Associated Press

Journalist Julie K. Brown, whose reporting on pedophile Jeffrey Epstein brought down politicians and princes, is having her work turned into a Hollywood production starring award-winning actress Laura Dern.

Brown hyped the announcement on her social media on Monday, under the heading, “Some personal news.”

Sony Pictures TV is developing Brown’s book, Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story, which was based on her reporting for The Miami Herald.

According to Sony, “the limited series” offers “an explosive account of an investigative reporter exposing the secret plea deal between Epstein and federal prosecutors.”

The description continued:

Drawing from Brown’s experience as a groundbreaking reporter for the Miami Herald, the book and the limited series follow her relentless years-long investigation that identified 80 victims, persuaded key survivors to go on the record, and led to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s arrests.”

Brown’s 2018 reporting in the Miami Herald led to a raft of new charges of sex trafficking against Epstein — who had previously been convicted on charges of procuring a minor for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute — and Maxwell and led the to the still-ongoing calls for the Department of Justice to release its complete files on Epstein and his associates and acquaintances, who included presidents (Donald Trump and Bill Clinton), royals (Britain’s former Prince Andrew) and prominent business leaders and media figures.

In addition to starring in the project, Dern will executive produce the limited series.

“Sony is taking the series to potential buyers — and will likely find bidders for the first scripted take on the Epstein case,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Epstein was convicted in 2008 in Florida of soliciting a minor for prostitution and procuring a child for prostitution. He received a 13-month jail sentence and had to register as a sex offender.

Brown began investigating Epstein in 2018, and he was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. Epstein was found hanged in his Manhattan jail cell before he could stand trial.

Brown has continued to dig into the controversies surrounding the release of the Epstein files and his more than 1,000 victims.

“Donald Trump’s name is referenced in these documents THOUSANDS of times. Not ‘multiple’ — not ‘hundreds’ — but thousands of times,” Brown posted to social media in November. “This doesn’t implicate him in any wrongdoing -/ but it does show that, to some extent, Trump was front and center in Jeffrey Epstein’s world.”

Trump has denied any wrongdoing regarding Epstein.

The post Hollywood to Turn Julie Brown’s Bombshell Jeffrey Epstein Book Into a Series first appeared on Mediaite.

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In Apple TV's Your Friends and Neighbors, Jon Hamm plays Andrew "Coop" Cooper, a recently divorced New York hedge fund manager who's even more recently, unemployed. In an effort to keep up an illusion that nothing in his life has changed, he begins breaking into the homes of his wealthy neighbors to steal and sell their stuff, inadvertently catching on to their secrets as well. (The friends and neighbors of the title include Amanda Peet, Olivia Munn, Mark Tallman, Hoon Lee, Lena Hall, and Aimee Carrero.)

This dark comedy isn't exactly about how hard it is to be a once-rich suburban white guy, but neither is it a pointed lesson in the downfalls toxic masculinity. A former insider turned secret outsider, Coop is well positioned to offer up bitchy commentary without becoming a total caricature. Season two launches in April, but until then (and between episodes), catch up on these 10 other shows about all the weird shit that's going on in your neighborhood while you've been holed up inside your house watching TV. Stream Your Friends and Neighbors on Apple TV.

Weeds (2005 – 2012)

A classic of the crime-in-the-suburbs genre, strains of Weeds definitely run through Your Friends and Neighbors, and many other shows that it inspired. Mary-Louise Parker stars as Nancy Botwin, recently widowed mom who's desperate to maintain the upper-middle-class lifestyle once provided by her husband. She can't really handle the idea of giving up the conspicuous consumption to which she's become accustomed, so she decides to make some bank for herself. And what better way to do that, particularly in the LA 'burbs, than by selling weed (obviously the show was made and is set before the drug was legalized for recreational use in 2016)? Like Jon Hamm's Coop, Nancy is just not ready for her family to give up on nice things. Buy Weeds from Prime Video.

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Bad Sisters (2022 – 2024)

A pitch perfect pitch-dark comedy, the Irish import Bad Sisters picked up several well-deserved Emmy nominations in its first year. Writer and co-creator Sharon Horgan leads the cast as Eva Garvey, oldest of five sisters, including Grace (Anne-Marie Duff), who's married to John Paul, an abusive and isolating husband. When the dude winds up dead under rather suspicious circumstances, down-on-his-luck insurance investigator Tom (Brian Gleeson) starts poking his nose into things. We know the sisters definitely wanted John Paul dead, but did they actually do the deed? Tom's family business will go under if he has to pay out on the life insurance policy, so he's very motivated to pin the (potential) crime on at least one of the women. Stream Bad Sisters on Apple TV.

Bad Sisters (2022 – 2024)

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The White Lotus (2021 — )

If the characters of Your Friends and Neighbors went on vacation, it might go a little something like this. Each season of Mike White's anthology show begins with a flash forward to the rather horrible outcomes that will be faced by at least some of the holiday makers traveling to one of the title's White Lotus resorts (each season is a distinct storyline and location, with the occasional recurring character). The first season's manager, Murray Bartlett’s Armond, makes clear to the staff that the ultra-wealthy guests are little more than overgrown children, and need to be coddled as such. At these very fancy resorts, at which people have paid absurd amounts of money to be pampered, competitiveness and general toxicity ensure that everyone’s going to have a miserable time, whatever the price. And yet I still kinda want to stay there? Stream The White Lotus on HBO Max.

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Good Girls (2018 – 2021)

Beth, Ruby and Annie (Christina Hendricks, Retta, and Mae Whitman, respectively) are three moms in suburban Michigan, and they are all having serious money troubles. They're not exactly criminal masterminds, so they concoct a scheme to rob the local grocery store to solve them—a store that just happens to be serve as a front for a money-laundering operation. They make off with $500,000, but the gang leader whose money they unknowingly stole wants it back, and the store manager who spotted one of their tattoos and is threatening blackmail. It's definitely not a sitcom, but it's a solid comedy-drama with a talented cast of characters who keep finding themselves in deeper and deeper over the course of four seasons. Stream Good Girls on Netflix.

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Dope Thief (2025)

Ray and Manny (Brian Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura) are childhood friends from Philly who've been supporting themselves by impersonating DEA agents and robbing low-level stash houses in the inner city. Manny's looking to move on while Ray's eccentric mother, Theresa (Kate Mulgrew, clearly having a great time) needs a lot of money fast. And so, as you've probably guessed, we're about to enter "one last big score" territory, which, in this case, involves robbing a meth lab that is, it turns out, part of a large-scale operation that the legit DEA has in its sights. Stream Dope Thief on Apple TV.

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Deli Boys (2025 – )

Pakistani-American journalist and producer Abdullah Saeed has long been celebrated for his investigative reporting and his Vice documentaries, many of them dealing with the impacts of cannabis laws. That experience lends a unique verisimilitude to this comedy series following two brothers—hardworking Mir (Asif Ali) and hard partying Raj (Saagar Shaikh)—after the death of their wealthy father, at which point they learn that the bulk of their family's money comes not from the public-facing chain of delis, but from the illegal drug operation running behind the scenes. It's fast-paced and frequently very fun, and hits the theme of maintaining a front in modern America, but this time starring people who don't look like Jon Hamm. Stream Deli Boys on Hulu.

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Big Little Lies (2017 – )

Much as with The White Lotus, part of the thrill of Big Little Lies is in watching some some very rich, very attractive, very white (mostly) ladies have a tough time in a beautiful locale (in this case, Monterey, California). Unlike Your Friends and Neighbors, money isn't really at issue here, except in the ways that even small differences in perceived wealth can lead to big drama—but there are secrets aplenty. In season one, five women (played by Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, and Zoë Kravitz) become involved in a murder investigation connected to a school fundraiser that threatens to bring all of their private dirt out into the open. Stream Big Little Lies on HBO Max.

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Dead to Me (2019 – 2022)

Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini make for an all-time-great TV pairing in this dark, twisty comedy about a couple of women who become united in tragedy...and lies. Applegate is Jen Harding, a realtor whose husband was killed in a hit-and-run incident; she's not dealing very well, and takes a bit of inspiration from Cardellini's Judy, who has maintained a cheery disposition following her fiancé Steve's death from a heart attack—easier to do, given that Steve's still secretly alive. And then we discover that Judy has a storage unit with a car that looks suspiciously like the one that killed Jen's husband—and that's all just part of the first episode. The show only gets wilder from there. Stream Dead to Me on Netflix.

Dead to Me (2019 – 2022)

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The Santa Clarita Diet (2017 – 2019)

Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant star in the comedy-horror series about a husband and wife real estate team whose lives are turned upside down when she learns that she's a zombie (a result of some bad clams, natch). She enjoys her new, less-inhibited life, and mostly only eats bad people, so it's fine. The premise is obviously horror-movie-adjacent, but the joke is very much that everyone in the suburbs is living beyond their means, and everyone has something to hide. It's just that in the case of the Hammonds, the big secret in question is that she's undead, and the crimes they're concealing involve cannibalism. Stream The Santa Clarita Diet on Netflix.

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ABC News’s Jonathan Karl asked former federal prosecutor Chris Christie (R) about a statement Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made at this weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting in Texas.

“There is not a single man or woman at the Department of Justice who had anything to do with those prosecutions,” Blanche said of federal employees who investigated President Donald Trump. Blanche continued, “And when it comes to the FBI, Director Patel has cleaned house there, too. There isn’t a single man or woman with a gun, federal agent, still in that organization that had anything to do with the prosecution of President Trump.”

“So, Chris, what he’s saying is that anybody that had anything to do with any of those federal prosecutions of Trump — including like line prosecutors, FBI agents — they’ve all been weeded out,” Karl said. And there’s a lot of personnel.”

“Look, this is the single most damaging thing to the long-term stability of our institutions that has happened in the second Trump term,” Christie said, continuing:

The dismantling of the Department of Justice and the greater partisan activity, as the deputy attorney general himself just admitted in that clip, that the only reason these people were let go was because they followed the direction of the rightfully-appointed attorney general of the United States, confirmed by the United States Senate to conduct investigations. And because they did that, they’re being fired.

Well, what is going to happen to the Department of Justice going forward, regardless of who the president is? Will the American people have faith any longer that any investigation can be independent and free of partisanship. And to go down to CPAC as the deputy attorney general of the United States and brag about that is disgraceful. Disgraceful. And he is going to have to live with the reputation he has developed now over the last two years. Prior to this, Todd Blanche had a very good reputation inside DOJ.

Christie added, “He has — you want to talk about obliterated? We didn’t obliterate the Iran nuclear program, obviously, in June — but he is obliterating his reputation and the reputation of the department that I worked for, and that I really love, and that I’m mourning right now.

Watch the clip above via This Week on ABC News.

The post Chris Christie Shreds Top Trump Official for Purging DOJ Staff: ‘Obliterating His Reputation’ first appeared on Mediaite.

Former CNN star Jim Acosta  — during his “pregame” stream of the “No Kings” protest in Washington, D.C. on Saturday — chuckled in apparent amusement over a sign that seemingly wished for President Donald Trump’s death.

Acosta was giving his YouTube viewers a live review of several of the protest signs when he got a kick out of one in particular which read “OK cholesterol, do your job!”

“I think I know what that means!” Acosta said — before letting out a laugh. “That’s very funny, it’s very clever!”

The sign — which was brought to the event by a woman who appeared to be a senior citizen — included a picture of the president looking not quite svelte in golf attire.

After shouting out the cholesterol sign, Acosta lauded another man’s poster — which included a fake picture of a snack-sized Trump shaking hands with a normal-sized Vladimir Putin. That sign had a bunch of writing on it, including a section that said “The Epstein Files Aren’t in Iran.”

“That’s very true, and many of the Epstein files have not been released,” Acosta said. “Millions of them.”

Acosta was in the nation’s capital on Saturday for the third round of “No Kings” protests since Trump returned to office last year.

Watch above via The Jim Acosta Show on YouTube. (The relevant portion begins at approximately the 21-minute mark.)

The post ‘Very Clever!’ Jim Acosta Laughs at a No Kings Protester’s Sign Seemingly Wishing for Trump’s Death first appeared on Mediaite.

MS NOW’s Jake Traylor reported on the “No Kings” protest from West Palm Beach, Florida, just three miles from where President Donald Trump played golf on Saturday, and recounted a moment where a protester and a MAGA supporter shook hands.

“I’ve been talking all day with these White House officials who have been telling me things like, ‘Trump’s not watching. We don’t care. Only reporters care about this,'” Traylor told host Alex Witt. “I’ll just note, I’ve been inside…the offices of some of the top White House aides, seeing myself the TV screens they have on — MS NOW has been on many a time. So, I’m confident in some ways the president is getting relayed this message.”

Traylor said that a second march was scheduled for Saturday evening to Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago.

“They’re now preparing for the next march that they’re having this evening expected to be thousands gathered there,” Traylor said. “They’re going to march all the way as close as they legally and safely can to the residence of Mar-a-Lago, hoping that their voices are physically heard by Donald Trump and some of his top staffers.”

Traylor interviewed one protester who said she believed Trump was getting the message.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it was going to make a change or make a difference,” the woman said. “Our voice is being heard. That’s part of our right as an American. And I’m not just going to stand by and let these atrocities happen. I have to try to do something.”

Traylor continued:

Alex, just to share one really brief moment, we talk a lot about unity today. There was this counter-counter protest, essentially a pro-Trump protest happening right nearby. There were only a couple dozen folks there. Some of them earlier came in, kind of disrupted what was happening here. And I saw this, I witnessed a really cool moment where this ‘No Kings’ protester came up, shook the person’s hand and said, “We can all be unified here today. Today is about unity.” A really cool moment that seems to be the theme across the board, even in the backyard of Donald Trump.

Watch above via MS NOW.

The post ‘A Really Cool Moment’: MS NOW Reporter Recounts Moment ‘No Kings’ Protester Shook Hands With MAGA Supporter first appeared on Mediaite.

Anti-Trump group “The Raging Grannies” sang a protest song for MS NOW reporter Rosa Flores at Saturday’s “No Kings” rally in Austin, TX, as organizers touted the nationwide protest as one of the largest in U.S. history.

“The protesters are still making their way here,” Flores said on Saturday. “But here’s the thing about this particular protest, why you see all these tents. Because the protests and the movement doesn’t start and end today with ‘No Kings.’ This is…according to the organizers, about getting more people involved civically so that they can do more tomorrow, so that they can vote in November.”

Flores interviewed one woman who became emotional when talking about pertinent issues like ICE, the Supreme Court, the war in Iran, and gas prices.

“It’s important that other people know that we’re all together, we’re all human beings,” the woman said. “And oh my gosh, you know, what’s happening in the world is horrible. And it’s all because of one guy who has a stupid ego and thinks he’s above  everyone else. And I don’t think that’s cool.”

“I can feel your emotions,” Flores said. “Tell me about that.”

“I just, you know, I’m sitting at home and I’m going, ‘I gotta do something, I gotta do something,’ you know?” the protester said. “So, you know, I came, I got some friends, they’re gonna be here later, you know…but it just, it hurts your heart, because I love people. And I don’t want to see other people hurt.”

Flores then introduced The Raging Grannies.

“They’re going to be performing for us,” she told host Alex Witt.

The group sang a rousing folk song about being unafraid of tyrants.

“So you can’t scare us, we’re sticking together. We’re sticking together, forever and ever. Oh, you can’t scare us, we’re sticking together from now on!” they sang.

Watch above via MS NOW.

The post Anti-Trump Group ‘Raging Grannies’ Sing For MS NOW Reporter at ‘No Kings’ Protest first appeared on Mediaite.

(AP Photo/John Locher)

Jack Posobiec didn’t find a whole lot of support among conservatives and fellow MAGA supporters for his take that J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books are “pagan.”

Posobiec, a MAGA influencer and senior editor at Human Events, shared his Lord of the Rings take this week, and was ripped apart by a number of conservatives and critics ripping him apart.

“I’ve heard people try to make the argument that Lord of the Rings is overtly Christian and I hate to burst the bubble guys, but you’re just wrong. There’s nothing overtly Christian about Lord of The Rings. Uh, there’s no church in it. There’s no faith in it, There’s no Christ figure, there’s none of these things, and, honestly, Lord of the Rings, if it’s anything, Lord of The Rings is overtly pagan,” Posobiec said in a clip shared by Human Events.

Before people could pile on Posobiec’s take, some simple context was provided to the post,;that context being a direct quote from Tolkien calling the Rings book a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work.”

Tolkien and his Rings books have long been celebrated by Christians and Catholics, something Posobiec was quickly informed of. In the clip, however, even after some pushback from others he stuck to his “overtly pagan” take on the works. He also questioned how the Rings works can carry religious themes if a “lib-tard” like Stephen Colbert was just hired to write a new adaptation.

“You got these lib-tards like Colbert who love it. And if this thing is, like, oh, it’s overtly Christian, I’m like, well then why does a guy like Colbert love it so much?” Posobiec asked.

The Colbert factor wasn’t enough for others to chalk up Tolkien’s work as “pagan,” and many conservatives and Rings fans were quick to either blast Posobiec or try providing him with a little education.

“Are we surprised that the guy pretending to be Catholic – to the point of using an Etsy image to claim he owns a rosary – can’t identify Catholic themes in creative works?” NewsBusters editor Nicholas Fondacaro wrote on X.

Others called the take “deeply embarrassing” and provided Posobiec with Tolkien’s own words that fly in the face of his opinion.

“Only someone who has zero understanding of LOTR, or maybe has only watched the Peter Jackson films, would say this. A deeply embarrassing take,” Federalist senior editor John Daniel Davidson wrote.

It was announced this week that Colbert will be co-writing a new Lord of the Rings movie as his first post-Late Show gig. The film, like other recent adaptations, introduces original elements in Tolkien’s world rather than simply directly adapting the original trilogy. An Andy Serkis-directed spinoff will also release in 2027, and a third season of Rings of Power on Prime is coming soon. Peter Jackson previously directed an adaptation of the original trilogy, as well as a trilogy based on the prequel The Hobbit. He’s producing both the Colbert and Serkis films.

The post ‘Deeply Embarrassing’: Conservatives Pounce on MAGA Star Over Bizarre Lord of the Rings Take first appeared on Mediaite.