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      MrBeast and James Patterson Are Writing a Novel Together

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      Jimmy Donaldson, known to his social media fans as MrBeast, is teaming up with the mega-best-selling thriller author.Jimmy Donaldson — better known to his hundreds of millions of online followers as MrBeast — has leveraged his vast social media audience to sell everything from Beast-branded burgers, snack packs and chocolate bars to water bottles, toys, basketballs and $65 hoodies.Now, he’s aiming to sell his followers an unlikely new product: a novel.Donaldson is teaming up with the mega-best-selling author James Patterson on a thriller, which will be published by HarperCollins in 2026, with a simultaneous global release in 15 languages. The plot sounds like an over-the-top version of one of MrBeast’s viral YouTube videos, competitions that often offer enormous sums of cash to contestants who can prevail in absurd challenges (“Survive 100 Days Trapped, Win $500,000”).The novel will center on an extreme global contest, in which 100 players compete to prove their leadership skills by surviving life-threatening tests in dangerous locations around the world. In a battle to win the billion-dollar prize, participants form relationships and betray one another as they struggle to avoid elimination, or death.The fight to land the project also turned into an intense competition among publishers, who were tantalized by the viral marketing possibilities of signing a social media star with 500 million followers. News of the collaboration began circulating in March, with reports of a heated bidding war with offers in the eight-figure range. HarperCollins did not disclose the financial details of the deal, which was negotiated by Robert Barnett and Deneen Howell of Williams & Connolly on behalf of Patterson, and by Byrd Leavell and Albert Lee at United Talent Agency representing MrBeast.It’s unclear whether MrBeast’s massive online audience will translate into book sales. Publishers have tried for decades to harness the marketing power of social media stars, with varying success. But MrBeast is a star of a different magnitude.“He’s such a smart operator in understanding the social media algorithms, what drives engagement, what drives activation,” said Brian Murray, president and chief executive of HarperCollins. “One of the challenges we have in publishing is there’s so much noise out there in the media and entertainment landscape, and trying to break through with books can be difficult.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      This Year’s Met Gala Raises the Most Money in Its History

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      The Met’s annual fashion party has become a fund-raising juggernaut, but the lavish event comes with a price tag of its own. How much bang does it get for its buck?The Met Gala has outdone itself, even before it’s begun.The annual gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art — the flashy fashion extravaganza that highlights the city’s social scene every May — raised a record $31 million this year, museum officials announced on Monday, the biggest gross in the event’s 77-year history.The money haul — and the avid interest the gala inspires — further cements its place as the pre-eminent benefit among the city’s cultural institutions, and one the world’s most sought-after tickets. The Met’s take dwarfs events like a September gala for the New York Philharmonic (which brought in nearly $4 million) and the 2024 event for the Whitney Museum of American Art, which raised some $5.2 million.The $31 million figure does not reflect the seven-figure cost of staging the gala, which will kick off on Monday evening with the procession of pop stars, fashion icons and sporting-world superstars striding the red carpet, enduring countless flashbulbs, and surrounded by a swarm of publicity and eager onlookers.The gala will act, as always, as the opening of a Costume Institute exhibition: This year’s is entitled “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” examining 300 years of Black fashion and the vibrant history of Black dandyism.That emphasis is a significant departure from the department’s largely monochromatic past: This is the Met’s first fashion exhibition devoted entirely to designers of color, and is being seen as part of a larger effort to diversify the collection. It is also a rarity for its focus on men’s wear.As such, it drew an array of Black celebrities to help host the event — including Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, ASAP Rocky and Pharrell Williams. LeBron James, whose Los Angeles Lakers were bounced from the N.B.A. playoffs last week, is the honorary chair.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Oil Prices Slide Further on Plans to Increase Supply

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      U.S. oil prices fell to around $56 a barrel after the OPEC Plus cartel said it would bring more oil to market.Oil prices resumed their downward slide after the OPEC Plus cartel of oil producers said over the weekend that it would pump more oil, despite concerns that President Trump’s trade war will curb demand.The U.S. benchmark oil price fell to around $56 a barrel, from $58 on Friday. For many companies, the steady decline means it will not be profitable to drill wells in the United States despite Mr. Trump’s calls for increased production.Prices were last around this level in early April, just before Mr. Trump said he would pause reciprocal tariffs on most countries for 90 days. That announcement led to rallies in both the stock market and the oil market, though oil prices have since waned.That is partly because OPEC Plus is raising output at the same time that economists are warning that higher tariffs on most American trading partners will slow global economic growth and potentially cause a recession in the United States.The eight countries that make up the OPEC Plus cartel said on Saturday that they would further ramp up production in June.Lower commodity prices are causing some companies to pull back. There are about 9 percent fewer rigs drilling wells in the Permian Basin, the top U.S. oil field, than there were this time last year, when oil was trading near $80 a barrel, according to Baker Hughes.On Friday, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the two largest U.S. oil and gas companies, reported their lowest first-quarter earnings in years. Those financial results reflect the market before Mr. Trump further escalated tariffs on China in early April.“It is clear that this uncertainty is weighing on economic forecasts, causing significant volatility and raising the prospects of slower growth,” Darren Woods, Exxon’s chief executive, told analysts. More

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      Trump Says He Will Put 100% Tariff on Movies Made Outside U.S.

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      Declaring foreign film production a national security threat, the president said he had asked his top trade official to start the process of imposing a tax on Hollywood.President Trump said he would impose a 100 percent tariff on movies “produced” outside the United States, proclaiming in a social media post on Sunday that the issue posed a national security threat. Mr. Trump said he had authorized Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, to begin the process of taxing “any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” Mr. Trump added, “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.”The Motion Picture Association, which represents the biggest Hollywood studios in Washington, declined to comment. The association’s latest economic impact report, based primarily on government data and released in 2023, showed that the film industry generated a positive U.S. balance of trade for every major market in the world.As is often is the case with Mr. Trump’s declarations on social media, it was not entirely clear what he was talking about. Did he mean any movie, including independent foreign-language films destined for art house cinemas and movies that play exclusively on streaming services?Would such a tariff apply only to movies receiving tax incentives from foreign countries — or to any movie with scenes shot overseas? What about postproduction visual effects work? A single superhero movie can often involve a half-dozen or more specialized firms scattered around the world.Technically speaking, the vast majority of movies shown in American cinemas are produced in the United States — scripts written, preproduction planning handled, principal actors cast, footage edited and sound added. But Hollywood has increasingly turned to foreign locales for the cameras-rolling part of the moviemaking process because, as with so much traditional manufacturing, it is much cheaper.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Last of Us’ Season 2, Episode 4: Seattle Slew

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      This week brings an expedition full of harrowing action and emotional revelations.Season 2, Episode 4It’s comforting to know that long after the collapse of civilization, certain TV clichés will persist. Like: If a woman vomits unexpectedly in one episode, in the next episode we will find out she is pregnant.So it goes with Dina, who puked in last week’s “The Last of Us” after stumbling across some human corpses, and noted at the time that her reaction was unusual, given that she often sees (and smells) dead people. Sure enough, in this week’s episode, Dina finds some pregnancy tests in a Seattle drugstore and gives several a try. They all come up positive.Dina does not say anything to Ellie — or to those of us watching at home who had not already guessed her secret — until close to the end of the episode, after the two of them have narrowly escaped multiple waves of Wolves and zombies. Her confession retroactively lends weight to everything these two women have just gone through. They have so much more at risk now.As was the case last week, a good portion of this episode is spent watching Dina and Ellie’s relationship blossom. They bounce sardonic, deadpan repartee back and forth. (Ellie, when Dina is exploring on her own: “Shout if something tries to kill you.” Dina: “That’s the plan.”) They share stories from their pasts, with Dina confessing that when she was little she told her mother she liked both boys and girls — to which her mom said, “No, you like boys.” They also fall into each other’s arms, making passionate love.Overall, there are three major revelations that Dina and Ellie share. One is the pregnancy. The other is that they have feelings for each other. And because of extenuating circumstances, Ellie also reveals to Dina that she is immune from the cordyceps infection. (I will come back to that later.)Unlike last week, all the charming chitchat is balanced with harrowing action. Dina and Ellie’s expedition into Seattle gets off to a quiet start, highlighted by a trip to an abandoned music store, where Ellie serenades Dina with a lovely acoustic rendition of A-ha’s “Take on Me.” The scene is beautifully staged and lit, with sunshine streaming in from a weed-and-moss-covered hole in the wall. At the end, Dina says Joel taught Ellie well. In a quiet voice laden with meaning, Ellie responds, “He did.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Says He Wants Alcatraz Restored as a Prison

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      The project would be extraordinarily expensive at a time when the administration already plans to cut billions of dollars from the Justice Department’s budget.President Trump said on Sunday that he wanted federal law enforcement agencies to work on restoring Alcatraz, now a museum, to a functioning maximum-security prison.Repeating one of his constant refrains that the United States had become a dangerous, lawless place, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that he wanted Alcatraz, an island in San Francisco Bay, to be enlarged and rebuilt “to house America’s most ruthless and violent offenders. We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our country illegally.”It was not immediately clear how his musing could be put into action, given that any such project would be extraordinarily expensive and that the administration already planned to cut billions of dollars from the Justice Department budget.Mr. Trump said he had instructed the Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department to work on his idea, along with the F.B.I. — a curious choice given that the bureau plays no role in incarcerating people convicted of crimes.A reopened Alcatraz, Mr. Trump wrote, would “serve as a symbol of law, order, and justice.” The prison captured the public imagination as the home of the “worst of the worst” until it was closed in 1963 and eventually turned into a popular museum attraction.In addition to holding the gangster known as “Machine Gun Kelly” and Al Capone — whose multiple indictments Mr. Trump often mentioned on the campaign trail to describe himself as unfairly persecuted — Alcatraz is most famous for the escape of three men in 1962. They were never found, and it remains unclear whether they survived the swim from the island, which is more than a mile from shore in cold water with strong currents. Today, Alcatraz is best known as a damp, frigid and nostalgic staple of tourist packages and children’s field trips.By comparison, the current federal super-maximum security prison in Florence, Colo., has never had an inmate escape.In California, Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator representing San Francisco, called Mr. Trump’s idea “absurd on its face” and the latest example of what he called the president’s “continuing unhinged behavior.”A spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom laughed when asked about the president’s order. “Looks like it’s Distraction Day again in Washington, D.C.,” Izzy Gardon, the governor’s director of communications, said.Mr. Gardon pointed out that it had been more than six decades since Alcatraz operated as a prison, and that turning it back into a facility to house inmates would take many years and significant federal investment at a time when the president has said he wants to slash spending.Maggie Haberman More

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      Trump Says He Asked Mexico to Let U.S. Military In to Fight Cartels

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      President Trump confirmed on Sunday that he had raised the idea with his Mexican counterpart, Claudia Sheinbaum, who rejected it. President Trump confirmed on Sunday that he had pressed Mexico’s president to let U.S. troops into the country to help fight drug cartels, an idea she summarily rejected.Mr. Trump told reporters traveling with him aboard Air Force One from Palm Beach, Fla., to Washington that it was “true” he had made the push with President Claudia Sheinbaum. The proposal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal last week, came at the end of a lengthy phone call between the two leaders on April 16, The Journal said.Ms. Sheinbaum has also confirmed that Mr. Trump made the suggestion, and that she rejected it. Mexico and the United States can “collaborate,” she recalled telling him, but “with you in your territory and us in ours.”Mr. Trump said he proposed the idea because the cartels “are horrible people that have been killing people left and right and have been — they’ve made a fortune on selling drugs and destroying our people.”He said, “If Mexico wanted help with the cartels, we would be honored to go in and do it. I told her that. I would be honored to go in and do it. The cartels are trying to destroy our country. They’re evil.”He said, “The president of Mexico is a lovely woman, but she is so afraid of the cartels that she can’t even think straight.”Mr. Trump has had a better working relationship with Ms. Sheinbaum than with Canada’s leaders. But the relationships with both neighboring countries have been strained over trade and immigration. More

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      A New Trend in Global Elections: The Anti-Trump Bump

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      In voting in Canada and Australia, right-wing parties that borrowed from the MAGA playbook were punished. Elsewhere, President Trump is having a more complex impact.The Trump factor is shaping global politics, one election at a time — just not necessarily to the president’s taste.In major votes in Canada and Australia over the past two weeks, centrists saw their fortunes revived, while parties that had borrowed from the MAGA playbook lost out.President Trump has been back in power for only three months, but already his policies, including imposing tariffs and upending alliances, have rippled into domestic political battles around the world.While it is too soon to say that anti-Trump forces are on the rise globally, it is clear that voters have Mr. Trump somewhere on their mind as they make decisions.Political cousinsCanada and Australia share a lot in common: a political system, a major mining industry, a sovereign in King Charles. Now they also share a remarkable political story.In both countries, before Mr. Trump was inaugurated, the center-left ruling parties had been in poor shape and appeared poised to lose power. The front-runners in polls were the conservative parties, whose leaders flirted with Trumpian politics both in style and in substance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More