As the co-host of NBC’s “Today,” Matt Lauer once gave a colleague a sex toy as a present. It included an explicit note about how he wanted to use it on her, which left her mortified.
On another day, he summoned a different female employee to his office, and then dropped his pants, showing her his penis. After the employee declined to do anything, visibly shaken, he reprimanded her for not engaging in a sexual act.
He would sometimes quiz female producers about who they’d slept with, offering to trade names. And he loved to engage in a crass quiz game with men and women in the office: “f—, marry, or kill,” in which he would identify the female co-hosts that he’d most like to sleep with.
These accounts of Lauer’s behavior at NBC are the result of a two-month investigation by Variety, with dozens of interviews with current and former staffers. Variety has talked to three women who identified themselves as victims of sexual harassment by Lauer, and their stories have been corroborated by friends or colleagues that they told at the time. They have asked for now to remain unnamed, fearing professional repercussions.
Donald Trump potentially has millions of lives in his hands as the threat of a devastating war with North Korea swiftly escalates.
Yet the President of the United States is raising new questions about his temperament, his judgment and his understanding of the resonance of his global voice and the gravity of his role with a wild sequence of insults, inflammatory tweets and bizarre comments.
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On Wednesday Trump caused outrage and sparked fears of violent reprisals against Americans and US interests overseas by retweeting graphic anti-Muslim videos by an extreme far right British hate group. Earlier this week he used a racial slur in front of Native American war heroes. He’s attacked global press freedom, after cozying up to autocrats on his recent Asia tour.
“To expect China to be able to solve the problem by having tougher sanctions is unrealistic,” an expert warns.
North Korea fired yet another intercontinental ballistic missile this week, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump’s now-familiar call for China to crack down on its defiant trading partner with tougher sanctions.
In a phone call Wednesday, Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping that his country must “use all available levers to convince North Korea to end its provocations and return to the path of denuclearization,” according to a statement from the White House.
Trump subsequently announced that additional “major sanctions” against North Korea are forthcoming and claimed the situation “will be handled!” But the tired strategy of sanctioning Pyongyang ― a regime hellbent on advancing its nuclear abilities at all costs ― has not yet proved to be an effective one.
In 2012, “Today” show host Matt Lauer appeared on the cover of the Hollywood Reporter, next to a headline that read “The New Most Powerful Face in News.”
No one would dispute that characterization — at the time, Lauer had just signed a monstrous four-year contract with NBC, reportedly north of $20 million a year. Not only was he one of the highest-paid personalities on television, but as the star anchor of the country’s top-rated morning show, he could help shape the national conversation from his perch at 30 Rockefeller Center.
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“Today” show co-hosts Matt Lauer and Ann Curry at the “Today” show 60th anniversary celebration in 2012 in New York. (Evan Agostini/AP)
The south-western black rhinoceros is a subspecies of the black rhinoceros, living in southwestern Africa.It is currently listed as vulnerable by the IUCN. The biggest threat towards the subspecies Diceros bicornis occidentalis is illegal poaching.
The Earth is not a solid mass of rock: its hot, dark, fractured subsurface is home to weird and wonderful life forms.
The living landscape all around us is just a thin veneer atop the vast, little-understood bulk of the Earth’s interior. A widespread misconception about the deep subsurface is that this realm consists of a continuous mass of uniform compressed solid rock. Few are aware that this mass of rock is heavily fractured, and water runs in many of these fractures and faults, down to depths of many kilometres. The deep Earth supports an entire biosphere, largely cut off from the surface world, and is still only beginning to be explored and understood.
The amount of water in the subsurface is considerable. Globally, the freshwater reservoir in the subsurface is estimated to be up to 100 times as great as all the available fresh water in the rivers, lakes and swamps combined. This water, ranging in ages from seven years to 2 billion years, is being intensely studied by researchers because it defines the location and scope of deep life. We know now that the deep terrestrial subsurface is home to one quintillion simple (prokaryotic) cells. That is two to 20 times as many cells as live in all the open ocean. By some estimates, the deep biosphere could contain up to one third of Earth’s entire biomass.
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A scanning electron microscope image shows a nematode in biofilm (blue), in its natural deep-subsurface habitat. The scale bar is 20 micrometres (μm) long. All images courtesy Gaetan Borgonie
The New York Giants announced Tuesday that the team would bench star quarterback Eli Manning.
Coach Ben McAdoo said backup quarterback Geno Smith would start in place of Manning as the team tries to revive a losing season. Manning has started in 210 consecutive regular-season games, a streak that’s second only to former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre. McAdoo also mentioned giving rookie Davis Webb an opportunity to start as the team evaluates Smith in the next five weeks, according to the team’s website.
Manning, who has started every game since 2004, was gracious about the decision.
Global arms experts say North Korea’s latest test of a ballistic missile was an expected but troubling development that further solidifies Kim Jong Un’s role as a nuclear-backed strongman.
A defiant North Korea launched what appeared to be another intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday, and initial reports put the weapon’s range at more than 8,100 miles. As tested, such a weapon would be able to travel more than enough distance to reach Washington, D.C., or New York City.
Experts say it’s unlikely the missile would be able to deliver a nuclear bomb that far just yet, as it appeared likely that Tuesday’s launch carried a lighter mock warhead. But many say such a reality is one step closer, and the test advances North Korea’s weapon program despite efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump to quash Kim’s ambitions.
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JUNG YEON-JE via Getty Images
“We can’t claim that we were surprised by this,” global arms experts say.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday retweeted a series of overtly Islamophobic videos shared by a controversial British far-right activist.
The videos, posed Britain First Deputy Leader Jayda Fransen, claimed to show various violent crimes committed by Muslims. Britain First is widely known in the U.K. for spreading Islamophobic and racist videos, including many proven to be fake.
Fransen’s first tweet shows a boy beating another boy on crutches. The caption says: “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” Yet the video’s original caption, released with the video in May on a Dutch website, mentioned neither race nor religion. A 16-year-old pictured in the video was charged with provoking the fight, and a 16-year-old who shot the video also was charged, local media reported.
NBC has fired longtime “Today” host Matt Lauer following allegations of workplace misconduct, the network announced on Wednesday.
“We are devastated,” “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie said in an emotional statement. “All we can say is we are heartbroken.”
Guthrie said that NBC News chairman Andy Lack informed employees early Wednesday about the decision after having received a complaint about Lauer’s behavior on Monday night. She read Lack’s note on-air, noting that while the network says it had never received a complaint about Lauer before, it has “reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”
Both Guthrie and co-host Hoda Kotb appeared shaken by the news.
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Trump’s behavior raises questions
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Black Rhinoceros
A scanning electron microscope image shows a nematode in biofilm (blue), in its natural deep-subsurface habitat. The scale bar is 20 micrometres (μm) long. All images courtesy Gaetan Borgonie
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Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
