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Jon Stewart will remain 'Daily Show' host on Mondays through 2025

PEOPLE
Jon Stewart

NEW YORK — Jon Stewart has signed on to continue hosting “The Daily Show” on Mondays through the end of 2025.

Stewart has been hosting the Comedy Central series once a week through much of 2024 in the runup to the presidential election. He hosted “The Daily Show” from 1999 through 2015, and in his return run, he's maintained his acerbic take on American politics.

Stewart also will remain an executive producer on the show, which relies on a revolving series of hosts for the other days of the week.

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Pete Davidson

Pete Davidson shows off tattoo removal progress after mental health treatment

Comedian Pete Davidson, 30, was photographed this week for the first time since checking himself into a mental health facility in July. Stepping out with Machine Gun Kelly, the former “SNL” star attended at a sneak preview of The Room at Intuit Dome, the new home of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Davidson’s bare arms noticeably showed a lot fewer tattoos. A longtime fan of body art, he at one time had more than 70 tattoos.

He previously said he started getting tattoos to cover up scars from cutting his chest as a form of self-harm.

In late 2020, Davidson said he planned to start getting his tattoos removed, and the following year confirmed his desire to have them all removed by age 30, despite it being a long and incredibly painful process.

“It takes, like, three hours to cover all your tattoos,” he told Seth Meyers in a an interview of having his ink covered with makeup for film and TV projects.

Davidson’s latest project — comedy film “Riff Raff” starring Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Harris, Gabrielle Union and Bill Murray — premiered Sept. 6 at the Toronto International Film Festival.

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Lacey Chabert

Hallmark exec says leading ladies Lacey Chabert, Holly Robinson Peete are 'aging out': lawsuit

Hallmark Media executive VP of programming Lisa Hamilton Daly instructed a former employee not to cast “old people” in Hallmark roles, saying “our leading ladies are aging out,” according to a lawsuit filed against the network this month.

Casting director Penny Perry, 79, who filed the lawsuit Oct. 9 in Los Angeles, alleges she was wrongfully fired because of her age and despite stellar performance reviews. The complaint says: “In Ms. Perry’s case, there was no happy ending ... to wrap up her career with Hallmark. (It) was marred by ... a callous termination which robbed her of her illustrious career, her pride, and her well-being.”

Hallmark denied the allegations.

According to the suit, Hamilton Daly told Perry they needed to "replace" the “old talent" including Lacey Chabert, 42, who has starred in dozens of Hallmark movies, saying “we have to find someone like her to replace her as she gets older.”

Of “Our Christmas Journey” star Holly Robinson Peete, 60, the suit alleges the exec said: “No one wants her because she’s too expensive and getting too old. She can’t play leading roles anymore.”

Chabert stars in a new Hallmark movie, “The Christmas Quest,” debuting Dec. 1, and hosts reality series “Celebrations with Lacey Chabert,” according to Hallmark's website.

Perry herself endured ageist and ableist harassment at the company, and Hamilton Daly “told Ms. Perry she was too ‘long in the tooth’ to keep her job at Hallmark,” the lawsuit says. It also alleges senior VP of programming Randy Pope ridiculed Perry for her multiple sclerosis by mocking her when she mispronounced words or names — a symptom of the condition.

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Lil Durk

Grammy-winning rapper Lil Durk charged with orchestrating 2022 Los Angeles killing

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Grammy Award-winning rapper Lil Durk was arrested in Florida on federal charges that he paid for the attempted 2022 revenge killing of rapper Quando Rondo at a Los Angeles gas station, a shooting that resulted in the death of Rondo's cousin.

Durk, 32, is charged with conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire in the slaying of Saviay'a Robinson, 24, who was gunned down Aug. 19, 2022, according to an FBI affidavit released Friday.

Five members of Durk's rap collective, “Only the Family" also have been arrested and at least two more arrests may be forthcoming, according to court documents. Durk was arrested Thursday in Florida as he attempted to flee the country, the FBI says.

Martin Estrada, U.S. attorney for Los Angeles, called the shooting “a cold-blooded murder."

“The shooting occurred in the open, at a gas station at a busy intersection, endangering many others in the area," he said. “Violent gun crime of this sort is devastating to our community and we will have zero-tolerance for those who perpetrate such callous acts.”

FBI Agent Sarah Corcoran said in her affidavit OTF members engage “in violence, including murder and assault, at the direction of Banks.”

According to court records, the shooting stems from the November 2020 slaying of OTF rapper King Von, 26, at an Atlanta nightclub after Von and Rondo got into a fight. Records say a friend of Rondo's pulled a gun and shot Von several times, killing him.

Authorities say Durk made it known that he would “pay a bounty” to anyone who killed Rondo.

According to Corcoran, on Aug. 18, 2022, Durk's associates learned Rondo was staying at a Los Angeles hotel. Deandre Wilson, Keith Jones, David Lindsey, Asa Houston and an unnamed suspect went to Los Angeles using funds provided by Durk.

The OTF members met Kayon Grant, a top OTF associate, who got the men hotel rooms, purchased ski masks and obtained two luxury sedans, court records say. Grant allegedly gave three of the men guns.

The next day, the group allegedly followed Rondo and Robinson as they drove a Cadillac Escalade to a Los Angeles marijuana dispensary, a West Hollywood clothing store and then a gas station across the street from the Beverly Center.

There, Houston allegedly parked his car behind the station so Jones, Lindsey and the unnamed defendant could ambush Rondo. They got out and opened fire, killing Robinson, who was standing outside the Escalade, but missing Rondo, the indictment and news stories about the shooting say.

The suspects then went to an In-N-Out hamburger stand where they discussed payment with Grant and then flew home to Chicago from San Diego, Corcoran and other documents say. Wilson allegedly later paid Jones and Lindsey an undisclosed amount.

Grant, Jones, Lindsey, Wilson and Houston were arrested Thursday in Chicago on conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire charges. No attorney information was immediately available for those men in court records.

After their arrests, Corcoran wrote, Durk booked two flights from South Florida airports — one to Dubai and one to Switzerland. He then booked a private flight to Italy, but was arrested in Miami before he could board it.

Durk and the other defendants are being held pending their transfer to Los Angeles.

In 2019, Durk and King Von were charged in Atlanta with a drive-by shooting that left a man wounded in the leg. Prosecutors dropped the case against Durk in 2022, two years after Von's slaying. Durk had denied his involvement.

In 2014, Durk pleaded guilty to felony aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and felony possession of a firearm after he was seen carrying a gun on a Chicago street. He was spared jail time.

Two villages in Chicago’s western suburbs, Bellwood and Broadview, last week honored Durk and announced collaborations with his charity, Neighborhood Heroes Foundation, to provide youth mentors.

But on Friday, Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson announced she had severed ties to Neighborhood Heroes and had withdrawn the honorary key to the village given Durk.

While acknowledging that Durk and other suspects are presumed innocent, village residents have “even higher moral and ethical standards of behavior,” Thompson wrote on the village’s Facebook page.

A telephone message seeking comment from Andre Harvey, Bellwood’s mayor, was left at his office.

From combined wire services

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