Shane Gillis, a comedian named last week to the “Saturday Night Live” cast before videos surfaced in which he used slurs and offensive language, will not be joining the show, the program announced on Monday.“After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining ‘S.N.L.,’” a spokesperson for the show said in a statement on behalf of Lorne Michaels, the show’s creator and longtime executive producer. “We want ‘S.N.L.’ to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane…

Richard Wolf USA TODAY Published 5:14 PM EDT Sep 16, 2019 WASHINGTON – As a government lawyer a generation ago, Brett Kavanaugh sought to impeach a sitting president. As a federal judge writing in a law review a decade later, he staunchly defended the impeachment process. And last year, during a Senate confirmation hearing that focused on allegations of sexual assault against him from the early 1980s, Kavanaugh warned senators that “what goes around comes around.” Now the subject of impeachment has come around again, not with President Donald Trump in the crosshairs but…

Phyllis Newman, a Tony Award-winning actress who was a fixture of New York theater for more than a half-century, a familiar game show panelist and a fund-raiser on behalf of women in entertainment dealing with illness, died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 86.Her death was confirmed by her daughter, Amanda Green.Ms. Newman won a Tony in 1962 as best featured actress in a musical for “Subways Are for Sleeping,” whose book and lyrics were written by her husband, Adolph Green, and his regular collaborator, Betty Comden….

The battle for the streaming rights to 1990s sitcoms continued on Monday, when Netflix announced it had acquired the global rights to “Seinfeld.”The hit comedy will begin appearing on the streaming service in 2021. “Seinfeld” currently streams on Hulu in the United States and in many other countries on Amazon. Hulu has the rights to the show until June 2021. Netflix struck the deal with Sony Pictures Television, which distributes the show.The “Seinfeld” deal, which was reported earlier by The Los Angeles Times, comes in the middle of a frenzied…

David Jackson USA TODAY Published 3:46 PM EDT Sep 16, 2019 WASHINGTON – A day after threatening an armed response over an attack on Saudi Arabia oil facilities, President Donald Trump said Monday it looks like the Iranians were responsible – but he doesn’t want war with them. “Well, it’s looking that way,” Trump said when asked if Iran was responsible for the weekend attack on Saudi oil facilities. “We’ll let you know definitively … That’s being checked out right now.” Trump added that he doesn’t want war with Iran, but said that…

On an intermittently sunny morning in August, the artist Peter McGough is in his Bushwick, Brooklyn, studio contemplating mortality. “People don’t want to talk about death, but when I talk about it, I start living,” he explains. “I think, I’m going to die. Wow! What a great opportunity to enjoy myself.” Ebullient and dressed in a blue plaid linen suit — which, he says, “certainly gets a lot of attention” — he gives the impression of someone who takes fun seriously.For 40 years, McGough, 61, has been in an artistic…

David Jackson USA TODAY Published 1:58 PM EDT Sep 16, 2019 WASHINGTON – A day after threatening an armed response over an attack on Saudi Arabia oil facilities, President Donald Trump struck a more neutral tone on Iran early Monday, saying the United States does not need Middle East oil production. “Because we have done so well with Energy over the last few years (thank you, Mr. President!), we are a net Energy Exporter, & now the Number One Energy Producer in the World,” Trump said. “We don’t need Middle Eastern Oil & Gas,…

The leader of the largest US business lobby group has cast doubt over the prospects of the US and China reaching an interim pact to halt their trade war, after he met Robert Lighthizer, Donald Trump’s chief negotiator in the talks with Beijing. Tom Donohue, the president of the US Chamber of Commerce, said he had detected a desire for de-escalation both in Washington and Beijing, with “people in both places thinking ‘let’s calm down, let’s start making positive statements’”. But he said he did not see any ironclad, formal truce…

Last week’s Billboard album chart, led by the metal band Tool, was like a time warp from 15 years ago, when CDs were still king and digital music was an afterthought.But this week, the chart returns squarely to 2019 with the streaming domination of Post Malone.“Hollywood’s Bleeding” (Republic), the third album by Post Malone — a moody troubadour with a tattooed face — easily topped Billboard’s chart with the equivalent of 489,000 sales in the United States, according to Nielsen, giving Post Malone his second No. 1. “Hollywood’s Bleeding” had…

Meredith Newman Delaware News Journal Published 10:26 AM EDT Sep 16, 2019 WILMINGTON — Yes, “Corn Pop” is a real person.  This weekend, a clip of presidential candidate Joe Biden recalling his time as a Wilmington, Delaware, lifeguard in the 1960s went viral. Biden was speaking in Wilmington in 2017, where the pool he worked as a college student was being named after him. At the time, he was the only white lifeguard at the pool. To many in Wilmington, Biden’s time as a lifeguard marked the beginning of his close relationship with…