Month: April 2022

Life moves pretty fast. On Sunday, it was reported that Alex Jones, one of America’s loudest conspiracy theorists, was considering some outside-the-box options to deal with the multiple defamation suits over his bogus claims about the Sandy Hook school massacre of 2012. One solution? Simply file for bankruptcy, thus putting payments related to them on pause. And sure enough, that’s what he did.

As per The New York Times, three businesses associated with Jones, including his flagship Infowars, filed for Chapter 11 protection on Sunday. Filing for bankruptcy allows a corporation or partnership the chance to reorganize, keeping the lights on while givng them the chance to pay creditors over a period of time.

The move comes shortly before trials begin that will determine how much Jones must pay six families who’ve accused him of spreading lies about the Sandy Hook shooting. For years, Jones spread false theories claiming the massacre, which resulted in 28 deaths, including that of the perpetrator and his mother, was a “false flag” operation, set up by the U.S. government to confiscate guns.

As a result, families of the victims have found themselves harassed by those who believe Jones’ lies. Parents of one victim have had to move 10 times and now live in hiding. The families who filed the defamation suits claim Jones profited from his falsehoods. Jones has said he hasn’t, but he’s failed to produce sufficient records to bolster that claim.

Last fall, Jones lost two of the defamation suits. He has also been fined for failing to sit at a deposition and for calling out sick during a day he was set to testify, only to get busted recording his show the same day.

(Via NYT)

Jennifer Garner is beloved as an actress and a human being for her genuine relatability. She manages to maintain superstar status while staying seemingly grounded in the real world, which is a tricky balance. From her funny “pretend cooking show” videos to her simple service suggestions any of us can do (such as making cookies for frontline medical workers or making Ziploc bags of essentials to give away to people in need), Garner seems like the kind of person anyone would love to hang out with or be neighbors with.

She’s also someone who has the means to buy pretty much anything she wants, so a gift would have to be pretty special and unique to blow her away. Something thoughtful. Something she couldn’t just go to a store and purchase. Something that she wouldn’t expect.

Something like her childhood celebrity crush dropping in to surprise serenade her.

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In all the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, it’s easy to forget that celebrities are just people, most of whom didn’t grow up in the world of the rich and famous. Garner had a “normal” childhood in West Virginia, growing up as a middle child of working parents who took the family to church on Sundays and Garner to ballet class (which she loved). When she decided to become an actress, she had to work as a waitress to make ends meet.

And like most of us, she was starry-eyed about certain celebrities. Born in 1972, Garner is right in the prime Gen X age group where Donny Osmond held practically god-like status. The “Donny & Marie” show was a staple across America, and Donny Osmond was the heartthrob of an entire generation in the late ’70s and early ’80s—including, apparently, Jennifer Garner.

Garner shared a video on Instagram of a pre-birthday surprise in which she’s sitting in a restaurant, holding a phone in one hand, with her other hand over her mouth. Donny Osmond is singing to her for her birthday on a video, and she’s visibly stunned.

What she doesn’t know is that Donny Osmond is there in the restaurant. He walks up behind her and starts singing in real life, and Garner just melts right into her hands.

Watch:

See on Instagram

“My first (pre)birthday surprise was a doozy—the one and only, legend in his own time, object of my childhood adoration and devotion—@donnyosmond showed up to knock my purple socks off,” she wrote. “He took an hour and a half of his day to sit with me, sing my favorites, and to give me a master class on how to be a class act. Thank you, Donny. 💜 Hi, @marieosmond. ☺️ I hope to meet you someday, Debbie. ♥️ ” (Debbie is Donny Osmond’s wife of 44 years.)

The “I’m so hot, can I just take my sweater off” comment is the perfect example of Garner’s genuine relatability. She’s been in award-winning shows, she’s walked the red carpet, she’s been married to celebrities—and yet Donny Osmond joining her for her birthday blew her away.

Garner is all of us in this video, living out a childhood dream she probably never imagined could possibly come true. (Also, how about that singing voice she’s been sitting on? Dang.)

Happy 50th, Jennifer Garner! So happy you got to celebrate another trip around the sun with so much joy.

Madison Cawthorn isn’t as flamboyantly obnoxious as fellow 2021 freshman class GOP members Marjorie Taylor Greene or Lauren Boebert, but he may be more hated. Not only is he unpopular with Democrats, he also recently pissed off his own party for claiming D.C. is a hotbed of cocaine and orgies. Now this: One of his former staffers has complained about him, claiming he’s “just a bad person.”

As per Smoky Mountain News, Lisa Wiggins, one of the North Carolina representative’s former caseworkers and campaign aides, unloaded to the co-founder of a PAC nicknamed Fire Madison Cawthorn.

“He’s a habitual liar and he’s going to say and do anything he can to your face but behind your back he’s completely opposite,” Wiggins said in a leaked recording. “There’s some good stories I have – a lot of good stories.”

Wiggins said she was abruptly fired soon after receiving a warning, though details have not yet been made public. She also said she’d been denied leave when her uncle passed away and her husband had a heart attack the same week, which may have been in violation of Family and Medical Leave Act.

“What he’s done to me was illegal, morally wrong, you name it, it’s been done,” Wheeler said.

Wheeler also alleges that Cawthorn had her close all the district’s offices except for one. “He didn’t have enough caseworkers to man them. He didn’t care, he doesn’t care about his constituents. He does not care,” she said, saying that it was difficult if not impossible for any of his constituents to see him “unless he’s trying to pull some votes and that’s about the only way.”

She also said his remaining office has more liquor containers than water bottles.

“People need to know how this man really is,” Wiggins said. “He’s still got a lot of people fooled.”

A Cawthorn spokesperson called the accusations “verifiably false” and that they “potentially amount to defamation of character.”

(Via Smoky Mountain News)

As it turns out, the “magically delicious” ingredient in the classic sugary cereal Lucky Charms might be poisoning consumers…or at least they think that’s what’s happening. According to The New York Times, the Food and Drug Administration is looking into reports after thousands of consumers claimed they were becoming ill after eating the marshmallow-laden cereal.

On iwaspoisoned.com, a site where users can report and warn others about various food-related illnesses, Lucky Charms have acquired over 3,000 entries involving nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The FDA also received over 100 submissions to their own site regarding the cereal. The FDA said they will seriously investigate “any reports of possible adulteration of a food that may also cause illnesses or injury.” Many users have reported gastrointestinal issues after eating the cereal, with many reports coming from California.

General Mills also allegedly launched their own investigation, though they had found no evidence that the cereal is the cause of the illness. Andrea Wilson, a spokesperson for the company, insisted they had “not found any evidence of consumer illness linked to the consumption of Lucky Charms.”

Lucky Charms fans have also taken to Twitter to express their concerns. This is not the first time General Mills has been pressured by social media to investigate– everyone remembered where they were when they first heard about the shrimp/cinnamon toast crunch debacle.

“Food safety is our top priority,” Williamson added. “We encourage consumers to please share any concerns directly with General Mills to ensure they can be appropriately addressed.”

We are still waiting on a comment from Lucky the leprechaun. Maybe it’s best to stick to Fruity Pebbles for now.

The Seattle Kraken have had the type of inaugural season one would expect from an expansion franchise, sitting at the bottom of their division with eight games left, but as is always the case for a new franchise, everything is about building towards the future.

The Kraken have gone all-in on trying to build strong ties to the city, and on Monday the team continued that by announcing two new investors into their ownership group: Macklemore and Marshawn Lynch.

The two new minority owners then got to spend a day on the ice, with Marshawn trading in skates for the keys to the zamboni, where he had the time of his life, cutting donuts on the ice and cackling in laughter as he went in circles.

There are few people who have life figured out better than Lynch, who seems to exclusively do things he thinks would be fun, like owning a hockey team and driving around in the zamboni. The excitement in his face when the driver asks if he wants to do donuts is so pure. The surest way to get great video content is to give Marshawn the keys to a vehicle and let him have fun, dating all the way back to his legendary injury cart joyride at Cal.

Two separate rescue operations led to one happy ending for a group of tigers and lions held captive in traveling circuses.

The Bengal tiger family—Messi, Sandro, Mafalda and Gustavo—spent their lives knowing only of a world behind the bars of a metal train carriage, according to Plant Based News. Two of the older tigers had been dropped off (train cage and all) to a local farmer in San Luis, Argentina. The farmer agreed to look after the duo temporarily. But the circus never returned. Both tigers eventually had cubs, and the family of four continued to live in captivity for years.

“The train carriage was filthy with excrements and leftover meat and bones for a long time but fortunately this is not the case anymore,” said FOUR PAWS veterinarian and rescue mission leader Dr. Amir Khalil. FOUR PAWS is a global animal welfare organization dedicated to rescuing domestic and wild animals from inhumane or disastrous conditions.

See on Instagram

The “Train Tigers” now live happily at the LIONSROCK Big Cat Sanctuary in Bethlehem, South Africa, in environments closer to their natural habitat.

No more metal cages, just open air, blue skies and soft grass.

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Meanwhile in France, four lions named Angela, Bellone, Saïda and Louga (who would later earn the nickname “Lions of Lockdown”) had endured a similarly toxic circus life since they were cubs. After being relinquished by their owner, an animal conservation group called Born Free moved the abandoned lions to a three-acre enclosure at the Shamwari Private Game Reserve, also in South Africa. These lions and tigers are practically neighbors.

What a difference Born Free makes!

Our #LionsOfLockdown were cruelly exploited as circus animals, but thanks to you they’re transforming into the lions they should have been at @ShamwariReserve.

It costs £12 a day to care for each one – can you help? ➡️ https://t.co/LWNjPcWMCA pic.twitter.com/vr2MmLpC09

— Born Free Foundation (@BornFreeFDN) March 9, 2022

Born Free manager Catherine Gillson said in a statement, “The journey of our Lions of Lockdown has been long, but hopefully with each day spent with us in the peace of our sanctuary, they will continue to grow from strength to strength. Their re-homing to our Big Cat Sanctuary at Shamwari will allow them to get as close to experiencing the life they were denied for so many years! The sights, sounds and scents of their fellow rescued big cats will heighten their senses immediately as they begin to acclimatise to their new lives. They are now in their forever home in Africa.”

Many wild cats of the world are suffering. There are currently only 23,000 lions remaining in nature, and less than 4,000 tigers. Those alarming numbers aside, felines in the circus are deprived of natural enrichment and subject to flat-out abuse: training through punishment to perform tricks. Is this really necessary for a momentary blip of entertainment? Arguably lackluster entertainment at that. Seeing a tiger jump through a hoop of fire or a lion stand up on its hind legs certainly doesn’t hold a candle to witnessing it in its own environment. Sometimes the most natural things are the most fascinating.

That’s what makes these simultaneous rescue missions so important. We share the planet with some truly majestic creatures, who deserve respect and decency.

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Thank you to organizations like FOUR PAWS and Born Free, who gave the “Train Tigers” and “Lions of Lockdown” a healthy forever home.

Transitioning can be a scary and lonely process depending on the support system a person has available to them. In some ways it can be intimidating when the only examples someone has are people who are already fully transitioned, or have spent years living fully out as their gender discovered after birth. A comedian from Los Angeles, Dylan Mulvaney, found herself looking around for folks that were in the early stages of transitioning when she was starting her journey. She started recording videos for her own use, but quickly found herself with more than a million followers.

Mulvaney had discovered long ago that she was indeed a girl, and made the declaration to her mother at the age of 4, she told Good Morning America. “When I was 4 years old, I came to my mom and said, ‘Mom I’m a girl trapped in a boy’s body. Help!’” Mulvaney began her transition journey at the age of 25, stating that “ultimately, I had to do that to honor who I truly am. And now I’ve never been happier. And it feels so good to know that, like, all of the darkness throughout my life, all of the experiences that I’ve gone through … the hard conversations have all been worth it.”

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Mulvaney has been sharing her journey with humor and while her videos were meant to be a sort of diary to mark how far she has come, she has been touched by the amount of support she has received. She gained her first million followers in just three weeks, and told GMA, “I didn’t know I was this worthy of love or this worthy of attention, and there’s something really affirming in the fact that, like, I now know that like I am a good person. I have good to put out in the world,” Mulvaney said. “I am grateful for every single human being that’s along with me.”

@dylanjamesmulvaney

Day 11- Hormones 🏳️‍⚧️🌈❤️ #trans #hormones

Mulvaney shares her series titled “Day ___ of Girlhood” where she not only documents her transition, but points out things she had not considered before beginning to transition. In one of her videos she shares about how she froze when a woman in a public restroom stall asked to borrow a tampon. Before transitioning, she had not thought about being asked for a tampon, but since that interaction, she keeps them in her purse in case anyone should need one when she’s around.

@dylanjamesmulvaney

Day 12- TAMPONS #trans #tampon

Mulvaney says she’s received messages from people who have been encouraged by her journey and have decided to now come out to their families as trans. Parents of trans children have told her that they watch her videos with their children. “Anytime that a trans person reaches out and says that, like, I’m going through the same thing … that is, like, such a gift,” she says, “because I want to represent the trans community in the best light possible. The support from cis women has been insane and magical, because it feels like I really am part of something now and they’ve like accepted me into womanhood.”

Mulvaney went on to share a message for people who are thinking about transitioning, “First of all, I’m proud of you,” she said. “Second of all, take your time. This is not a race. It is probably one of the biggest decisions you’ll ever have to make in your life and one of the craziest journeys that you’ll go on. Start with people that you know, 100%, will support you and love you.” Sharing her story can help others feel comfortable to share theirs. It can also help destigmatize what it means to be trans. While Mulvaney didn’t set out to be in the spotlight with her transition, she’s embracing her new found TikTok fame and showing people how to show up authentically as themselves, while being vulnerable and honest.

In “Yeah, Sure, Why Not?” news, Jason Momoa is reportedly in final negotiations for a live-action Minecraft movie from… (checks notes)… Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess. Hollywood, is there anything they can’t do?

Following the success of The LEGO Movie, Warner Bros. has been trying to get a Minecraft film off the ground for years. Like the toy building bricks, the video game captured the imaginations of millions of children around the globe. Minecraft became such a massive hit for Mojang Studios that Microsoft stepped in and bought the whole company. Now, Warner Bros. is hoping to mine the franchise for box office gold.

Via The Hollywood Reporter:

Warners has been developing a project based on the game for years, with Shawn Levy and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney among those who have been attached to direct.

Gaming movies have been on a hot streak in recent years, with 20th Century launching a hit franchise with Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy last year, and Paramount finding success with its Sonic sequel earlier this month.

Momoa’s involvement continues a hot streak of franchises for the actor. The Aquaman star was last seen as Duncan Idaho in Dune, and he recently signed on to play the new villain in Fast & Furious 10. While that last one sounds pretty rad, the real question is how well can Momoa build a video game house that fills up with zombies and chickens if you forget to close the door. That’s going to make or break this whole thing.

(Via The Hollywood Reporter)

Hillbilly whisperer J.D. Vance was endorsed by Donald Trump in the Republican Senate primary in Ohio last week, despite fears from the “haters” out there that he’s backing another loser. “After NBC dropped a story this week saying Trump was likely to endorse Vance, a ton of people bombarded Trump begging him not to — including major GOP and Trump donors backing Mandel,” Axios reports. Nevertheless, he persisted — despite Vance’s history of now-deleted anti-Trump tweets (“Like some others, J.D. Vance may have said some not so great things about me in the past, but he gets it now,” Trump said in his endorsement statement). Vance also reportedly called the former-president “America’s Hitler” in a message to his old roommate, Rep. Josh McLaurin (D-GA).

“The screenshot below is @JDVance1’s unfiltered explanation from 2016 of the breakdown in Republican politics that he now personally is trying to exploit. The ‘America’s Hitler’ bit is at the end. The public deserves to know the magnitude of this guy’s bad faith,” McLaurin tweeted about the once-“Never Trump guy.”

The screenshot shows Vance admitting that he’s “not surprised by Trump’s rise, and I think the entire party has only itself to blame. We are, whether we like it or not, the party of lower-income, lower-education white people, and I have been saying for a long time that we need to offer those people SOMETHING (and hell, maybe even expand our appeal to working class black people) or a demagogue would. We are now at that point.”

Vance continued, “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler. How’s that for discouraging?” You can see McLaurin’s tweets below.

Jack Harlow’s ascent has been front and center of the music world as of late and now he has just cemented it with his first solo No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Harlow’s latest single, “First Class,” debuted at No. 1 on this week’s chart (dated April 23), unseating Harry Styles’ short-lived run at the top with “As It Was.”

Harlow has technically had a song claim the top spot on the Hot 100 before, because he was featured on Lil Nas X’s smash hit “Industry Baby,” but this is a different animal for sure. Before “First Class” topped the chart, Harlow’s previous solo high was at No. 2 for “Whats Poppin” in 2020. Harlow seems pretty pleased with himself today though, tweeting out “How does it taste?” along with an image of Billboard’s official announcement.

Styles’ “As It Was” drops a spot to No. 2 this week, with “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals coming in at No. 3. Latto’s “Big Energy” drops down to No. 4 while”Enemy” by Imagine Dragons featuring JID rounds out the Top 5.

This was also the second No. 1 ever for Harlow’s producer Rogét Chahayed, who was also behind the boards for Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode.” Chahayed is part of the production squad for “Nail Tech” as well, the other single off of Harlow’s upcoming album, Come Home The Kids Miss You, which is due out on May 6th.

Jack Harlow is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.