For decades, U.S. ambassadors politically appointed by an outgoing president have been able to request an extension until Congress confirms their replacement, selected by an incoming president, but President-elect Donald Trump has informed all such ambassadors that they must resign by Jan. 20 "without exceptions," according to a Dec. 23 State Department cable described to The New York Times. This will leave many key U.S. allies — Britain, Germany, Canada, Japan — without a U.S. ambassador for up to several months, but it also has envoys with school-age children — as Trump does — scrambling to figure out what to do.

"Political" ambassadors, as opposed to career diplomats, often have close ties to a president or donated to their campaigns, and they always leave when a new president from a different party takes office, says Ronald E. Neumann, president of the Washington-based American Academy of Diplomacy. "But I don't recollect there was ever a guillotine in January where it was just, 'Everybody out of the pool immediately.'" The U.S. ambassadors to the Czech Republic, Belgium, and Costa Rica, and America's U.N. representative in Geneva, all have children in the middle of school years, and the Costa Rica envoy, Stafford Fitzgerald Haney, is scrambling to find an apartment for himself, his wife (who's fighting breast cancer), and his four school-age children, The New York Times reports.

Giving ambassadors a grace period is up to the incoming administrations, and a Trump transition official tells The Times there is no malice in the blanket mandate. Derek Shearer, a former U.S. ambassador to Finland and diplomacy professor at Occidental College, says he doesn't see any other rationale. "It feels like there's an element just of spite and payback in it," he told The Times. "I don't see a higher policy motive." Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was especially accommodating, according to former diplomat Marc Grossman. "He was trying to, I think, send a message that family was important." Peter Weber

Never is there a dull moment interviewing Nicolas Cage.

Case in point: the actor spoke to Marilyn Manson in a conversation published by Interview magazine on Tuesday, and when Manson asked a simple question about whether Cage gambles, he had an entire story ready to go about how he once "turned $200 into $20,000" at a casino in the Bahamas and proceeded to donate it to a nearby orphanage.

"I went and found an orphanage in the Bahamas, met all the kids and the headmistress, and said, 'This is for you,'" Cage explained. "I put the 20 grand in her hand, walked away, and never gambled again, because if I did, it would ruin the power of that moment."

Add this one to the list of examples of Cage's real life arguably being more interesting than any of his actual films, alongside that time he apparently really tried to find the Holy Grail. The interview's other highlights included Cage describing how he "just bought a crow" named Huginn who "called me an a--hole" and telling a story about freaking people out with a two-headed snake during a party with Werner Herzog at a "haunted mansion." Presumably, a bidding war in Hollywood for the rights to at least three different stories in this interview alone has already begun. Brendan Morrow

Democrats have a reasonable chance of sweeping Georgia's Senate and presidential races this Election Day.

Georgia has two U.S. Senate seats up for grabs this fall, and as a New York Times/Siena College poll out Tuesday revealed, Democratic candidates are winning one and tied in the other. Meanwhile in the faceoff between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, candidates are tied at 45 percent support in the typically red state.

Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) is up for re-election this fall, and is tied with Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff at 43 percent support, the poll showed. Raphael Warnock, the Democrat looking to fill the seat vacated by retired Sen. Johnny Isakson, meanwhile has 32 percent support over current Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R). Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), who is also looking to fill the spot, has 17 percent support, the poll shows.

But it's not as if the Republican faceoff could spoil the party's chances of winning. If no one in the three-way race of Collins, Loeffler, and Warnock gets a majority of the vote, the top two candidates will have a runoff election. Still, Warnock led both Collins and Loeffler, 45-41, in a hypothetical runoff, the poll found. Warnock's 46 percent favorability rating was the highest of any candidate on the poll.

The New York Times and Siena College surveyed 759 likely voters in Georgia from Oct. 13–19, with a 4.1 percentage point margin of error. Kathryn Krawczyk

Melania Trump has a cough.

That's the reason the first lady won't make her first post-coronavirus appearance Tuesday night, Melania's chief of staff Stephanie Grisham said Tuesday. Melania was supposed to rejoin President Trump on the campaign trail in Erie, Pennsylvania, but to be cautious, she'll stay home until she recovers fully.

The president and first lady tested positive for COVID-19 about three weeks ago. Trump was hospitalized for three days, while Melania stayed at the White House and recovered from her light symptoms there, the White House said. Trump returned to the campaign trail less than two weeks after he first reported having a positive COVID-19 test. The White House has refused to reveal the last time Trump and the first lady tested negative for the virus before their positive results. Kathryn Krawczyk

Hello, Democrats.

Seinfeld stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander and creator Larry David are set to reunite for a virtual event on Friday to fundraise for Texas Democrats, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The event has been dubbed "A Fundraiser About Something," and fans can watch a live stream after donating any amount of money to the Texas Democratic Party. It will be hosted by Late Night's Seth Meyers and feature "exclusive behind-the-scenes stories" from the show; the announcement also teased some "special guests."

"Texas is a battleground state, period," Louis-Dreyfus, Alexander, and David said in a statement. "We knew that we had to reunite for something special and the movement on the ground for Texas Democrats up and down the ballot is the perfect opportunity to do just that."

This will be the latest star-studded Democratic fundraiser to take place in recent weeks. Louis-Dreyfus herself previously participated in a Veep reunion for Wisconsin Democrats, and on Monday, a Happy Days reunion that will also support Wisconsin Democrats was announced. Outside of TV, the cast of Hamilton recently reunited in a fundraiser for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and Avengers stars like Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson on Tuesday are set for a Biden fundraiser that they're calling "Voters Assemble."

The Seinfeld reunion also comes after Wayne Knight, who played postal worker Newman on the show, reprised the role in an ad encouraging viewers to vote while blasting President Trump's "systematic, premeditated assault on the U.S. mail." Brendan Morrow

Utah's candidates for governor just made history in a very unexpected way.

While Democrat Chris Peterson and Republican Spencer Cox would both like to win the gubernatorial election in just two weeks, they'd also like Utahns to accept the results of the presidential race no matter the outcome. So they banded together for an ad released Tuesday encouraging just that.

In what could be the first time two opposing candidates appeared in one ad so close to the election, Cox acknowledged the candidates are in the "final days of campaigning against each other." "But our common values transcend our political differences," Peterson added, namely their belief that "whether you vote by mail or in person, we will both fully support the results of the upcoming presidential election regardless of the outcome."

"We are both committed to American civility and a peaceful transition of power," Cox added, and Peterson then encouraged Utah to "be an example to the nation."

Cox and Peterson's ad comes as President Trump has repeatedly refused to confirm he'll accept the results of the election if he loses to Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Kathryn Krawczyk

Kanye West has dropped an additional $3 million on his doomed presidential bid — and he raised, well, not quite as much.

The rapper's September FEC report showed that he spent another $3 million of his own money on the campaign, and he raised a grand total of $2,782, per reporter Ben Jacobs. Thus far, West has spent nearly $10 million on his campaign.

West announced over the summer he'd be jumping into the 2020 race as a "Birthday Party" candidate, despite it being too late at that point to actually get on the ballot in every state. He recently got around to debuting his very first campaign ad just weeks ahead of Election Day, in which he speaks in front of an American flag with stock footage in between and asks for write-in votes. According to the FEC filing, West apparently paid a production company more than $200,000 for that video, Jacobs reports.

On the off chance that West somehow doesn't defeat President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden in two weeks, he has suggested he'll run again in 2024, so in four years, this select group of donors can look forward to opening up their pockets and attending his Birthday Party all over again. Brendan Morrow