IKEA Monkey

In a nearly unimaginable turn of events, Christianity Today has released an editorial condemning a now-impeached Donald Trump. Founded by Billy Graham, the outlet has traditionally stayed away from outright criticisms of the Trump. That changed this afternoon.

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Greta Thunberg, a 16-year old from Sweden, was just named Time’s Person Of The Year in 2019 for her pioneering work as a climate activist in a world where the future of our planet has somehow become a partisan issue. Republicans everywhere filled their diapers when the teenager forcefully spoke common sense regarding…

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If a Jeff Bezos company is in the headlines this time of year, it’s usually Amazon and its exhausting—even dangerous—rush to prepare hundreds of thousands of packages a day.

But Bezos would probably prefer you read about a different company of his, the one that is doing, as he has put it, his “most important work”: Blue Origin, his space venture.

Blue Origin this week launched a rocket to the edge of space and back, its 12th test flight. The New Shepard rocket—named for Alan Shepard, the first American to go into space—took off from a test site in the middle of the Texas desert, with a gumdrop-shaped capsule on its nose.

The vehicle climbed 66 miles (106 kilometers) into the sky, piercing an upper-atmosphere boundary that is considered the beginning of outer space. The capsule and the rocket came apart, and then began their separate descents to the ground. The rocket landed vertically, firing its engines to slow itself and touch down with a gentle bounce. The capsule coasted down beneath a trio of puffy parachutes, kicking up a ring of dust as it settled on the desert.

Next year, Bezos hopes, people will walk out of that capsule, grinning from ear to ear—the picture of satisfied customers. In the scheme of grandiose plans for space, this one is relatively small. But in 2020, it could make Blue Origin the first company to regularly ferry customers to space, an accomplishment that fits tidily into Bezos’s principle of “customer obsession,” which focuses on the consumer over the competition. And, as with Amazon, Blue Origin’s seemingly simple goal underlies a much more expansive vision.

[Read: Jeff Bezos has plans to extract the moon’s water]

The New Shepard system is designed to carry groups of six to the edge of space, where passengers would be able to unbuckle from their seats and experience weightlessness. The capsule’s big window would provide panoramic views of the hazy curvature of a gleaming Earth against the inky darkness of space. And on their way up, they would experience some of the same shakes and sounds, and the crushing pressure of gravity, as real astronauts do. The suborbital trip, from launch to landing, would take just 10 minutes. Bezos wants to fly customers a few times a week, with only a day of training and a signed waiver acknowledging the risks.

Bezos hasn’t said how much a ticket would cost. But if the prices offered by other space-tourism companies, such as fellow billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, are an indication, admission could be as much as $250,000. It is a steep charge for a few minutes of weightlessness and wonder, but the experience is, from another perspective, considerably more accessible than, say, a trip around the moon or to Mars. It is perhaps the most commercial option of all—the space-exploration equivalent of one-day delivery.

Blue Origin had hoped to send its first passengers toward space before 2019 was over. During the flight’s webcast this week, Ariane Cornell, the company’s director of sales, said a crewed flight would happen “very soon.” Blue Origin did not respond to requests for more detail.

[Read: New Mexico’s sad bet on space exploration]

Blue Origin is almost 20 years old, and was founded before other big space companies, such as Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Blue Origin even beat SpaceX to a milestone that now seems almost routine for the industry: flying a rocket and then reusing it. The rocket booster in this week’s launch had already flown five times.

But it has been the tortoise in the race—the animal is the company’s actual mascot—and 2019 felt like its most important season yet. The company has conducted what could be the last few flights of New Shepard before people come onboard. It has expanded the factory at Cape Canaveral, in Florida, where it plans to build another, much bigger rocket, New Glenn—named for John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth—which would compete with vehicles like SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. And it has unveiled a lunar lander that it wants the Trump administration to use in its mission to return people to the moon in 2024.

[Read: The true price of privatizing space travel]

The New Shepard trips are a stepping stone for a bigger, science-fiction vision for Bezos, who grew up watching the moon landings and led his college’s chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space. The billionaire wants future generations to construct a space station in orbit around Earth, perpetually in motion to produce artificial gravity, where humankind would re-create cities, national parks, even famous sites.

As the richest person on Earth, Bezos isn’t worried about the company’s profitability. “Right now, the business model with Blue Origin is I sell Amazon stock,” Bezos told Steven Levy in Wired last year. “I’m willing to be patient for decades.” In the future that Jeff Bezos imagines, years from now, when the planet is that much more damaged and the infrastructure exists to help humanity off the planet, he believes that people will recognize his foresight. The edge of space is just the first step.

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who became the voice of conscience for a generation facing the climate change emergency, was announced Wednesday as Time magazine's 2019 Person of the Year. The 16-year-old first hit the headlines for her solo strike against global warming outside Sweden's parliament last year. The magazine interviewed Thunberg aboard the sailboat that took her from the United States to Europe after a hectic 11-week North American trip to several US cities and Canada.

At a rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania on Tuesday, President Donald Trump claimed out of nowhere that an affair between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok ― the FBI “lovers” the president once mimicked having an orgasm ― ended with a restraining order. He made the claim to raucous jeers from the crowd, and then admitted over and over that he had no evidence the restraining order actually existed.

“Lisa Page, so in love she didn’t know what the hell was happening, texted the head of counterintelligence Peter Strzok ― likewise, so in love he couldn’t see straight. This poor guy,” Trump said to the crowd in Hershey, Pennsylvania. “Did I hear he needed a restraining order after this whole thing? To keep him away from Lisa? That’s what I heard.”

The crowd reacted by booing Strzok and Page. Trump admitted time and again he didn’t know if the restraining order claim was true. No matter: He just kept on saying it.

READ: Trump's 'fake orgasm' is what got former FBI lawyer Lisa Page to break her silence

“I don’t know if it’s true. The fake news will never report it,” the president said. “But it could be true. No, that’s what I heard, I don’t know. I mean, who could believe a thing like that? No, I heard that Peter Strzok needed a restraining order to keep him away from his once-lover. Ah, Lisa I hope you miss him. Lisa, he’ll never be the same.”

Trump’s performance in Hershey came not long after Page broke her silence about what it’s like to be targeted by the president, who has repeatedly attacked her and Strzok for texts they exchanged that were critical of then-candidate Trump. The president even went as far as to mimic Page and Strzok having sex during a rally, which, Page said, inspired her to finally speak out.

MORE: The wild story of the FBI lovers who used agency phones to go off on Trump is now a play

“I had stayed quiet for years hoping it would fade away, but instead it got worse,” she told the Daily Beast earlier this month. “It had been so hard not to defend myself, to let people who hate me control the narrative. I decided to take my power back.”

The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday that an unnamed “source familiar with Page’s thinking” said Trump’s allegation about the restraining order is “absolutely untrue.”

Trump and his Republican allies have regularly attacked Page and Strzok, saying texts about an “insurance policy” show the investigation into Trump was a sham to remove him from office. The former FBI employees have a completely different explanation for the messages, saying the “insurance policy” was an analogy for the idea that even if Trump was probably going to lose the 2016 election, they still had to do their jobs on the investigation.

Cover: President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, in Hershey, Pa. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Marie Fredriksson, half of the iconic Swedish pop duo Roxette, has died after a 17-year battle with cancer. The Dimberg Jernberg agency, Fredriksson’s management company, confirmed that the singer died on Monday, per CNN. She was 61 years old.

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This is the type of endearing pettiness that makes soccer a hilarious and wonderful sport.

It’s easy to forget that the Ballon d’Or gala recognizes more than the best men’s and women’s players in the world.

One award that I was unaware of (and I doubt I was alone) is Fan of the Year. This year, it went to a Newcastle fan who drove 110 miles to laugh at his Everton-supporting friend after Newcastle beat Everton, 3-2.

I support such pettiness. This man could have called his friend, or sent him a text to boast about the victory, but those methods are too impersonal. They don’t bridge the distance.

In our increasingly technological times, we’re more connected to the world, but seem to spend less physical time with the people in our lives. In order to really get his message across, to make his friend feel the totality of Everton’s loss and Newcastle’s victory, this man had to subvert technology and drive more than 100 miles to laugh at the loser.

The miles and gas needed for the adventure are all worth the reaction of his friend, so much so that the man walks away satisfied immediately after having his laugh. The scene is as endearing as it is funny.

The best part is how the powerless nature of fandom underpins the entire interaction. Neither man had anything to do with the outcome of the game, but it’s fun to tease your friends precisely because it’s one of the only things you can do within the tribalist exercise of sports. My team is better than yours, and as long as we remain good-natured, I’m going to have my fun.

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before Newcastle loses to Everton, and then the roles will be reversed. The one who laughs now will be laughed at later; it’s one of the foundational rules of fandom. Hopefully, when the time comes that Everton are on top, the Everton supporter will one-up his Newcastle friend in an even more elaborate and hilarious way.

Police in New Zealand said there are “no signs of life” on a volcanic island that dozens of tourists were visiting when it erupted on Monday.

Approximately 50 people were on White Island — also known by its Māori name Whakaari — when it erupted on Monday at 2.11 p.m. local time, police said. Twenty-three people were rescued but five of those have died, and police said late on Monday that they believe the people remaining on the island are now all dead too.

After conducting several reconnaissance flights, Police said they believe anyone who could have been taken from the island alive was rescued during the initial evacuation, but did not say how many lives were unaccounted for.

Emergency workers have been unable to return to the island due to unstable conditions, toxic gases, and falling ash.

Almost all of those rescued had sustained injuries, with many suffering severe burns, Police Deputy Commissioner John Tims said during a press conference seven hours after the volcano first erupted.

Many of those on the island at the time of the eruption were tourists from the Royal Caribbean International cruise ship Ovation of the Seas.

“A number of our guests were touring the island today,” the company said. “We will offer all possible assistance to our guests and local authorities. Please keep all those affected in your prayers.”

Footage posted on Twitter showed people scrambling to get off the island moments after the volcano erupted. Another video showed the wreckage of a helicopter that had been flying over the island when the eruption happened.

READ: Lava from Hawaii’s volcano destroyed hundreds of homes — and an entire lake

Volcanic Air, a tour company based in Rotorua, later confirmed that the pilot and four passengers were unharmed and had returned to the mainland via boat on Monday afternoon.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern traveled to the nearby coastal town of Whakatāne on Monday evening, saying the situation was “significant and evolving.”

Former Whakatane mayor Tony Bonne told the New Zealand Herald that one of the people killed was an experienced guide for White Island Tours, calling him “a young energetic man who's lost his life.”

READ: Watch a lava bomb crash through the roof of this boat full of tourists

The volcano had been showing signs of increasing activity in recent weeks, and the science agency GeoNet issued a level four alert indicating that a “moderate volcanic eruption” was possible.

The volcano last erupted in 2016, but no one was hurt.

Cover: Surrounded by the South Pacific Ocean, the small volcanic island of White Island lies off the eastern coast of New Zealand's North Island. Clemens Emmler/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images

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Benoit Blanc, the wonderfully Southern-fried private eye Daniel Craig plays to a hilt in Knives Out, has a way with words. When he opens his mouth, out spill metaphors and folksy aphorisms and eloquent turns of phrase, all delivered in an accent another character accurately pegs as decidedly Foghorn Leghorn. Blanc can…

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Most people may be unaware of this fact, based on his recent headlines and inability to make anyone laugh, but Pete Davidson is a comedian of some acclaim. Now he is on tour peddling his unfunny jokes, probably about his own penis, to paying audiences nationwide.

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NEW YORK—Citing historically low levels of savings across all demographics, leading financial experts are recommending Americans prepare for their futures by setting aside a giant mesmerizing pearl to rub obsessively upon reaching retirement age. “When you’re young, the natural tendency is to procrastinate, so we’re…

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When looking for the perfect gift, it’s important to pick something that will rend the recipient’s mind asunder. A pair of slippers or a good book may be welcome in the moment, but before long they’ll be forgotten. A truly exceptional gift, on the other hand, inspires equal parts terror and wonder—it should be awesome…

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PITTSBURGH—After two hours in which they discussed a variety of routine topics with waning enthusiasm, the local Halverson family’s Thanksgiving conversation reportedly devolved this afternoon into simple observations about what their dog was currently doing. “Hey, look at him now,” Jason Halverson said as Bailey, a…

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Want to know how well things are going for President Donald Trump this week?

He called up “Fox & Friends” on Friday morning and delivered a head-spinning, 57-minute rant-fest, in a seeming desperate attempt to regain control of the narrative — at least with his base. With all the damning testimony this week and last, the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry has grown into a full-blown crisis for the White House, and the call on Friday proved Trump is feeling the heat.

“Fox & Friends” hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt tried to corral the conversation as Trump careened from topic to topic, hitting on testimony from the inquiry, the identity of the whistleblower, how he stopped China from invading Hong Kong, having to be “nice” to a woman and, naturally, a conspiracy theory about servers.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the seven things you should know from Trump’s wildest Fox & Friends call-in yet.

“She's a woman. We have to be nice.”

Trump fired off an attack at Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, who Trump tried to intimidate while she was testifying last Friday about his intimidation. He claimed she was an “Obama person” and not an “angel.”

“The ambassador, the woman, she wouldn't even put up — she's an Obama person,” Trump said. “I said 'Why are you being so kind?'... 'Well, sir, she's a woman. We have to be nice.' She’s very tough. I heard bad things and by the way when I was talking to [Ukraine] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky — it’s right on the phone you can read it — he didn't like her."

“I do want always corruption.”

Trump attempted to defend himself from EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland's flat-out assertion that yes, the president wanted a quid pro quo from Ukraine: an investigation into political rival Joe Biden in exchange for favors from the U.S. The president tried to say he wanted to look into corruption in Ukraine, but it didn’t go so well.

“I do want always corruption,” he said. “I say that to anybody.”

READ: Gordon Sondland's testimony is devastating for Trump

Back at it again with CrowdStrike

Trump once again pushed a vague, barely understandable conspiracy theory — with no evidence — that the FBI handed over a (nonexistent) missing Democratic National Committee server to the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, in some apparent effort to cover up the real Ukraine story. The general idea of the conspiracy is that somehow Russia was framed as the hacker in the 2016 election.

“The FBI went in and they told them, ‘Get outta here; were not giving [the server] to you,’” Trump said on-air. “They gave the server to CrowdStrike, or whatever it’s called.”

The president then falsely claimed CrowdStrike is owned by a wealthy Ukrainian. CrowdStrike is an American company co-owned by two U.S. citizens, one of whom was born in Russia.

“Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine,” host Steve Doocy followed up.

“Well, that’s what the word is,” Trump responded.

The president pushed this theory in his July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky — you know, the call that kicked off the whole impeachment thing.

Insults galore

Trump plied his very unpresidential craft of slapping disparaging nicknames and insults at a host of perceived political enemies.

A quick list:

• Rep. Adam Schiff: “sick puppy.”

• South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg: “Alfred E. Neuman” (Young people, click here for a shortcut Google search for that.)

• Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: "Crazy as a bedbug."

• Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “Pocahontas.”

• Biden: He might not make it "without cracking up" mentally.

"She must have done some number on him”

George Conway, conservative lawyer and husband to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, is an exceptionally harsh critic of Trump. The president hasn’t taken it well, and he took another shot at Conway on Fox & Friends.

“Kellyanne is great, but she’s married to a total whack job,” the president said. “She must have done some number on him.”

Conway merrily mocked Trump on Twitter.

READ: The GOP stumbled into the most damning impeachment moment so far against Trump

"If it weren't for me, Hong Kong would've been obliterated”

Trump got room to ramble within the friendly confines of a "Fox & Friends" interview, and he eventually landed on the subject of the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong to give some well-deserved praise — to himself. In his mind, he's the only thing preventing China from crushing the protesters with military force.

"If it weren't for me, Hong Kong would've been obliterated in 14 minutes," Trump said.

He further added that if it weren’t for the U.S.’s ongoing trade negotiations with China, then Chinese President Xi Jinping would’ve already cracked down and killed thousands while implementing a “police state.”

Trying to out the whistleblower

Trump also pressed the Fox hosts to say the name of the rumored whistleblower who sparked the impeachment inquiry. The president and his Republican allies have been pushing publicly to name the whistleblower.

But Doocy and Kilmeade stood their ground, rightly pointing out nobody actually knows the identity of the whistleblower.

“You said we know the name of the whistleblower — we’ve seen names on the internet — we have no idea,” Doocy said.

Trump fired back saying he didn’t believe Doocy. But the host insisted they’ve seen names but don’t have verification.

“You don't need verification,” Trump said. “You know exactly who it is.”

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A white, teenage boy allegedly posted a photo of his classmate — a black boy from the same Illinois high school — on Craigslist with the caption “slave for sale” last week. And the black boy’s classmates taunted him in the hallway for days — “I’ll buy you for a dollar,” they told him, according to the Naperville Sun.

Now, police in the Chicago suburb of Naperville have charged the unidentified white 14-year-old with juvenile felony hate crime charges, according to the Chicago Tribune. He’s also been charged with one count of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, and appeared in juvenile court Wednesday. He’s due back in court in December.

"The allegations against the juvenile in this case are beyond disturbing,” DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said in a statement. “Hate crimes have no place in our society and will not be tolerated in DuPage County.”

The Craigslist post, which has since been taken down, also allegedly included a racial slur, according to police. The photo included was apparently taken at a lunch table last Thursday when the two were sitting together. The mother of the black boy has said her child and the white boy used to be close friends but had a falling out and that the boy had been bullying her son for a while.

READ: How racist bullying is tearing apart a school district in the south

The white boy was suspended, although it wasn’t immediately clear whether it was an in-school or out-of-school suspension. But the mother of the black 14-year-old told the Sun that she wants to see the school district do more to ensure the boy is properly punished.

The school district released a statement to the community after the alleged incident saying “racial discrimination and hateful acts are never acceptable,” according to ABC-affiliate WLS-TV. Officials from the local chapter of the NAACP came to the school for a closed-door meeting this week, and the charges were also a topic of discussion at a community meeting Wednesday night, according to the local television station WGN.

READ: New York is investigating the brutal stabbing of an Orthodox Jew as a possible hate crime

Another racist incident occurred at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Naperville last month. A group of multi-racial customers reported they were celebrating a birthday party when they were forced to move because a white customer didn’t want to sit near them. The restaurant chain fired two managers as a result of the incident and banned the white customer, apparently a regular, from its restaurants.

Cover image: The office of online site Craigslist is seen March 10, 2006 in San Francisco, California. Craigslist.org is being sued in a federal lawsuit for violating fair housing laws by publishing discriminatory classified ads. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

It’s been almost six months since Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk split, a breakup allegedly predicated on conflicting business interests and his rumored affair with Stefani Joanne Ally Maine Angelina Germonatta. Although Shayk has never gone on to officially name Lady Gaga as the reason she packed her various Away…

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We have three standout methods to choose from in this week’s Co-Op. But which one will be crowned as the undisputed *best way* to cook the giant bird. Of course, I’m relieved that no one nominated the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos-crusted turkey but I guess this is serious business.

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A San Antonio family has been informed by their homeowners association that they put up their holiday decorations too early, and the snowman needs to go back into storage until later in the season. Come on—this is clearly viral marketing for either Hallmark or Lifetime, some channel planning to drop a last-minute…

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Days after receiving a full pardon from President Donald Trump for multiple convictions of murdering unarmed civilians in Afghanistan, 1st Lt. Clint Lorance appeared on Trump’s favorite morning program on Monday to tell the president that he loved him for absolving him of war crimes.Reportedly overruling top military leaders, the president issued pardons on Friday for Lorance, who was sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2013 for ordering his soldiers to fire upon three Afghan men, and Army Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, who faced murder charges for killing an unarmed Afghan citizen he thought was a bomb maker.The president also reversed a demotion for Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who was recently found not-guilty of murdering a teen ISIS fighter.During his Monday morning appearance on Fox & Friends alongside co-host Pete Hegseth, an Iraq War veteran who has privately lobbied Trump to pardon accused and convicted war criminals, Lorance took aim at high-ranking military officers for questioning the pardons.“I think folks that start putting stars on their collar, anybody that’s got to be confirmed by the Senate for a promotion, they are no longer a soldier,” Lorance exclaimed. “They are a politician. And so I think they lose some of their values. And they certainly lose a lot of their respect from their subordinates when they do what they did to me, which was, you know, throw me under the bus.”Co-host Ainsley Earhardt, meanwhile, gleefully noted that Trump’s “timing is perfect because next week is Thanksgiving.” This then prompted her to let her guest know that he could directly address the president via Fox’s cameras.“If the president is watching, what do you want to say to him?” Earhardt asked.“I love you, sir,” Lorance declared. “You are awesome!”He went on to say that Trump needs a “better team around” him and “more people watching your back.” Lorance also groused that if someone is working in the White House who doesn’t agree with the president, they need to “go home.”“Well said,” Hegseth replied.The segment concluded with Earhardt holding back tears while thanking Lorance for serving his country as the pardoned vet shook hands with all three co-hosts. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.