drive Trump crazy: She was born in Durban, South Africa, to parents whose families migrated from India as indentured laborers. Her career as a jurist includes serving as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The South Africa-born Pillay, 85 years old, was recognised for her efforts to promote peace and international law, said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Navi Pillay chairs the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (COI OPTEJI).
The cable news ratings report is in, and it’s not good for Fox News. It may be a bad omen for MAGA and the GOP in upcoming elections.
According to Adweek TV Newser, Fox News ratings were down 17% in the third quarter of 2026 compared to the second quarter.
To compound the loss, Fox News ratings are also down 17% from last year in the same ratings period.
Fox News viewers are definitely searching for factual news at a time when gas and grocery prices are soaring, and Washington DC landmarks are being demolished by Donald Trump.
I’ve been wondering how MAGA was faring filling up large SUVs and trucks when gas is way over four bucks and diesel fuel at six dollars. Meantime, you can’t get out of a supermarket for under $200 and the grocery bags are not that heavy.
Not that Fox News lost its place as the number 1 cable news network.
But the others — CNN and MS Now — showed increases vs. last quarter and last year. Only Fox was down.
According to AdWeek:
“According to Nielsen big data + panel, Fox News averaged 2.064 million total primetime viewers and 183,000 Adults 25-54 viewers in Q3 2026. During total day, Fox News had 1.321 million total viewers and 121,000 demo viewers.
“Compared to the second quarter, Fox News was down -17% in total viewers and -20% in the demo during primetime. When looking at total day, it was also down by -16% and -19% in total viewers and the demo, respectively.
“Looking at Fox News’ performance against the same quarter in 2025, total viewers were down -17%, and the demo was down -25% during primetime. In total day, it also fell -16% in total viewers and -24% in the demo, and it was the only network in this yearly comparison to record declines.
“Fox News finished the quarter in first place among all cable networks during primetime in total viewers and ranked No. 2 in the demo. During total day, Fox News was again on top in total viewers and finished in second place in the demo.”
As for the other two:
“Looking at its performance vs. the third quarter of 2025, MS NOW was up +16% in total viewers and +27% in the demo during primetime. It was also up +20% in total viewers and +37% in the demo during total day—the only network with gains in both dayparts within this yearly comparison.”
Also: “When looking at its performance to the same quarter in 2025 during primetime, it was up +13% in total viewers and +16% in the demo. In total day, CNN grew +8% in total viewers and was flat in the demo. “
The Kennedy Center Honors, in past years, would have been announced already.
But since Donald Trump has done everything to destroy the premier cultural institution, nothing is the same.
Last year, country music awards producer Robert Deaton was brought in to produce the show for CBS.
But this year, I’m told, Deaton didn’t get the call.
The reason might be that, presently, there is no contract to show the Honors — not with CBS or anyone else.
With Deaton out, the new producer has an appropriate company name: Den of Thieves.
Den of Thieves has been signed to produce the Honors once honorees and a TV contract are agreed on.
The company is not the kind that usually puts together a show like the Kennedy Center Honors. They are best known for MTV’s Video Music Awards and the People’s Choice Awards. Neither been known for subtlety. But each would be at home in the Capital One Arena, where the KCH are going to be held since the real theater is now closed and floating in purgatory thanks to Trump.
How or why this came about is a mystery. Wheelhouse Entertainment owns Den of Thieves. Trump didn’t choose them because of their politics. Their owner, Brent Montgomery, and his wife gave $8,400 to Kamala Harris in 2019.
Meantime, the clock ticks down to actually choosing honorees and figuring out how to produce the intimate Kennedy Center show in a large arena — not to mention taping it and showing it by the end of December.
Phil Donahue, the late talk show host, predicted we would one day have live executions on TV.
In 1994, he petitioned the Supreme Court to videotape Lawson’s execution for television, arguing that the public needed to see capital punishment to decide if it was right or wrong.
The death row inmate, David Lawson, convicted of a 1980 murder, joined him in the petition, the SCOTUS turned them down.
read: ABC News Mystery of Disappeared Story Deepens
Donahue wasn’t asking for the access to advocate for capital punishment. Rather, he wanted people to see how barbaric it was. He told Larry King on King’s show: “I am on record as being against capital punishment,. I am making this argument not as an ideologue, but as a person who believes that this free-press establishment has a responsibility to show this issue, which has split families.”
But Phil knew it would happen. He advocated for the live execution of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh in 2001. And now Pete Hegseth, a grotesque character, is going to let it happen. He’s all for promoting violence. Nidal Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 shooting, is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on Dec. 3 at Fort Hood.
A firing squad, that’s right. The most atrocious thing that could be shown on TV or streaming. It will be interesting to see if YouTube or any other platform will have the good grace to stop it. Even Google should not allow a live execution, and block the White House website. Zoom should disallow it, too.
Hegseth, a dangerous clown who will be pilloried by historians, told a website: “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it. That it’s public. Because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
All of this will be of more impact since the failed execution of Christa Pike, in Tennessee, by lethal injection.
Taylor Swift is used to playing sold out stadiums.
But on October 17th, she’ll playing a much smaller room.
The global superstar will entertain the movers and shakers at the sixth annual Academy Museum gala.
The 2026 gala includes filmmaker-composer John Carpenter, Colman Domingo and Charlize Theron set as this year’s honorees.
Why is Taylor taking this gig? For one thing, her newish friends Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw are co-chairs along with Tom Ford and Robert Rodriguez.
For another, it’s awards season. Taylor is a delicious politician when she wants to campaign for something. She wants the Oscar for Best Song from “Toy Story 5.” Her song “I Knew It, I Know You” has been at the top of the charts for months.
Taylor also wants to remind any Grammy voters in the room that her expanded “The Life of a Showgirl” could be Album of the Year. The original version was released a year ago — October 3, 2025. So it’s eligible for everything because the Grammy season ends August 30th.
And who comes to the Academy gala? Everyone in town fights for a ticket, and now there will be a panic to get inside that room, at any cost.
“Taylor is an extraordinary talent whose work resonates around the world,” said Amy Homma, Director and President of the Academy Museum and Academy Collection. “We are thrilled to welcome her to this year’s gala and look forward to her performance to close a wonderful evening of honoring three extraordinary filmmakers and supporting the Academy Museum’s mission to celebrate and preserve cinema.”
PS What about hubby Travis Kelce? Ironically, the Kansas City Chiefs play the Los Angeles Raiders the next day at Arrowhead Stadium in Missouri. So he won’t be at the Academy show, and in all likelihood Taylor will miss the game.
Clive Davis may not be here in person, but his presence is still being felt.
Clive’s annual pre-Grammy concert and dinner gala will definitely happen on February 6,2027 says the Recording Academy.
This concert will honor the music mogul’s memory as a great tribute to him and his decades of making the music business important.
“Clive built this gala into something the entire music community looked forward to for five decades. He never did it for applause or recognition. He did it because he loved this community, believed in the power of music, and understood what it meant to bring us all together to celebrate it,” said Harvey Mason Jr., the Grammys CEO.
“I was lucky to call Clive a friend and mentor, and working with him taught me so much. That’s exactly the spirit he brought to the Pre-Grammy Gala and I know he’d want nothing more than for the show to go on this year. It’s our honor to celebrate the legacy he left behind.”
It’s hard to imagine Clive has been gone since June 22nd. He was such a huge presence not only in the music biz but in the lives of everyone who knew him. He took chances with artists that no one else would, and a personal investment in their futures. He loved the music so much. I’m sure this gala will pull out all the stops for him.
Roseanne Barr, so objectionable on every level, is still trying to come back.
She’s apparently filmed six episodes of sitcom that sounds antisemitic and maybe racist down in Austin, Texas.
The show is written by former “Roseanne” writer and long ago Adam Sandler collaborator, Allen Covert. In an interview with Page Six, Barr makes it seem like Covert and someone named Allen Stephen are working on the show together. In fact, they are the same person.
Barr has managed to find the most right wing nut jobs for her cast including Randy Quaid, Tony Hinchcliff, and Drea De Matteo. It’s like the unemployment line for loonies. I’m sad to see Jon Lovitz in the mix, but I guess he’s got to make a living.
She says the show is about “the matriarch of a ‘mixed-race family of preppers in Texas’ who is on a quest to ‘throw her granddaughter the most fantastic bat mitzvah Texas has ever seen.’”
It sounds grotesque.
Covert hasn’t written for Sandler since 2011. He’s got producer credit on some of Sandler’s projects through 2017.
Barr was fired by ABC from the revival of her sitcom when she posted a racist message in 2018 about Obama associate Valerie Jarrett. After that she became a pariah, fully cancelled, and ignored by anyone with a shred of intelligence. She went full time MAGA, and Trumper. No one from the “Roseanne” cast speaks to her.
Who will show “Meemaw”? If not Fox Nation or Newsnation, maybe she can slap it onto YouTube and hope for the best.
Jesse Eisenberg’s much touted comedy came to the New York Film Festival last night. It’s an understatement to say it went over big time.
Julianne Moore, you may have heard, is on her way to a second Oscar for Best Actress. She doesn’t have much competition but it doesn’t matter. She’d win even if Meryl Streep and Glenn Close were up against her. She received outbreaks of applause and laughter three times during last night’s screening.
Paul Giamatti can do no wrong. He’ll be nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
But it’s Eisenberg who’s the real star. He’s blossomed into a real director-writer-auteur. His last film, “A Real Pain,” was brilliant, and produced an acting Oscar for Kieran Culkin. That would have been enough proof, but “The Debut” cinches it.
I ran into all of them at a pre-screening reception last night at the all new spectacular Bar Boulud on Broadway. This is a trio that knows they’ve made a great gem of a film but — being New Yorkers — it’s all very low key. Jesse even said to me before the screening, “I hope we get a good reception from this crowd.”
How could they not? For one thing, last night’s audience couldn’t have been more custom-made. It was a big Broadway crowd, so much so that Tony winner Bernadette Peters — who sings like a bird in the movie — got a bigger ovation during the introductions that Moore or Giamatti. Peters doesn’t seem to age. She needs to be in more movies!
What is “The Debut” about? In suburban New Jersey, lonely wife and mother of twins-about-to-leave-for-college Mona Friedman (no relation to me because she’s fictional) auditions for a local theater production of a fictitious musical called “Nosy Neighbors.” Giamatti is the director, Jerry, a little imperious but also humorously wise. The cast of “Nosy Neighbors” also includes Stef, a startling good Haile Bailey (she and her real life sister Chloe are pop stars discovered by Beyonce).
Eisenberg wrote the whole fake musical including seven songs. At the screening last night we were each handed a real Playbill for the made up show, which was hilarious and dead serious. Something to remember: “The Debut” is not a satire. It’s a loving look at community theater and the trajectory of Mona’s discovery of herself.
Moore, who has an Oscar for “Still Alice,” benefits from Eisenberg’s tailor made script. (He’s also in the film, as cast member of “Nosy Neighbors.”) This will be her legacy movie performance, however. She’s transcendent as Mona makes her journey from pipsqueak to out of control “star.” Mona is like an onion who gets peeled down to her core, and Moore is never less than fascinating to watch in the process.
PS The picture I used was of Peters on stage last night mimicking the ads for “Evita.” In the movie, she plays a well known local actress who once starred in a production of “Evita.” Mona often sees her poster at the theater. There are a lot of Easter eggs for theater kids in the movie.
Tom Cruise’s “Digger” finally hit the $10 million mark.
It’s actually up to $10.6 million after Wednesday’s box office.
The convoluted film by Alejandro Innaritu still dropped 36% from Tuesday. It was the biggest drop of the current films in release.
Who’s going? Curiosity seekers, I guess. Some of them may be driven by oddly supportive posts on Twitter from either paid influencers or Scientologists — or both.
There are people actually calling “Digger” ‘the best movie of the year.” LOL. Read Ian Mohr’s excellent piece in Page Six/The NY Post about what’s going on.
Now there are reports that “Digger” cost much more than originally thought, possibly as much as $250 million. And it’s all gone, never to be recouped in any way.
Is box office important? Um, yes, unless there’s going to be prestige attached. Last year, “One Battle After Another” wasn’t e big earner, but it won tons of awards including Best Picture. Nothing like it will happen for “Digger.”
Aerosmith has invited all their friends to a two night hootenanny at the end of this month.
Groups like Heart and the Black Crowes, pal Nunno Bettancourt, Billy Idol, and Tom Morello are among those who will walk this way at the Hollywood Bowl on October 29th and November 1st.
Want tickets? Dream on! They should be sold out within seconds of release this week.
Other guests will be announced soon.
I’ve been lucky enough to see Steven Tyler sing in the last year. His voice is much improved from the damage that has come with 50 years of howling. I’m so thrilled he’s feeling well enough to put on these shows. Congrats!
Should’ve known letting Steven do the marquee would take a few takes… More tomorrow. https://t.co/bsV1CMUfDD
