America's secret agent men might soon be freelance.

The White House and the CIA are supposedly thinking about outsourcing certain covert operations and counterintelligence efforts in "hostile countries" to a private company of former U.S. intelligence officers, BuzzFeed News reported Thursday. Under one proposal, the company in question, Amyntor Group, would reportedly receive millions of dollars to create networks for information gathering and in another proposal, former intelligence officials affiliated with Amyntor would be involved in efforts to capture terrorists and bring them back to the U.S.

The seriousness with which the White House is examining these proposals is reportedly in dispute, however. One government official who spoke to BuzzFeed News claimed that "[t]he idea [Amyntor] is pitching is absurd on its face and it is not going anywhere," while a lawyer for the private company would only say that the hypothetical plan was legally permissible "with direction and control by the proper government authority." BuzzFeed News' sources claim that the Trump administration has been open to intelligence privatization proposals because the administration believes "the CIA bureaucracy has an anti-Trump bias that would thwart efforts to fulfill the president's objectives."

The president has reportedly considered other privatization pitches in the past, most notably, a proposal on behalf of Erik Prince — former CEO of the now-defunct private military group Blackwater and brother to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — to privatize the war effort in Afghanistan. Trump eventually went with more conventional troop increases there, so perhaps these spies for hire shouldn't get their hopes up. Kelly O'Meara Morales

Something's brewing over at Netflix and it's because of one special witch.

Following the release of A Midwinter’s Tale, the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina holiday episode that dropped on the streaming service last week, Netflix announced on Tuesday that the series will be renewed for another season. It has ordered 16 episodes of the show, which will be split into two parts, reports Variety. Production is set to begin in 2019.

The highly anticipated series premiered in October, just in time for Halloween. The dark take on Sabrina the Teenage Witch of the Archie Comics and the 1990s sitcom was so well received that Netflix extended it after initially ordering 20 episodes of the show. It currently has a 90 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics calling it "bewitchingly beautiful."

Throughout the series Sabrina, who is played by Kiernan Shipka, struggles with her dual identity as both a mortal and a witch as she tries to keep her two worlds intact. The chief creative officer of Archie Comics and Chilling Adventures showrunner, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, is excited to continue developing the strange town of Greendale and its inhabitants. "Praise Satan! I'm so grateful to my partners at Warner Brothers, Netflix, Berlanti Television, and Archie Productions for supporting this darker vision of the world’s most famous teen witch," said Aguirre-Sacasa in a statement.

Season 2 is bound to bring lots of surprises as Sabrina travels deeper down the path of Night. The next installment of Season 1 will premiere on April 5, 2019. Watch the full teaser below. Amari Pollard

A New York state senator apologized Tuesday afternoon after publicly telling a Republican aide to kill herself.

Candice Giove, the deputy communications director for the New York state Senate's Republican majority, on Twitter accused Democratic State Senator Kevin Parker of misusing a parking placard and blocking a bike lane. In response, Parker simply wrote back, "Kill yourself!" Giove, naturally, was shocked, asking, "Did a Senator just write this to me?"

Parker has since deleted the original tweet and apologized, writing Tuesday afternoon, "I sincerely apologize. I used a poor choice of words. Suicide is a serious thing and and [sic] should not be made light of." But even after this apology, Parker continued to attack Giove, going after her in two tweets in which he said that she is "on the wrong side of history for every important issue facing New York State!"

He didn't stop there. In an interview with The New York Daily News conducted after his apology was issued, Parker said Giove is just an "internet troll" and "to call her anything more is fake news." He added that she "continues to represent the forces of evil," while simply conceding that by telling her to kill herself, he "probably used the wrong words." Brendan Morrow

Laverne & Shirley star Penny Marshall has died at 75, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

The actress played Laverne DeFazio on the Happy Days spinoff before going on to direct A League of Their Own and Big. Her family says she died "peacefully on Monday night in her Hollywood Hills home due to complications from diabetes," per the Times.

Marshall kicked off her career with guest starring roles on The Odd Couple, which her brother Garry Marshall executive produced, and other comedies. After starring on Laverne & Shirley alongside Cindy Williams, she occasionally made cameo spots and took other guest roles on TV. Most of her attention went to directing, becoming the second woman ever to direct an Best Picture nominee with Awakenings. Big was the first film directed by a woman to make more than $100 million in the U.S. box office, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Marshall also loved sports, especially the Los Angeles Lakers, the Times details. A League of Their Own was about a professional women's baseball team, and her most recent project was a still-forthcoming documentary about NBA star Dennis Rodman. Following the news of Marshall's death, friends and admirers tweeted their appreciation and memories. Kathryn Krawczyk

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders still thinks former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was "ambushed" by the FBI.

Sanders during the White House press briefing on Tuesday was asked if she would like to walk back her comments earlier in the day suggesting the FBI behaved inappropriately when interviewing Flynn. Hours after Sanders claimed Flynn was "ambushed" by an improper FBI interview, Flynn himself declined to withdraw his guilty plea, telling a judge the FBI did not entrap him and that he was aware that lying to the FBI was a crime when he spoke with federal agents. He accepted responsibility for doing so in court, reports CNN.

In spite of all this, Sanders offered no such walk back, saying that "we still firmly believe" that Flynn was ambushed, also saying that the FBI "broke standard protocol" in the way that they interviewed Flynn. In making this argument, she cited former FBI Director James Comey, even though Comey said Monday that he's "very proud of the way the FBI conducted itself," per CNN.

Sanders declined to go into more detail but said of Flynn, "Maybe he did do those things, but it had nothing to do with the president." She additionally said that it's "perfectly acceptable" for Trump to make positive comments about someone who a judge on Tuesday said committed a "very serious" crime. Brendan Morrow

Sponsors are continuing to abandon Fox News' Tucker Carlson.

Just For Men, Ancestry.com, and Jaguar on Tuesday became the latest three companies to announce they will no longer advertise on Tucker Carlson Tonight, per The Hollywood Reporter. They dropped their support after Carlson was widely criticized for saying on his Dec. 13 show that "We have a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor, [Democrats] tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided."

Bowflex, SmileDirectClub, NerdWallet, Minted, Pacific Life, and Indeed had previously abandoned Carlson. In response to the backlash, Carlson did not apologize on his show Monday night, as Laura Ingraham did when advertisers fled her show after she attacked school shooting survivor David Hogg. Instead, he doubled down on everything, saying that he's "not intimidated" by the boycotts, reports The Washington Post.

Carlson argued on his show that what he said the previous week was "true" and claimed those on the left were trying to silence him. "We plan to say what's true until the last day," Carlson said. A spokesperson for Fox News also told the Post, "It is a shame that left-wing advocacy groups, under the guise of being supposed 'media watchdogs,' weaponize social media against companies in an effort to stifle free speech." Brendan Morrow

The Amazon Washington Post is becoming less of a Trumpian joke and more of a marketing strategy.

The Washington Post, notably owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is offering a free Amazon Echo Dot with the purchase of an annual Post subscription, it said in an email promotion Tuesday. It'll read you Post headlines, play you Post podcasts, and, though unmentioned in the email, do these things for The New York Times too.

To be fair, the Post does include an ownership disclaimer on any Bezos-related content. Executive editor Martin Baron has also made it clear Bezos has nothing to do with everyday operations at the paper. But there's no harm in noting you can get a free Echo Dot — a $50 value! — with an annual subscription today. Kathryn Krawczyk