Zohran Mamdani celebrates Hanukkah in video with Jewish actor Mandy Patinkin
























Steve Witkoff says representatives share goals to stop killing, support Ukraine and end war with Russia
A White House envoy said on Sunday he held “productive and constructive” talks in Florida with Ukrainian and European representatives to end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.
Posting on social media, Steve Witkoff said the talks aimed at aligning on a shared strategic approach between Ukraine, the US and Europe.
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© Photograph: Terry Renna/AP

© Photograph: Terry Renna/AP

© Photograph: Terry Renna/AP















































TV host who came under pressure from Trump government will say: ‘From a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year’
The US comedian whose late-night show was briefly cancelled after pressure from Donald Trump’s government is to urge UK audiences to stand up for free speech.
In a defiant alternative Christmas message on Channel 4, Jimmy Kimmel will liken the first year of Trump’s second administration to the rise of fascism.
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© Photograph: Channel 4

© Photograph: Channel 4

© Photograph: Channel 4
Will Sharpe and Paul Bettany’s new TV drama is flat, airless and banal. It’s a crass affair with a thin, half-hearted performance from Sharpe
Here’s my position. If you are going to create a miniseries about the life, death and music of one of the defining geniuses of the last 1,000 years of western civilisation, and if you are going to use as your source material a script for a great play that was made into a near-perfect film beloved by almost everyone for its wit and immense, profound themes rendered accessible and moving, and for the fact that it had two of the most extraordinary performances ever committed to what may still then have been celluloid – well, you had better be pretty damn sure that you are bringing something new, exciting, different, richer, cleverer, even more illuminating to the table. Otherwise you are going to look like a bit of a berk.
And so, my friends, to the new six-part drama Amadeus, about the life, death and music of Wolfgang A Mozart, one of the defining geniuses of the last 1,000 years of western history. Co-creators Joe Barton and Julian Farino have retained parts of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play and the 1984 film starring Tom Hulce as Mozart and F Murray Abraham as his rival composer Antonio Salieri, reworked them into lesser forms, and surrounded them with lesser – flat, airless, banal – scenes. Shaffer’s driving interests in the corrupting power of envy, the survival of religious faith under duress, the mystery of talent and what we expect to come from genius are mostly reduced to pale, petty versions of themselves. The performances – well, we’ll come to those.
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© Photograph: Adrienn Szabo/©Sky UK Ltd

© Photograph: Adrienn Szabo/©Sky UK Ltd

© Photograph: Adrienn Szabo/©Sky UK Ltd
Department says image was flagged by prosecutors before determining it posed no risk to survivors of late sex offender
The US justice department said on Sunday it had restored an image it had removed a day earlier from the public release of investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein after concluding that the photograph, which included within it a photo of Donald Trump, posed no risk of public exposure to victims of the late convicted sex offender.
The justice department said the image had been flagged by federal prosecutors in New York for potentially exposing victims of Epstein. Its unexplained removal on Saturday triggered a chorus of accusations from Democrats about evident political interference in favor of the president, a former friend of Epstein.
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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images



