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Conservative Party interim leader Candice Bergen demanded an end to trucker-led “Freedom Convoy” protests blockading international borders on Thursday, urging anti-mandate demonstrations to end. Her statement in the House of Commons appeared to be a dramatic shift from her initial support for the protests, which have lasted nearly two weeks in the national capital, Ottawa, but have begun to dispute Canada-U.S. supply chains through blockades along Canada’s southern border. Ambassador Bridge, the largest American-Canadian crossing, has come to an ongoing standstill this week as hundreds of trucks park themselves on and around it, inhibiting international traffic.

OTTAWA -- Manitoba MP Candice Bergen is waking up with a new job today: unifying the Conservative caucus. The party's former deputy leader was elected by her colleagues to serve as interim leader after a majority of MPs ousted Erin O'Toole from the top job. Bergen faces a caucus that has spent weeks divided and angry over O'Toole's leadership since last year's election loss. The party must also start preparing to pick a permanent leader. It will be the third such race in the past five years. Party president Rob Batherson told members that its national council will be appointing...

Now this is a fun and lively exchange of words in the Canadian Parliment today. https://youtu.be/9YzAw49ZjvA

There's a new biography of Charles Manson out this month -- which seems like the last thing America needs, in light of the reams of print that have already been devoted to the wannabe pop star who led his "family" to commit nine murders in the summer of 1969, terrifying Los Angeles. And yet Manson: The Life of Times and Charles Manson by Jeff Guinn is riveting, a thoroughly researched biography that manages to be a breezy page-turner. Even those who've already read extensively about the Manson murders and their aftermath may find new insight into the pint-sized West Virginia-born...

Breaking news, and it’s not good: CBS has cancelled the revival of Murphy Brown after one season, TVLine has learned. Candice Bergen returned to the title role that won her five Emmys during the show’s original 1988-98 CBS run, with series creator Diane English back as showrunner. The revival also brought back original cast members Joe Regalbuto (Frank Fontana), Faith Ford (Corky Sherwood) and Grant Shaud (Miles Silverberg), and added Jake McDorman as Murphy’s son Avery — now a reporter for the rival Wolf network — Tyne Daly as bar owner Phyllis and Nik Dodani as social media whiz Pat....

For Murphy Brown, the rebooted series was always intended to be a closed-ended order of 13 episodes. The multicamera comedy, featuring the return of star Candice Bergen and from original creator Diane English, has underperformed (6.2 million total viewers and a 0.9 in the key 18-49 demo) in its prime Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. slot and remains in consideration for a renewal. Fellow multicamera comedy Fam, starring Nina Dobrev and Tone Bell — which has already changed showrunners — will take over Murphy Brown's slot starting Thursday, Jan. 10.

Nothing says "Thanksgiving" like some virtue-shaming dialogue about illegal immigration recited by a liberal Hollywood feminist, am I right? The Thanksgiving episode of CBS’s Murphy Brown even included a threat of physical violence to ICE agents and when that didn’t work, verbal intimidation was used.

Last week marked the return of two sitcoms, Murphy Brown and Last Man Standing. Both shows have had their own interesting journeys. Murphy Brown was on the air for ten years and was seen by many as a landmark for how women were represented on television. Reboots are all the rage these days in Hollywood, but as Candice Bergen has repeatedly pointed out, her show wouldn’t have been revived if it weren’t for the election of President Donald Trump and part of her goal is to “restore respect for the press.”

Murphy Brown made its primetime return Thursday night and delivered surprisingly modest ratings for CBS, and considerably softer numbers than premieres of similarly hyped yesteryear sitcom revivals in recent seasons (such as NBC’s Will & Grace and ABC’s Roseanne). The newsroom sitcom starring Candice Bergen (and included a Hillary Clinton cameo) was seen by 7.4 million viewers and had only a 1.1 rating among adults 18-49 — the lowest of the network’s two-hour comedy block, slipping from its Mom lead in. Yet Murphy Brown arguably has the highest name recognition among viewers of any “new” show this fall (along with...

Rosenstein Meeting To Watch Kavanaugh... Shined up with tweets about dating Donald Trump, fourth-wall-cracking quips and Roseanne implosion asides, the revival of Murphy Brown is very meta. Yet despite those lofty lunges, the CBS sitcom still led by Candice Bergen just can’t grasp the big-picture reality of 2018. To put it another way, FYI, if you really don’t want to “tarnish” your legacy, to quote Bergen’s now-unretired TV journalist Brown in the first episode of this de facto 11th season, then hit the reset button on this revival ASAP before irrelevance comes knocking.

As an inherently political comedy, CBS’ Murphy Brown revival was fully expected to take on the Donald Trump presidency, and now we know it will include his controversial immigration policies. Relative newcomer Adan Rocha has been cast as a new series regular on the new Murphy Brown, from original creator Diane English and Warner Bros. TV. First appearing in the show’s second episode, he will play Miguel, a Mexican Dreamer who came to the United States at the age of one. Now he’s a college student working at Phil’s Bar alongside Phyllis (Tyne Daly) for extra money to put toward...

Murphy Brown creator Diane English says she may need to get security protection as she works on the return to CBS of the biting political comedy series. “I might have to have some protection,” English told reporters in a scrum after her show’s Q&A panel at TCA. “I’m not kidding.” English referenced the “scary times” in which the show is coming back with original episodes after two decades. The very first episode, which takes place on November 8, 2016, “really sticks our head into the lion’s mouth,” said star Candice Bergen, boasting, “This show has no fear of anyone.” These...

I don’t know whether the Murphy Brown reboot planned for fall will be funny, but I do know it’s going to be political. At Tuesday’s CBS “upfront” — the annual unveiling of new fall shows for the networks to sell to advertisers — Candice Bergen was on hand to introduce a peek at the first new season of Murphy Brown since the show went off the air in 1998 after 10 seasons. Bergen, looking impish and energetic at age 72, said that “we wanted to stay really topical, so we didn’t shoot a pilot because if we did we’d already...

Another beloved comedy series is coming back for a new installment on its original network. CBS has given a 13-episode series order to Murphy Brown, a revival of the 1988 sitcom with its creator Diane English and star Candice Bergen both set to return. Warner Bros. TV, which was behind the original series, is the sole studio. Bergen will reprise her role as the famous investigative journalist and TV anchor at the FYI network, as Murphy Brown returns to a world of cable news, social media, fake news and a very different political and cultural climate. I hear talks are...

Candice Bergen could have been a Trump. "We had a blind date in college," the actress told PEOPLE at the American Songbook Gala Thursday evening in New York City about her brief encounter with Donald Trump.

The video

Close encounters? Join Mary Wells, Candice Bergen, Cynthia McFadden and the wOw women in this extraterrestrial conversation.

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20081207/peggy-noonan-lesley-stahl-and-friends-raise-more-money-wThe purse strings haven’t completely closed for start-ups looking to raise money–even niche Web sites that hope to stay afloat by selling advertising. Wowowow.com, a site launched earlier this year, which targets women over 40, has raised a $1.5 million round led by Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group and the Rhime Group. No word on valuation, but I’d guesstimate Wowowow.com’s investors peg its value in the high 9-figure range. The company has now raised $3.1 million in less than a year. The five founders–former publisher Joni Evans, “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl; New York Post gossip columnist Liz Smith; ad exec...