Actor Mark Hamill just lasered in on why he disliked how director Rian Johnson had him play Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”

“He’s not my Luke Skywalker,” Hamill, who originated the part in the iconic space opera four decades ago, proclaimed of his role in the new movie.

MILD SPOILER ALERT:

“The Last Jedi” shows the character in hiding, and Hamill appeared to take issue with that.

“I said to Rian, I said ‘Jedis don’t give up.’ I mean, even if he had a problem, he would maybe take a year to try and regroup, but if he made a mistake he would try and right that wrong, so right there, we had a fundamental difference, but, it’s not my story anymore,” Hamill, 66, said in an interview posted by Spanish-language movie site SensaCine recently. “It’s somebody else’s story, and Rian needed me to be a certain way to make the ending effective.”

Hamill added: “I almost had to think of Luke as another character. Maybe he’s Jake Skywalker, he’s not my Luke Skywalker.”

The movie has been a box-office success, and HuffPost critic Matthew Jacobs called it “splendid.”

Still, Hamill’s comments appear to confirm that so-called creative differences were shaking up the galaxy far, far away long before the film’s release.

“I still haven’t accepted it completely, but it’s only a movie,” Hamill said. “I hope people like it. I hope they don’t get upset. And I came to really believe that Rian was the exact man that they needed for this job.”

Hamill may still have to prepare to defend himself.

This article has been updated with additional details on the source of the interview and a fuller clip of the interview.

The lucky winners of Spain’s Christmas lottery celebrated on Friday as they eagerly awaited receiving their share of the 2.4 billion euro, or $2.8 billion, prize. 

The annual lottery, which has been a holiday tradition in the country since 1812, offers the largest pool of total lottery prize money in the world, The Associated Press reports. The top prize, called El Gordo (“the Fat One”), was about $470,000 this year, and smaller amounts will be distributed to other winners.  

The lottery system is complex, and prizes are usually shared among a large number of people. Each ticket costs about $237, so families, friends and co-workers tend to invest together. A $24 décimo, which amounts to about one-tenth of a ticket, is particularly popular. 

Each ticket comes with a five-digit number. Sellers are assigned specific numbers they can use, and each number can be repeated up to 165 times, The Local reports. That means that it’s common for many people from the same town to win all at once ― since they’ve often bought tickets from the same seller.  

The winning number this year was 71198, children from Madrid’s San Ildefonso school announced on national television Friday morning. Several winning tickets were sold in Vilalba, in northwest Spain, according to the BBC. The city of Malaga in southern Spain was also a big winner.

About 70 percent of Spaniards between the ages of 18 and 75 play the Christmas lottery. Many queue up in long lines outside their favorite lottery booths, while some travel to different cities to play a specific number. 

The annual tradition has been unbroken for over two centuries ― not even stopping during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s or during the rule of the dictator Francisco Franco. 

WASHINGTON — Climate change fueled by human activity could boost the frequency and severity of volcanic eruptions, a recent scientific study has found. 

The reason: As the planet warms and glacial ice melts, pressure on magma in the earth’s crust is relieved. Less pressure can result in more eruptions.

A team of researchers led by Graeme T. Swindles, an associate professor of Earth system dynamics at the University of Leeds, published the study last month in the journal Geology. They looked at how small changes in glacial ice impacted volcanic activity in Iceland 4,500 to 5,500 years ago — a period in which the earth cooled and glaciers grew. They created a timeline of Iceland’s volcanic activity by studying the amount of ash that fell into peatlands and lakes across Europe, then compare that with glacial ice cover in Iceland.  

What they found was that as ice cover increased, volcanic eruptions declined. Likewise, when those same glaciers retreated, volcanic activity picked up.

Ice “can affect magma flow and the voids and gaps in the Earth where magma flows to the surface as well as how much magma the crust can actually hold,” Swindles told Scientific American magazine in an article published Thursday. “After glaciers are removed the surface pressure decreases, and the magmas more easily propagate to the surface and thus erupt.”

The lag time between these climatic events and the change in eruption frequency was around 600 years, according to the findings. 

The researchers note in their study that “human-induced climate change is causing rapid melting of ice in many volcanically active regions.” The findings, they say, suggest that the warming that has occurred since the Little Ice Age — a cold period that spanned from around 1300 and 1850 — could, in time, result in stronger, more periodic eruptions. 

“I think we can predict we’re probably going to see a lot more volcanic activity in areas of the world where glaciers and volcanoes interact,” including the Pacific Northwest and southern South America, Swindles said.

A routine traffic stop in York County, Nebraska, on Tuesday turned out to be anything but routine.

That’s because officers found 60 pounds of pot in the vehicle, which was occupied by an older couple traveling on Interstate 80, according to the York News-Times.

Deputies in York County stopped a Toyota Tacoma after it crossed the center line and the driver failed to signal. Deputies said they immediately smelled what appeared to be raw marijuana.

When drug-sniffing dogs confirmed their suspicion, officers searched the pickup and found the weed in boxes inside the pickup topper, the newspaper reported.

York County sheriff’s Lt. Paul Vrbka told the paper he estimated the confiscated cannabis to be worth about $336,000.

Patrick Jiron, 80, was arrested on charges of possession of marijuana with the intent to deliver and having no drug tax stamp, both felonies.

Jiron was released after he posted 10 percent of his $100,000 bond, according to the York News-Times.

His wife, 70-year-old Barbara Jiron, was cited but not jailed due to what Vrbka described as ”some medical issues.”

Vrbka said the couple told police they were traveling to Vermont from Clearlake Oaks, California, and intended to give out the weed as Christmas presents, according to WOWT.com.

Warning! “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” spoilers!

When it comes to “Star Wars” cameos, there is do or do not. There is no try. And “The Last Jedi” certainly did.

In the film ― after Rey (Daisy Ridley) leaves Ahch-To to make contact with Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) ― a frustrated Luke (Mark Hamill) decides it’s time to destroy the ancient Jedi texts and the tree they are kept in. In that moment, the audience is treated to the return of everyone’s favorite little Kermit the Frog/Miss Piggy hybrid, Yoda.

But it’s not that weird, acrobatic CG Yoda from the prequels. It’s puppet Yoda, with a Force-ghost glow.

Force-ghost Yoda returns to talk some sense into Luke, and it works. Luke seems to have a change of heart over Rey and the Jedi. And, just because he’s got style, Yoda uses a lightning bolt to destroy the ancient tree and (supposedly) the Jedi texts with it anyway. His explanation: There’s nothing in there that Rey doesn’t already possess. 

On the Yoda scene, director Rian Johnson said, “That was something that very early in the process I realized would make sense, especially when Luke’s arc started to define itself.” He added: “I thought, well, who can actually kick Luke’s butt a little and speak truth to this guy? And the obvious answer was Yoda.”

The Force is with that cameo, but there’s also a secret for watchful viewers.

Remember that while he was destroying the tree, Yoda claimed there was nothing in there that Rey didn’t already have. Later in the movie, the Jedi texts briefly appear on the Millennium Falcon, a shot Johnson confirmed to HuffPost. Apparently, Yoda said all that because Rey had already taken the books.

“You’ve got sharp eyes,” Johnson said when we asked him about the books showing up later.

Thankfully, other behind-the-scenes “Star Wars” crew members shared their secrets about Rey’s discovery of the Jedi texts (and Yoda’s cameo):

That Yoda was close to the original.

“I remember saying to Rian, we have to make him as solid as we possibly can,” creature and droid FX creative supervisor Neal Scanlan told HuffPost. “The Force ghost aspect is obviously important, but as a fan, we have to give as much as we can. We can’t take that away from the moment.”

Scanlan said the choice was made to have Yoda appear as a puppet, and not a completely computer-generated character. In fact, Lucasfilm provided original Yoda molds. Even the original puppeteer, Frank Oz, was involved in the process early on.

“The goal was to create Yoda in absolute faithful likeness,” Scanlan said.

The creatures supervisor said he had a profound moment when he took home the Yoda head to apply the skin and finishing touches.

“This little face appeared, and I knew this is exactly what [original Yoda designer Stuart Freeborn] had gone through in his workshop,” Scanlan said. “It was a magical moment, a very special one for me.”

Because of that, there was very little CGI.

“Yoda came together pretty straightforward,” visual effects supervisor Ben Morris said.

It was a team effort to create the scene, Morris said, with Scanlan getting the Yoda molds, Oz coming in to bring the character to life, and SFX supervisor Chris Corbould putting together the burning tree. 

“In terms of visual effects, we did some supporting work,” Morris said. “Obviously, you’ve got a glow, and we did clean up some of his facial expressions every now and then, but he really is a practical puppet.”

A subtle Jedi chant initially drew Rey to the tree.

Co-sound supervisor Matthew Wood told HuffPost the whispers that seemingly led Rey to the ancient tree were actually a Jedi chant.

“Rian was talking about some kind of chanting or whispering, and I actually worked with Story Group here at Lucasfilm, which is a great resource for us,” he said. “We were able to consult with them and come up with something from the past that had a Jedi chant in there, so it was just trying to represent what was coming out of those books ― like the essence of what’s coming out of those books.”

Wood said after they had actors record the chant, co-sound supervisor Ren Klyce designed it into “something that was really ethereal,” which was the sound used to bring Rey to the tree.  

The burning tree was tricky.

As the SFX supervisor, Corbould knew the burning tree was going to be a massive undertaking.

“We needed to obviously ignite the tree on cue, so the construction department very kindly built a totally fireproof tree ― and what’s more, it was built on a slope,” he said. “Once they built the tree, we set about pumping the progas out and then developing an ignition system, so we could sequentially trigger it to hit in one place and things spread slowly out to each limb.”

Corbould told us it was a little nerve-wracking, even though the burning was conducted safely. When it was finally ignited, he said, “that was one of the hottest, one of the biggest bonfires you’ll ever see.”

No one wanted to miss the Luke and Yoda reunion.

“It was unbelievable when we shot that sequence,” Scanlan told us. “The tree was on fire, I turned around, and behind me there must’ve been a 60-strong audience of people out on a location who would not normally have bothered to stand in the cold weather. It was totally silent, and all we could hear was Yoda and Frank Oz and Mark Hamill.”

He added, “It was as iconic as I could hope it would be.”

“The Last Jedi” is in theaters now. 

We already knew Jay-Z and Beyoncé had moves, but Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles-Lawson, shared a video last night proving just how electric those moves can be.

In a clip on Instagram that has since been deleted, Knowles-Lawson posted a video of her daughter and son-in-law breaking it down at a family party to Frankie Beverly and Maze’s “Before I Let Go.” Specifically, the ultrafamous couple was doing the electric slide.

“Why at every party even a kid’s party do we have to do 10 versions of the Harlem shuffle, electric slide, cupid Shuffle, wobble Shuffle, The Texas shuffle —everything but the kitchen sink Shuffle,” read the caption on Knowles-Lawson’s original post.

Though the post was then deleted, many made copies and disseminated the gloriously happy video on Instagram, Twitter, and elsewhere. And people are LOVING it:

It truly is a happy holiday season.

Luxury shoe brand Jimmy Choo is facing a backlash over its commercial starring Cara Delevingne, which critics call “sexist” and “tone deaf.”

Men catcall and shout out “nice shoes, lady” at the actress-model as she walks down a New York City street in the “Shimmer in the Dark” spot.

The ad was first released in November, but went viral this week for what people on Twitter called its “regressive” message.

Check out the ad here:

One tweeter suggested it was “not the best moment to run an ad about how cool and sexy catcalling is,” a reference to sexual misconduct scandals that have engulfed multiple high-profile men in recent weeks.

Others expressed surprise at Delevingne’s leading role. The 25-year-old spoke out in October about a disturbing encounter with movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who multiple women accuse of sexual harassment and assault.

Neither Jimmy Choo nor Delevingne have commented on the criticism.

A Washington-state based cannabis producer called Sugarleaf created a strain of weed named “Monica Lewinsky,” and the woman behind that namesake has discovered it.

On Thursday night, Lewinsky tweeted out a photo of the Sugarleaf hybrid weed in a jar accompanied by a series of eye and hand-pointing emojis.

The photo is from Steinfarm, a Seattle-based product and lifestyle photographer, but the product itself is from Sugarleaf. The cannabis company didn’t immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment, and the product doesn’t appear to be immediately available on its website.

However, a perusal of their social media pages reveals the Monica Lewinsky strain appears to have been around for at least a year and looks like this: 

And you can see it in jar form again below:

Lewinsky seems to be handling the unique rebranding of her name with good fun, saying on Twitter that she had been talking to a friend on Friday morning about having a “party just for the party favors!”

We hope that party comes to fruition, Monica, because weed certainly like to be there.

Actress and self-avowed romcom fan Mindy Kaling gave birth to her first child last week, and her friends aptly threw her a “You’ve Got Mail”-themed holiday party to celebrate.

The “Mindy Project” creator shared a photo on Instagram on Thursday featuring the menu for a feast her colleagues prepared for her, with references to several classic Nora Ephron films.

“I usually do a holiday dinner with the young women that work with me but I’ve had a busy week! So they brought the holiday dinner to me,” wrote Kaling, who gave birth to her first child, a daughter, on Dec. 15.

The “Yule Got Mail Holiday Dinner” paid homage to “When Harry Met Sally” and “You’ve Got Mail” — two of Ephron’s classic romantic comedies, both starring actress Meg Ryan — with dishes like “Pie a la Sally” and “Shopgirl’s Pasta Pomodoro.”

In her Instagram post, Kaling included a quote from “You’ve Got Mail,” writing: “Maybe for dessert we will have coffee... Patricia? Patricia’s amazing. Patricia makes coffee nervous.”

Ephron, a prolific writer and filmmaker who was a HuffPost editor at large, died in 2012.

Ed Sheeran has claimed this year’s Christmas number one with ‘Perfect’. 

The singer fought off competition from Mariah Carey and Wham!’s classic festive hits to land the chart top spot. 

Ed had a total of 85,000 combined sales acquired this week, split across 45,000 downloads and six million streams. 

Posting a thank-you video on YouTube, he said: “Thank you very much for making ‘Perfect’ Christmas Number 1.

“This is an actual dream come true and I’m very proud and happy.

“Thank you so much and have a very Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a Happy New Year.”

Ed has also released new versions of ‘Perfect’ featuring Beyoncé and Andrea Bocelli in recent weeks. 

Ed also partially occupied the number two spot in the official Christmas chart, as he features on Eminem’s track ‘River’. 

Wham! landed at number three with ‘Last Christmas’, while Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ finished at number four. 

The top five was completed by Rita Ora with ‘Anywhere’. 

Check out the Christmas top 10 in full below...

1. Ed Sheeran - ‘Perfect’

2. Eminem ft Ed Sheeran - ‘River’

3. Wham! - ‘Last Christmas’

4. Mariah Carey - ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ 

5. Rita Ora - ‘Anywhere’ 

6. Big Shaq - ‘Man’s Not Hot’

7. The Pogues ft Kirsty MacColl - ‘Fairytale Of New York’

8. Clean Bandit ft Julia Michaels - ‘I Miss You’ 

9. Rak-Su ft Naughty Boy & Wyclef Jean - ‘Dimelo’ 

10. NF - ‘Let You Down’

President Donald Trump may be vacationing at his Mar-a-Lago estate, but he has dedicated part of his holiday weekend to berating top FBI officials.

Trump on Saturday took aim at FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, the second highest ranking official at the bureau who has received many political jabs from the Republican Party in recent years.

McCabe faced more than 16 hours of questioning this week from several House committees about his role in the FBI’s investigations into Russia’s election meddling and Hillary Clinton’s private email server, according to CNN.

“How can [McCabe], the man in charge, along with leakin’ James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife’s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation,” the president tweeted Saturday.

Trump also pointed out that McCabe may be retiring soon, as The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Early Sunday morning, he referenced a Fox News segment that reported that McCabe allegedly used “his FBI Official Email Account to promote [Hillary Clinton’s] campaign.” 

Trump’s tweets were an apparent attempt to undermine McCabe’s credibility in the wake of reports that FBI agent Peter Strzok had sent texts considered politically biased against Trump.

Strzok had mentioned “Andy,” which could be a reference to McCabe, in an August 2016 text message to FBI attorney Lisa Page. Some Republicans believe the text messages show a conspiracy to take down Trump, possibly involving McCabe, according to the Post.

Trump’s tweets also rehashed an alleged controversy surrounding 2016 campaign donations made by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, an ally of Hillary and Bill Clinton, to McCabe’s wife, who was running for (and eventually lost) a seat in Virginia’s Senate. Many Republicans found the donations suspicious and used it to draw ties between the Clintons and McCabe, who oversaw the FBI’s Clinton email probe. They then called for McCabe’s firing.

McCabe had alerted a department ethics official when the donations were made, according to the Washington Post.

Later Saturday, Trump shifted his attention to reports that FBI general counsel James Baker was being reassigned.

According to the Post, which first reported the news, Baker’s reassignment was FBI director Christopher A. Wray’s attempt to assemble a new team of senior advisers while fending off GOP claims of political bias within the FBI.

The president’s tweets echo the chorus of Republicans on Capitol Hill who have ramped up their criticism of the Department of Justice’s investigation into ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Democrats have denounced the Republican attacks on the FBI and Justice Department, claiming they are attempts from the right to interfere with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

This story has been update with Trump’s Sunday morning tweet.

Gather round, friends, and savor a holiday fable for our bitter age. As in the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, the villain of this story is money. It features its own Ebenezer Scrooge and ghosts of moral compunction. But the ending of our tale has been adjusted: Money prevails and Scrooge dies miserable and rich, but not before buying off his ghosts and fashioning them into a museum exhibit.

That’s where I’m standing, in the annual Yuletide display of John Pierpont Morgan’s collection of Dickensia at the Morgan Library, the Madison Avenue monument to the excesses and undeniable good taste of the man who invented American banking as we know it. Specifically, I am standing in front of the original handwritten manuscript of A Christmas Carol, purchased by Morgan sometime in the 1890s, as his economic and political power approached its zenith. It is the crown jewel of the production, bound in handsome red Morocco leather, presented alongside personal correspondence, illustrations and other minor treasures from Dickens’ improbable life.

In prior years, the irony would have been outrageous, but in this moment, the Dickens exhibit is merely appropriate. As Congress approves a tax bill of blatant financial despotism ― showering fresh riches on billionaires, senators and the president himself ― one of the most beloved expressions of Christian egalitarianism rests under soft illumination, the hunting trophy of a dead financier.   

When Dickens sat down to write A Christmas Carol in October 1843, he was frightened and broke. This would have surprised most Victorians, who knew him as the most popular English writer since Shakespeare and one of the few living men recognizable on multiple continents. But the weak sales of his most recent novels had put severe strain on his resources and amplified some of his deepest anxieties.

When he was 12, Dickens’ respectable middle-class family had been overwhelmed by debt. His father was sentenced to debtors’ prison, and young Charles was dispatched to work at a shoe polish factory to help the family buy back their freedom. The “rotten floors and staircase” he described to his first biographer, John Forster, “and the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars” stayed with him. They eventually made an appearance in his hit second novel, Oliver Twist, and stamped on its author a profound sense of social fragility. For Dickens, financial success and the public esteem that accompanied it were not anchored to character or ability. They were insecure blessings, easily erased.

Oliver Twist was now four years in the past. In the meantime, like his father before him, Dickens had been siring more children than he could afford. He and his wife, Catherine, moved into a bigger house to accommodate their growing family even as sales of his novels, serialized in popular magazines, had collapsed to one-fifth of their 1841 peak.

A Christmas Carol was a wild attempt to reverse these sagging fortunes. Instead of turning the work over to the magazines, Dickens would publish it himself as a hardbound book released a week before Christmas to capitalize on the holiday market. Though a sensible sales gimmick today, this was an act of lunatic delusion in 1843, when the market for bound books was small, and the market for Christmas did not exist.

Christmas, in Dickens’ time, was going through an identity crisis. Considered a minor theological event for most of Christian history, Dec. 25 had always been entangled with various non-Christian celebrations of the winter solstice ― holly, mistletoe and ivy are all holdovers from different European tribal festivities, along with Yule logs and Christmas trees. This was particularly troubling to the severe theologies popular among the British. In the 17th century, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan government put an end to all dangerous compromises with paganism by banning the holiday outright. Caroling became a crime.

The Puritans eventually lost their war on Christmas, but upstanding English families were still negotiating the appropriate limits of joviality under Queen Victoria. She was understood to be Christmas-curious ― her German husband, Albert, was adamant about his tannenbaum ― but most households settled for the rough equivalent of a bank holiday in December, with an evening of ghost stories around the fire thrown in for family entertainment.

Still, Dickens had to do something about his depleted bank account. After blitzing through the manuscript in just six weeks, he was overdrawn, and he wrote to his lawyer Thomas Mitton to beg for a £200 loan ― enough to get him through until the book sales paid out.

All of this spiritual and financial turmoil found an outlet in A Christmas Carol. Combining pagan supernaturalia with Christian themes as subtle as a sledgehammer, Dickens presented a parable of what would soon be known as the social gospel ― a celebration of the working family, of the triumph of love over greed and the promise that everyone, even the most miserable miser, can be redeemed by helping the poor.

People loved it. A Christmas Carol quickly sold out of its initial run of 6,000 copies. A pirated edition appeared ― a sure sign of a hit ― as additional printings were ordered up. It was soon adapted for the stage, and has continued to serve as source material for television, film, ballet and opera ever since. But its cultural influence proved more than literary. Dickens did not, as the latest film adaptation of his slim book (based on an amiable biography by Les Standiford) claims, invent Christmas. He was, however, instrumental in establishing the holiday as a festiveseason, according to another Dickens biographer, Peter Ackroyd. So long as everyone maintained a Christian spirit ― love of family, care for the poor and a healthy skepticism of financial capital ― pagan frivolities were fair game. All of the childhood wonder that has emerged since ― Frosty, Rudolph, the Grinch, even Santa’s red and white suit ― owe a small debt to Dickens.

The great criminal of A Christmas Carol is not Ebenezer Scrooge, who opens the story as an abusive boss, denouncing the moral fiber of the poor as he shuns his own family. Scrooge eventually corrects his moral errors. The real poison is money itself, which corrupts his innocent soul and tricks him into purging joy from his life in a hopeless quest to insulate himself from sorrow. Dickens offered a retelling of the legend of King Midas, the tragic mythological figure whose life was ruined when everything he touched began turning to gold.

It would eventually fall into the hands of a Gilded Age colossus.

Nobody who knew Pierpont Morgan doubted his religious zeal. He collected medieval holy books, made an emotional pilgrimage to Jerusalem and claimed to have seen the exact spot along the Nile River where the infant Moses had been rescued from the reeds. So as his fortune swelled during the second half of the 19th century, the greatest of American financiers devoted some of his wealth to a higher purpose. He bought a church.

At Saint George’s in Manhattan, Morgan paid for social services, financed the construction of new buildings and even picked the rector, Rev. William Rainsford. But ownership and management soon came into conflict when Rainsford sought to “democratize” the vestry ― the governing body of the burgeoning institution ― which the new preacher believed to be an unacceptably narrow, wealthy slice of the parish. Morgan was appalled: “I do not want the vestry democratized. I want it to remain a body of gentlemen whom I can ask to meet me in my study.”

It was not that Morgan despised the working and middle classes ― though he did loathe the nouveau riche who had dared to migrate from among them into his own lofty station. “He was never a champion of social justice or equality,” as biographer Ron Chernow wrote in his titanic history The House of Morgan. But the money magnate still paid for his rector’s various endeavors to feed and educate the poor.

Morgan instead enjoyed a sense of superiority over the masses. He had an unshakeable belief that he and his fellow princes of capital knew what was best not only for the ordering of corporations, but for the way his fellow citizens should live their lives. He provided financial support to Anthony Comstock’s censorship campaigns, which burned books and championed the covering of nude statues. When the Metropolitan Opera’s performance of the Richard Strauss libretto ”Salome” offended his puritanical sensibilities, Morgan personally intervened to cancel the production. He was an active member of the Young Men’s Christian Association, which sought to temper political radicalism among industrial workers by instilling in them Victorian virtues, discouraging gambling, in particular.

Not that Morgan allowed his own conduct to be hindered by such inconveniences. Unhappy with his marriage, he carried on affair after affair with actresses “aboard his yachts, in private railroad cars, and at European spas,” as Chernow details. Once, at a Cairo hotel, he threw a small fortune in gold jewelry onto a table and instructed a throng of young women, “Help yourselves!” before other entertainments ensued.

But for the most part, he lived a life of great power and little pleasure. With his children, Morgan was, in Chernow’s words, “terrifying” and “distant.” A dour, ferocious businessman, he could be as brutal with his colleagues as he was ruthless with his competitors, which he steadily eliminated, forming great monopolies in the steel, coal, telegraph, shipping and railroad industries. When a financial crisis shook the foundations of the American banking system in 1907, Morgan worked out the rescue plan in his study and all but ordered President Theodore Roosevelt to accept the terms, which happened to give Morgan control over the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. The Rough Rider assented without complaint.

In short, over the course of his 75 years, Morgan was a living embodiment of everything Charles Dickens assailed in his fiction. When his son, Jack, came across the Dickens novel Dombey and Son at the age of 13, he was moved to tears by the story, which opens with an overbearing shipping magnate attempting to groom his sensitive son for the family business through various acts of bullying and intimidation. The child dies.

Jack proved sturdier. He succeeded his father at the helm of the family empire and opened the Morgan home as a museum in 1924. Though most of the building has since been transformed into an airy, modern public space, curators have preserved the original patriarch’s library and study. It is both opulent and ominous, filled with dark mahogany shelves, walls covered in crimson silk, Italian Renaissance paintings and one massive portrait each of a glowering Pierpont and a more contemplative Jack. The library has its own rotunda adorned with brilliant mosaics supported by intricately carved marble columns. An adjacent showroom houses illuminated manuscripts, Egyptian statuary and an Assyrian cuneiform tablet. Pierpont’s greatest passion was not for actresses, but for plunder.

Yet money was never far from his mind. Hanging over a massive stone fireplace in the library is an epic 16th-century tapestry depicting the deadly sin of avarice, characterized by King Midas himself. It is a difficult item to interpret. A symbol of Morgan’s internal torment? A demonstration of his power over the moral trifles of lesser men? A simple lack of self-awareness?

Though the Dickens exhibit is more cheerful, it is impossible to put aside similar questions. Why would a fabulously rich banker purchase the letter Dickens wrote over Christmas of 1843 pleading for a loan?

The wealth of material provides a charming narrative of Dickens’ career. Though A Christmas Carol revived his confidence, the project was a financial bust. He insisted on a jubilant presentation for the book, paying for full-color illustrations, leather covers and gilt-edged pages. These elevated production costs left him with a total profit of just £137 from the first printing. Even this was soon wiped out. Dickens successfully sued the rogue publishers who had released a pirated edition, but when they declared bankruptcy, he was left with £700 in legal fees to cover out of his own pocket.

Undeterred, Dickens followed up with four other Christmas books in the 1840s, all of which racked up impressive sales numbers. This year’s Morgan Library exhibit features for the first time the original manuscripts of these later works ― The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man ― though they all made their way into the museum long after Pierpont’s death. None have the same power of A Christmas Carol, but they tackle the same themes, celebrating the working class as they excoriate the elite ― bankers, politicians and churchmen ― as either moralizing hypocrites or sterile, joyless sadists.

The Chimes is even more radical than its better-known predecessor, the story of a poor family steadily beaten down into death and despair by a politician who styles himself an enlightened “friend and father to the poor.” Instead of education or financial aid, the vulnerable protagonists receive stern lectures about their character failings, as additional hardships are piled on to test their fitness for relief. Dickens explained his motive for writing the piece in a letter to the actor William Macready: “I have endeavored to plant an indignant right-hander on the eye of certain Wicked Cant that makes my blood boil, which I hope will not only cloud that eye with black and blue, but many a gentler one with chrystal of the purest sort.”

Morgan’s eye was not blackened. He purchased the letter sometime before 1913. And Dickens himself would struggle to live up to some of these values in later life. His international celebrity put a terrible strain on his marriage to Catherine. In 1858, he humiliated her with a very public separation, leaving the mother of his children for the teenage Ellen Ternan. He worked at a furious pace all his life, taking on a second career as a public speaker, reading his books before audiences of thousands. He never abandoned his crusade for the poor ― his speaking tours for A Christmas Carol raised money for charity ― but family joys and responsibilities became an encumbrance to a man consumed by his own greatness.

None of these failings have diminished the cultural power of his prose, which will resonate so long as economic inequality remains a dominant social problem. For Dickens, Christmas was synonymous with a natural, divine abundance. Scarcity was a human invention. There is never any question in his holiday fables whether there are enough geese in England to satisfy every table at Christmas ― only the question of why some tables are denied their dinner.

Men like Morgan knew the answer. It was stashed away in their bank vaults and hoarded among their cuneiform ruins. And for all the talk of innovation, efficiency and progress we have heard from Wall Street and Silicon Valley in the century or so since Morgan’s death, that is where it remains. The American economy generates over $19 trillion in wealth every year, yet 40 million Americans live in poverty, 41 million live in "food insecure" households and roughly half do not have the funds to meet an unexpected $500 expense. Congress, meanwhile, has decided to raise taxes on the poor and middle class to shower trillions of dollars on some of the richest families the world has ever known, including their own. We are experiencing the spiritual arc of A Christmas Carol in reverse, watching our public commitments and ideas curdle into moral rot.

A New York Times report published Saturday details a toxic workplace culture at Vice Media, which the paper characterizes as being ruled by “a top-down ethos of male entitlement.”

The comprehensive investigation unearthed four settlements of sexual harassment or defamation against employees at Vice. One of those involved the company’s president, Andrew Creighton. He paid $135,00 in 2016 to a former employee who alleged she was fired after refusing “an intimate relationship” with him.

Two other men accused in harassment settlements, former Vice News head Jason Mojica and Vice producer Rhys James, were both fired in November.

According to the Times report, Vice settled for an undisclosed amount to an employee earlier this year who said that as her supervisor, Mojica retaliated against her at the end of a sexual relationship. The company settled for $24,000 in January to an employee of mixed race who said James made racist and sexist comments, including asking her about the color of her nipples.

The fourth settlement involved a writer who said the company defamed her by falsely publishing that she agreed to have sex with a rapper she interviewed.

Additionally, more than 24 women told the Times they had seen or personally experienced sexual misconduct at Vice like unwanted kisses, propositions for sex and inappropriate comments.

Vice co-founders Shane Smith and Suroosh Alvi appeared to agree with the sentiments of Vice employees. In a statement sent to the Times, they apologized that those running the company had failed to foster a “safe and inclusive workplace”:

Listening to our employees over the past year, the truth is inescapable: from the top down, we have failed as a company to create a safe and inclusive workplace where everyone, especially women, can feel respected and thrive. Cultural elements from our past, dysfunction, and mismanagement were allowed to flourish unchecked. That includes a detrimental ‘boy’s club’ culture that fostered inappropriate behavior that permeated throughout the company.

It happened on our watch, and ultimately we let far too many people down. We are truly sorry for this.

In a longer version of the statement sent to employees, Vice also outlined the steps the company has taken to improve the situation. Some of those steps were creation of a Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board with Gloria Steinem as a member, a strengthened process for reporting harassment and the removal of a bizarre “non-traditional workplace agreement” that essentially required new hires to agree to not be offended by whatever went on at the office.

The Times report echoes earlier accounts that Vice employees, particularly women, have shared in recent weeks. Last month, The Daily Beast interviewed more than a dozen former and current staffers who described routine harassment and indifference on the part of the company. Employees also described having to sign the “non-traditional workplace agreement” mentioned in Vice’s statement. Those agreements mandated, among other stipulations, that they agree to not find “the workplace environment at VICE” to be “offensive, indecent, violent or disturbing.”

Shortly after The Daily Beast story broke, HuffPost’s Ashley Feinberg spoke with multiple Vice staffers who were furious about the company’s failure to address sexual harassment allegations and frustrated with a general lack of transparency. They also spoke of anxiety over the impending Times story, which they knew was in the works.

“That story is a shadow over all of us,” one employee told HuffPost. “Every day you think, is this the day that it’s going to break?”

Apple is facing several lawsuits after the tech giant admitted this week that it was deliberately slowing down the performance of its older iPhones.

In a statement on Wednesday, the company said slowing down the phones via a recent software update was necessary because the aging batteries in older phones were causing devices to unexpectedly shut down. 

Understandably, iPhone users were pissed.

Many iPhone users didn’t buy Apple’s excuse.

Some insisted the company was purposely slowing down older phone models as a way of forcing consumers to purchase the newer iPhone models.

Two different class-action lawsuits were filed in California and Illinois on Thursday alleging just that. In a federal suit filed in Chicago, five customers claim Apple is engaging in “deceptive, immoral and unethical” practices in violation of consumer protection laws, the Chicago Sun Times reported.

“Corporations have to realize that people are sophisticated and that when people spend their hard-earned dollars on a product they expect it to perform as expected,” James Vlahakis, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the Chicago suit, told the Sun Times.

“Instead, Apple appears to have obscured and concealed why older phones were slowing down.”

In the California lawsuit, two law school students at the University of Southern California argue Apple installed the performance-stifling update without the device owner’s permission, the Mercury News reported. 

The students, Stefan Bogdanovich and Dakota Speas, also claim Apple “intentionally interfered” with consumers’ iPhones, forcing users to “have to replace iPhones, buy new batteries,” or lose “usage of their phone,” according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by CBS News.

Apple “breached the implied contracts it made with Plaintiffs and Class Members by purposefully slowing down older iPhone models when new models come out and by failing to properly disclose that at the time of that the parties entered into an agreement,” the suit reads.

Apple has not publicly responded to the lawsuits.

While some people have pointed out the company does offer its users a hard-to-find notice that alerts them when their iPhone’s battery needs servicing, many claim the company could have been more transparent about its strategies.

The New York Times’ Niraj Chokshi writes:

[Apple] could have avoided controversy by being more transparent to begin with. It could have notified people that a power management mode was kicking in to keep their iPhones running for longer because their batteries are running out of juice. That would also inform people that they should be getting their batteries replaced. Because Apple was not transparent, it’s natural for people to suspect it of deliberately crippling their devices to get them to buy new ones.

From ricotta cheesecake to chocolate cream pie, there’s something for every sweet tooth on this list.

1. Ricotta Cheesecake with Fresh Raspberries

Inspired by the “Obsessive Ricotta Cheesecake” in Gina DePalma’s Dolce Italiano, Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen, this cheesecake is a hybrid between an American-style cheesecake and an Italian-style cheesecake. The raspberry topping is the perfect foil for the cake, which isn’t overly sweet. GET THE RECIPE

2. Pumpkin Pecan Streusel Torte

This crowd-pleasing pumpkin dessert looks like it comes from a fancy bakery but only takes 30 minutes to put together. GET THE RECIPE

3. New York-Style Cheesecake

Cheesecakes are notoriously tricky to make, but with the right recipe and a few pointers, a tall and creamy NY-style Cheesecake is totally doable, even for beginners. GET THE RECIPE

4. Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Just mention a chocolate and peanut butter dessert and people get giddy. This pie — with a chocolate crust, creamy peanut butter filling and chocolate ganache topping — lives up to the hype. GET THE RECIPE

5. Cheesecake Bars

Don’t have time to bake a cheesecake? No problem. These dense and creamy cheesecake bars with a brown sugar-graham cracker crust are not only a cinch to make, they rival the very best NY cheesecake out there. GET THE RECIPE

6. Flourless Chocolate Cake with Meringue Topping

A rich, fudgy slab of flourless chocolate cake topped with a light, marshmallowy meringue — this cake is as impressive as it is delicious. GET THE RECIPE

7. Luscious Lemon Squares

With a crisp and buttery shortbread crust, luscious lemon filling, and dusting of powdered sugar, these lemon squares are as pretty as they are delicious. They also freeze beautifully, so you can make them ahead of time and defrost as needed. GET THE RECIPE

8. Coconut Dream Pie

With a coconut-scented cookie crust and creamy coconut custard, all covered in a pillow of whipped cream and heaps of toasted coconut, this pie is truly dream-worthy. GET THE RECIPE

9. Double Chocolate Pavlova with Mascarpone Cream and Raspberries

A pavlova is a cake-shaped meringue with a soft and marshmallowy center and crisp outer shell, usually topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit. In this gorgeous chocolate version, cocoa powder and bittersweet chocolate are folded into the meringue and mascarpone cheese is added to the whipped topping. (Bonus: it’s gluten-free!) GET THE RECIPE

10. Bourbon-Brown Butter Pecan Pie

Made with dark brown sugar, golden syrup, brown butter, and a shot of bourbon, the pie is richer with a more complex praline flavor — and also less cloyingly sweet — than your typical pecan pie. GET THE RECIPE

11. Tres Leches Cake with Dulce de Leche Glaze

This light and fluffy cake, popular in Latin America, is soaked with a mixture of three milks: sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and heavy cream. In this version, rum is added to the soaking liquid and a simple rum-spiked dulce de leche glaze covers the cake. GET THE RECIPE

12. Irish Cream Tiramisu

This fun twist on tiramisu from one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson, is a dinner party regular at my house. With layers of boozy, espresso-soaked lady fingers and light mascarpone cream, it’s surprisingly easy to make. GET THE RECIPE

13. Dark Chocolate Bread Pudding with Vanilla Ice Cream

Spiked with bourbon and studded with chunks of dark chocolate, this bread pudding is the ultimate comfort food. Top it with vanilla ice cream and it’s like a grown-up brownie sundae. GET THE RECIPE

14. Latin Flan

In Latin America, flan is made with sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk, giving it an ultra-creamy, luxurious texture — like a cross between pudding and cheesecake. Since it’s prepared in a loaf pan rather than individual ramekins, and can be made up to four days ahead, it’s the perfect dinner party dessert. GET THE RECIPE

15. Molten Chocolate Cakes

Also known as chocolate lava cakes, these individual-sized treats have oozing molten centers. Since they can be prepared mostly ahead of time, they are wonderful for entertaining. GET THE RECIPE

16. Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust and Caramel Sauce

After testing six different versions of pumpkin cheesecake, I came up with this surefire recipe. It’s a family favorite, and a welcome change from that tired ol’ pumpkin pie. GET THE RECIPE

17. Chocolate Cream Pie

With a dark chocolate cookie crust, silky chocolate pudding center and generous whipped cream topping, this pie is truly a chocolate lover’s dream. GET THE RECIPE

Santa Claus will soon be making his unbelievably fast trip around the world, delivering gifts to all of those children good enough to make his “nice” list.

In the meantime, people around globe have been celebrating their ideas of the man in red. From Finland’s Joulupukki to a sky-scraper bounding Santa in Berlin, it looks like the real Santa got a lot of great help this year. 

See the photos from around the world below.

Mariah Carey, undeterred by last year’s performance, will take to the stage once again in Times Square to ring in the new year on live TV. 

The star, along with Dick Clark Productions, issued a joint statement on Friday announcing Carey as the headliner for “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” broadcast. 

“We can all agree that last year didn’t go exactly as planned and we are thrilled to move forward together to provide America with an incredible night of music and celebration,” read the joint statement, obtained by Entertainment Weekly.

Last year, Carey’s performance was ridiculed as the star failed to sing for the majority of her set, instead pacing the stage and insisting to the audience that she couldn’t hear through her earpiece.

Carey’s manager blamed the production and technical difficulties that producers knowingly failed to fix. Dick Clark Productions called the accusations “outrageous and frankly absurd.” Carey eventually broke her silence on the troubled performance, saying she was “mortified” and that she intended to take a break from social media.

Now it seems as though everyone is ready to put the messy past behind them. Carey will join the likes of Britney Spears, Nick Jonas, Kelly Clarkson and Shawn Mendes as the world rings in 2018.

Carey’s forthcoming New Year’s Eve performance will top an already merry holiday season for the star. In addition to performing her annual Christmas tour, Carey’s famous single “All I Want For Christmas Is You” has been played more than 100 million times this month alone, according to Forbes.

“Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” will air on ABC at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 31.