Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) once lockstep adherence to the Trump administration is beginning to shift, in no small part due to the White House’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation that has become a millstone around the administration’s neck. But does the growing daylight between the congresswoman and this White House signal a genuine political realignment for the MAGA mainstay? Or is the controversial Greene simply showing that she has learned how to play politics in Washington with the best of them?

‘More subtle than she first appeared’
The schism between Greene and President Donald Trump reached a crescendo last week, when Trump attacked “‘Wacky’ Marjorie” for her tendency to “COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” and for having “gone Far Left, even doing The View, with their Low IQ Republican hating Anchors,” in a Truth Social post. While the fight over releasing the Epstein documents is the most proximal episode to Greene’s distancing herself from Trump, the “turn against the president” has been unfolding “over the last several months,” said Rolling Stone. 

Greene has “publicly questioned his foreign policy decision” and critiqued his “support of Israel” and “domestic political maneuvering” on health care, said Rolling Stone. Greene asserts she “remains committed to the MAGA movement,” but Trump’s criticisms were a “stunning rebuke” of one of his “fiercest defenders,” said The Washington Post.

‘Apostasies’ that do not negate a ‘lifetime of conspiracies’
Greene’s pivot may very well be an “honest evolution, which entails accountability,” or it might be mere “shallow opportunism, which offers none,” said The Atlantic. “Recent apostasies from her party” do not automatically negate Greene’s “lifetime of conspiracies.” Although she has said she “still supports Trump,” Greene now wants to “stop the toxic rhetoric” that, “if we’re being honest, has been a staple” of her career, said Poynter.

Greene frequently falls on the less popular side of whatever issues she has broken with Trump over, but she’s nevertheless often “on the side quickly gaining popularity in the GOP.” Greene’s outspoken critiques may then be “just the latest hint,” said CNN, that Republicans are “beginning to assess” the president’s behavior and how it “might weigh on their fortunes when he no longer controls the GOP.”

Capital punishment has been rarer in recent years, but 2025 has brought a complete reversal. This year has seen the most death row inmates put to death in a decade, and this will likely only continue under President Donald Trump, who’s a proponent of the death penalty.

How many have taken place this year?
There have been 43 prisoners executed across 11 states from January to November, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Identifying a “previous year in which the prevalence of executions in the U.S. rivaled the current one requires looking back at least a decade,” said CBS News. The last time at least 43 people were executed in a single year was 2012.

October was also the “single busiest month for the death penalty in nearly 15 years,” said USA Today. Seven people were executed that month, representing the “single busiest month for executions in the U.S. since May 2011.” Florida far and away leads executions by state in 2025, with a Nov. 13 execution of a child killer marking the “record 16th death sentence carried out under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis,” said The Associated Press.

Why are they on the rise?
There are several reasons, but it’s “largely a political effort,” said Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, to CBS, but it’s unlikely to change the perception of executions. The number “does represent an increase from where we were in years’ past, but there's absolutely no evidence it represents a change in public support” for the death penalty by Americans.

Unlike during administrations when the president has been anti-death penalty, Trump’s “enthusiasm” for capital punishment has made it easier for states to “schedule executions to curry favor with this administration,” said Maher to CBS. Many states that are “actively executing people are states that have governors who are politically aligned with the president on this,” said John Blume, the director of the Death Penalty Project at Cornell University, to CBS. In January, Trump “signed an executive order reinstating federal executions while encouraging states to expand the use of capital punishment,” said Mother Jones.

A Sumatran elephant is sprayed with water by a keeper at Indonesia’s Bandung Zoo, which has been closed to the public since August. The future of the West Java attraction and its 710 animal inhabitants is hanging in the balance amid an ongoing management dispute.
Timur Matahari / AFP / Getty Images

The enduring allure of the get-rich-quick scheme means that films based on elaborate heists will always find an audience. These movies allow filmmakers to offer social commentary on inequality and injustice or simply give viewers a few hours of escape from reality.

‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (1967)
The film (pictured above) was instrumental in loosening Hollywood’s restrictions on the depiction of sex and violence, and the title pair’s hail-of-bullets death scene at the movie’s end was both graphic and iconic. A “work of truth and brilliance,” the film is a “milestone in the history of cinema” that’s “pitilessly cruel, filled with sympathy, nauseating, funny, heartbreaking and astonishingly beautiful,” said Roger Ebert when the film first came out. (Prime)

‘Point Break’ (1991)
Director Kathryn Bigelow (whose new nuclear thriller, “A House of Dynamite,” is currently streaming on Netflix) delivers a “celebration not only of the spectacular pleasures of surfing, skydiving and chasing bank robbers” but also of the “remarkably visceral extremes that violence itself can achieve when orchestrated for the cinema,” said Philip Strick at Sight and Sound. (Netflix)

‘Set It Off’ (1996)
Featuring a classic ’90s hip-hop soundtrack and tackling themes like poverty, racism and police violence, “Set It Off” is the rare heist movie with a serious message. A story about the “love felt between four Black women” who are “failed by everyone in their lives to an infuriating degree,” the film is a “hood classic,” said Najee AR Fareed at Tribe. (Prime)