Month: May 2022

Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals finally produced a bit of drama, as there were multiple lead changes in the game, something that had not happened since the first quarter of Game 2.

Unfortunately, the reason the game was close was that neither team could successfully put the ball in the basket, with Miami taking a 19-17 lead after one quarter and then a 42-37 lead into halftime. Leading the charge for the Heat was Bam Adebayo, who had 10 first half points and, briefly, looked to be in the attacking mindset Miami desperately needed from him.

For the Celtics, it was all about the defense as they couldn’t buy a bucket in the first half as Jaylen Brown continued to struggle with his handle and turnovers, while Jayson Tatum looked to be bothered by his right shoulder issue, as a number of his shots came up short to open the game. While their stars scuffled out of the gates, it was the return of Robert Williams that helped keep them close thanks to some sensational blocks and defensive rotations.

Boston came out on an 8-0 run to take the lead back in the third quarter, with the most impressive play coming from Al Horford who stole the ball and then went 1-on-3 for an and-1 bucket.

Miami would claw their way back into the game thanks to a spark from Gabe Vincent, who keyed a run alongside Duncan Robinson that pulled the Heat to within one on a few occasions.

However, all that hard work would be for naught as Boston closed the quarter as they started it, with a 10-0 run this time to push their lead to 11 going into the final quarter, as Brown started to heat up.

That run continued to be a 24-2 run across the end of the third and start of the fourth that saw Boston take a one-point lead all the way out to 23, as Tatum joined Brown in picking things up offensively.

The Heat would eventually find a bit of footing and claw their way back into the action, but Brown and the Celtics were too much for them to ever get close enough to really look like a threat to win the game.

The story of the game was Miami’s inability to do anything offensively, as their starting backcourt continued to provide nothing, as Kyle Lowry and Max Strus went a combined 0-for-15 for four points — after going 1-for-13 in Game 4. With those two unable to hit shots, the onus fell on Jimmy Butler to create and he continues to look less than 100 percent as he battles through his knee issue, going 4-of-18 from the field and, like most of the rest of the Heat team, looking way off on a number of shots from the perimeter. Adebayo led Miami in scoring with 18 points, but he tapered off after a hot start and looked far too passive during the Boston run that saw the game get put away. In total, Miami shot 31.1 percent from the field including a horrific 7-of-44 (15.9 percent) night from three-point range.

The Celtics defense deserves plenty of credit for their efforts, but some of it was flat out dreadful shooting from Miami when they did get good looks. Their star duo picked up their play at the right time, combining for 47 points in the game and carrying the load down the stretch as they pulled away in the fourth. Brown finished with 25 points while Tatum had 22 points, 12 rebounds, and nine assists, finding ways to create good offense in the second half even as his shooting touch was a bit off. Al Horford and Derrick White combined for 30 points on 11-of-16 shooting to give the Celtics enough of a well-rounded performance to outclass the Heat in what became a 93-80 win.

The series now heads back to Boston with the Celtics up 3-2 looking to close things out and reach the NBA Finals for the first time since 2009, with Miami desperate to find something offensively if they’re going to force a Game 7 back in South Florida.

Last spring, Marilyn Manson’s former assistant, Ashley Walters, filed a lawsuit against him alleging sexual assault, battery, and harassment. She worked for Manson between 2010 and 2011, and during this time, she says she was promised creative opportunities. Instead, Walters alleges that she was subjected to verbal and psychological abuse in addition to sexual harassment from Manson. In an interview with The Cut, Walters said that Manson hacked her Facebook account in a paranoid fit after firing her. More than a year after this lawsuit was filed, a judge ruled to dismiss the case.

According to Pitchfork, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Stern ruled that Walters’ accusations surpassed the state of California’s two-year statute of limitations. “The plaintiff has pleaded too few facts and too late to keep this case in court,” Judge Stern wrote in his ruling.

Manson has faced a number of sexual assault and harassment accusations from multiple women over the last year. Last fall, a judge ruled that Games Of Thrones actress Esme Bianco’s lawsuit against him will move forward. In addition to the lawsuit, she also lodged human trafficking and abuse allegations against Manson.

More recently, Manson sued Evan Rachel Wood for her abuse claims against him by alleging “malicious falsehood” and a fabricated FBI letter. “I’m not scared,” she said in response to Manson’s lawsuit. Wood later added, “People can think whatever they want about me. I have to let the legal process run its course, and I’m steady as a rock.”

The massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in which a shooter killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school, has left America reeling. It’s the worst K-12 school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012, which almost — but tragically did not — lead to stricter laws on gun control. Perhaps it will this time. Certainly Republicans have no good solutions, apart from doing what they always do after mass shootings: nothing — except from collecting more NRA money.

Still, some Republican lawmakers have at least tried. Take Ted Cruz. After he was owned by an Arizona congressman over his robotic initial response to the massacre, he’s sprung into action. No, he didn’t flee to a beach resort. He’s offered his own solutions. In the past, Republicans have floated the idea of arming school teachers. Perhaps even they realized that’s an insane and dangerous idea, so some of them, Cruz included, came up with a comparatively elegant solution.

“Have one door into and out of the school,” Cruz confidently thundered on Fox News. “And have that one door, armed police officers at that door.” Had Robb Elementary School been a giant building with a single door, Cruz averred, “when that psychopath arrived, the armed police officers could’ve taken him out, and we’d have 19 children and two teachers still alive.”

Of course, he left out the part where multiple officers spotted the perpetrator before he entered the school, but were unable to stop him. But perhaps Cruz didn’t feel that was pertinent to his foolproof plan.

Of course, there were a lot of holes in Cruz’s logic, as people on Twitter were happy to point out.

One problem with Cruz’s solution? There could be a fire, and then thousands of students, teachers, and staff would be stuck trying to cram through a single exit.

Or if a shooter did get in, then everyone would be trapped inside with them.

Then there’s the nightmare it would be getting everyone — again, thousands of people, five days a week — in and out every day.

Let’s not even mention that forcing the nation’s K-12 students to spend most of their early years in what sounds like a maximum security prison would almost certainly be infinitely more traumatizing than whatever Republicans like Ron DeSantis think happens when kids learn that some people are gay and trans.

Because this is Cruz, there were also jokes.

To be fair, Cruz isn’t the only one who thinks the real problem with gun violence is doors. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick thinks so, too.

Of course, there’s a much simpler way to protect America’s young students from mass murderers with semi-automatic rifles: Pass at least minimal gun control laws. Maybe they can start with background checks, which are consistently supported by a vast majority of the country. But then all those NRA checks might not clear.

Australian singer Gordi’s last project came back in 2020 with Our Two Skins. The project stood as her sophomore album and delivered 12 magnificent records through it. Nearly two years removed from its release and Gordi is gearing up to share a new body of work with the world. It comes after Gordi collaborated with Alex Lahey and Troye Sivan while also remixing Julian Baker’s “Little Oblivions.” With her eyes set on the future, Gordi returns with “Way I Go,” a record that details the familiar and unfamiliar aspects of love along with an unrestricted video to accompany the new song.

Gordi spoke about the new song and its video in a press release. “‘Way I Go’ is about the newness and the oldness of being in love. How it saturates and warms you, expands and transforms,” she says. “The video was filmed in one afternoon and features me putting my short-lived career as a swim instructor to good use, before walking around the streets of Brunswick in Melbourne in a dusty pink blazer I bought for $5 from the local Goodwill store.”

“Way I Go” is also the lead single from Gordi’s upcoming six-track Inhuman which is set to arrive on July 15. A press release reveals that the project will explore the “trials of humanity, from love and identity to faith and religion, traversing the spectrum of sorrow to celebration.”

You can watch the video for “Way I Go” above.

Inhuman arrives 7/15 via Jagjaguwar.

In recent years, Las Vegas has become a mecca of sorts for music festivals. In 2022, fests from the all-encompassing Life Is Beautiful, to the nostalgia of When We Were Young to even the music and skateboarding mish-mash of Tony Hawk’s Weekend Jam, are all going down in Vegas. But perhaps the most significant one of them all — the largest electronic music festival in North America, mind you — is EDC Las Vegas (the flagship Electric Daisy Carnival event), which just went down last weekend. The three-day bash is the pinnacle of dance music, pyrotechnics, LED lights, and obviously, lavish Vegas spending too. Now a supposed photo of a bar tab receipt from the VIP bottle service area at EDC shows precisely just how insane the spending culture can be in Sin City.

A photo has been making the rounds showing an alleged receipt from the “EDC-LV – Kinetic Field” area of the festival, that totals well over $300K after tip. Most of the tab is comprised of multiple bottles of “Ace of Spades,” which refers to Armand de Brignac champagne. The bottle price for a 3 liter of the Brut is $25,000 and the party ordered four of those. There are also four 1.5 liter bottles ordered at $7,500 a pop. Water and Red Bull buckets come in at a meager $75 each, while there were also two 1.75 liter bottles of Absolut Elyx Single Estate Vodka (lol at vodka from a “single estate”) for $1,650 each, and more. There’s a 9% admin fee of more than $20K, cause why not? Meanwhile, the server, “Domaneque,” got more than $46K via a 20% service charge.

The best part about this though, is from a different photo of an alleged receipt that surfaced, showing a comparatively paltry $167,764.50 total tab after service and admin. The thing is, it looks like the minimum charge is $120,000 and the subtotal was $119,970. So of course, the Vegas bar added a $30 “Unmet Minimum” charge. What a time to be alive and what a whirlwind these trips to the bar must’ve been. Say what you will about all parties involved, but the real winner here? It’s Domaneque, who served both tables and cleared $70,000 in tips. Heck yeah Domaneque!

You can check out the receipts in the posts above.

When the All-NBA teams were unveiled on Tuesday night, there weren’t an awful lot of surprises or snubs to be argued, but once individual voting was released, NBA fans got a chance to see some of the wild one-off ballots that inevitably get submitted.

The most absurd selection this year came from ESPN’s Jalen Rose, who put Kyrie Irving on the third team over Trae Young, despite Irving having played in just 29 games (to Young’s 76) with lesser production. It was a truly outrageous selection and on Wednesday night, after getting cooked on Twitter all day, Rose owned up to the selection being “a mistake” and saying he was glad it didn’t cost Young a spot — to the dismay of Stephen A. Smith.

Stephen A.’s “WHAT?!” was the reaction of pretty much everyone when they saw Rose’s ballot had Irving on it and kudos to Jalen for at least owning up to it as a bad decision, because there really is no defense of Irving for an All-NBA spot, but given the importance of All-NBA honors to players legacies and contracts nowadays, this is something that needs to be figured out before the ballot gets sent in.

He did have to answer to Stephen A., who lit into him in a hilarious rant that Rose couldn’t even really fight back against as Michael Wilbon just laughed.

Rose is not the first to make a wild selection and won’t be the last — sometimes on purpose and sometimes the result of the dreaded dropdown menu — and as he notes, luckily it wasn’t a situation where missing a vote cost Young a spot. The good news is there’s at least one man who will hold him accountable on the other end of that desk and make sure he can’t live down such a selection.

Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey made a heartfelt plea for Americans to “do better” on Tuesday after a gunman murdered 19 children and 2 adults at Robb Elementary School in his hometown of Uvalde, Texas.

Uvalde is a small town of about 16,000 residents approximately 85 miles west of San Antonio. The actor grew up in Uvalde until he was 11 years old when his family moved to Longview, 430 miles away.

The suspected murderer, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was killed by law enforcement at the scene of the crime. Before the rampage, Ramos allegedly shot his grandmother after a disagreement.

“As you all are aware there was another mass shooting today, this time in my home town of Uvalde, Texas,” McConaughey wrote in a statement shared on Twitter. “Once again, we have tragically proven that we are failing to be responsible for the rights our freedoms grant us.”

u201cUvalde, Texas, USA.u201d

— Matthew McConaughey (@Matthew McConaughey)
1653453680

“The true call to action now is for every American to take a longer and deeper look in the mirror, and ask ourselves, ‘What is it that we truly value? How do we repair the problem? What small sacrifices can we individually take today, to preserve a healthier and safer nation, state, and neighborhood tomorrow?” he wrote. “We cannot exhale once again, make excuses, and accept these tragic realities as the status quo.”

The actor asked “Americans, Texans, mothers and fathers” to reconsider and “renegotiate our wants from our needs,” saying that gun violence “has tragically become our children’s issue.”

u201c”It is insane that we allow an 18-year-old to go in and buy an AR-15. What the hell did we think he was gonna do with that? This one is on us.” – @BetoORourkenn#UvaldeMassacre #BanAssaultWeaponsNow nnu201d

— David Leavitt (@David Leavitt)
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“This is an epidemic we can control, and whichever side of the aisle we may stand on, we all know we can do better,” he wrote. “We must do better. Action must be taken so that no parent has to experience what the parents in Uvalde and the others before them have endured.”

McConaughey ended his message by addressing the unfathomable pain the victims’ families must feel.

“To those who dropped their loved ones off to school not knowing that today was goodbye, no words can comprehend or heal your loss, but if prayers can provide comfort, we will keep them coming,” he said.

McConaughey is a proud Texan who once floated the idea of running for governor without revealing his political affiliation. His humble roots in the Lone Star State were part of his appeal as a potential candidate. “As a simple kid born in the little town of Uvalde, Texas, it never occurred to me that I would one day be considered for political leadership,” McConaughey said after choosing not to run. “It’s a humbling and inspiring path to ponder. It is also a path that I’m choosing not to take at this moment.”

Although his message stops short of advocating for gun control, it’s clear that he’s asking his fellow Texans to reconsider their relationship with firearms—a bold request for anyone considering a future in local politics. His message comes at a time when a majority of Americans believe in tighter laws to curb gun violence.

In 2020, firearms became the leading cause of death of children and adolescents in the U.S, surpassing motor vehicle crashes.

Sisters Gabriella and Julianna Ruvolo know that they’re extremely lucky. Their stepmom Becky Ruvolo has been there for them for most of their lives and it’s clear that they’re grateful to her for it. On May 9, Gabriella posted a video to TikTok to share the very special way the young women honored their stepmom for Mother’s Day.

In the short clip, you can see Becky flanked by the two girls, flipping through a book. On the video are the words “After 12 years… we finally asked our step-mom to adopt us.” As Becky goes through the pages, you can see her becoming increasingly more emotional before she gets to the last page. By then, all three of the women are crying.

“Really?” Becky asks, before putting her head down on the table in tears. “Is that a yes?” the girls ask before embracing her. It’s so touching, you can’t help but feel moved by it.

@gabbyruvolo after 12 years of love, our biggest dream came true 🥹❤️🥰 @beckyruv18 @juliannaruvolo #mothersday #adpotion #fyp ♬ Yellow – Coldplay

Pete, the girls’ father, is the one filming the entire thing, and while you can’t see him, you can guess his heart is swelling with love and pride as much as ours are while watching it.

“I was so caught off guard,” Becky Ruvolo told Good Morning America. “When I read that, it was just pure shock and an honor and the emotions of just like, ‘Is this really happening?'”

And it was really happening. If you ask the sisters, it was always a matter of “when” and not “if” they would ask Becky to officially be their mom. She met them when they were 8 years old and, as they all tell it, the connection was instantaneous.

“We met as friends and then she became mom and it was just, from the start, it was like love at first sight,” Gabriella Ruvolo told Good Morning America.

When Becky married Pete in 2013, she made sure the girls knew just how important they were to her by including them in the ceremony. In the 12 years she’s been in their lives, the twins have always thought of her as the strongest mother figure they have.

“We were already calling her mom because it felt so natural,” Gabriella said.

“We always went to her as we would a mom. She was always there for us,” Julianna added.

It’s really wonderful to see these two young women not only acknowledge the role their stepmom plays in their lives, but find a way to honor all the love and care she has put into them and their family.

“We figured like, what’s the best time to ask the biggest question we will probably ever ask? And why not make it on Mother’s Day? Ask our mom to officially be our mother on the day dedicated to her,” Julianna told GMA.

And what about their dad? Well, he couldn’t be happier, which is why he filmed the moment.

“To actually see it unfold, just filled me with such a feeling of pride, proud for my girls and for my wife. I know how happy that would make her and it really was such a special moment,” he said. He also added that the relationship between the girls and Becky “worked out better than I could have ever dreamed of.”

Based on how people reacted to the TikTok, it seems that stories like the Ruvolos’ are starting to reshape the narrative around blended families and the stereotypes about stepmoms.

“As a step mom to a daughter who never had a relationship with her bio mom …this put me on my knees,” one user wrote.

“My step mom adopted me and my brother may 14th 2018. so happy for you guys!” wrote another.

Despite it being nine months since he released his fifth album = (Equals), Ed Sheeran has done a great job making sure that the album’s spirit stays alive during that time span. He recruited Taylor Swift for a remix of “The Joker And The Queen” and then called on Lil Baby for a new take of “2Step.” He’s also given performances of songs from the album on Saturday Night Live and at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards. For his latest act, Sheeran is preparing to release a new edition of = with some new songs.

“There’s new Ed music on the way!” an announcement on Sheeran’s Twitter page read. “The tour edition of ‘=’ drops this Friday. Includes 9 additional tracks, 2 brand new ones, and 2 that were featured in ‘Yesterday.’” Back in 2018, Sheeran played a fictional version of himself in the musical film Yesterday which featured appearances from Himesh Patel and Lily James. His two original tracks from the movie, “One Life” and “Penguins,” were never officially released, but at long last, they will finally be shared with the world thanks to the tour edition of =.

It remains to be seen what the nine additional songs and two new records will be. The announcement comes after Sheeran’s wife Cherry Seaborn gave birth to their second baby girl.

You can view Sheeran’s announcement in the post above.

Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

There’s yet another Trump-era tell-all book out, but this one isn’t from a reporter or one of his enraged former staffers. It’s from Kellyanne Conway, his longtime senior counselor. Conway was there almost till the bitter end, and she continues to praise him, even as she’s been booed by the crowd at The View. But her book, Here’s the Deal: A Memoir, still contains some juicy and unflattering stories about her former boss.

One of them concerns Conway’s husband, George, who became one of his wife’s boss’ fiercest critics. George remains part of The Lincoln Project, comprised of longtime Republicans who dislike Trump so much that they tried to help Democrats destroy his chances for re-election. George was merciless with the former president, and per his spouse’s new book, it got to him.

“This guy is nasty. He won’t stop,” Trump is said to have told Melania over the phone. “And it’s our Kellyanne. She’s my top person. She knows a lot, too! What are we going to do?’”

But Melania tried to calm him. “Donald,” she said, according to Kellyanne, “this is not her fault. And she is a big girl. Strong and confident.” She reported added, “We don’t control our husbands — and you don’t control us!”

The Conways remain married, having celebrated their 20th anniversary last year. That hasn’t stopped George from continuing to trash Trump. And it hasn’t stopped Kellyanne from claiming that her husband was effectively “cheating” on her with his Twitter account.

(Via Insider)