In the last few weeks, there has been much talk about Bayley’s status at WWE. Although the date that Bayley’s WWE contract will expire isn’t known, the date should be around Q4 2026. If she chooses not to resign, she can then join AEW or TNA.
Lyra Valkyria’s remarks on RAW last week were a further fuel for the fire. She claimed that Bayley was thrown out when she won the Saturday Night Main Event. “I am probably glowing, because I lost the deadweight when I ran Bayley away from here.”
Bayley to leave WWE?
We don’t know yet if Bayley will be leaving the company. It’s possible that the way the match ended at Saturday Night Main Event, with Bayley being beaten down by Lyra, could have been a means to end Bayley’s career on television forever OR could mean a major return in the future. It’s possible that Bayley was still undecided about her future when the match ended.
In the next few weeks we’ll be able to tell you more about Bayley, but for now her status remains very uncertain.

Bill Maher records his “Club Random” podcast in a man-cave on the sprawling estate he owns in Los Angeles’ hills. Bill Maher once described his recording studio as “a discotheque”. A man cave is for married men, which the comedian, 70, has avoided all of his life.
The place, which is equipped with a bar, pool table, stripper pole, and glowing “Politically Correct With Bill Maher”, a reminder of his brash, late-night talkshow from 1993 to2002, is equal parts 1970s recreation room, Hollywood prop warehouse, and psychedelic speakingeasy. A life-size robot, dressed in a “Club Random”, tie-dye shirt and a blunt, is lying on its back, in the bathroom.
Maher launched the podcast in 2022 to try to mimic how he would talk if there were “no camera, no audience and no network” in comparison to “Real Time With Bill Maher”, his HBO series, which has now entered its 24th year. Maher, his guest and only them are permitted inside the recording studio to reinforce the illusion. The video of the show is captured by remote-controlled cameras hidden behind the wall. This format encourages intimacy and a relaxed atmosphere. The side table is laden with liquor bottles, smoking pipes, drinking glasses, lighters, and other accessories. Jerry Seinfeld has known Maher, a friend since they were both young comedians in New York during the 1970s. He told me that he watches the podcast mainly to watch the “clinking, clanking, and maneuvering,” as the host and guest navigate the tabletop experiment. Richard Dreyfuss, an actor, slid slowly out of his chair, lying at an angle, while discussing incest, during a 2023 bizarre episode.
Maher invited to me his discotheque late in May. This was about a week before he received the Mark Twain Prize, which is often considered to be comedy’s most prestigious award. It was a new experience for Maher to be feted by peers. He never tires of counting the awards that he’s not received. Although he’s been nominated more than forty times for Emmys, the only time he won was as producer of HBO series “Vice.” This drought, which he calls a “soft cancelation,” is a result of his long-term memory. He said that he was not supposed to appear on the front cover of a Radar magazine in 2008, which featured him with a crucifix nailed onto it (a reference his documentary “Religulous”). Instead, Shannen Doherty got to do so.
Mark Twain Prize could go a very long way to rectify these injustices. Maher will be the 27th winner of the award, following Richard Pryor and Steve Martin. Tina Fey, last year’s prize-winner, Conan O’Brien, is also on the list. Emmys, schmemmys. Maher was still unsure if it would actually happen. The two have been locked in a public spat for years. And, as a final surprise, Trump appointed himself chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. This center administers the awards in partnership with Netflix. Will Trump interfere, transforming Maher’s much-anticipated honor into yet another chapter of their public drama?
The history of their tense relationship predates that decade’s political surrealism. Maher, after Trump demanded that Barack Obama provide proof of where he was actually born in 2013, offered to donate $5 million for a charity chosen by Trump if the latter could show that he was not “the son of Fred Trump and not an orangutan.” Trump’s lawyer then sent over his birth certificate “demonstrating that [Trump] is the child of Fred Trump, but not an orangutan,” before suing unsuccessfully when there wasn’t a check. Maher became one of Trump’s most vocal Cassandras in the following decade, regularly insulting Trump as a “conscienceless monkey,” or “syphilitic scumbag.” He also warned correctly that Trump would not concede an election loss.
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When I first went to Bayreuth, the hallowed temple for Wagnerian music, I was almost in a panic just by taking my seat.
The ticket I had was for the center of the large auditorium. There is no central aisle. In my suit and tie I was already overheating from the late July sun and lack of air-conditioning in small town Germany. It became clear that to get into the space allocated to each guest, I would need to slightly hunch and tuck in my shoulders. In order to leave the room for some fresh air, there were more than 25 guests on each side. Before I even had a chance to figure it out, the ushers locked the doors.
As the theater lights dimmed, audience noises ceased. The glinting chord of A-major that begins “Lohengrin”, which was hidden in the orchestra pit, rose up and seemed to hover over my head. It was the first time I heard something like that.
This story could end there. Ruskin, for example, would have been enraptured by the Tintorettos in Venice. It’s not just me: Since its founding, in the summer of 1868, when Wagner premiered his four-opera epic, “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” people have described the Bayreuth acoustic experiences as “near-religious.”
By the time Act I ended, my thighs were aching from the wooden theater seats and sweat clung on my back. It was much warmer outside, but thankfully, it wasn’t as stagnant. Each break, I stood in line to purchase and drink an enormous water bottle. Prior to taking my seat in the underground bathroom, I washed my face with water at a sink and dried it off using a towel provided by Sieglinde, the Toilettenfrau.
After the evening, I collected my suit and tie, which I’d discarded, abandoning all decorum and I followed an exodus to the Green Hill. The night nurse’s cat cradled me in her bed all night long, warming my body while I cooled it with cold, wet washcloths. It was hard to say that I felt happy.
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Christopher Nolan told The New York Times recently that Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey,” which is nearly 3,200 years old, was “his ur-text,” adding, “It appears in all my previous work.”
This ancient and enduring tale chronicles Odysseus’ treacherous 10 year journey to Ithaca following the Trojan War. It is the origin of much modern fiction.
Many retellings are direct, like Nolan’s. Examples include Uberto Pasolini’s “The Return” (2024), starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, as Odysseus, and Mario Camerini’s “Ulysses” (1955), starring Kirk Douglas in the role of the Latin version of Odysseus, and the 1997 NBC Mini-Series, “The Odyssey.”
Homer’s epic inspired the web series “Star Trek Odyssey” from 2007 to 2011 and “The Simpsons”, which parodied it in 2002.

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Seth Meyers, host of “Late night”, slammed Donald Trump supporters for their belief that the President is telling the truth about the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran.
Meyers played a Sunday clip of Trump telling reporters the U.S. controlled the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran “controlled nothing.”
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Meyers explained the contrary of what Trump said is true and that Trump’s supporters have an increasing difficulty understanding the truth of the matter. Meyers then showed a video clip of Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. She seemed to be utterly baffled by the fact that Iran can still attack U.S. assets throughout the Middle East despite Trump constantly claiming its military has been “obliterated”.
Meyers replied: “Oh, man. I’d give you a moment to think about it and then see what comes up.” How can they do this when President Obama told us that they couldn’t? Anything? “You think he might be fucking liar to you?”
Here’s the full segment of Meyers “A closer look” from Monday’s episode.