Today is Tuesday, February 11, 2025.
It is the 42nd day of the year.
323 days remain.
WHAT’S ON TAP
NOTABLE & NOTEWORTHY: Another development in the pending release of the JFK Files.
CHRISTY CARLSON ROMANO recovers and LUKA DONCIC makes a donation. More in SHOWBIZ.
GEORGE CLOONEY is a bit nervous for Broadway and a couple of new podcasts are happening. Details in CASTING CALL.
PRINCE HARRY (potentially) returns some shade in ROYALS.
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ELON MUSK is betting big on driverless cars. In a post on X, he says an “autonomous ride hailing” trial will begin this summer in Austin, Texas.
Riders will be able to summon a Tesla car, without a driver, by using an app, to pick them up and take them to their destination, similar to how Uber or Lyft operate today.
Musk added that he believes “autonomous cars will be >1,000% safer than human-driven cars.”
If all goes well, the trial program will extend to “many cities in America by the end of this year,” Musk says. [via @elonmusk]
ALSO IN ELONWORLD: A group of investors led by Musk have put in a bid to buy artificial intelligence company OpenAI, whose technology powers the popular chatbot ChatGPT. The Wall Street Journal reports the group has placed an unsolicited $97.4 BILLION bid
Musk was an early investor in the project but pulled out over strategic and creative differences. Since then, he’s had open public beef with OpenAI’s founder SAM ALTMAN and they’re battling out their competing visions for the company in court.
An attorney for Musk says their group will match or exceed any other bids. While OpenAI has not expressed any public interest in selling, the size of the offer could force a sale. [via Wall Street Journal]
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At the end of January, experimental aviation company BOOM SUPERSONIC announced the successful flight of the first civil supersonic jet made in America. Its experimental plane, dubbed XB-1, topped out at Mach 1.22, or 12% faster than the speed of sound, over Mojave, California.
NOW: Further flight data analysis shows the XB-1 broke the sound barrier without creating a sonic boom that was audible on the ground. Opposition to sonic booms from conservationists, among other niche interest groups, has previously impeded widespread adoption of supersonic flight technologies.
The company says the plane flew at an altitude and speed for “Mach cutoff,” in which the sonic boom becomes a refracted wave off the atmosphere, and registering no sound on the ground. As the company explains:
Boomless Cruise leverages well-known Mach cutoff physics, where a sonic boom refracts upward due to temperature and wind gradients affecting the local speed of sound. This is similar to how light bends when passing through a glass of water. By flying at a sufficiently high altitude at an appropriate speed for current atmospheric conditions, Overture ensures that its sonic boom never reaches the ground.
In applying this technology to flight over land, the company promises 50% faster flights over land and twice the speed over water, once its commercial jet technology is tested and approved by regulators. [via Boom Supersonic]
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CELEBS, THEY’RE JUST LIKE US: Ahead of his Broadway debut in “Good Night, and Good Luck,” GEORGE CLOONEY says he is nervous.
“I haven’t done a play in 40 years … so it’s terrifying,” he told reporters. “Yes, George Clooney gets nervous.”
The play, adapted from Clooney’s 2005 film of the same name, centers on broadcast news legend Edward R. Murrow and his work to impede investigations of communists in the US government in the 1950s.
It begins on March 12. [via NY Post]
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Basketball player LUKA DONCIC is donating $500,000 to wildfire recovery efforts in Los Angeles.
“I am also committed to helping rebuild courts, playgrounds, and fields that were destroyed because every kid needs a safe place to play,” he said in his announcement.
Doncic is the most recent addition to the L.A. Lakers. He was traded in a blockbuster deal last weekend. [via TMZ]
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Plastic surgeons are weighing in on those questioning why TOM CRUISE’s face appeared less chiseled in a pregame Super Bowl ad.
Dr. Guarav Baharti, a plastic surgeon from Charlotte, North Carolina, said Cruise showed signs of recent filler in his cheeks, and Botox, leaving his face looking “puffy” and “stretched.”
There didn’t appear to be signs of more invasive procedures, however, though Bharti did note “his jawline definition has changed” from how he appears in the latest “Mission Impossible” film.
Cruise has never admitted to getting any work done. [via Daily Mail]
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UP NEXT: AMY POEHLER’s new podcast, HARDY gears up to hit the road, another gobsmacking government failure in The Swamp, and the end of the Yalta Conference on this day in history.
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