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Seth Meyers on Trump canceling $1bn in federal funds: ‘Is he adding a waterslide to the reflecting pool?’

Late-night hosts weighed in on Trump’s relationship with tech leaders and the White House’s new AI-powered site

On Tuesday night, late-night hosts discussed a Maha summit in Washington DC, the White House’s new AI-powered website and Donald Trump once again falling asleep on live TV.

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© Photograph: NBC

© Photograph: NBC

© Photograph: NBC

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Dennis Haskins, US actor who played Mr Belding in Saved by the Bell, dies aged 75

Agent calls death of Haskins, who played the school principal in three programs, ‘a tragic loss’

The US actor Dennis Haskins – most known for co-starring in the popular Saved by the Bell television series franchise – has died, his agent confirmed on Tuesday. He was 75.

Alluding to Haskins’ Saved by the Bell character, the fictional high school principal Mr Richard Belding, agent Jay Schachter said in a statement: “It’s a tragic loss. Everyone loved Mr Belding, and those of us who got to know Dennis loved him even more.

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© Photograph: Paul Drinkwater/NBC via Getty Images

© Photograph: Paul Drinkwater/NBC via Getty Images

© Photograph: Paul Drinkwater/NBC via Getty Images

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I spent a full hour watching Trump TV. It’s a digital pathway to hell | Dave Schilling

The streaming channel was full of the president’s vanity and myopia. It was also deeply, deeply dull

Are you currently at an airport? Strapped to a hospital bed, with various tubes protruding from your body? Maybe you’re on a treadmill or visiting an elder care facility? Chained to a radiator in the basement from the Saw movies?

If you said yes to any of these questions, you might be watching cable news while reading this column. Or maybe you’re one of the hundreds of people currently watching Donald Trump’s answer to cable news, Trump TV – a YouTube streaming channel that airs nothing but White House-sanctioned content 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

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© Illustration: Fortunate Joaquin/The Guardian

© Illustration: Fortunate Joaquin/The Guardian

© Illustration: Fortunate Joaquin/The Guardian

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Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder arrested at anti-Netanyahu protest in New York

Actors detained at Jewish Voice for Peace demonstration against Israeli prime minister’s address to the UN general assembly

Oscar-winning actor Susan Sarandon and Hacks star Hannah Einbinder were among people detained by police in New York on Thursday as they moved in to break up a protest against Benjamin Netanyahu.

Agence France-Presse footage shows NYPD officers cuffing Thelma & Louise star Sarandon at the demo in the city as the Israeli prime minister was readying to address the United Nations general assembly.

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© Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters

© Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters

© Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters

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Kim Kardashian’s Team Moms highlights the ridiculous excess of the US youth-sports industry

A new Paramount+ series premiering Thursday turns pushy sports parents into glossy entertainment – with the children largely ushered off stage

Remember when pushy sports parents were deserving objects of our collective scorn? When Marv Marinovich and Jim Pierce were bywords for abusive fatherhood, Sarah Palin made the overbearing hockey mom a global punchline, and grim stories of pushy parents assaulting officials, kids and one another grabbed headlines and trained a harsh spotlight on youth sports? Well, the rebrand is in full swing.

Team Moms: Baseball is a glossy new reality series premiering Thursday that aims to recast the pushy sports parent as something well worth coveting, a sexy black hat with a designer label. From the makers of Love Island (ITV America), for Hollywood’s most rapacious studio (Paramount Skydance), with none other than basketball mom Kim Kardashian attached as executive producer, the Paramount+ series follows a cluster of parents whose sons attend Legendary Prep Academy – a Scottsdale, Arizona baseball hothouse with an intense focus on cultivating diamond gems. Anyone coming to this expecting genuine insights on a $40bn industry that’s now under siege from private equity, swallowing ever larger chunks of hard-earned family budgets along the way, should know up front: this is a closer cousin to Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise than ESPN’s 30 for 30.

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© Photograph: Paramount+

© Photograph: Paramount+

© Photograph: Paramount+

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Paramount settles lawsuits with 12 US states, clearing way for Warner merger

States including California and New York sued over concerns of ‘extinguishing competition’ with $81bn merger

Paramount has reached a settlement with California and several other states that sued over a proposed $81bn merger with Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), the California attorney general announced Monday, clearing the way to consolidate some of Hollywood’s most recognizable TV networks and studios under one owner.

Though the merger was approved by the justice department in June, a coalition of 12 states, led by California, had sued over concerns that combining two of the five last legacy studios in Hollywood would “extinguish competition” and lead to fewer movies in theaters and on streaming platforms.

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© Composite: AP, Bauer Griffin/GC Images

© Composite: AP, Bauer Griffin/GC Images

© Composite: AP, Bauer Griffin/GC Images

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Star Trek is turning 60 – and the vision it promised feels more distant than ever | Dave Schilling

The US’s deployment of weaponry in space marks the latest backward step from the show’s optimistic conception of the future

Who among us doesn’t dream of space in their youth?

OK, maybe some of us. Like the ones with lives. While you were out playing hopscotch with little Jimmy and Susie, I was locked in my room mainlining episodes of Star Trek or the weird, sanitized version of Aliens that aired on broadcast TV. Fantastical science-fiction adventure seemed to offer more than playground games and actual human connection. Spaceships over relationships.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

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© Illustration: Fortunate Joaquin/The Guardian

© Illustration: Fortunate Joaquin/The Guardian

© Illustration: Fortunate Joaquin/The Guardian

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