Names and faces
■ Comic Jon Stewart used his buddy Stephen Colbert’s late-night show to keep the heat on Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell for passage of legislation to replenish a victims’ fund for first responders to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Stewart mocked McConnell on Colbert’s Late Show on Monday night, even though the Senate leader had said earlier in the day that the issue would be addressed. Stewart demanded greater urgency. A longtime advocate for police and firefighters who worked after the attacks, the former The Daily Show host testified last week at a public hearing on a bill that would ensure that the fund can pay benefits for 70 years. On Monday, McConnell said on the Fox News Channel that Congress “will address it again … I don’t know why he’s bent out of shape.” Stewart in turn accused McConnell of using the legislation as a political pawn to get other things done. “Just understand that the next time we have war, or you’re being robbed, or your house is on fire and you make that desperate call for help, don’t get bent out of shape if they show up at the last minute with fewer people than you thought would pay attention and don’t actually put it out. Just leave it there smoldering for another five years,” Stewart said.
■ A British judge has sentenced a teenager who created an “abhorrent” online image of Prince Harry to
4 years and three months in a young offenders’ institution. Judge Rebecca Poulet lambasted student Michal Szewczuk, 19, for creating an image of Harry with a pistol to his head against a blood-spattered background. The post, which was shared a few months after Harry married biracial ex-actress Meghan Markle, included the phrase “See Ya Later Race Traitor.” Szewczuk pleaded guilty to two counts of encouraging terrorism and five counts of possession of terrorist material. He was sentenced at London Criminal Court alongside Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, 18, who admitted two counts of encouraging terrorism. Poulet says the posts “are abhorrent as well as criminal by reason of their clear intention to encourage terrorist acts.”
■ Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine says he has been diagnosed with throat cancer. The singer and guitarist of the heavy metal band announced the news on social media, writing that he’s “working closely with my doctors, and we’ve mapped out a treatment plan which they feel has a 90% success rate. Treatment has already begun.” The 57-year-old on Monday said that as a result Megadeth has to cancel “most shows this year,” though the 2019 Megacruise will happen “and the band will be a part of it in some form.” Mustaine added that he and his bandmates, David Ellefson, Kiko Loureiro and Dirk Verbeuren, are in the studio working on a new album. It will be the follow-up to 2016’s Dystopia, which won the band its first-ever Grammy Award in 2017.