NOTN- Gov. Mike Dunleavy has appointed Stephen J. Cox as Alaska’s next attorney general. The appointment takes effect on Friday, pending legislative confirmation in 2026.
Cox, 48, is a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas and senior Justice Department official under the Trump administration. He most recently served as senior vice president and chief legal and strategy officer at Bristol Bay Industrial, an investment arm of the Bristol Bay Native Corporation.
Cox has worked in both federal service and Alaska’s private sector.
In Alaska, the attorney general serves as chief prosecutor, legal counsel to the governor, and represents the state in civil and criminal matters.
Cox and his wife, Cristina, live in Anchorage with their three children.
““I am honored that Governor Dunleavy has invited me to be a part of the Alaska story,” Cox said. “And I am grateful to the Governor and the people of Alaska for the opportunity to serve. Since 2011, I have been privileged to work on Alaska’s development, and my family and I were blessed with the opportunity to move to Anchorage and make Alaska our home.”
Screenshot of Wednesday’s press meeting in Anchorage
NOTN- Governor Mike Dunleavy hosted a press event yesterday with members of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources to ‘highlight Alaska’s resource development opportunities’, the 45-person committee deals with a variety of issues pertaining to public lands in the United States.
Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman, Congressman Nick Begich , and several other members are in the state reviewing current and future projects.
According to the Alaska Beacon, lawmakers visited Hecla Greens Creek Mine, which produces silver, gold, zinc and lead from a site west of Juneau. They overflew parts of the Tongass National Forest, the nation’s largest, and observed Suicide Basin in the Mendenhall Glacier.
The group joined the Governor at his Anchorage office to share their findings and discuss Alaska’s resource potential.
“you know, Alaska is a giant in the resource space.” Said Representative Begich at the meeting, “You know how you bind a giant? one little thread at a time. That’s what we’ve dealt with from the federal government, from not just my perspective, from the perspective of industry that has worked so hard for so many years to develop the resources of Alaska responsibly.”
Following the press conference, Dunleavy signed the nation’s first state-level FAST-41 memorandum of understanding with Emily Domenech, Executive Director of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council.
They say agreement will streamline project reviews, enhance coordination between state and federal regulators, and increase transparency through the Federal Permitting Dashboard.
Dunleavy called the agreement a step toward “unlocking Alaska’s full potential,” saying it will help cut federal delays on resource and energy projects.
Permitting Council Executive Director Emily Domenech added that Alaska is the first state to formally partner with the council, giving projects like energy, mining, transportation, and broadband a path to streamlined approval.
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources will serve as the lead agency working with the council.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture also announced yesterday it will move forward with plans to rescind the Clinton-era “Roadless Rule,” which has restricted logging and development on millions of acres of national forest land for more than two decades.
The agency will open a public comment period on Friday through Sept. 19 before finalizing the repeal.
The rule, enacted in 2001, currently protects about 45 million acres of federal forestland, with Alaska’s Tongass National Forest among the most affected areas.
Sun shines through the canopy in the Tongass National Forest. (Photo by Brian Logan/U.S. Forest Service)
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, parent agency of the U.S. Forest Service, announced Wednesday that it is moving ahead with plans to rescind a rule that has restricted logging and construction on millions of acres of federal lands in the American West for more than two decades.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a written statement that the agency intends to open public comments Friday on its proposal to end the so-called “Roadless Rule,” an act that will affect as much as 45 million acres of federal land as well as millions of Americans who live near it.
Opening a public comment period is the first step in repealing the rule. According to Rollins’ statement, members of the public will have until Sept. 19 to offer their opinions on the repeal, a timeframe that opponents of the plan denounced as inadequate.
Roads are a key prerequisite for large-scale logging and mining projects, and the rule — enacted in 2001 at the end of the Clinton administration — has limited the number of development projects on Forest Service land.
In Wednesday’s announcement, Rollins said rescinding the roadless rule would allow local land managers to make decisions on development and logging.
“It is vital that we properly manage our federal lands to create healthy, resilient, and productive forests for generations to come. We look forward to hearing directly from the people and communities we serve as we work together to implement productive and commonsense policy for forest land management,” she said.
Tree thinning could also reduce wildfire risks, she suggested.
Environmental groups, already prepared for Rollins’ announcement, were quick to denounce it as harmful and out of touch.
“America’s national forests give us clean air, water, wildlife, and the freedom for all to enjoy the outdoors,” said Tracy Stone-Manning, president of The Wilderness Society, in a prepared statement, “but now they are the latest target in this administration’s unpopular push to give away our lands to drill, mine, and log. Gutting the Roadless Rule — which has protected our forests for 25 years — would be the single largest rollback of conservation protections in our nation’s history.”
The Roadless Rule has been the subject of lawsuits for decades, and forests in Colorado and Idaho have already been exempted from it under state-specific guidelines.
Ninety-six percent of the Forest Service’s inventoried roadless areas are located in 12 western states, and no state is more affected than Alaska, which has almost a third of the 45 million acres affected by the pending change.
Alaska is home to the Tongass National Forest, a West Virginia-sized stretch of islands and waterways in the Southeast Alaska panhandle that make up the largest surviving temperate rainforest in the world.
Until the 1980s, the area was also home to a vast logging program and pulp wood mills that employed thousands of people.
“Across Southeast Alaska, we see the irreparable damage from so many decades of unsustainable clear-cut logging in the scarred landscapes and decimated fish and wildlife habitats — we cannot and will not go back to that, and we know that’s what public comment will show once again,” said Maggie Rabb, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, in a statement released Wednesday.
Some Alaska Native tribes in the region support keeping the rule in place, as do some tourism businesses.
“Rescinding the Roadless Rule will devastate our community just as we are beginning to heal from clear-cut logging of the past. It’s clear the people making these decisions in Washington, D.C., don’t care about how it will harm those of us who live here and have lived here for thousands of years,” said President Joel Jackson of the Organized Village of Kake, which has repeatedly intervened in lawsuits seeking to defend the rule.
“We are the people of the forest and salmon people — our lives and our voices should count — this process makes it clear they won’t,” Jackson said.
Repealing the Roadless Rule also has powerful support in the region. Local electric utilities have advocated a repeal in order to ease the construction of clean hydroelectric power plants. The Alaska Forest Association, representing the logging industry, supports it, as do mining proponents.
Ten members of the U.S. House’s Committee on Natural Resources were in Anchorage on Wednesday as part of a weeklong tour of the state.
U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Arizona, said he believes the Roadless Rule “has really handicapped us in a number of areas,” including in firefighting.
Gosar said he believes the federal government needs to take a new approach on federal land in order to thin trees and reduce wildfire risks.
In Utah, which has 4 million acres of inventoried roadless land, Republican U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy said she frequently hears from constituents upset about restrictions on the public use of federal land and supports the repeal.
“One of the complaints my constituents have frequently is that the federal government manages a lot of our resources but isn’t always great at listening to the people who live among the resources. … This Roadless Rule decision is a direct result of complaints from people who live with the Roadless Rule and the unintended consequences it’s having on economies and on resources,” she said.
U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle is a Democrat from Oregon also traveling with the committee. Her state has almost 2 million acres of inventoried roadless area, much of it in her district, but she said she would like to see a more balanced approach than the one being offered by the Trump administration.
“We have to protect our federal lands. We have to make sure that the public has access to our public land, and we have to make sure that we aren’t just wholesale taking out the protections that we worked really, really hard for, because we owe it to the people of this country to protect those lands that truly are theirs,” she said.
U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-California, is the top Democratic member of the resources committee, and wasn’t on the trip to Alaska.
In an emailed statement, he said Rollins “is steamrolling ahead with Trump’s plan to deliver America’s last wild forests to corporate polluters.”
“Democrats will fight this reckless scheme and stand with Tribes, hunters, anglers, and families who rely on these forests — not corporations looking to cash in,” he said.
When the U.S. government signs contracts with private technology companies, the fine print rarely reaches the public. Palantir Technologies, however, has attracted more and more attention over the past decade because of the size and scope of its contracts with the government.
Palantir’s two main platforms are Foundry and Gotham. Each does different things. Foundry is used by corporations in the private sector to help with global operations. Gotham is marketed as an “operating system for global decision making” and is primarily used by governments.
I am a researcher who studies the intersection of data governance, digital technologies and the U.S. federal government. I’m observing how the government is increasingly pulling together data from various sources, and the political and social consequences of combining those data sources. Palantir’s work with the federal government using the Gotham platform is amplifying this process.
Gotham is an investigative platform built for police, national security agencies, public health departments and other state clients. Its purpose is deceptively simple: take whatever data an agency already has, break it down into its smallest components and then connect the dots. Gotham is not simply a database. It takes fragmented data, scattered across various agencies and stored in different formats, and transforms it into a unified, searchable web.
The stakes are high with Palantir’s Gotham platform. The software enables law enforcement and government analysts to connect vast, disparate datasets, build intelligence profiles and search for individuals based on characteristics as granular as a tattoo or an immigration status. It transforms historically static records – think department of motor vehicles files, police reports and subpoenaed social media data like location history and private messages – into a fluid web of intelligence and surveillance.
These departments and agencies use Palantir’s platform to assemble detailed profiles of individuals, mapping their social networks, tracking their movements, identifying their physical characteristics and reviewing their criminal history. This can involve mapping a suspected gang member’s network using arrest logs and license plate reader data, or flagging individuals in a specific region with a particular immigration status.
The efficiency the platform enables is undeniable. For investigators, what once required weeks of cross-checking siloed systems can now be done in hours or less. But by scaling up the government’s investigative capacity, Gotham also alters the relationship between the state and the people it governs.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security uses Palantir’s technology to support its investigations. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
Shifting the balance of power
The political ramifications of Palantir’s rise come into focus when you consider its influence and reach across the government. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement alone has spent more than US$200 million on Palantir contracts, relying on the software to run its Investigative Case Management system and to integrate travel histories, visa records, biometric data and social media data.
These integrations mean that Palantir is not just a vendor of software; it is becoming a partner in how the federal government organizes and acts on information. That creates a kind of dependency. The same private company helps define how investigations are conducted, how targets are prioritized, how algorithms work and how decisions are justified.
Because Gotham is proprietary, the public, and even elected officials, cannot see how its algorithms weigh certain data points or why they highlight certain connections. Yet, the conclusions it generates can have life-altering consequences: inclusion on a deportation list or identification as a security risk. The opacity makes democratic oversight difficult, and the system’s broad scope and wide deployment means that mistakes or biases can scale up rapidly to affect many people.
Beyond law enforcement
Supporters of Palantir’s work argue that it modernizes outdated government IT systems, bringing them closer to the kind of integrated analytics that are routine in the private sector. However, the political and social stakes are different in public governance. Centralized, attribute-based searching, whether by location, immigration status, tattoos or affiliations, creates the capacity for mass profiling.
In the wrong hands, or even in well-intentioned hands under shifting political conditions, this kind of system could normalize surveillance of entire communities. And the criteria that trigger scrutiny today could be expanded tomorrow.
Gotham’s capabilities may enable government agencies to carry out similar operations on a much larger scale and at a faster pace. And once some form of data integration infrastructure exists, its uses tend to expand, often into areas far from its original mandate.
A broader shift in governance
The deeper story here isn’t just that the government is collecting more data. It’s that the structure of governance is changing into a model where decision-making is increasingly influenced by what integrated data platforms reveal. In a pre-Gotham era, putting someone under suspicion of wrongdoing might have required specific evidence linked to an event or witness account. In a Gotham-enabled system, suspicion can stem from patterns in the data – patterns whose importance is defined by proprietary algorithms.
This level of data integration means that government officials can use potential future risks to justify present action. The predictive turn in governance aligns with a broader shift toward what some scholars call “preemptive security.” It is a logic that can erode traditional legal safeguards that require proof before punishment.
This short documentary about Palantir includes a former employee expressing concern about how algorithms are transforming government.
The stakes for democracy
The partnership between Palantir and the federal government raises fundamental questions about accountability in a data-driven state. Who decides how these tools are used? Who can challenge a decision that was made by software, especially if that software is proprietary?
Without clear rules and independent oversight, there is a risk that Palantir’s technology becomes normalized as a default mode of governance. They could be used not only to track suspected criminals or terrorists but also to manage migration flows, monitor and suppress protests, and enforce public health measures. The concern is not that these data integration capabilities exist, but that government agencies could use them in ways that undermine civil liberties without public consent.
Once put in use, such systems are hard to dismantle. They create new expectations for speed and efficiency in law enforcement, making it politically costly to revert to slower, more manual processes. That inertia can lock in not only the technology but also the expanded scope of surveillance it enables.
Choosing the future
As Palantir deepens its government partnerships, the issues its technology raises go beyond questions of cost or efficiency. There are civil liberties implications and the potential for abuse. Will strong legal safeguards and transparent oversight constrain these tools for integrated data analysis? The answer is likely to depend on political will as much as technical design.
Ultimately, Palantir’s Gotham is more than just software. It represents how modern governance might function: through data, connections, continuous monitoring and control. The decisions made about its use today are likely to shape the balance between security and freedom for decades to come.
Nicole M. Bennett is affiliated with the Center for Refugee Studies at Indiana University.
James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, attends a panel discussion in Washington, D.C., on April 2, 2025.Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images
In early August 2025, a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia stopped efforts by federal trial judge James Boasberg to consider whether to hold Trump administration lawyers in contempt of court.
The appellate court’s ruling found that such contempt proceedings could not go forward on various technical grounds.
As someone who teaches and writes on legal ethics, I believe the questions surrounding whether administration lawyers violated Boasberg’s rulings still can be answered thanks to state bodies that license lawyers to practice law.
This is an option because the U.S. legal profession is largely licensed and regulated at the state level and, in the case of Washington, D.C., by the local D.C. courts. It’s in proceedings before disciplinary bodies – such as California’s State Bar Court, New York State’s attorney grievance committees and the Board on Professional Responsiblity in D.C., for example – where lawyers have to answer for charges that they have violated their professional code of ethics. That includes lawyers in the federal government.
Egregious violations of professional obligations, such as fabricating or destroying evidence or lying to a court, can result in a lawyer being suspended from practice and even disbarred completely.
These systems are a critical component of the checks on the U.S. legal system. It ensures that lawyers uphold their professional obligations as they pursue their clients’ rights.
The U.S. legal system is adversarial in nature. That means lawyers engage in zealous advocacy when they strive to advance the interests of their clients. Lawyers then resolve their disputes within that adversarial system, but even the advocates in that system have to follow its rules of engagement.
A central tenet of that system is that lawyers may not act unethically by abusing their knowledge of the system to illegally advance their clients’ interests – and their own.
This type of abuse of the system occurred when lawyers tried to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, filing dozens of unsuccessful cases to seek to change the election’s outcome. And they made spurious legal arguments in an attempt to halt Congress’ certification of the final vote in the Electoral College.
Recently, lesser-known lawyers such as John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark, both involved in the effort to prevent the transfer of presidential power after Trump lost his reelection bid, have also faced disciplinary charges. While these processes have not yet completely run their course, state bodies have recommended that each should lose his license to practice law.
John Eastman, left, appears at a Washington, D.C., rally with former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, on Jan. 6, 2021. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File
Disciplinary bodies and the rule of law
The state bodies that govern the practice of law, and which license lawyers who practice even in the federal courts and the federal government, serve as a critical check on unprofessional conduct by lawyers.
State proceedings are no panacea, however. They can take time. That’s evident in the cases against Eastman and Clark, which are still working their way through the systems in the District of Columbia, in the case of Clark, and California, in Eastman’s case, for events that happened in late 2020 and early 2021.
And there is always the risk that adversaries can start an escalating war of tit for tat, regardless of whether such complaints have merit.
The Trump administration targeted private law firms for punishment through a series of executive orders that, for example, sought to revoke the firms’ security clearances and bar their lawyers from entering federal buildings. Although all the private law firms that challenged the executive orders issued against them have succeeded in blocking them, the Trump administration has also recently filed ethics charges against at least one of the lawyers involved in a lawsuit against it.
The Trump administration has also instituted a complaint against Boasberg with a federal body that oversees judicial ethics. And just the threat of a complaint, even a baseless one, can certainly have a chilling effect on administration critics, making them less likely to take action in the future.
Sociologist Eliot Freidson notes that one of the hallmarks of a profession is that its members care more about the opinion of their peers than the opinion of the general public. Because professionals should always care about their professional reputation, they should fear taking actions on behalf of a client – no matter who that client is – that exceed the rules that govern the profession. That includes defying court orders, lying on behalf of a client, or making baseless legal arguments.
A plane carrying Venezuelans who were detained in El Salvador lands in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 18, 2025. The Venezuelans had been sent to El Salvador in March after President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport presumed ‘Tren de Aragua’ gang members. Jesus Vargas/Getty Images
If professional reputation alone is not enough to prevent such misconduct, the specter of losing the ability to practice, or even the fear of coming before an ethics body, might cause enough lawyers to think twice before they engage in acts that exceed the bounds of permissible, zealous advocacy.
While courts are sometimes where lawyers are sanctioned for improper conduct, including for contempt of court, they are not the only site where attorneys can face discipline for unprofessional conduct.
State ethics bodies have a critical role to play in preserving the rule of law, at least with respect to the conduct of lawyers they oversee.
And if Boasberg, any other judge, or a litigant wants to make referrals to such state institutions when lawyers seek to abuse the system, those bodies certainly have an important role to play in ensuring the legal profession maintains high standards of professionalism and the proper functioning of that system in a manner that comports with the rule of law.
Ray Brescia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
University faculty are the most important people influencing student learning, development, persistence and degree attainment. Maskot/Getty Images
Universities, often perceived as bastions of progressive thought, are increasingly reflecting the broader political polarization gripping the nation.
Faculty members represent a university’s core identity and mission. They express the values of the institution in numerous ways, including teaching, mentoring, advising and researching.
In my research into the impact of college on student development and learning, I – and others – have found that faculty are the most important people influencing student learning, development, persistence and degree attainment.
However, no systematic efforts have ever been undertaken to find out how faculty’s work is influenced by their understanding of university life and religion – until now.
The Templeton Religion Trust, a charity focused on improving societal well-being through understanding individual well-being, funded a recent national survey my team and I administered to 1,000 faculty members. The survey asked faculty about their perceptions of university life, including free speech and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, often shortened to simply DEI.
The survey results reveal a striking divergence in perspectives on the often divisive issues of free speech and DEI among faculty. Those differences showed up particularly along the red state and blue state divide.
Yet, amid these deep disagreements, a surprising point of bipartisan consensus emerges: faculty members’ belief in the importance of religious, spiritual and secular inclusion in diversity efforts.
Faculty agreed on the importance of religious, spiritual and secular inclusion in diversity efforts. Here, a student graduating from Columbia University in New York on May 21, 2025, wears a graduation cap with a verse from the Quran written on it. Jeenah Moon/POOL/AFP via Getty Images, CC BY
State political leaning is key
Survey responses represented national trends across various factors, including region, institutional control, institutional type and academic discipline.
In part of the analysis, we uncovered that the political leanings of a state – how a state voted in the presidential election of 2024 – play a significant role in what faculty perceive about free speech and DEI programming.
Even more compelling, significant differences reported by faculty from red versus blue states showed up consistently across gender, race, religion, academic discipline, faculty rank and whether the faculty member was employed at a private or public institution.
In other words, political leanings of a state were strongly associated with faculty perceptions regardless of these other factors.
Measuring the right to free speech
We asked faculty four questions related to their First Amendment rights, which we presented as: “The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition.”
Working closely with experts in legal epidemiology, we asked faculty the extent to which they agreed with the following statements: a) the First Amendment is relevant to my job as a faculty member; b) the First Amendment is relevant to my research engagement; c) my institution provides me with my constitutionally mandated First Amendment rights; and d) I am aware of my rights and responsibilities as they relate to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
While awareness of First Amendment rights appears consistent across the board, a notable difference arises in faculty members’ perception of institutional protection of those rights.
Faculty in blue states are significantly more likely than those in red states to report that their institutions uphold their constitutionally mandated First Amendment rights. This implies a potential disconnect in how freedoms are experienced and protected, depending on the political leanings of the state where an institution is located.
Measuring attitudes about DEI
The divide deepens when it comes to DEI, defined in the survey as “campus diversity programs” in some instances and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in others.
When compared with faculty in blue states, those in red states are far more inclined to view DEI efforts as “overreach,” agreeing with the statements that “diversity programs generally do more harm than good on college and university campuses” and “the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion on college and university campuses has gone too far.”
Conversely, blue state faculty largely disagree with these assertions. When compared with faculty in red states, those in blue states were more likely to agree that “campus diversity programs support student success,” demonstrating a stark ideological chasm on the value and impact of DEI.
This partisan disagreement extends to the very concept of banning DEI programs.
Red state faculty show moderate support for banning DEI, suggesting a belief that current efforts to curtail campus diversity initiatives are, according to survey response options, “well justified.”
Blue state faculty overwhelmingly support the continuation of these programs. They gave strong endorsement to the idea that “colleges and universities should continue to offer identity-specific organizations and programming.”
This schism reflects the ongoing national debate about the role and scope of DEI in higher education. Faculty perspectives mirror the political sentiments of their respective regions.
That’s the idea that DEI efforts should include programming and activities designed to help students from all religious, spiritual and secular backgrounds belong and succeed.
Religious, secular and spiritual diversity
Despite their sharp disagreements on other aspects of DEI, both red state and blue state faculty overwhelmingly agree that “colleges and universities should provide support for students of all religious, secular, and spiritual identities and backgrounds.”
And both groups similarly reject the notion that “campuses should not concern themselves with religious, secular and spiritual diversity.”
The findings from this survey highlight the complex landscape of faculty opinion in higher education. While significant difficulties remain in reconciling differing views on free speech and DEI, the shared commitment to religious, spiritual and secular inclusion offers a potential path to agreement.
By focusing on areas of consensus, institutions can begin to foster more inclusive environments to serve the needs of all students, regardless of their background or beliefs. Understanding these nuanced perspectives is the first step toward building more cohesive, pluralistic and intellectually vibrant academic communities across the nation’s varied political terrain.
Matthew J. Mayhew receives funding from the Templeton Religions Trust, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Merrifield Family Trust, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Fetzer Institute, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the Merrifield Family Trust, and the United States Department of Education.
Trump also made it clear that he’s hoping for a similar fate for every other late night host on network television.
So the president was obviously chagrined by the recent “sick rumor” (his words) that NBC has decided to extend the contract of one of his biggest late night critics, Seth Meyers.
Seth Meyers on February 24, 2014. (Photo by Peter Kramer/NBC/Getty Images)
In May of 2024, Meyers’ contract was renewed through 2028, and NBC has not confirmed that his Late Night deal will continue beyond that.
But apparently, preliminary reports of an additional extension were enough to send Trump into a tirade early Wednesday morning.
“Fake News NBC extended the contract of one of the least talented Late Night television hosts out there, Seth Meyers,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform around 2 am.
“He has no Ratings, Talent, or Intelligence, and the Personality of an insecure child. So, why would Fake News NBC extend this dope’s contract. I don’t know, but I’ll definitely be finding out!!!”
Needless to say, Trump is not a fan of the SNL alum’s comedic stylings.
US President Joe Biden speaks with host Seth Meyers during a taping of “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in New York City on February 26, 2024. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
But it’s unclear why he went into a Meyers-inspired tailspin at 2 in the morning on a weeknight.
Again, it’s unlikely that Meyers and his NBC bosses reentered contract talks when he still has over two years left on his current deal.
But it seems almost equally unlikely that Trump — given how closely he fixates on the fate of his late night foes — would just now be learning about the extension.
Trump has been seething over late night disses for years
US President Joe Biden speaks with host Seth Meyers during a taping of “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in New York City on February 26, 2024. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Everyone from Lorne Michaels to Jimmy Fallon has incurred Trump’s wrath over the years, so it came as no surprise when the president celebrated Colbert’s firing.
For his part, Colbert fired back at the president in one of his monologues, at one point addressing Trump directly with a curt “f–k you.”
Needless to say, the war between the White House and TV comedians has heated up in recent months.
It’s not the sort of development that anyone predicted, but if there’s one thing that Trump supporters and detractors can agree on, it’s that the man is nothing if not unpredictable.
Meyers has yet to respond to the president’s latest provocations, but it seems likely that he’ll do so when his show returns with new episodes next month.
Of course, given the pace of this year, it’s possible that today’s news will seem like ancient history by then.
Does Taylor Swift announcing her engagement have anything to do with Meghan Markle?
We know that it sounds like a ridiculous question, but people are talking about it, so we are, too.
Taylor kept her engagement to Travis Kelce a secret before the surprise announcement. She picked a day that just happened to be super important for the Duchess.
Following years of rumors that the two women have a beef, what should we make of this?
A woman of many talents, Meghan Markle discusses her recent ventures. (Image Credit: Bloomberg/YouTube)
Do Taylor Swift and Meghan Markle have a feud?
First and foremost, they don’t have a feud feud.
If Taylor does not like someone, it seldom remains a secret. There are generally songs about it.
Katy Perry and Kim Kardashian both know that better than most.
However, a couple of years ago, there was a rumor that Taylor declined an interview on Meghan’s Archetypes podcast.
More recently, the same rumor circulated, but it was about Confessions of a Female Founder.
We once again have no idea if that’s true.
We do know that Taylor hasn’t exactly been a podcast girlie. She made her podcast debut very recently with fiancé Travis Kelce.
If Taylor declined Meghan’s alleged invites for personal reasons, maybe there’s a beef.
If Meghan took it personally, sure, maybe there’s a beef. What’s the (alleged) problem now?
Sitting down for an interview in August 2025, Meghan Markle had a very clear understanding of her critics. (Image Credit: Bloomberg/YouTube)
Is Taylor a little too close to Meghan’s nightmare of a brother-in-law?
When Meghan Markle married Prince Harry, she married into a family of publicly funded national mascots with a polarizing family history. That’s putting it mildly.
Among other things, she gained Prince William as a brother-in-law.
And, unfortunately, it seems that William despises Harry. That’s deeply sad and, under the circumstances, kind of pathetic.
More than once, William has cozied up to Taylor. This included 2024, when he took George and Charlotte to the Eras Tour. They had a meet-and-greet.
It must be nice for royals to meet someone who actually does something for a living.
Sports player Travis Kelce listens attentively on his ‘New Heights’ podcast as Taylor Swift speaks. (Image Credit: YouTube)
On August 11, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry revealed their new Netflix deal.
The next day, on August 12, Taylor Swift announced The Life of a Showgirl, her new album.
— Anne – Duchess Of Success (@TheDuchessZone) August 26, 2025
If there’s ‘upstaging’ going on, no one seems mad about it
As fans on social media noted, Meghan Markle liked the Taylor Swift engagement news.
She apparently appreciated it so much that she signaled her approval on three separate Instagram accounts.
Folks, Meghan and Taylor are both very busy women. It is entirely possible that they both just have a lot of announcements to make each year, and that these sometimes come out on similar schedules.
That said, it’s also possible that both women are classy and savvy enough to not announce it if there’s a beef between them.
Being able to smile warmly at someone you absolutely despise is a hallmark of civilization.
Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez are besties, billionaires, and … betrothed?
Alliteration aside, they’re both engaged. Separately, that is.
In fact, the same week as Taylor dropped her big news, Selena may have had her bachelorette party. Is the timing a coincidence? Maybe.
Either way, people are digging up a 16-year-old exchange between the singers that seemed to predict this very moment.
Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, and Ice Spice attend the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards at Prudential Center on September 12, 2023. (Photo Credit: Theo Wargo/Getty Images for MTV)
Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez have been besties for life, basically
The friendship between Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez dates back to the aughts. In fact, it goes back so far that many of us were not yet stans of either.
Twitter was very different at that time. It was new. It was also still Twitter, a place where even a famous person could post in peace and interact with real people, not bots.
So, Selena’s tweet from April 19, 2009 received only a few thousand retweets and fewer than 100 replies.
In 2009, Selena Gomez tweeted about love. It would take many years for her to find her happily ever after. (Image Credit: Twitter)
“Discussing love with two 9 yr olds. That’s what love supposed to be,” Selena tweeted at the time.
“Truly amazing,” she remarked. “I’m never leaving Canada.”
Many believe that this tweet is from when Selena was in Vancouver, filming Ramona and Beezus alongside even-younger-actress Joey King.
Singers Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez arrive on the red carpet for the 58th Annual Grammy music Awards in Los Angeles February 15, 2016. (Photo Credit: VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images)
Look at this reply — which has aged like fine wine
At that time, Taylor Swift was also an up-and-coming young adult musician. She still existed primarily within the niche world of Country. It was years before Red and 1989 helped her shatter these barriers.
“Real love still happens sometimes,” she wrote as a reply to Selena Gomez’s tweet.
“It’s not just something we make up when we’re nine,” Taylor assured. “I have to believe that. You do too.”
On Twitter in 2009, Taylor Swift responded with words of encouragement for bestie Selena Gomez. (Image Credit: Twitter)
Both women have been unlucky in love in very famous ways. In fact, that is how they bonded — dating and then splitting with two of the Jonas Brothers.
Now, Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift are both billionaires. Last year, Selena became engaged to Benny Blanco. This summer, Taylor became engaged to Travis Kelce.
Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift attend the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards at Prudential Center on September 12, 2023. (Photo Credit: Noam Galai/Getty Images for MTV)
Is the timing just a coincidence?
Some on social media are speculating that Taylor and Selena had some sort of pact, which is why Taylor’s announcement comes just days after Selena’s rumored bachelorette party.
There are even Gaylors (that is, Taylor fans who believe that she is secretly gay) who have suggested — or perhaps joked — that Taylor’s engagement is out of “grief” that Selena is marrying.
The truth is that we don’t know. But, folks, the simplest explanation is that it’s a coincidence. They both found love and, maybe, their happily-ever-afters.
Emily Maynard’s family is about to get even bigger!
No, the Bachelorette star didn’t announce that she’s soon to welcome her third child.
Rather, her daughter announced that Emily will soon be a grandmother!
TV personality Emily Maynard attends Benefit Cosmetics Beauty Best Or Bust Party hosted by Emily Maynard at Macy’s Herald Square on September 6, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images for Benefit Cosmetics)
Ricki Maynard shares exciting announcement in humorous fashion
In her latest Instagram Story, 20-year-old Ricki Maynard shared a sonogram photo along with a joyous — and very humorous — announcement.
“Netflix told me I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Emily began, quoting Love Island: USA‘s Huda Mustafa
From there, Ricki confirmed her big news and revealed the sex of her baby.
“My heart is so full, yet my stomach is so empty because she hates all food. I’m convinced,” she joked in the caption.
Emily — who shares kids Jennings, 9, Gibson, 8, Gatlin, 7, Magnolia, 4, and Jones, 3, with husband Tyler Johnson — has yet to comment on her daughter’s big news.
But if we had to guess, we’d say she’s just as excited as Ricki.
Emily and Ricki seem to have a very close relationship, and mother gushed about daughter on the occasion of her 19th birthday last June.
“My beautiful girl. I’ll always and forever have your back,” Emily wrote at the time, alongside several photos of herself and Ricki.
“I love you and am so proud of the person you are. Happy 19th Birthday. You’re a gift to the world!”
TV personality Emily Maynard attends Benefit Cosmetics Beauty Best Or Bust Party hosted by Emily Maynard at Macy’s Herald Square on September 6, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images for Benefit Cosmetics)
Emily Maynard’s tumultuous life and times
Emily’s first fiancé, Ricky, died in a plane crash in 2004, just weeks before Ricki was born.
Sadly, Emily would endure many more ups and downs before marrying the love of her life, Tyler.
She competed on the 15th season ofThe Bachelor, where she got engaged to Brad Womack.
She was then chosen as the Bachelorette for the show’s eighth season. She got angaged to Jeff Holm in the finale, but the two later called it off.
Interestingly, Emily met Tyler before competing on either show, but for several years, the two were just friends.
“He really wanted nothing to do with me,” she told Good Morning America in 2017 (via E! News). “I told my girlfriend I met this guy and he could not be less attracted to me, he was in the friend zone.”
Now, Emily and Tyler are about to go from friends to lovers to parents to grandparents! Congrats to the entire family!
