It seems like no one works as fast as Ariana Grande‘s stylist, Mimi Cuttrell. Now that the singer is now an Oscar nominee, she is busy more than ever. Fresh off from her “Wicked” press tour, Grande has been appearing on the covers of popular magazines, talking about her role as Glinda in many talk shows and podcasts while collaborating with renowned brands. Cuttrell, for her part, has been giving fans early access to all of the actor’s looks. These include the most recent post, where Grande was seen wearing a dapper suit for an upcoming magazine issue.
Ariana Grande flaunts a different side to her in set photos on Instagram
Ariana Grande’s longtime stylist, Mimi Cuttrell, has been dropping many of the actor’s looks much before the said events. On Monday, the stylist took to Instagram to share Grande’s recent look, which marked a significant departure from her other fits. This time around, the singer wore a dapper suit, flaunting an entirely different side to her on set. From glamorous gowns and chic pieces to business dressing, Cuttrell’s profile for the “Wicked” star has been extensive and noteworthy.
In the social media post, Cuttrell tagged The Hollywood Reporter, hinting that the shoot must be from the magazine’s upcoming issue. For the photoshoot, the Oscar nominee wore a suit from Saint Laurent that was designed by Creative Director Anthony Vaccarello. The suit featured a grey blazer and a striped shirt underneath. The striped fabric also acted as cuffs for the blazer, making it a cohesive fit. The actor wore matching grey pants and the brand’s slingback leather pumps.
Grande’s Saint Laurent suit added an androgynous twist with a maroon tie. Cuttrell further shared details about the glam team that brought the look together. Makeup artist Michael Anthony gave the actor a glam befitting the suited look while hairstylist Alyx Liu gave her slicked-back hair.
Ariana Grande has been nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category at the Oscars for her portrayal of Glinda in John M. Chu’s “Wicked.” She shared the news of her accomplishment on Instagram in a sentimental tribute while posting a photo of herself dressed as Dorothy Gale from “The Wizard of Oz.”
A new-look CBS Evening News debuted on Monday night (January 27), as the long-running news program did away with many of its traditional elements and introduced new formats.
As with many other evening news broadcasts, such as NBC Nightly News and ABC News’ World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News traditionally had one anchor covering the day’s main headlines. However, the show is now helmed by a bigger team, including several roving reporters, and focusing on fewer stories with more depth.
John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois served as hosts, but rather than rattling through the headlines, they provided longer segments on specific topics, including how the recent California wildfires have created insurance challenges for residents and Chinese intelligence efforts to recruit members of the United States military.
The show also featured segments with roving reports out on location, including Lonnie Quinn providing weather and Margaret Brennan covering Washington and politics.
Back in August 2024, Evening News executive producer Bill Owens shared his plans for the future of the show, telling Variety, “We are removing the clutter. We are not going to be dealing with the things we think people might want to see, and we are going to be about real serious reporting.”
He added, “We are getting back to our beats, listening to our reporters in the field about what they have, not worrying about the headlines online or in the newspapers.”
The changes were ushered in last week when veteran journalist Norah O’Donnell anchored her final episode of Evening News. O’Donnell, who will continue to serve as a senior correspondent across the various CBS News platforms, joined Evening News in July 2019.
“This has been the honor of a lifetime to anchor this legacy broadcast. You know, the CBS Evening News is, for good reason, the longest-running evening newscast in America,” O’Donnell told viewers at the end of Thursday’s (January 23) broadcast.
“It is powered by the finest journalists around the world — the correspondents, producers, researchers and crews who work tires loosely to bring you the news every night,” she continued. “And that won’t change, because journalism matters. I know that because I’ve heard it from so many of you, our viewers.”
Viewers seemed to enjoy the new format, with one YouTube commenter writing, “This was surprisingly good. Very PBS NewsHour meets 60 Minutes meets BBC. Zero sensationalism, no overuse of breaking news, and slower pace.”
“Oh this is a strong format,” said another. “Returning to strong correspondents and long formats in conversationalist tones. This is a return to the beginning of Evening News’ roots as well as employing what worked for ABC News in the Roone Arledge era with World News Tonight.”
Another added, “Thank you for returning CBS to it ledgendary former and familar format ! It gives me sense of HOME again, the music, the desk,, everything!”
What did you think of the new-look CBS Evening News? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Rideshare driving was the most-searched side hustle last year, garnering nearly 31,000 monthly Google searches, per a Creative Fabrica study. More than seven million people drive or deliver with Uber alone every month.
However, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an interview on Friday that driving for Uber is only a safe gig for the next decade. After that, autonomous vehicles, or cars that drive themselves, will take over the same routes humans drive today.
“You fast forward 15, 20 years, I think that the autonomous driver is going to be a better driver than the human driver,” Khosrowshahi told the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern at WSJ Journal House Davos. “They will have trained on lifetimes of driving that no person can, they’re not going to be distracted.”
Khosrowshahi pointed out that over a million car fatalities happen per year and that self-driving cars could make for safer trips.
“I think the human displacement here, while it’s not something that is going to happen tomorrow, is going to happen eventually,” he said. “And it’s something we have to think about, society has to think about.”
According to researchers at the University of Central California who put together data from 2,100 accidents involving autonomous vehicles and 35,000 accidents involving human drivers, autonomous vehicles generally show more safety than human-operated vehicles in most scenarios. However, self-driving cars have five times the risk of getting into accidents when operating at dawn and dusk when compared to human-driven cars.
Khosrowshahi acknowledged the drawbacks of autonomous vehicles as they are today, stating that they currently have limited areas of origination, destination, and overall areas of operation. The upfront costs, including the cost of mapping routes, are expensive, and the hardware isn’t as advanced as it needs to be for widespread adoption.
Autonomous vehicles aren’t going to take over all at once, but instead are going to start by augmenting what humans can do over the next decade, he said. They are going to start by taking over the easier routes.
“I think for the next 10 years you’re going to have hybrid networks of humans and machines,” Khosrowshahi said.
What autonomous vehicles mean for Uber drivers
Khosrowshahi said autonomous vehicles are making the company rethink how Uber earners can make money.
Uber started with driving services and expanded to food deliveries and shopping. Now, there’s a group labeling maps and another group helping AI companies develop their algorithms. All of these present new ways for Uber drivers to earn income.
“We are making investments in creating alternative methods of making money for our earner base,” Khosrowshahi said, adding that he wasn’t sure which will get there faster — Uber in terms of opportunity or autonomous vehicles in terms of job replacement.
According to Uber’s latest earnings report for the third quarter of 2024, released in late October, the company had 161 million monthly active platform users. Drivers and couriers earned $18.1 billion including tips during the quarter, a 14% year-over-year increase.
Just days before beginning a prison sentence for her part in the most lucrative crypto heist ever, Heather Morgan — who, under the name Razzlekhan, went as viral for her rap videos as the outsized crime itself — is already determined to rewrite her story.
“People act like I’m some evil villain bitch or some dumb trophy wife,” Morgan, 34, told NYNext. “I can’t be both those things, but I can be neither.”
In an exclusive interview before she surrenders February 4 at a federal institute in Victorville, California, Morgan said she wanted to set the record straight about her involvement in the “Biggest Heist Ever” — as a recent Netflix documentary based on her and husband Ilya Lichtenstein’s story titles it.
“I’m not proud of the acts that led my husband and I to being arrested,” Morgan said. But she remains defiant in her choice not to rat him out for a better plea deal.
Morgan and Lichtenstein — who still speak every day — are pictured on their wedding night in this photo shared exclusively with The Post. Courtesy of Heather Morgan
“I could have thrown him under the bus five different ways … I’d rather be a proud felon than a disloyal backstabbing wife … ,” she said. “As a dedicated wife, I didn’t want to do anything that would put him in a worse position.”
But her main message? “This was a media spectacle — but they were wrong about me.”
She has now launched a legal battle against Netflix, claiming the film is defamatory.
Last Friday, Morgan released a song and music video, “DIPLOMAT P–$¥” about a jet-setting life: “Moved to Cairo from Hong Kong/ Late night partying with tech moguls.” Courtesy of Heather Morgan
While it was Lichtenstein who hacked the Bitfinex exchange in 2016 and stole 119,754 Bitcoin (then worth $71 million), Morgan allowed her personal financial accounts to be used for laundering and helped set up numerous virtual currency exchange accounts to conceal the source of the money — something she believes any wife would do.
“What married couple doesn’t have intermingled finances?” shesaid of her involvement.
According to the criminal complaint, the couple — who rented a $1.5 million apartment in FiDi, reportedly decorated with animal pelts and a taxidermy alligator — spent the illegal proceeds on, among other things, gold and NFTs.
Heather Morgan admitted she became a “media spectacle,” but said that ultimately people “were wrong about me.”
When the Bitcoin Bonnie and Clyde, as they’ve been dubbed, were arrested at their Manhattan home in 2022, prosecutors found a bag of burner phones and a file on Lichtenstein’s computer called “passport_ideas.”
They pleaded guilty to money laundering a year later. Morgan received 18 months. Lichtenstein was sentenced to five years and has already served over half of his time at a detention center.
Despite underscoring her loyalty to her husband and partner in crime, Morgan ironically wanted to make a new friend in prison: Caroline Ellison — the FTX executive who got a heavily shortened sentence for fraud thanks to ratting on her colleagues, including ex-boyfriend Sam Bankman-Fried.
Morgan has now launched a legal battle against Netflix, claiming “The Biggest Heist Ever” is defamatory.
“I asked for Danbury prison, hoping I might get to know Caroline Ellison, as I thought it would be a fun plot twist,” she said. “And I figured she probably had the resources to pick a bougie facility.”
Morgan didn’t exactly grow up bougie. She was raised in a rural town in Northern California where, she once wrote on Instagram, “my dad literally trained me on how to hunt with a spear ‘in case a wild bore [sic] charged me.’”
After bouncing around Japan, she studied at the University of California Davis and the American University in Cairo before, at age 23, founding a sales tech company called SalesFolk. That’s how she met Lichtenstein, a Russia-born entrepreneur and crypto investor who had secured a $1.5 million investment from Mark Cuban and other investors for his sales start-up MixRank in 2011.
Morgan (pictured with Lichtenstein) said she would “rather be a proud felon than a disloyal backstabbing wife.”
“I spent most of my twenties working my ass off to build a bootstrapped business by myself, which I turned into a million-dollar business,” Morgan said. “In the end, all the money I made from my first company went to paying legal bills for my husband and me.”
Before that happened, though, the “business ultimately left me burnt out and feeling unfulfilled, which is why I decided to create Razzlekhan.”
Perhaps the only thing more surprising than the heist’s enormous monetary sum was Morgan’s second life as a rapper who, according to her website, was “taking on everyone from big software companies to health care to finance bros.”
Morgan has filmed music videos at Wall street institutions. YouTube
In a now-viral video for her song “Versace Bedouin,” Morgan promoted herself as the “crocodile of Wall Street” while jumping around FiDi landmarks in a gold jacket and cap that reads “0 F–ks,” as unwitting tourists gawp from the sidewalk.
The feds even quoted some of her lyrics in the case against her: “Spear phish your password / All your funds transferred,” their court filing read, adding that it was a reference to a hacking technique.
Sentenced to 18 months in prison, Heather Morgan — seen here outside a Washington, DC, courthouse in 2023 — will surrender herself on February 4. REUTERS
Now, Morgan said she’s tired of being depicted as a woman who found a rich guy to support her artistic aspirations.
“The government somehow managed to weaponize Razzlekhan to undermine all of my professional business accomplishments as an entrepreneur,” she told NYNext.
“No money from the heist was ever spent on Razzlekhan … people hear this huge sum of money but we’re not lavish. We’re eccentric.”
Morgan initially wanted to be in the prison where Caroline Ellison, a high level FTX executive convicted of fraud, is being held. AP
When Morgan and Lichtenstein married, friends carried her down the aisle atop a Moroccan-style bridal throne as the 1986 hair-metal anthem “The Final Countdown” played; at the reception after, Morgan performed one of her own songs, “Turkish Martha Stewart.”
Last Friday, Morgan released a song and music video, “DIPLOMAT P–$¥” about a jet-setting life: “Moved to Cairo from Hong Kong/ Late Night partying with tech moguls/ Hella stalkers, marriage proposals/ Dated a motherf–king crazy rich Asian.”
While it’s based in part on her story, Morgan insisted, “There is a huge contradiction between me and Razzlekhan” — adding that in real life, she’s Type A, while her alter ego is a party girl. “Razzlekhan was the first time in my life I was truly doing something for myself.”
While Morgan and Lichtenstein are in prison, her friends will care for their Bengal cat, Clarissa.
She’s not happy with the way her story has been told in Netflix’s “The Biggest Heist Ever” and said her attorney has sent cease-and-desist letters to the streamer, producer Library Films, filmmaker Chris Smith and journalist Nick Bilton, who wrote the film.
Morgan’s attorney Serena Wu told NYNext: “We are reviewing our legal options but starting with these cease and desist letters,” adding that the film is disseminating “defamatory statements against Ms. Morgan.”
Morgan said she speaks to her husband, whom she hasn’t seen in three years, every day and plans to reunite with him when they are both out. The couple will also be reuniting with their Bengal cat Clarissa, who Morgan allegedly used to distract federal agents when their apartment was raided. The cat will spend the coming months with Morgan’s close friends and stay active on Instagram, she added.
And, “when I come out of prison, I look forward to continuing to pursue creative endeavors as Razzlekhan,” Morgan said. “The [prison] is conveniently located not too far from Hollywood, so let’s see what happens next.
“This is not the last the world will be hearing from me.”
This story is part of NYNext, a new editorial series that highlights New York City innovation across industries, as well as the personalities leading the way.
The two alleged shooters, Amari Oneal and Ali Mohammed, had been busted with a pair of illegal guns in August of 2023.
Instead of putting them behind bars, prosecutors agreed to send them to the “Bronx Osborne Gun Accountability and Prevention Program,” another progressive criminal-justice scheme designed to keep lawbreakers out of jail and on the streets.
After their arrest for a cold-blooded, execution-style murder, a flack for the Bronx district attorney’s office pleaded: “When we enacted these programs we understood there would be risk, but we are combating gun violence from all angles and with preventive approaches in addition to prosecution.”
Got that? The criminal-justice crusaders know their “reforms” will put innocents in danger, but go ahead anyway . . . because prosecuting criminals is bad?
And this case is far from unique.
Freddy Flores had been busted for grand larceny in 2023, but a diversion program left him free to shoot a toddler in the street last April.
And countless repeat offenders are turned loose thanks to New York’s insane bail laws and lenient lefty judges — like Johnson Earl, a career criminal with 14 prior arrests who was freed without bail after viciously beating an 83-year-old man for tripping over his foot on the subway.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has sworn to fight rampant recidivism with the power of the NYPD, but making the city safer will also come down to changing what happens after lawbreakers get arrested.
Stop giving repeat offenders endless chances to find new victims: Kill the “diversion” programs and get rid of the laws and judges that keep putting thugs back on the streets.
It’s almost surreal that Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) shares lost 54% of their value between mid-2021 and late 2022. Or perhaps recency bias makes me think it surreal as they’ve since bounced back in style, surging 180% to take the company’s market cap to a record $2.48trn.
Indeed, the stock is up by a market-thrashing 25.4% in just the past three months! That means an investor who was brave enough to plonk down £20,000 in late October would now be sitting on around £25,080. That’s a fantastic return in just under 14 weeks.
But are Amazon shares still worth considering today after this strong showing? Let’s take a look.
Diversified business
One of the things I like about Amazon from an investing point of view is its optionality. In other words, it has different ways to win beyond online retail. It operates the world’s leading cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and generates revenue by selling warehouse capacity and logistics services.
It also has a fast-growing digital advertising business on its e-commerce app. Sellers can pay to have their items appear at the top of search results or on product pages. Amazon charges them a fee whenever someone clicks on their sponsored listing. This is a very profitable revenue stream, while the Prime subscription service keeps customers coming back.
The company is also investing in delivery robots and drones, self-driving vehicles, various artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives, and more. While these can weigh on near-term profitability, they also have the power to boost efficiency and margins over the long run.
Despite being 30 years old and therefore no spring chicken, Amazon is still one of the most exciting companies around, in my opinion.
Surging profits
In recent years, the company has turned itself into a leaner beast. Consequently, its operating cash flow is absolutely surging, as we can see below.
Created at TradingView
Plus, Wall Street analysts forecast double-digit revenue growth over the next few years. In fact, the company remains on track to generate a mind-boggling $1trn in annual revenue by 2030! This assumes Amazon grows its top line by approximately 8% annually, which I think is more than realistic.
That said, nearing such a symbolic figure could bring negative headlines and more regulatory scrutiny in future. Last year, the US Federal Trade Commission advanced an antitrust lawsuit accusing Amazon of operating an unlawful monopoly. So potential regulation presents future risks here, I’d argue.
Is there any value left?
Unsurprisingly, the stock isn’t cheap after its monster run. It’s trading at four times sales, while the forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is 37.
Yet I think this is reasonable value, considering the company’s profit margins are expected to continue expanding. The P/E ratio for 2026 drops to 31, based on consensus forecasts.
However, as we saw in 2022, Amazon stock can also go down as well as up. It has lost 50%+ of its value on multiple occasions over the past three decades. Therefore, it’s best-suited to long-term investors with a stomach for volatility.
Looking ahead over the next few years, I can only see Amazon getting larger as areas like e-commerce, digital advertising, and cloud computing expand worldwide.
Despite being at a record high, I think the stock is well worth considering.
If the Taylor Wimpey (LSE: TW) share price was a house, I wouldn’t buy it. It’s got a severe case of subsidence right now, having fallen 45% over the past five years, with a 20% slide in the last year alone.
Plenty of investors have parted with their money though, me included. They thought the FTSE 100 housebuilder was a bargain, but every time the stock appeared to stabilise, it was hit by another earth tremor. So is it time to move on?
Writing for The Motley Fool, I’ve learned not to abandon a share just because it’s out of favour with the wider market. In fact, that’s often a trigger for me to buy. Troubled companies often bounce back stronger, but it can take time. That’s certainly the case here.
Can this FTSE 100 straggler fight back?
Taylor Wimpey’s share price struggles reflects a challenging environment for UK housebuilders.
Rising mortgage rates have hit affordability, while broader economic uncertainty cools demand. The cost-of-living crisis has driven up the cost of materials, and post-pandemic supply chain challenges linger.
On 16 January, Taylor Wimpey confirmed the impact. UK completions fell to 9,972 last year, down from 10,356 in 2023. The overall average selling price slipped to £319,000, from £324,000.
On paper, Taylor Wimpey shares look like a bargain. With a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio below 12, the stock is cheaper than the average FTSE 100 P/E of around 15 times. Its trailing dividend yield of 8.1% is eye-catching, offering a significantly higher income than cash, bonds and most FTSE 100 stocks.
Dividend payouts hinge on profitability, and Taylor Wimpey risks margin compression as sales shrink and costs rise. Upcoming national insurance hikes for employers won’t help, nor will the increased minimum wage.
The group does boast a robust balance sheet and ended 2024 with a £2bn order book, but maintaining such a generous yield might become challenging if market conditions deteriorate further. The forecast yield of 8.6% is covered just once by earnings, worryingly. Taylor Wimpey has a good track record of dividend increases, but nothing is guaranteed.
Can the dividend compensate for lost growth?
So can the share price recover? The 16 analysts offering one-year share price forecasts have produced a median target of just over 148p. If correct, that’s an increase of around 25% from today. Combined with that yield, it would give investors a total return of 33% if true. Seems optimistic to me, but we’ll see.
The UK does face a chronic under supply of housing. This should support demand while that fat order book brings visibility.
What Taylor Wimpey shares really need is a string of interest rate cuts. That would shrink mortgage rates, revive the economy and ease cost pressures too. It would also make that dividend look even better, relative to yields on cash and bonds.
In my view, this isn’t game over for Taylor Wimpey. But investors tempted by that yield must realise this is a volatile sector on the front line of every economic issue. The share price is actually lower than it was 10 years ago. Even the brilliant dividend cannot totally compensate for that. Despite my concerns, I’ll play on. I still think it’s a winner over time.
The NFL playoffs are rigged. The referees favor the Kansas City Chiefs. It’s all a conspiracy to hand those Reid-revering, Mahomes-adoring, Kelce-and-Swift-lovin’ cultists a third consecutive Super Bowl championship.
For these charges to stick, however, evidence and motive need to be established. Let’s start with evidence.
—A ruling that Chiefs receiver Xavier Worthy made a catch deep in Bills’ territory on a third-and-five desperation pass from Patrick Mahomes with 3:13 remaining in the first half. Replays indicated the ball struck the ground and could have been called incomplete. Kansas City promptly scored a touchdown.
—Bills quarterback Josh Allen attempted a sneak on fourth-and-one in the fourth quarter. The official dashing in from the Buffalo sideline gave him enough progress for a first down. The official dashing in from the Kansas City sideline ruled him short.
Guess which official spotted the ball? The Chiefs took possession and promptly scored a touchdown and two-point conversion to erase a one-point Bills lead and seize control in their eventual 32-29 win that sets up a second Super Bowl matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles in three years.
CBS color commentator Tony Romo was initially surprised that the ruling on the field stood as called, and CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore said, “I felt like he gained it by about a third of the football.” CBS play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz replied, “I agree.”
—Those plays came a week after the officials were roundly criticized for two calls that benefited Mahomes in the Chiefs’ playoff win over the Houston Texans: roughing the passer and unnecessary roughness penalties that didn’t look so rough on replay.
—During the Chiefs’ current nine-game playoff winning streak, they have not been called for a single roughing-the-passer penalty and only one unnecessary roughness penalty. Their opponents have been called six times for roughing Mahomes and four times for unnecessary roughness.
That’s reasonably damning evidence, even if it is mostly anecdotal. So, what about motive?
This is where the conspiracy theory loses its legs. Why would the NFL, and even more specifically, why would NFL referees want the Chiefs to win? So Mahomes can add to his already ubiquitous endorsements? Adidas, Oakley, Head & Shoulders, State Farm, Bose, DirecTV, Essential Water and EA Sports aren’t enough?
So coach Andy Reid can babble “Bundle-Rooski” on inane commercials for another season? So hardcore football fans can grumble at Taylor Swift cheerleading the Chiefs from a luxury box?
Chiefs “fatigue” is a real thing. They are so accomplished at winning close games — going 11-0 in one-score outcomes this season — with Mahomes making astonishing plays, it must seem to fans of opposing teams the whole thing is rigged. But the NFL has no reason to secretly force the officials to swing calls toward Kansas City.
And officials have no reason to purposely blow calls, according to Mike Pereira, the rules analyst for Fox Sports and former head of NFL officiating.
“The fact that [officials] are looking out for any team or any individual is an absolute myth,” Pereira said last week on “The Rich Eisen Show.” “You don’t want to get fired. You want to be right. People that say that don’t know a damn thing about officiating. Until you put the uniform on, until you have to make those quick judgments. … get off my train. Period.”
Even more succinct was Chiefs linebacker Drue Tranquill’s message to fans who think his team gets special treatment from the referees: “Kick rocks.”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Lakers were perfect, Anthony Davis dominating everywhere on the basketball court while the scoreboard ticked up in their favor on nearly every possession. The Lakers’ energy was off the charts, the team in complete control as it flew around and forced turnovers and missed shots. The offense was in perfect sync as it found either Davis or someone else wide open for layups and dunks.
It was a team at its peak. But it lasted just 12 minutes.
Nearly as quickly as the Lakers sprinted to the top of their powers Monday in Charlotte, they plummeted to their depths, a 23-point first-quarter lead dwindling all the way down to two in the fourth. Still, even without any real momentum for the last three quarters, the Lakers managed to escape with a 112-107 win in a game where they never trailed.
Davis finished with 42 points and 23 rebounds. His first quarter was a historic level of domination. He made his first seven shots and scored 21 points while grabbing 11 rebounds. No player in the last 28 years (as far back as Stathead.com quarter data goes) opened a game with 21 points and 11 rebounds in the first quarter.
The 21 points and 11 rebounds were more than the entire Hornets team had in the first quarter.
“That’s an impressive game. Start off by saying that,” Austin Reaves said. “But that might be the most impressive quarter of basketball I’ve ever seen an individual play. I felt like we almost could have went and sat down and watched him do what he does.”
They kinda did.
Charlotte, like Lakers coach JJ Redick predicted before the game, started launching three-pointers after the Lakers shut down the paint. LaMelo Ball’s second three early in the second quarter cut the lead to 16, but he rolled his ankle while backpedaling down the court. He left the game and didn’t return, playing only nine minutes.
The Hornets, though, stayed hot from deep while the Lakers’ execution on both ends of the court cratered. James badly airballed a three to end one possession. Davis was forced to shoot off of one knee from 19 feet away to end another.
Charlotte (12-31) cut the lead to eight by halftime, aided by seven Lakers turnovers in the second quarter alone. Luckily, Davis kept dominating.
“I was just feeling good,” Davis said.
The Lakers (26-18) never fully regained their rhythm, only briefly sparking in the second half while leaving the game grateful that they had built such a large cushion early.
“We played hard for four quarters. Now it was not pretty, but we played hard for four quarters,” Redick said. “I think for me, we made a lot of mental errors tonight. And look, I don’t know if that’s coming off Saturday and the long flight yesterday and getting acclimated to East Coast time. Felt a little bit of brain fog, less so than just like guys not playing. Guys played hard tonight and guys were connected tonight. We just had a lot of mental errors.”
The Lakers turned the ball over 19 times for 28 Charlotte points. They allowed the Hornets to make eight more threes than they did. But even when Charlotte got within a possession, the Lakers always recovered.
“We didn’t come here to try to blow nobody out,” James said. “We came here to win the game. And we played hard from start to finish.”
Jarred Vanderbilt, playing his second game this season, had a key steal and dunk in the fourth. Max Christie, who had gotten crossed up with James on an earlier fourth-quarter possession, had a four-point play in front of the Charlotte bench.
And Dorian Finney-Smith punctuated the game with a monster dunk over Charlotte’s Miles Bridges.
Zara highlights faux fur in a recent trend guide. Photo: Zara
Zara’s latest limited edition Studio collection focuses on cozy chic with faux fur styles. The collection features bold statement jackets and coats in shades of soft gray, crisp white, and deep black.
Zara Faux Fur 2025 Edit
Karolina Spakowski gets her closeup in Zara’s faux fur styles. Photo: Zara
Perfect for braving the cold in style, these designs balance drama and wearability with voluminous textures and modern silhouettes. Front and center is model Karolina Spakowski, who effortlessly channels a minimalist vibe.
Zara Limited Edition Faux Fur Coat. Photo: Zara
Styled with green eyeshadow, dewy skin, and a sleek, pulled-back hairstyle, she showcases how these pieces transition from daytime to evening glamour. Whether it’s the soft blush tones or the bold black textures, every coat feels like a winter must-have.
Zara Studio Faux Fur Designs. Photo: Zara
Whether paired with tailored trousers for an urban-chic look or layered over a slip dress for a more playful approach, these coats add instant polish.
