First Look at The Take: Denzel Washington and Robert Pattinson Team Up for a Twisty Netflix Bank Heist

 

Robert Pattinson and Denzel Washington 

Netflix has finally pulled back the curtain on one of its most closely guarded movies. On November 9, 2026, the streamer released the first look at The Take, a twisty heist movie starring Robert Pattinson and Denzel Washington, and the images alone are enough to get people talking. 

The film arrives in select theaters and on Netflix on January 15, 2027, and if the early details are anything to go by, this is not a typical bank robbery story.

What Is 'The Take' About?

The setup sounds simple, and that is exactly the point. Pattinson plays Noah, a former Army captain fresh out of the service and trying to find his footing in civilian life. Washington plays Christian Carter, a charismatic master thief who recruits Noah to join his crew for the score of a lifetime: robbing the richest bank in Manhattan.

There is just one complication. Noah's girlfriend, Rose, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones, happens to work at that very bank as a teller. The film's official logline puts it this way: a bank guard, a teller, and a master thief get caught in a deadly game of cons and double crosses. With time and his love interest on the line, Noah has to figure out who he can actually trust.

The movie was previously titled Here Comes the Flood, and it has been in development at Netflix since 2020, when the streamer picked up the original screenplay in a seven-figure deal. It was originally expected to arrive in 2026 before being pushed to early next year, which makes the January 2027 date the first firm one fans have had.

A Bank Heist Told Through One Pair of Eyes

What makes The Take different from most entries in the genre is how the story is told. The entire film is shown exclusively from Noah's point of view. 

The audience only knows what Noah knows, either because he is physically there or because he hears something over the intercom. Viewers never get to see what is happening elsewhere, or what the other characters are doing when Noah is not around.

Director Fernando Meirelles, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind City of God and The Two Popes, says that strict subjectivity is what drew him to the project. Before filming, he revisited a string of heist classics, including Heat, Point Break, The Killing, and Dog Day Afternoon, and still found something new in the script's puzzle-like structure.

"When I first read the script, I wasn't quite sure whether I was reading a heist film or a psychological drama with a love story at its center; it's this interesting combination of genres," Meirelles said. "You start watching the film without quite knowing where it's going to take you. You have to come along for the ride without too many expectations. The story keeps surprising you right up to the very end."

That surprise, he teases, runs all the way to the final moments. According to Meirelles, it is only in the last ten seconds of the movie that everything falls into place.

Why Denzel Washington and Robert Pattinson Said Yes

For a cast of this caliber, the script clearly did the heavy lifting. Washington, who has spent the later part of his career choosing projects with unusual care, put it plainly: "At this point in my life, I'm focused on doing the best work with the best filmmakers. So, what I do from this point forward and who I do it with is very important to me, both spiritually and artistically."

His character, Carter, is a long way from the straightforward hero. Washington describes him as a frustrated musician and a precise mathematical mind who believes time is everything. "He thinks there's a mathematical equation for success, but he's wrong," Washington said of Carter. "He manipulates everyone around him, using anyone in any way he can to get what he wants. He wants to dominate everyone, and he believes he's smarter than everybody else. Ultimately, he doesn't care about anyone but himself."

For Pattinson, the draw was partly the script and partly the co-star. He has called working with Washington a bucket-list item, saying, "Denzel is one of the reasons I wanted to become an actor, so getting to work with him was pretty incredible." It is not his first time working with a Washington on a high-stakes theft, either: he previously starred opposite Denzel's son, John David Washington, in Christopher Nolan's Tenet.

Pattinson also found that his co-star likes to keep things unpredictable. "What I loved was seeing how alive the material is for him," Pattinson said. "Even after all these years of acting, he's still looking for something new in every take. I also didn't realize how much he liked to improvise, which made it all the more exciting. You'd start a five-page scene thinking you knew where it was going, and then suddenly you're completely off-piste. It was really thrilling."

Meirelles agrees, noting that Washington's search for the truth of the moment often led him to unexpected places, and that more than a few improvised lines made it into the final cut. Edgar-Jones, meanwhile, was drawn in by the director himself, calling City of God "one of the most exquisite films."

Noah Is Not the Hero You Expect

Pattinson's character is not a clean-cut good guy caught in a bad situation. As the actor puts it, Noah "is someone who has a hard time trusting people, but, ironically, he's also quite deceitful himself." He does not even fully understand why he is robbing the bank, or what is happening around him. "It's a bank robbery, but there are so many unexpected things happening at every turn, with each individual scene feeling like a little set piece unto itself," Pattinson said.

That version of Noah actually changed during editing. Meirelles revealed that in the first cut, the character came across as more insecure and hesitant. During the edit, the team decided to make him more self-assured and confident, and found that performance already existed in the footage. "Rob is one of the best actors working today," the director said. "All we had to do was go back to the footage, and that other version of Noah was already there in his performances, we just had to find it."

Who Else Is in The Take?

Beyond the three leads, the cast includes Danai Gurira, Moisés Arias, Justin Kirk, and Sean Harris. The screenplay comes from Simon Kinberg, whose writing credits include X-Men: Days of Future Past, Sherlock Holmes, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Kinberg's script is the foundation everything else is built on, and both the director and the cast keep coming back to how unusual its structure is for the genre.

When Can You Watch The Take?

The Take premieres January 15, 2027, in select theaters and on Netflix. The first-look images and key art are out now, and with promotion underway, a teaser trailer is likely not far behind. Until then, the mystery is part of the appeal: as Edgar-Jones put it, "I don't want to set it up too much, as the fun of this film is the mystery and its turns." 

For a heist movie built on double crosses, and a hero who does not know who to trust, The Take is something you might want to check out when it comes out.

Sources

"Netflix's Denzel Washington & Robert Pattinson Crime Thriller Unveils First Look" — CBR

"Robert Pattinson and Denzel Washington rob a bank in first look at unconventional heist film 'The Take' (exclusive)" — Entertainment Weekly

"Denzel Washington's New Netflix Movie Is an 'Unconventional' Heist Thriller in Daring First Look" — MovieWeb

"Denzel Washington and Robert Pattinson Lead Netflix's THE TAKE" — Nerdtropolis

"First Look: Robert Pattinson, Daisy Edgar-Jones & Denzel Washington Star in Heist Thriller 'The Take'" — Popternative

"Next James Bond contender Robert Pattinson stars in first look at new Netflix thriller with Oscar-winner and Normal People star" — Radio Times

"'The Take' First Look: Robert Pattinson, Denzel Washington & Daisy Edgar-Jones Star In Netflix's Twisty Heist Movie Arriving January 15" — The Playlist

LeBron James Keeps Making History, Passing Kareem as the Sixers Beat the Bulls Again

Lebron James Making Chalk Cloud

At 41 years old, in his 24th NBA season, LeBron James is still making history — and he did it again on Sunday in Chicago, where his 22 points helped the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Chicago Bulls 127-121 and made him the highest-scoring player against the Bulls in NBA history.

It took him barely three minutes. With 3:15 gone in the first quarter, James hit a three-pointer that gave him 1,897 career points against Chicago — one more than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had held the record with 1,895 points in 76 games against the Bulls. By the final buzzer, James had 1,916 points against the franchise, in just his 70th game against Chicago. Six fewer games than Kareem needed. One more record on a list that already has his name at the top of nearly every line.

The Record That Keeps Growing

That is the part worth sitting with. James is not just the all-time leading scorer in NBA history — he is the all-time leading scorer against individual franchises, too, and he keeps adding new ones. The NBA's own all-time regular-season scoring list, updated November 5, has him at No. 1 with 43,550 points, ahead of Kareem, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, and everyone else who ever played the game. He has since added 22 more in Chicago, and the number will keep climbing every time he plays, because that is what it has done for more than two decades.

He turns 42 on December 30. He is the oldest player in the league, playing for his fourth franchise, on a team that rests him for one game of back-to-backs just to keep him fresh — and he is still setting records that players half his age will spend their whole careers chasing. The points record is not a single moment from years ago. It is a living number. Every basket he scores is a new high-water mark for the sport, and on Sunday in Chicago, the Bulls became the latest franchise on the list.

The Game: the Sixers' Big Three Does It Again

The game itself was a fight to the end. The Sixers did not make it easy — the Bulls shot 52.3 percent from the field and cut the lead to three points late — but Philadelphia's star trio delivered when it mattered. Jaylen Brown led the way with 29 points. Tyrese Maxey added 27 points and seven assists. James finished with 22 points, five rebounds, five assists, and a steal — his highest-scoring game as a Sixer so far. The three combined for 78 points. James made the defensive play of the night, too, picking off Josh Giddey in the final moments to run out the clock.

It was a team win in the truest sense. The Sixers finished with 30 assists and just nine turnovers, crashed the boards for a 54-42 rebounding edge, and kept turning defense into easy baskets in transition. The half-court offense is still a work in progress — the Sixers are still figuring out how all this talent fits together — but when three players can go for 78 points on the same night, the growing pains are easy to live with.

The win moved Philadelphia to 9-2, the best record in the NBA and the Sixers' best 11-game start since they opened the 2000-01 season at 10-1. The Bulls, meanwhile, fell to 1-8 and 14th in the Eastern Conference, losers of seven straight. Next up for the Sixers: Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics come to town on Tuesday night — a game against Brown's former team, and the next test for the league's hottest start.

This Was the Second Time in a Week

Sunday was not the first time James and the Sixers beat the Bulls this week. On Monday night, November 2, at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, the Sixers won 126-107 behind Maxey's game-high 26 points — 15 of them in the fourth quarter — and 15 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds from James. That game was the first time the full starting lineup of James, Maxey, Brown, Joel Embiid, and rookie VJ Edgecombe played together in several games, after the quintet sat out back-to-back weekend wins over the Knicks and at Charlotte. James wowed the home crowd all night, including two nearly full-court bounce passes to Edgecombe for easy finishes and a three-point play that gave Philadelphia a 16-point cushion with 5:40 left.

The Sixers took control in the third quarter of that one, stretching a five-point halftime lead to 17 on James' layup with just under five minutes left in the period. All five starters scored at least 15 points. It was the fourth straight win in what became a run that now has Philadelphia at 9-2 and on top of the Eastern Conference.

The Part Nobody Talks About: His Defense

Here is the stat that might be more impressive than the points. James is leading the entire NBA in opponent field-goal percentage as the primary defender, holding his matchup to just 28.1 percent shooting this season. For a 41-year-old who is supposed to be saving himself for offense, that is absurd. He is averaging 16.2 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 7.3 assists when he plays — modest numbers by his standards, and exactly the point. He does not need to score 30 a night anymore. He runs the offense, guards the other team's best player, and lets Brown and Maxey do the heavy scoring. And then, on a Sunday in Chicago, he still goes out and makes history.

That is the story of LeBron James in 2026. The records were supposed to be finished. The scoring title was supposed to be the last one. Instead, he keeps finding new ones — most points against the Bulls, best start for a franchise in 25 years, best defender in the league at 41. The history does not stop because the calendar says it should. It stops when he does. And he has not stopped yet.

Sources

Archysport, "Philadelphia 76ers Edge Chicago Bulls 127-121: LeBron James and Jaylen Brown Lead the Way," November 9, 2026.

Bleacher Report, "LeBron and Brown Lead 76ers Past Bulls, Box Score Stats, Highlights for Caleb Wilson, Top Players," November 8, 2026.

Heavy, "76ers' LeBron James Leads NBA in Unexpected Stat," November 3, 2026.

Liberty Ballers, "Sixers Bell Ringer: Offense Carries Sixers as They Hang On vs. Bulls," November 9, 2026.

NBA Instagram, "NBA All-Time Regular Season Scoring Leaders," November 5, 2026.

SportBursts, "LeBron James Sets Scoring Record Against Chicago Bulls," November 9, 2026.

TalkBasket, "76ers' New Star Duo Leads the Way in 127-121 Win Over Bulls," November 9, 2026.

TSN, "Maxey, James Lead 76ers to 7-1 Start With Victory Over Bulls," November 3, 2026.

Yardbarker, "LeBron James Helps Lead 76ers Past Bulls in Impressive Win as the Sixers Keep Rolling," November 3, 2026.

James Gunn Is Out at DC Studios After the Warner Bros. Merger — and Nobody Saw This One Coming

Peter Safran and James Gunn

Everybody knew the Warner Bros. merger would bring major changes. The film bosses were already gone. The streaming services were being bundled. The cost cuts were coming. But nobody — not the fans, not the trades, and apparently not even the men themselves — saw this one coming: James Gunn and Peter Safran are out as the heads of DC Studios.

Skydance announced the shake-up on Monday, November 9, 2026, just over a month after its roughly $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery closed on October 6. Gunn and Safran, who had run DC Studios since November 2022, will step down on December 1. Their replacement is Jeremy Latcham, a former Marvel Studios producer and senior vice president, who takes over as president and chief creative officer. A Marvel man is now running DC. If that sentence sounds strange to you, it sounded strange to everyone else, too.

The Assurances That Did Not Survive the Month

What makes this stunning is not just the change — it is how recently the opposite was promised. After the merger closed, Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison went out of his way to assure the public and shareholders that Gunn and Safran would keep their jobs. In October, the pair were formally included in the new company's leadership structure. As recently as November 1, Gunn confirmed that he and Safran would report directly to Skydance leadership and said the new owners were supportive of their plans for the DC Universe.

Then, on Friday, November 6, Ellison and Skydance co-CEO Ynon Kreiz showed up at Gunn and Safran's offices on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank and told them in person: the plans had changed. The previous assurances were off. Three days later, the announcement was public.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the shuffle had been in the works since early fall — before the merger even closed. Skydance film chief Josh Greenstein had already reached out to Latcham, and the new owners were already talking to replacements while Gunn and Safran believed they had survived. The reporting structure was the fault line: Gunn and Safran's contracts said they reported directly to the top — first to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who hired them, and then to Ellison. Greenstein and Dana Goldberg, the co-chairs of the Skydance Motion Picture Group, wanted all movie production under themselves. Greenstein and Goldberg won. Latcham will report to them when he takes over on December 1.

Rebuilding DC with a Rebooted Universe

Gunn and Safran took over DC Studios in the fall of 2022, hired by Zaslav to rebuild the superhero brand after a run of high-profile failures, including the 2017 Justice League. Gunn, who had already directed The Suicide Squad for the old universe, was the creative face of the reboot. Safran, a veteran of The Conjuring horror franchise, was the producing partner. Together, they launched a single shared universe — the DCU — meant to finally rival Marvel's.

The results were real but uneven. Superman opened in the summer of 2025 and gave the new universe a foundation. Creature Commandos and Peacemaker season 2 found their audiences. Clayface, which opened just as the merger closed, passed $100 million worldwide on a $44 million budget. But four years, Gunn himself has now said, was "trying, to say the least." In a farewell message posted to Threads, he wrote that he would miss the people and miss being the co-caretaker of the characters, "but I'm also incredibly relieved and excited to get back to pure filmmaking." That is the statement of a man who is not pretending the last four years were easy.

He is not leaving DC entirely. Gunn has finished filming the Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow, which is in post-production for a July 9, 2027 release, with David Corenswet returning as Superman, Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, and Lars Eidinger as Brainiac. Gunn and Safran will return to full-time creative work and remain involved as producers — and Gunn says he has been engaged on another DC project he is writing, with more to come. He had already wrapped Man of Tomorrow and was writing a third Superman movie when the Friday visit came.

The Irony of the Replacement

Here is the detail that makes this story almost too perfect: Jeremy Latcham is the Marvel executive who championed hiring James Gunn to direct Guardians of the Galaxy — the movie that made Gunn an A-list director. Latcham was part of the founding team behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe and worked closely on its formative projects, including The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Now he replaces the man he helped launch.

It is a strange, almost poetic symmetry, and it is also a signal. Skydance is not hiring a DC loyalist to steady the ship. It is hiring a Marvel architect to run DC the Marvel way — interconnected, centrally managed, and reporting up through the studio's film chiefs rather than straight to the top. The new boss knows the playbook. He helped write it. The question is whether the playbook works when the characters are different, the audience is different, and the studio has already rebooted twice in a decade.

What Happens to the DC Universe Now?

The biggest films on DC's slate are The Batman Part II and Man of Tomorrow. Man of Tomorrow is finished filming and locked for next summer. The Batman Part II, the other pillar of the slate, is still on track as far as anyone knows. But everything else — the television projects, the animation slate, the long-term plan for the DCU — is now in the hands of a new chief with a new boss, a new reporting structure, and a mandate from owners who have already shown they will change their minds about assurances they gave in public.

Skydance is not done reshaping, either. The same day it announced the DC shake-up, the company detailed plans for $6 billion in cost savings from the Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition and said it would launch a streaming bundle of HBO Max and Paramount+ early next year. The merger left Skydance with $87 billion in gross debt. Warner Bros. film bosses Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy were already ousted after the deal closed. Gunn and Safran are the latest, and the biggest, names on that list — and the pattern is clear. Nobody's job is safe just because somebody said it was.

For DC fans, the feeling is familiar and exhausting: another reboot of the reboot, another new boss, another promise that this time the plan will hold. Gunn built a universe in four years. Latcham now inherits it — the films, the shows, the characters, and the audience that has watched this studio change direction more times than it can count. Whether he keeps what Gunn built or starts over will define DC for the next decade.

The first test will watch the Man of Tomorrow, the movie Gunn made, opens under the boss who replaced him.

Sources

Collider, "James Gunn and Peter Safran Officially Exit DC Studios," November 9, 2026.

Cosmic Book News, "Ellison and Kreiz Fired James Gunn in Person on the Warner Bros. Lot," November 10, 2026.

Reuters, "Skydance Details Cost Cuts, Sets Streaming Bundle for Early Next Year," November 9, 2026.

ScreenRadar, "James Gunn and Peter Safran Out at DC Studios, Former Marvel Executive Takes Over," November 9, 2026.

The Playlist, "James Gunn & Peter Safran Exiting DC Studios After Skydance Merger, Will Be Replaced By Marvel Studios' Jeremy Latcham," November 9, 2026.

USA Today, "DC Studios Bosses James Gunn, Peter Safran Out in Stunning Shake-Up," November 9, 2026.

Weird News: NYC Woman's Vanity Plate Read 'BLANK' — and the City Fined Her Over $100,000 in Parking Tickets

Sometimes, it's just not worth being vane, as one woman from New York City has learned the hard way.

A New York City woman picked a vanity license plate to honor her maiden name, "Blank."

The computer, however, read it as a piece of data, as in "this is a blank entry." The result was not in her favor.

The Upper East Side Lawyer that was not Invincible to Ticketing Software

Carole Blank Brown, 70, is a self-employed lawyer and real estate title agent who lives on the Upper East Side and drives a red BMW convertible. Her maiden name is Blank. So when she ordered a vanity plate, she chose the obvious: BLANK. It was personal and clever. It was, as it turned out, a terrible idea — not because of anything she did, but because of what the word means to a computer.

The result was more than 400 parking tickets, over $100,000 in fines, and a year spent proving to the city of New York that she was not, in fact, every illegally parked car in town.

How a Vanity Plate Became a Black Hole for Tickets

The trouble started in the spring of 2026, after Brown updated her car registration to the Upper East Side address she had moved to several years earlier. Shortly after, two notices of unpaid parking tickets arrived. One was for $65, issued in March, for a missing license plate. The other was for $95, issued in February, for blocking a driveway. Neither Brown nor her BMW had been anywhere near the addresses where the violations happened.

She called the city's 311 line to sort it out. That is when she learned the real scale of the problem: there were more than 400 outstanding tickets in her name, totaling more than $40,000. The violations ran the full menu — double-parking, blocking fire hydrants, parking in no-standing zones, blocking driveways, missing plates — plus penalties for nonpayment. None of them were hers.

Here's what was happening: When parking enforcement officers came across a vehicle with a missing license plate, they recorded the plate field as "blank." The city's system, doing exactly what it was programmed to do, matched that word to the one registered plate that actually reads BLANK: hers. 

Every ticket for a plateless car in New York City had a new home, and that home was Carole Blank Brown's mailbox. The computer was not malfunctioning. It was following orders. The orders were just written in a language where "blank" meant something to Carole Blank Brown, but to a computer program, it was a designation used for tagless cars.

The Fight: Four Judges, Two Days, $400 in Paperwork

Brown challenged the first tickets in April 2026. To do it, she had to pay $400 just for copies of all her alleged parking tickets — hundreds of pages of violations she had never committed, in places she had never been. She scheduled a hearing with an administrative judge at the Finance Department's Adjudication Division in Lower Manhattan. Getting the initial batch dismissed took four judges over two days.

That should have been the end of it. It was not. Brown surrendered the BLANK plate and ordered a new vanity plate: KNALB — BLANK spelled backwards, a joke she made at the system's expense. The tickets kept coming anyway. Over the months that followed, she made at least 10 more trips to the Adjudication Division, spending hours before multiple judges to get each new batch dismissed. The running total climbed past $100,000. She was a lawyer, which helped. She was also, by any measure, a full-time unpaid employee of the city's own mistake.

Think about what that means in practice. Every few weeks, a new stack of tickets for cars she had never seen, in neighborhoods she had never parked in, arrived with her name on them. Each one had to be fought individually. Each one required a hearing. The city had, in effect, assigned her the parking sins of every plateless car in New York — and then made her prove her innocence, one ticket at a time, in person, in Lower Manhattan.

The Resolution — and the DMV's Promise

The city's Finance Department told The New York Times the issue was finally resolved in October 2026, after being escalated multiple times. The New York State DMV said it would make a change to ensure the problem never happens again. A DMV spokesman, Walter McClure, put it about as plainly as a government spokesman can: "We will never reissue this same plate combination to another registrant."

That is a promise with a punchline built into it. The state of New York, having spent the better part of a year charging one woman for the parking violations of strangers, has now officially retired the word BLANK. It is the only vanity plate in the state that comes with a body count — hundreds of tickets, over $100,000 in fines, and a woman who had to spend months of her life in a courthouse because a database could not tell the difference between a name and an empty box.

The Lesson Nobody Asked For

There is a dark joke at the center of this story, and Brown told it herself with the KNALB plate. She took the word that ruined her year, flipped it around, and put it back on her car. That is the response of a person who has decided that if the system is going to be absurd, she might as well be absurd right back.

The broader lesson is one computer people have warned about for years: never name something after a value the system itself uses. A plate that reads BLANK is a plate that reads as nothing. A plate that reads NULL would be worse. The machine does not know your maiden name. It does not know your intentions. It knows exactly what you typed, and if what you typed happens to be the same word it uses to mean "we don't know," then congratulations — you are now every missing license plate in the city.

Carole Blank Brown did not break a single parking law. She picked a vanity plate, updated her address, and became the owner of more than 400 tickets for cars she had never driven. The city has fixed the problem, retired the plate, and moved on. She gets to keep the story — and the KNALB plate, which, as far as anyone knows, has not yet been mistaken for anything.

Sources

Syracuse.com, "Vanity Plate Leads to Over $100,000 in Parking Tickets for 70-Year-Old Woman in NY," by Geoff Herbert, November 9, 2026 (reporting on The New York Times). 

New York Post, "NYC Woman Racks Up $40K in Bogus Tickets Over Bizarre License Plate Mix-Up," November 7, 2026. The Sun, "Elderly Driver Hit With $100,000 in Parking Tickets Over Bizarre Vanity Plate Quirk," November 2026.

Why Did the Alligator Walk Into the Bagel Shop? To Get a Bite — Literally

 

Credit: Bagel Dock Express

Question: "Why did the alligator walk into the bagel shop?"

Answer: "Because he wanted to get a bite to eat."

That is not a joke setup. It is the news. On Wednesday, October 29, 2026, a three-foot alligator strolled through an open back door at Bagel Dock Express in Southport, North Carolina, wandered through the kitchen, and made its way toward the front counter like any other customer — except this customer had teeth, a tail, and absolutely no wallet. Surveillance cameras caught the whole thing, and the internet has been laughing about it ever since.

The Gator's Order: One of Everything

The alligator — a juvenile, just three feet long — crossed the parking lot, slipped through the open back door, and took the scenic route: past the shelving in the stock room, through the kitchen past the trash bin and the bags of flour, and out onto the sales floor with its wood floors, tables, and display case. The shop's owner, Jesse Driscoll, was busy overseeing the installation of a new oven when he spotted the unexpected visitor. He did the smart thing. He backed away. Then he called 911.

Two employees noticed the animal as it moved through the front of the shop. They reacted the way any of us would: with visible shock, a lot of pointing, and a sudden, deep appreciation for the concept of personal space. They moved chairs out of the way and kept their distance while the gator browsed. Nobody was hurt. The shop was closed to customers at the time, which kept an already strange afternoon from getting a lot stranger.

Southport police officers, along with an Animal Protective Services officer, arrived and safely removed the alligator. It was relocated — presumably back to the swamp, where the menu is less appealing but the seating is better. The police department later posted the update on Facebook: the gator was "safely captured and relocated." Case closed. Table cleared.

So, Why Did the Alligator Walk Into the Bagel Shop?

We may never know his exact motivation, but the theories write themselves. He wanted a bite. He heard they had an everything bagel, and he is an everything kind of guy. He wanted bacon, egg, and cheese — the classic. He heard the bagels were fresh and he wanted to see for himself. He was just looking for a little dough.

The shop itself leaned into the joke. And we're here for it.

In a social media post after the incident, Bagel Dock Express wrote:

"Apparently, word of our fresh bagels has made its way into the swamp! Our surprise visitor was safely escorted out by local law enforcement. No injuries, no drama… just one VERY unusual customer! Fresh bagels. Wild experiences." 

That is exactly how a small business should handle a reptile in the dining room: turn it into the best advertising you never asked for.

And honestly, the gator has a point. If you are going to walk into a human establishment uninvited, a bagel shop is the move. The food is right there in a display case. Nobody is in a hurry. The worst thing that can happen is someone offers you cream cheese. He picked a place where the stakes were low and the carbs were high. That is not a bad decision. It is just a decision that ends with the police escorting you out.

The One Detail That Makes It Even Funnier

Here is the thing: Southport sits near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, well within the American alligator's natural range. The gator was not lost. He was home. He just happened to be home in a bagel shop. North Carolina wildlife officials say they get several gator reports a day, mostly during mating season in the summer. This one showed up in late October, in a bakery, during an oven installation. He was not following the schedule. He was following his stomach.

He was also only three feet long. Alligators do not reach adulthood until they are around six or seven feet. So this was not a monster. It was a teenager — a juvenile gator, probably still figuring out the world, who wandered into the wrong building and found himself famous. He could not have reached the counter if he tried. He could not have opened the display case. All he could do was walk around, look at the bagels, and wait for someone to notice him. Which, to be fair, is also what most of us do in a bagel shop.

The Punchline

Why did the alligator walk into the bagel shop? Because the door was open, the bagels smelled good, and nobody told him he needed a reservation. He came for a bite. He left with a police escort and a viral video. The shop got a story it will tell forever. The owner got a scare and a new oven. And the rest of us got a reminder that the best jokes are the ones that actually happened.

One serious note, because it matters: if an alligator ever walks into your business, do what Jesse Driscoll did. Back away, keep your distance, and call the professionals. Do not try to take its order. Do not try to seat it. And whatever you do, do not ask if it wants that toasted.

YouTube: Alligator Strolls into Bagel Shop

Credit: Bagel Dock Express/The Guardian

Sources

Weather.com, "Alligator Goes Viral After Casually Strolling Into a North Carolina Bagel Shop as if It Were a Customer," November 6, 2026. A-Z Animals, "Alligator Casually Strolls Into a Bagel Shop. Is It Pet-Friendly?" November 2026. Fox News via Not the Bee, "This Is What Happens When Two Grown Men Discover an Alligator in Their North Carolina Bagel Shop," November 8, 2026. NBC 6 South Florida, "Alligator Strolls Into Bagel Shop, Startling Owner," November 7, 2026. Southport Police Department via Facebook, October 29, 2026. Bagel Dock Express via Instagram.

Corgi Goes Rogue at Panthers-Broncos Halftime: Quinn Outran Four Handlers Before They Finally Caught Her

 

The best play of Sunday's Denver Broncos win over the Carolina Panthers did not involve a single football player. It was made by a corgi named Quinn, who broke loose during the halftime corgi race at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, sprinted around the field in a light blue jersey, and dodged four grown handlers before they finally caught her. The crowd loved it. The internet loved it more. And the second half was briefly delayed because nobody could catch the dog.

The game itself was a good one — Denver won 26-21 on Sunday, November 8, 2026, improving to 7-2 and looking like a genuine Super Bowl threat. But nobody is talking about the final score. They are talking about the dog.

What Happened at Halftime: the 2026 Carolina Cup

The Panthers staged a corgi race as their halftime entertainment, a tradition that has become a favorite at stadiums around the league. Six corgis from the Charlotte Corgi Club took part: Quinn, Winnie, Sausage, Daisy, Colorado, and Ollie. The race was dubbed the 2026 Carolina Cup, and Ollie was crowned the winner.

Then came the encore nobody planned. As the teams were getting ready to retake the field for the second half, Quinn broke free from the group and started sprinting around the field. She was not running toward anything. She was just running — back and forth across the yard lines, from the 40 to the 45 to midfield, pausing at one point to look up at herself on the stadium's big video board. Stadium staff in dark shirts gave chase. She juked them. They dove. They stumbled. She kept going.

It took four pursuers, several missed tackles, and nearly a minute of running before the handlers finally cornered her near the 40-yard line, where one of them scooped her up as the others gathered around. She was panting and happy. The crowd roared. And the dog, by every account, was not hurt on the play.

Scott Hanson's Play-by-Play Made It a Classic

The moment might have stayed a stadium memory if not for Scott Hanson, the host of NFL RedZone, who narrated the chase like a real play. "A corgi is loose," he said, as the dog zigzagged across the field. "The handlers can't handle him. The second half is supposed to be kicking off. They can't get him at the 40. They can't get him at the 45. They can't get him at midfield. The corgi is loose. He's checking to his left, checking to his right. He's looking at himself on the big video board. And finally, they tackle him until about a 100-yard gain."

The clip, filmed by fan Kasey Funderburg and shared on social media, spread everywhere within hours. The NFL's own Instagram account posted it with the caption "CORGI RACE GOES ROGUE!!" NBC News, the TODAY Show, and outlets across the country picked it up. One viral post alone drew more than half a million likes. Sports Illustrated, in its Week 9 winners and losers column, named its loser: "The corgi handlers."

Her Name Is Quinn — Not Lennox

If you saw the memes, you may know the dog as Lennox. That name came from a Barstool Sports meme graphic that spread alongside the video, and it stuck so firmly that much of social media still calls her Lennox. Her real name is Quinn, and she is a she. The Charlotte Corgi Club confirmed it on its Facebook page, where the group reacted to Quinn's famous NFL moment and set the record straight.

The mix-up is part of the charm. A dog with a fake name, a real talent for evasion, and a highlight reel better than most of the players on the field that day. Fans joked that she should be signed — to the Panthers, the Dolphins, the Ravens, the Eagles, the Saints, and just about every other team with a hole at running back. Others compared her footwork to Barry Sanders and Marshawn Lynch, suggested timing her in the 40-yard dash, and called her the best play of the game. Corgi owners, meanwhile, were not surprised at all. Anyone who has owned one knows the breed's stubborn streak: the more you chase a corgi, the faster it runs.

Why a Loose Corgi named Quinn was Better than the Actual Football Game

Part of it is the sheer absurdity: a tiny, short-legged dog in a jersey, outmaneuvering multiple adults on a professional football field, in front of tens of thousands of people, while the second half waits. Part of it is the joy on the dog's face — she was not scared or stressed, she was having the time of her life, and everyone watching could tell. And part of it is that the moment was harmless. Nobody was hurt, the game resumed, the Broncos won, and the only losers were four handlers who will never live down being outrun by a corgi.

There is also something fitting about it happening in Charlotte. The Panthers lost 26-21 and fell further behind in their season, while the dog who stole their halftime show became the most famous athlete in the building. One TODAY Show host joked that Carolina should have signed the corgi instead. Given the way the afternoon went, it is hard to argue.

Quinn went home a star. Ollie went home with the Carolina Cup. And the handlers went home with a story they will be telling for the rest of their lives — about the day a corgi broke loose on an NFL field, broke four tackles, checked herself out on the jumbotron, and gave the whole stadium the best moment of the game.

Sources

Yardbarker, "Who Let the Dog Out?: Corgi Breaks Loose in Panthers-Broncos Matchup," November 8, 2026. Yardbarker, "Who is 'Lennox' the Corgi? Viral Dog Steals the Show During NFL's Panthers vs. Broncos Clash," November 9, 2026. Broncos Wire / USA Today, "Corgi on the Loose Stole the Show at Broncos-Panthers Game," November 8, 2026. Sports Illustrated, "NFL Week 9 Winners and Losers," November 9, 2026. NFL Instagram, "CORGI RACE GOES ROGUE!!" November 8, 2026.

Batman as Bond? Robert Pattinson Screen-Tested for 007 — and Four Other Actors Are in the Mix

 

Illustration of Bond

The race to become the next James Bond just got its biggest surprise yet. Robert Pattinson, 40, has screen-tested to play 007, multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter — putting Batman himself in the running for the other most famous hero in a tuxedo. The tests took place in London over the weekend of October 24, and Pattinson is now one of five actors reported to be in the mix for the role Daniel Craig left behind.

Nothing is decided yet. Amazon MGM Studios has not commented, no actor has been confirmed, and the names circulating are reported contenders, not an official shortlist. But the Pattinson news changes the shape of the race entirely — because until this week, the conventional wisdom said the next Bond would not be a star this famous.

Who Has Screen-Tested for James Bond?

Pattinson joins three actors who have been at the center of the Bond chatter for months: Callum Turner, Jack Lowden, and Josh O'Connor. Turner, known for the Fantastic Beasts films and Masters of the Air, Lowden, a standout of Slow Horses, and O'Connor, who played Prince Charles in The Crown and starred in Challengers, were the three names that had surfaced when The Hollywood Reporter first reported that four, possibly five actors were in the mix. Pattinson is the mystery name that report left unrevealed — and he is not the only one. Nicholas Hoult is also now surfacing as a contender, according to the report.

Hoult's name adds a twist of its own. He played Lex Luthor in last year's Superman, and he was the runner-up to Pattinson for Batman years ago, when Matt Reeves was casting The Batman. Now the two of them may be competing again — this time for the license to kill. Variety has also reported that Harry Styles held talks about the role, though he is not among the names said to have screen-tested.

Why Robert Pattinson as Bond Would Break the Rules

credit: Elena Ternovaja

For decades, the unwritten rule of Bond casting has been that the part goes to an actor on the way up, not one already at the top. Sean Connery was a working actor, not a star, when he got the role. Daniel Craig was a respected character actor, not a household name, when he was announced in October 2005 — 21 years ago this month. As The Hollywood Reporter puts it, conventional wisdom has been that the next man to get the license to kill would not be a globally recognized star like Pattinson, one of the biggest actors of his age cohort, and already the face of DC Studios' Batman franchise. The trade's own answer to that objection: while conventional wisdom goes against a world famous Bond, these are unprecedented times in the franchise.

The franchise part is the real complication. Pattinson is currently filming The Batman Part II in London — the same city where the Bond screen tests have been taking place — and he is the face of DC's Batman franchise. Playing Bond as well would make him the lead of two of the biggest franchises in movies at the same time, a workload and a branding collision no actor has attempted before. On the other hand, he has an advantage none of the other reported contenders can match: he has already worked with the man who will direct the next Bond film.

Pattinson teamed with Denis Villeneuve on the upcoming Dune: Part Three, which opens December 18, and the collaboration is said to have gone well for the two men. Villeneuve, the director of Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and the Dune films, is directing the 26th Bond movie. A director who already knows what an actor can do — and liked what he saw — is a powerful edge in a casting race.

Then there is the resume. Pattinson is described by The Hollywood Reporter as a favorite of auteurs including Robert Eggers, the Safdie brothers, and Christopher Nolan — and Nolan's 2020 spy movie Tenet, the trade notes, might feel like a Bond audition in hindsight. Pattinson broke out in 2005's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire before global fame in Twilight, and he is said to be in the biggest year of his career, with a key role in Nolan's The Odyssey, as co-lead of A24's hit The Drama, and anchoring A24's Primetime. That is not the profile of a typical Bond newcomer. It is the profile of an actor who does not need the part — which, paradoxically, may be exactly why the part is interested in him.

What We Know About the Next Bond Movie

The 26th Bond film will be the first made under Amazon MGM Studios' creative control. Amazon bought out the creative rights from the Broccoli family in February 2025, ending the stewardship of longtime producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who had guided the franchise for decades. Producers on the new film are Amy Pascal, of the Spider-Man films, and David Heyman, of Harry Potter. Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight is reported to be writing the screenplay, and production is expected to begin in 2027, with the role believed to be cast before the end of this year. No plot details have been revealed, and no cast members have been officially confirmed.

The stakes are enormous. Craig retired after five films, ending with 2021's No Time to Die, and the franchise's first and only $1 billion hit was 2012's Skyfall. Whoever takes the role inherits a series that has to prove it can still be the biggest thing in movies under new ownership — and the choice of Bond is the single decision that will define that attempt.

What Happens Next in the James Bond Casting Race

Screen tests are usually one of the last steps before a casting choice, so an announcement could be close. But nothing in the reporting says a decision has been made. The five names — Pattinson, Turner, Lowden, O'Connor, and Hoult — are reported contenders, and Amazon has said nothing. In May 2026, when the casting process first kicked off, the official 007 website and the studio said the search for the next James Bond was underway, adding that they did not plan to comment on specific details during the casting process.

That silence is worth remembering. The Pattinson report is the biggest twist in the race so far, but it is still a report — sourced, detailed, and consistent across outlets, but not an announcement. The next Bond will be named when Amazon says so, and until then, the most interesting question in Hollywood is whether the franchise is really ready to hand its most famous role to a man who already wears another mask.

Sources

Borys Kit and Aaron Couch, "James Bond Surprise: Robert Pattinson Screen Tested to Play 007," The Hollywood Reporter, November 6, 2026. CBR, "James Bond Casting Report Reveals Robert Pattinson Screen Tested for 007," November 6, 2026. TheWrap, "Batman as Bond? Robert Pattinson Screen Tested for 007 Role," November 6, 2026. Consequence, "Robert Pattinson Emerges As Candidate to Play James Bond," November 6, 2026.

Harvard Scientists Reversed Aging in Human Cells With Chemicals Alone — and Now They're Testing It in People

Petri dish with activity

Old cells, made young again, in under a week. That was the headline in July 2023, when a team at Harvard Medical School led by David Sinclair reported that six chemical cocktails could reset aging human cells to a younger state — no gene therapy required. It was one of the most talked-about aging studies of the decade. Three years later, the story has moved further than most people realize: the first human trial of age reversal began in 2026.

Can scientists actually reverse aging human cells in trials? Are we on the cusp of a breakthrough in human longevity and aging?

Here is what the original study actually showed, what has happened since, and what is still unproven.

What the Harvard Team Did in 2023

Until this study, rewinding a cell's age meant gene therapy. Scientists used the Yamanaka factors — a set of genes that can reset an adult cell toward a stem-cell-like state — to push old cells back toward youth. It worked in animals, but gene therapy is expensive, complicated, and hard to roll out widely. Sinclair's team asked a different question: could chemicals alone do the same job?

The answer, in a dish at least, was yes. The researchers screened combinations of small molecules and identified six chemical cocktails that, in less than a week, restored youthful gene-expression patterns in cultured human fibroblasts, including senescent cells that had stopped dividing. The treated cells showed a younger transcriptomic age and improved organization of proteins between the nucleus and the rest of the cell. Critically, the cells kept their identity — they got younger without turning into stem cells or something else entirely.

The strongest recipe, known as VC6TF, combined five compounds: valproic acid, CHIR-99021, E-616452 (also called RepSox), tranylcypromine, and forskolin. The findings were published in the journal Aging on July 12, 2023. Sinclair's comment at the time captured the ambition: the best science could do before was slow aging, and now, he believes, we can reverse it — maybe one day with a single pill.

What the 2023 Study Did Not Prove

This is the part that often gets left out of the headlines, and it matters. The experiments were done in cultured cells, not in animals or people. No animals were treated with these exact cocktails and shown to live longer or function better. No humans were treated at all.

Other scientists urged caution. Biogerontologist Matt Kaeberlein said publicly that claims of a chemical approach that reverses aging overstated the data, arguing that nobody has a drug that reverses aging. Others pointed out that several of the molecules have known toxicity: valproic acid carries a black-box warning, and tranylcypromine is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor with dietary and drug-interaction restrictions. There is no commercial product that delivers the published cocktails at the concentrations used in the cell studies, and no one should try to assemble them on their own.

A 2025 paper from another lab simplified the idea further, reducing a related chemical approach to just two molecules, RepSox and tranylcypromine. The field is moving, but the 2023 result remains what it was: a promising lab finding, not a treatment.

The Big Update: the First Human Trial Began in 2026

The most important development since the paper is not about the cocktails at all. It is about the gene-therapy side of the same science. In January 2026, the FDA cleared Life Biosciences, a company co-founded by Sinclair, to begin the first human clinical trial of partial epigenetic reprogramming. The treatment, called ER-100, is a gene therapy that briefly switches on three reprogramming genes — Oct4, Sox2, and Klf4, known as OSK — in the eye.

The trial targets two age-related vision diseases: open-angle glaucoma and non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, essentially a stroke of the optic nerve. Up to 18 participants, ages 40 to 85, will receive a single injection of a harmless viral vector carrying the OSK genes into one eye. The genes stay silent until the patient takes the antibiotic doxycycline as a daily pill for about eight weeks, which flips the switch on. Stop the pill, and the factors switch off again.

The first participant was dosed on June 9, 2026. On October 8, 2026, the company reported interim data from the first three glaucoma patients: the lowest dose was well tolerated through 56 days, and the safety board recommended escalating the dose. The company also reported preliminary visual-field improvements in two of the three patients. Those are company-reported results from three people in an open-label safety trial — encouraging, but not proof of anything yet. The trial's primary goal is safety, not proving that aging can be reversed. No efficacy results have been released beyond that early report, and the company expects enough data by the end of 2026 to decide on a Phase 2 trial.

The Pill Dream Is Still Alive — and Still Unproven

Sinclair has not given up on the chemical route. In a September 2026 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, he described unpublished experiments in his lab, including work toward a drink that rejuvenates mice, and a collaboration using AI to search roughly 10 billion possible molecules for a single compound that could replace a whole reprogramming cocktail. About 200 candidates have been narrowed down for testing in human cells. He also mentioned work on restoring lost memories in mice, though that research is unpublished.

Separately, Sinclair's team is pursuing an oral small-molecule cocktail, referred to as SL-100, aimed at whole-body rejuvenation through the bloodstream, with the $101 million XPRIZE Healthspan competition as its proving ground. If the eye trial works, the company has said it plans to expand toward hearing loss, liver and lung disease, muscle wasting, and neurodegenerative diseases.

What This Means Right Now

The honest summary is this: the 2023 chemical cocktails showed that features of cellular aging can be chemically reversed in a dish, in under a week, without gene therapy and without erasing a cell's identity. That was real, peer-reviewed science. In 2026, the first human test of the related gene-therapy approach began, and its earliest safety data looks clean so far. But no approved epigenetic reprogramming therapy exists, no chemical cocktail has been tested in people, and no pill can reverse your age today.

The next 12 to 24 months will tell the story. If the eye trial proves safe and shows real vision benefits, the field moves from lab dishes to medicine. If it does not, the 2023 paper remains an intriguing result that never left the petri dish. Either way, the idea that aging might be reversible — not just slowable — is no longer science fiction. It is in human testing, one eye at a time.

Sources

Yang JH, Petty CA, Dixon-McDougall T, et al. "Chemically induced reprogramming to reverse cellular aging." Aging, July 12, 2023. Life Biosciences / ClinicalTrials.gov, trial NCT07290244 (ER-100 Phase 1/2A, first participant dosed June 9, 2026; interim data October 8, 2026). Medical Daily, "The First Human Trial to Reverse Aging Just Got FDA Clearance," July 13, 2026. NAD.com, David Sinclair update on The Joe Rogan Experience, September 2026.

Bronny James and the Trust Problem Keeping Him Off the Lakers Floor

 

Eleven minutes. That is all the playing time Bronny James has received in the Los Angeles Lakers' first eight regular-season games, and every one of those minutes has come with the game already decided. For a 22-year-old guard trying to prove he belongs in the NBA, the numbers tell a blunt story: head coach JJ Redick does not trust him yet, and until that changes, there is no path into the Lakers rotation.

It was not supposed to go this way. The Lakers handed Bronny a genuine opportunity in the preseason, a real audition for a larger role. With Collin Sexton sidelined, the team needed a backup point guard, and Bronny got the first look. His offensive struggles were on full display, and the opening disappeared. When the regular season began, the Lakers went without a reserve point guard entirely in the opener because Sexton still was not ready — and Bronny still did not get the call.

What Happened to Bronny James?

Redick trusted Bronny to start the year. He was ahead of Jaden Hardy and Chris Manon on the depth chart until the fourth preseason game, but he struggled in the first three, and Redick went looking for other options. That is how quickly a coach's trust can shift: one week you are the answer at backup point guard, the next you are buried at the end of the bench.

The minutes tell the rest of the story. Bronny is effectively the 15th man on the roster right now. The only two players with fewer minutes than him, Cameron Carr and Adou Thiero, have both missed time with injuries. He is healthy, available, and still not playing — the clearest sign of where he stands in Redick's mind.

The Raptors Game Made the Trust Problem Worse

The low point came against the Toronto Raptors. Bronny entered with 2:28 remaining, replacing Luka Doncic, and he was clearly supposed to be the lead ball-handler for the closing group. The Lakers were up 14. One minute later, Toronto had cut the lead to six, and Redick was forced to bring his starters back to secure the win.

Redick did not single Bronny out afterward, but he did not hide his frustration with the group either. "I won't make that mistake again. I'll leave the guys in. You've got to play until the final buzzer, and if guys are not ready to play, I just won't put them in." It was a message aimed at the whole second unit, and Bronny was the first player of that group on the floor.

The pattern repeated itself in the blowout win over the Miami Heat, where Redick did not trust the deep reserves until there was a minute left. Being unable to execute in garbage time is an even bigger problem than struggling in a real game. If a coach cannot trust a player with the game virtually in hand, there is no way he will put that player in the rotation.

What the Lakers Want From Bronny James at Point Guard

The Lakers keep giving Bronny on-ball opportunities because that is the role they want him to fill. They want him to be a point guard: execute the offense, set up his teammates, and be the lead creator. The worst thing he can do is press. He is a hard worker, and he is eager to prove he is an NBA player and not just in the league because of his famous father. But trying to be the star, or trying to do too much, is exactly what gets a young role player pulled.

Redick admitted he was not even calling plays during the Raptors collapse. All five players on the floor had to do was move the ball, drain the clock, and get a couple of stops. Toronto had already stolen back the momentum before Bronny entered, cutting a 20-point deficit to 14 to start the fourth, and the reserves were struggling to even inbound the ball. The job was simple, and the group still could not close it out.

Play basketball and don't give up the cushion. 

Defense Is Bronny James' Fastest Way Back

If offense is where Bronny has to stop pressing, defense is where the Lakers want him to press harder. At 6-foot-2, he has clear defensive limitations, and the team knows it. Their answer is to make him a more aggressive defender — guarding 94 feet, creating havoc for the offense, and bringing energy every possession.

That part has not clicked yet either. Bronny has struggled to fill the full-court role, and he makes it worse by having issues defending off the ball, getting caught ball-watching too often. He has been a liability on that end of the floor, and Redick cannot even trust him to be a solid team defender, even when he is having trouble stopping his own man.

The model the Lakers have in mind is clear. Since they drafted him, they have envisioned Bronny becoming a TJ McConnell or Davion Mitchell type of player. They do not expect him to be a superstar or a lockdown defender. They expect energy, plays, and productivity in a defined role. That starts with performing whenever his number is called — and right now, the performances are not landing.

Why the Lakers Still Believe in Bronny James

Is Bronny Still in the NBA?

Yes. Bronny James is still in the NBA — he is on the Lakers roster, the team picked up his team option, and he remains under contract. The question is not whether he is in the league. It is whether he can earn minutes in it.

None of this means the Lakers have given up on him. They picked up his team option, and they kept him over Dalton Knecht. That is a front office saying it sees a future, even while the head coach is saying he does not see a present. The two can both be true: a young player can be worth developing and still not be worth minutes on a team trying to win now.

The path back is narrow but simple. Bronny has to embrace his role every time he takes the floor. He can score zero points and still be productive — move the ball, drain the clock, get stops, and do not try to be more than the job asks. Every clean garbage-time shift is a deposit. Every shaky one is a withdrawal, and right now the account is low.

So what happened to Bronny James is not one bad game. It is a preseason audition that went wrong, a rough night against Toronto, and a coach who stopped trusting the deep bench. The Lakers have shown they believe in his future. Now he has to show his coach he can be trusted with the present, one NBA game at a time. It now seems improbable that Bronny will ascend to the throne of greatness, but will remain in his Father's shadow in the NBA.

Bronny James Update 11/05/26

Bleacher Report reported on Nov. 5, 2026 that the Los Angeles Lakers sent Bronny James and Cameron Carr down to the G League to play on the Coachella Valley Lakers.

There is another Bronny James Update as of 11/08/26...

Update, November 8: A Breakout Night in the G League — and a Recall

The story changed two days after this post was written. On Thursday, November 5, the Lakers assigned Bronny James — along with 2026 first-round pick Cameron Carr — to their G League affiliate, the Coachella Valley Lakers, the team formerly known as the South Bay Lakers, now relocated to Palm Desert. On Friday night, November 6, Bronny started in the Coachella Valley season opener against the Salt Lake City Stars at Acrisure Arena and delivered the best game of his young career: 22 points, a game-high seven assists, five rebounds, and a steal in 29 minutes, shooting 8-of-18 from the field, in a 104-98 win. He finished one point behind teammate Cole Swider, who led all scorers with 23 off the bench.

It was a reminder of what the G League has always been for him: a place where he actually gets to run an offense. In 25 G League games over his first two seasons, he averaged 18.4 points and 4.4 assists on 49.6 percent shooting — numbers that stand in sharp contrast to his NBA season so far, where he has played a little over 12 minutes across five appearances, scoring four points with no rebound, assist, or steal. The Lakers clearly noticed the Friday performance. Bronny and Carr were recalled ahead of a four-game road trip that starts Sunday against the Detroit Pistons, followed by games against the Atlanta Hawks, Milwaukee Bucks, and Phoenix Suns. The trust problem is not solved — one G League night does not erase the Toronto game — but for the first time this season, Bronny gave his coaches a reason to keep watching.

Scarlett Johansson Calls Her Secret Batman Sequel Role the Hardest Character She Has Ever Had to Crack

 Even seasoned superhero actors can have existential crises.

Scarlett Johansson at Comic Con

Scarlett Johansson in Matt Reeves' Batman 2

Scarlett Johansson has played a superhero for more than a decade, faced down aliens, and carried entire franchises on her shoulders. So when she says a role left her stumped, it is worth paying attention. In a new interview, the actress described her secret part in The Batman Part II as one of the hardest characters she has ever had to crack — a role that pushed her outside her comfort zone and, in her words, gave her "a lot of existential angst."

Johansson spoke about the film while promoting her upcoming movie Paper Tiger in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. She stopped well short of revealing who she is playing, but she was unusually candid about how the job felt. The part, she said, was "very hard to figure out," and she was not even sure whether the difficulty came from the character itself or from where she is in her own life. That, she added, was all she could say about it.

Scarlett Johansson's Batman Role Is Still a Secret

Part of what makes her comments so intriguing is how little has officially been confirmed about her character. Director Matt Reeves announced her casting in May with a social media post that showed only a GIF of Johansson reflected in a car's rear-view mirror, taken from her 2013 film Under the Skin, captioned "Next exit, Gotham… Welcome." No character name came with it, and none has followed since.

Reports from entertainment outlets have filled the gap, with several saying Johansson is believed to be playing Gilda Dent, the wife of Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent. That casting has never been confirmed by Reeves or by DC, so it remains a report, not an official announcement. Johansson's own remarks fit that picture: an actress who cannot even name her character is hardly going to explain how she played her.

Sebastian Stan, Brian Tyree Henry, and the Rest of the New Cast

Johansson is not the only newcomer shrouded in secrecy. Sebastian Stan was confirmed alongside her, and he is widely reported to be playing Harvey Dent himself, the district attorney destined to become the villain Two-Face. Brian Tyree Henry, Charles Dance, and Sebastian Koch were also announced, again without official character names, though Dance is reported to be playing Harvey Dent's father. Like Johansson, all three bring serious dramatic credentials to a sequel that already had a stacked cast.

Returning from the first film are Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne, Andy Serkis as Alfred, Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon, Colin Farrell as the Penguin, Jayme Lawson as Mayor Bella Reál, and Gil Perez-Abraham as Officer Martinez. It is a large ensemble, and Reeves has been rolling out the additions one social media post at a time, which has only fed the guessing game.

What Matt Reeves Has Said About the Sequel

Reeves has said the sequel will put more emphasis on Pattinson's Bruce Wayne than the first film did. The 2022 original leaned heavily on the Batman persona, with Wayne himself kept at arm's length for much of the story. This time, according to Reeves, the story moves past the origin-adjacent ground of the first movie and deeper into the rogues' gallery, while keeping Pattinson at the center of it.

That shift may be part of why Johansson found her role so difficult. Reeves' Gotham is grounded, rain-soaked, and psychologically heavy, a long way from the quippy, universe-spanning Marvel movies where Johansson made her name as Black Widow. A character in that world has to feel like a real person first and a comic book figure second, and that is a harder needle to thread than it looks.

Steven Soderbergh and the Production So Far

Production has also had its share of drama behind the camera. Variety reports that Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh is currently leading production after Reeves temporarily stepped away because of a personal matter. Filming is underway in the United Kingdom, and the movie is currently set for release on October 1, 2027, after delays that pushed it back from October 2025 and then October 2026.

None of that seems to have dimmed enthusiasm for the sequel. The first film was both a critical and commercial success, and the combination of Pattinson's brooding Batman, Farrell's Penguin — who went on to headline his own acclaimed series — and a new wave of casting has kept anticipation high through every delay.

Why a Hard Role Is Good News for Batman Fans

There is a case to be made that Johansson's struggle is actually encouraging. Actors rarely describe a part as giving them existential angst unless the material is asking something real of them. Johansson has spent years balancing blockbusters with smaller, stranger films, from her voice work to her collaborations with independent directors, and she does not take roles lightly at this stage of her career.

If the character was hard to figure out, it is probably because the character is complicated — and complicated is exactly what Reeves' Gotham does best. Whether she turns out to be Gilda Dent or someone else entirely, the fact that the role resisted easy answers suggests it will give audiences something to chew on, too.

For now, fans will have to wait. No trailer has arrived, no official character names have been released for the newcomers, and Johansson is not talking beyond what she has already said. The Batman Part II opens in theaters on October 1, 2027, which leaves plenty of time for the guessing to continue — and for Johansson's mystery role to stay exactly that.

This Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine Taught 89 Out of 90 Patients' Immune Systems to Fight Back

89 out of 90 patients is a promising stat when it comes to a new pancreatic cancer vaccine.

Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine

That is how often an experimental pancreatic cancer vaccine got the immune system to fight back. The vaccine is called ELI-002 7P, and in a phase 2 clinical trial, nearly every patient who could be assessed developed a stronger T-cell response against the mutated protein driving their cancer. It is one of the most striking immune-response numbers pancreatic cancer research has produced — and it comes with an honest caveat that matters just as much as the headline.

The results come from the randomized phase 2 AMPLIFY-7P trial, published in Nature Medicine on October 23, 2026. The trial enrolled 144 people with stage I-III pancreatic cancer who had already been through surgery and standard treatment and had no sign of recurrence for six months afterward. They were split two-to-one: 96 received the vaccine, and 48 were simply observed, which is the standard approach after surgery and chemotherapy.

What ELI-002 7P Actually Does

To understand why this vaccine is different, you have to understand KRAS. KRAS is a gene that, when mutated, acts like a stuck accelerator pedal, telling cells to keep growing when they should stop. KRAS mutations show up in the vast majority of pancreatic cancers, which is a big reason the disease is so hard to treat: the same mutation driving the tumor also helps it resist therapy.

ELI-002 7P is a cancer vaccine designed to teach the immune system's T cells to recognize seven of the most common KRAS mutations — G12D, G12R, G12V, G12A, G12C, G12S, and G13D. Together, those seven mutations cover about 90 percent of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas, the most common form of the disease. The vaccine uses an "amphiphile" design that targets the lymph nodes, where immune responses are organized, so the T cells learn their target efficiently.

Crucially, the vaccine is off-the-shelf. Many cancer vaccines in development are custom-built for each patient from their own tumor, a process that takes weeks and costs a fortune. ELI-002 7P is a fixed formula aimed at mutations shared by most patients, so nobody has to wait for a personalized dose to be manufactured. If it works, it could be given far more widely and far more quickly.

The Trial Numbers, Plainly Stated

Among the 90 vaccine recipients whose immune responses could be measured, 89 developed T-cell responses specifically against mutant KRAS. That is 98.9 percent — the "89 out of 90" figure. Even more striking, 74 of those 90 patients, or 82.2 percent, saw their T-cell response grow to more than 9.17 times its starting level.

That size of response turned out to matter. Patients whose T-cell response crossed that 9.17-fold threshold stayed cancer-free far longer: their median disease-free survival had not even been reached yet at the time of analysis, compared with 6.08 months for patients whose responses stayed below it. In exploratory analyses, stronger immune responses were associated with a 53 percent reduced risk of recurrence. The vaccine also showed signs of "antigen spreading" in 86.7 percent of a smaller group tested — meaning the immune system began recognizing additional tumor targets beyond the ones in the vaccine, a pattern researchers associate with deeper, longer-lasting responses. Median follow-up in the trial was 19.4 months, and a prespecified look at the dosing period showed disease-free survival at six months of 75.7 percent with the vaccine versus 61.7 percent with observation.

The Honest Caveat: The Trial Missed Its Main Goal

Here is the part that keeps this story honest. The AMPLIFY-7P trial did not meet its primary endpoint. Median disease-free survival across all patients was 23.8 months with the vaccine versus 21.2 months with observation alone — a difference that was not statistically significant. In other words, when you compare the two groups as a whole, the trial did not prove that the vaccine delays recurrence.

That sounds contradictory, and it is worth explaining why researchers are not discouraged. The immune-response findings came from analyses that look within the vaccine group, not from the head-to-head comparison the trial was designed around. Those analyses were partly exploratory, meaning they were not the trial's pre-planned main test, and they can overstate an effect. The vaccine arm also happened to include more patients with higher-risk surgical margins — 19 percent had tumor present at or within 1 millimeter of the surgical margin, compared with 10 percent in the observation arm — which may have tilted the overall comparison. A post-hoc multivariate analysis that adjusted for these imbalances did favor the vaccine, with an adjusted hazard ratio of 0.47, and in the subgroup of patients whose tumors were completely removed with clean margins, median disease-free survival was 23.8 months with the vaccine versus 12.8 months with observation. Overall survival data is not yet mature enough to judge, so the long-term picture is still incomplete.

On safety, the vaccine looked manageable: severe side effects occurred in 10.4 percent of vaccine recipients versus 14.6 percent of the observation group, and serious adverse events were actually less common with the vaccine, 6.3 percent versus 8.3 percent.

Why Researchers Are Still Excited About This Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine Treatment

If the trial missed its main goal, why is anyone calling this promising? Because pancreatic cancer has humbled nearly every immunotherapy approach tried against it. The disease is notoriously "cold" to the immune system — tumors hide, suppress immune cells, and return after surgery in most patients. Getting 89 out of 90 patients to mount a measurable, targeted immune response, and seeing the strongest responses track with much longer cancer-free time, is a biological signal researchers have been chasing for years.

That signal is already shaping what comes next. The vaccine's maker, Elicio Therapeutics, has refined its phase 3 strategy around the patients most likely to benefit — those whose tumors were completely removed with clean surgical margins — along with additional vaccine dosing. A confirmatory phase 3 trial is now being designed around that population. Separately, researchers at the University of Miami's Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center received a $1 million V Foundation grant to study combining the KRAS-targeted vaccine with a RAS inhibitor drug called daraxonrasib, with or without the immunotherapy nivolumab, to see whether the combination can strengthen responses further. An

USC Stuns No. 2 Ohio State 30-18 as the Top of College Football Keeps Falling

 

The chaos at the top of college football is not slowing down. Unranked USC stunned No. 2 Ohio State 30-18 on Saturday night at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, leading start to finish in the biggest win of Lincoln Riley's tenure — and marking the fourth straight week a top-two team in the AP Poll lost to an unranked opponent.

It took all of 39 seconds for the tone to be set. On just the second play from scrimmage, USC quarterback Jayden Maiava hit freshman wide receiver Trent Mosley for a 69-yard touchdown, and the Coliseum crowd — on Halloween night, in a light, steady rain — never really quieted down after that.

The 39-Second Warning

Mosley, a freshman sensation, finished with five catches for 101 yards, and running back Waymond Jordan added a 9-yard rushing touchdown to give USC a 14-3 lead after the first quarter. The Trojans were coming off an embarrassing 24-7 loss at Wisconsin the week before, a defeat so bad it knocked them out of the AP Top 25 entirely after they had been ranked No. 16. One week later, they produced the second-most points Ohio State's defense had allowed in a single game all season — and they did it in the first half alone, taking a 20-9 lead into halftime.

Ohio State's offense moved the ball but could not finish drives. The Buckeyes produced 192 yards in the first half yet managed only three field goals from their first five drives — even after reaching the USC 1-yard line shortly before halftime. That red-zone failure became the story of the night.

A Freshman Quarterback's First Start for Ohio State

Ohio State was already playing without its starting quarterback. Julian Sayin, a former Heisman Trophy finalist, is sidelined indefinitely with an injury to his right throwing arm suffered against Indiana on October 17. True freshman Luke Fahey got the start in his place, making his first career start after finishing Ohio State's 19-15 win over Indiana in relief.

Fahey was not the problem. He completed 21 of 28 passes for 260 yards and a touchdown, and Ohio State outgained USC 464 yards to 338 while holding the ball for roughly two-thirds of the game. But yardage does not score points, and the Buckeyes kept settling for field goals. USC's defense, which sacked Fahey twice and posted seven tackles for loss, did not allow a touchdown in the first 57 minutes.

The Play That Sealed It for USC

The second half turned on two moments. First, Ohio State running back Isaiah West fumbled in USC territory, killing a drive that could have closed the gap. Then came the night's signature play: freshman tight end Mark Bowman took a pass 70 yards, hurdling a defender and breaking multiple tackles, to set up a King Miller touchdown that pushed USC's lead to 27-9. The game was effectively over at that point, even with a quarter still to play.

Ohio State did rally in the fourth quarter, holding USC to three points while adding a field goal and a touchdown pass from Fahey to Jeremiah Smith. That touchdown was Smith's first of the game — he finished with 10 catches for 83 yards — and it made him the Big Ten's all-time receiving touchdown leader. But the two-point try after it failed, leaving the score 27-18, and Caden Chittenden's 32-yard field goal with 1:46 remaining closed out the 30-18 final.

Mark Bowman hurdling Ohio St. defense

Popeyes Coupons: $5.49 Two-Piece Meals, $10.99 Two Can Dine, and Every Deal on the New Coupon Sheet

Honey Chicken Biscuit

A fresh Popeyes coupon sheet just landed, and it is a good one. The two-page flyer, dated October 27, 2026, packs in 16 paper coupons covering everything from a $5.49 two-piece meal to a $31.99 family box — plus a look at the chain's newest add-ons. Every coupon on the sheet is good through April 8, 2027, at participating U.S. restaurants, so there is no rush to use them this weekend. Here is every deal on the sheet, what it gets you, and the fine print worth knowing before you order.

These are old-school paper coupons: present the coupon when ordering, one per customer, and no substitutions. Prices are listed plus tax, and participation and prices may vary by restaurant. They are not valid on delivery or digital orders, and they cannot be combined with other coupons or offers. Keep that in mind and the sheet is straightforward savings.

New on the Menu: Add-Ons and a Honey Chicken Biscuit

Before the coupons, the sheet shows off the new arrivals. The "Add Ons Are Here" side highlights three items: a Chicken Wrap, Cheese Bites, and a new Peanut Butter Chocolate Cup made with Reese's. The other page leads with a new Honey Chicken Biscuit — a crispy chicken fillet with honey dripping over it, served on a biscuit. None of these are coupon items themselves, but they are the new things to try while you are there using a coupon. The sheet also pushes Popeyes Rewards with a "Scan to save" QR code for members.

The Best Solo Deals

The cheapest way in the door is the $5.49 two-piece Signature Chicken meal: two pieces of Classic or Spicy chicken, a regular side, and a biscuit (coupon 9952). The sheet actually prints this one twice, so you have a spare. If you want a drink with it, the second page has the same two-piece meal plus a small drink for $6.99 (coupon 4678, also printed twice).

Popeye's coupons, side 1

Tenders fans get two options. A three-piece tenders meal with a regular side, a biscuit, and a small drink runs $5.99 (coupon 3354), while the same three tenders with a regular side and biscuit but no drink is $5.49 (coupon 9911). The sandwich crowd is covered too: a Classic Chicken Sandwich with a regular side and a small drink is $6.99 (coupon 4668), and two Classic Chicken Sandwiches on their own are $8.99 (coupon 8141) — that works out to $4.50 per sandwich, the cheapest sandwich math on the sheet.

One small add-on deal rounds out the solo list: add two Cane Sweeeet premium beverages to any purchase for $3.99 (coupon 8532), served chilled or frozen, sweet or unsweet.

Two Can Dine: Use the $10.99 Version

The sheet's best-known bundle is Two Can Dine: five pieces of Signature Chicken or Tenders, two regular sides, and two biscuits. Here is the catch worth knowing — the sheet prints this bundle at two different prices. The first page lists it at $10.99 (bone-in coupon 4935, tenders coupon 4875), while the second page lists the identical bundle at $11.99 (bone-in coupon 1933, tenders coupon 1268). Same food, a dollar apart. Use the $10.99 coupon and leave the $11.99 one in the drawer.

Popeye's Coupons, side 2

At $10.99, Two Can Dine is the sweet spot for two people: five pieces plus two sides and two biscuits for about $5.50 per person before tax. Pick Classic or Spicy for the chicken, and note that an upcharge may apply if you choose Homestyle Mac & Cheese as one of your sides.

Family Boxes: 10 Pieces for $22.99, 14 for $31.99

Feeding a crowd? The second page has a 10-piece Mixed Signature Chicken or Tenders box with two large sides and five biscuits for $22.99 (bone-in coupon 5382, tenders coupon 3820). The first page scales it up: a 14-piece Mixed Signature Chicken or Tenders box with two large sides and seven biscuits for $31.99 (bone-in coupon 4636, tenders coupon 3816).

The per-piece math favors the bigger box — about $2.28 per piece in the 14-piece versus $2.30 in the 10-piece, before counting the sides and biscuits — but the real difference is headcount. The 10-piece with two large sides and five biscuits comfortably feeds four to five people, while the 14-piece with two large sides and seven biscuits is built for six or more. Both let you mix Classic and Spicy pieces, and both take the same Homestyle Mac & Cheese upcharge note on sides.

Fine Print to Know Before You Order

Every coupon on the sheet carries the same terms, so learn them once. Present the coupon when ordering — one per customer, and each coupon is void where prohibited, with a cash value of 1/100 of a cent. No substitutions, and upcharges may apply to the Homestyle Mac & Cheese side. The coupons are not valid on delivery or digital orders, and they cannot be used with any other coupons or offers. All prices are plus tax, and both price and participation may vary by restaurant, so your local Popeyes could differ slightly.

The expiration date is the same across the whole sheet: April 8, 2027. That is more than five months from now, which makes this a sheet worth keeping in the car or on the fridge rather than rushing through. And since the two-piece and Two Can Dine coupons are printed twice, you effectively get a second use of the sheet's two best deals.

The Bottom Line

For solo diners, the $5.49 two-piece meal and the $8.99 two-sandwich deal are the standouts. For couples, the $10.99 Two Can Dine — not the $11.99 version — is the one to clip. For families, the $22.99 ten-piece or $31.99 fourteen-piece boxes cover the table. Pair any of them with a look at the new Honey Chicken Biscuit, the Chicken Wrap, or the Cheese Bites, and that is a full Popeyes run on a coupon budget.

All coupon codes are listed with each deal above, exactly as printed on the sheet, and every coupon is good through April 8, 2027, at participating U.S. restaurants.