Month: May 2023

Tory Lanez’s request for a new trial in the Megan Thee Stallion shooting case was denied by a judge, according to freelance reporter Meghann Cuniff. Judge David Herriford ruled from the bench that Tory’s argument that the original case was full of errors was specious at best, saying that even if such errors existed, they’d have “no material effect on the outcome of the trial.”

Of course, Tory’s lawyers refused to accept that decision, and in what Cuniff calls an unusual (“jaw-dropping”) move, filed a motion to have Herriford disqualified from the case. The purpose of the bid was to forestall his ruling that no new trial was warranted, with Tory’s lawyers arguing that the decision couldn’t be issued until the motion was resolved. Talk about your sour grapes.

In truth, the biggest mistakes made during the trial appeared to be on the part of Tory’s defense. A star witness for the defense apparently confirmed that Tory not only held the gun that shot Megan Thee Stallion in the feet but that he fired it in what looked like a fit of pique — exactly as Megan herself recounted the incident in her own testimony. Tory’s lawyers even pushed back his hearing for a new trial last month so they’d have more time to argue their motion for a new trial and yet… here we are.

Tory was found guilty of all three of the original charges of assault with a firearm, concealing a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle, and discharging a firearm with gross negligence, although he did avoid a witness tampering charge altogether for allegedly offering Megan and her friend $1 million to change their respective stories. Tory will be sentenced at a future date.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The NBA announced the 10 players who were named to the 2022-23 All-Defensive Teams on Tuesday, which sparked plenty of discussion about snubs and who got more votes than they should have. While the 10 names that made the teams weren’t a huge surprise — which didn’t stop there from being some fan bases mad their guy didn’t make it — there were some particularly curious one-off votes that raised eyebrows.

Among them was Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton receiving a first-team vote, which was the only ballot that had him on All-Defense at all. That was a rather shocking selection from someone, and even the All-Star himself was confused to find that he’d received a vote, posting a rather incredible response on Twitter to the news.

We love when a player can find the humor in something like this, as Haliburton knows he’s not exactly known for being a lockdown defender. He did finish tied for 20th in the league in steals (91) on the season and isn’t a bad defender, but you’d be hard-pressed to find too many that would have him near the top of their list of guard defenders in the league. Apparently one person has him top-two, though, and Haliburton was able to have a little fun with his placement on the “others receiving votes” tab.

In April 2022, Mississippi Today reporter Anna Wolfe rocked the worlds of sports and politics when she published a groundbreaking report about how Brett Favre and his pal, former Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, were seemingly up to no good. According to Wolfe’s report, Favre seemed to have leveraged his in with one of the state’s top politicos to receive funding for such non-essential things as a new volleyball stadium at the college his daughter attends — and that the money had come from the state’s struggling welfare fund.

On Monday, Wolfe — who is 28 years old — won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for her reporting of political corruption within the state. According to Poynter, she celebrated the accolade with her parents. Favre, meanwhile, may have been too busy to notice that the reporter who uncovered his private text messages and blew the lid off this scandal was being feted with her industry’s top honor. Because he was over on Twitter calling on his less-than-350,000 followers to boycott Fox News for doing his boy Tucker Carlson dirty.

“I’m with Tucker” was Favre’s bad take of a message, which he doubled down on during an interview with Newsmax of all places.

As The Recount shared, Brett decided to go to war for Tucker, whom he described as “genuine, good guy” — presumably despite the fact that he has a habit of calling women c**ts and being extremely white supremacist-y on and off the air?

Though, from Favre’s retelling, it sounds like he has maybe spent a whole of just a couple of hours in Carlson’s presence. But apparently that was enough for Favre to put aside any of the revelations that have come out about Tucker’s off-air personality and choose to believe that he’s a great guy who was just completely dicked over by the company he worked for.

Favre explained to he “got to spend some time with Tucker” about a year ago, when he was a guest on his then-still-existent Fox News program. Favre and his wife had dinner with Carlson and his crew the night before their interview, and Favre just really liked the guy, ok?!?

“I got the impression that what you see is what you get,” Favre said of Carlson, which feels like a bad read since recent revelations via the Dominion Lawsuit have shown that Carlson’s on-air personality and his behavior in private were actually quite contradictory.

Perhaps it’s also worth mentioning that Favre estimates he suffered “thousands” of concussions throughout his career.

Vanna White has been turning and tapping letters on Wheel of Fortune for over 40 years. This week, she’ll get her chance behind the wheel.

White will compete against Jeopardy!‘s Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik on a special “Ultimate Host Night” episode of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune on Wednesday. Her replacement: co-host Pat Sajak’s daughter, Maggie.

“I’ve never seen your left side, it’s very nice. It’s as nice as your right side,” Sajak joked to White in a clip from the episode. When asked if it’s strange to see someone else at the puzzle board, White replied, “It does, but Maggie, thank you so much for filling in for me. I know you’re going to do a great job.”

Maggie Sajak took to her Instagram with the news she will be helping out on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune, while White competes on the show. “Warming up for Wednesday,” she captioned it. “I hope to make Vanna proud.” Her dad commented on the post, writing, “I think I’m gonna cry.”

Sajak has experience. Maggie Sajak, not Pat, although him, too. She’s been a social media correspondent for Wheel of Fortune since 2021, including behind-the-scenes content and interviews with contestants (not the comically unlucky ones, however). Also, her dad hosts the show, which helps.

Good luck to Maggie. But mostly good luck to Vanna. I hope she trounces those smug Jeopardy! bastards. They think they’re so smart…

(Via CNN)

Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey is the world’s best-selling American whiskey. The classic Black Label version of Jack is so popular that rock stars like Lemmy Kilmister lived on the whiskey and Frank Sinatra was buried with a bottle (with his own personal Jack Daniel’s distributor sitting with Ol’ Blue Eye’s immediate family at his funeral). The brand from Tennessee is also far more wide-ranging than just Old No. 7. There’s a killer American single malt, new Bonded and Triple Mash versions, special high-proof bottlings, a version made specifically for Sinatra, older age statement versions, and single barrel versions galore.

But how does the OG version really taste? Should it only be relegated to the iconic Jack and Coke? Or does that legendary sugar maple charcoal filtration (the famed Lincoln County Process) really make it a viable sipper?

I’m going to find out by taking a deep dive into this illustrious yet very accessible (and cheap AF) bourbon. Yes, it’s bourbon. Here’s a detailed explainer on how this Tennesse whiskey is also bourbon whiskey. Okay, let’s dive into what’s actually in the bottle.

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Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee Whiskey

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $20

The Whiskey:

Jack Daniel’s is made in Tullahoma, Tennessee, in a small holler about an hour-and-half from Nashville. The cool forested valleys provide shade for the distillery while the hills offer perches for rickhouses to hold barrels. The kicker is that the Tullahoma has a 2-mile-long cave system that provides unique spring water for the whiskey-making process at Jack Daniel’s — and keeps things extra cool in the area.

Jack Daniel’s also propagates their own yeast and lactobacillus for fermenting their mash bill of 80% corn, 8% rye, and 12% malted barley. That mashed juice is then sent through massive column stills before it’s slowly dripped through 10 feet of pebbly sugar maple charcoal, which is also made on-site at Tullahoma, from local lumber.

Very long story short, that filtering process strips the hot distillate of the harsher grain oils and flavor notes, leaving the brighter and fruitier yeast notes as the star of the whiskey and more readily available to bond with the wood sugars from the barrel. There is of course far more to it than that but that’s the biggest bullet point to take away.

After the filtering process, the whiskey is barreled in new oak with a deep #4 char. After about four years and up to seven years, barrels are selected for a batch of Old No. 7 and dumped into a vatting tank to rest. Finally, the whiskey is proofed with some of that iconic water and bottled.

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Buttery banana bread with walnuts and raisins (with a hint of the cardboard box they came in) dominate the nose with a light hint of old cinnamon powder (kind of like an empty spice jar) next to the faintest hint of chewing tobacco just kissed with cherry and apple.

Palate: The palate is thin, there’s no getting around that thanks to the proofing water. But it also presents as lush banana milkshake cut with fresh vanilla and dusted with nutmeg and maybe a faint hint of old milk chocolate over some very mild oakiness.

Finish: The proofing water really amps up on the finish as the flavor washes out, leaving you with a sense of an empty apple pin tin, hints of banana bread, and an echo of cherry pipe tobacco.

Bottom Line:

This is pretty simple and fruity overall but does have a well-rounded flavor profile. The issue — and why it’s most often mixed with Coke or ginger ale — is that the finish barely exists beneath all that proofing water. What’s the solution to that? Buy a Jack Daniel’s Bonded. It’s the same thing at 50% ABV. It rules.

But we’re not here to talk about Jack Daniel’s Bonded. Old No. 7 is really all about those highballs with Coke or soda. The team at Jack Daniel’s knows that and leans into it. The fruits are pronounced enough to really add something to a spicy Coke, sharp ginger ale, or fresh lemonade. It’s utilitarian and you feel it through and through when you drink Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7.

Ranking:

80/100 — This is a solid B whiskey. Trust me when I say that there’s a metric shitton of terrible whiskeys out there that taste far worse than this. This is a solid B because it delivers exactly what’s promised while being 100% easy to source everywhere on earth (seriously) and very cheap whenever you do find it.

At its best, fast food breakfast isn’t just a convenient early morning pickup — it’s actually worth waking up for. Little in the fast food space can be described as “exciting.” Everyone loves a great bacon cheeseburger but have too many in a single month and pretty soon you actually start saying stuff like “I’m tired of bacon cheeseburgers. What else can we eat?” But breakfast? Breakfast is another story.

We’ve mentioned this in the past but the joy we feel over a good fast food breakfast comes down to the category’s scarcity. At most food chains, breakfast is only available until 10:30 AM. This tiny availability window makes scoring a sausage McMuffin feel like an achievement. We’ve broken down the best breakfast sandwiches in the past; now it’s time to search for the best hash brown (or breakfast potato order) to accompany it.

To find the greatest breakfast potato order in the fast food universe, we put five big brands to the blind taste test!

Methodology:

If you’ve read our double cheeseburger or breakfast sandwich blind taste tests, you’ll know that I have a quick and easy route carved out in my neighborhood that allows me to hit up five different fast food restaurants in just 15 minutes. So I hit my trusty route and arrived back home with my potatoes still warm and steamy.

Here is today’s lineup!

• Carl’s Jr. — Hash Rounds
• Chick-fil-A — Hash Browns
• Jack In The Box — Hash Brown
• McDonald’s — Hash Brown
• Wendy’s — Seasoned Potatoes

Once home, I had my girlfriend bring me one dish from our lineup at a time, tasted the potato, and recorded some voice notes on my phone. Most of these breakfast potatoes are of the hash brown variety, except for one, Wendy’s, which serves potato wedges that are lightly battered and heavily seasoned. Aside from that, all but two are completely different in shape — so I made sure to eat each under the cover of a blindfold so I wouldn’t have a guess as to which was which.

Part 1: The Tasting

Taste 1:

Okay, I know these aren’t hash browns — they’re soft. That isn’t to say they don’t have any crunch, it’s a bit crispy but nowhere near hash brown territory. The flavor is excellent, I’m getting heavy black pepper notes, a bit of slightly sweet caramelized garlic, and a lot of buttery potato flavor.

These potatoes are excellent.

Dare I say superior to a hash brown? We’ll see.

Taste 2:

Light and crispy. There is a lot of buttery potato flavor here with a hint of salt and the perfect amount of crispiness. It has a mildly, addictive, sweet finish. It seems like it was made to be dipped in ketchup!

Taste 3:

Very nice form factor here, these are rounds and it slightly alters the ratio of crispy outer to potato in a way that a bigger hash brown can’t. I’m getting some buttery potato flavor but with a focus on the crispy texture per bite.

Ultimately, where you rank this one is going to come down to how crispy you like your hash browns. I’m still on the fence.

Taste 4:

I like this one but it feels very indulgent. It’s very salty and crispy, and there is a top note of grease that permeates each bite. It tastes more like salt and grease than potato, and while my taste buds are liking that, my brain is resisting the urge to think of this as “good.”

Taste 5:

After the salty assault on the taste buds that was Taste 4, I’m getting nothing here! Everything about this hash brown is just wrong — the texture is soft and squishy, there is no crunch, and it just barely tastes like potato.

It’s all texture and no flavor, and it can’t even do the texture part right.

Part 2: The Ranking

5. Chick-fil-a — Hash Browns (Taste 5)

I’m genuinely surprised by this, not because I’m a Chick-fil-A fanboy (far from it, I actively root for this brand to lose like I do for BK to win) but because Chick-fil-A does just about everything they do… pretty damn well. Credit where credit is due, Chick-fil-A has an amazing batting average.

Great chicken sandwiches, good fries, great breakfast sandwiches, great milkshakes, hell, even their fountain Coke tastes delicious. But these hash browns? Absolute worst in the game. They don’t taste fried so much as they do steamed. They come across as school cafeteria tater tots.

The Bottom Line:

Probably Chick-fil-A’s biggest failure. If you need a side to go with your Chick-fil-A breakfast, just get a buttered biscuit or ask for an order of waffle fries, they’ll make them at any time.

Find your nearest Chick-fil-A here.

4. Jack in the Box — Hash Brown (Taste 4)

I don’t know what’s going on with the frying oil at Jack in the Box, but for some reason no matter what you order from JiB, it all smells the same. There is this strange almost rancid grease smell that stains all of their food — just change your oil, guys!

That sounds really really bad, but… it often still tastes good. In spite of this or even, in part, because of it.

The curly fries? Amazing. The Mozzarella sticks? Got to have them. Those Bacon Cheddar Potato Wedges? Please, bring them back. That greasy smell is all over the hash brown, it’s a pure grease sponge. I kind of like it, but not enough to rank it high on this list.

The Bottom Line:

The saltiest, greasiest hash brown in the fast food universe.

Find your nearest Jack in the Box here.

3. Carl’s Jr. — Hash Rounds (Taste 3)

Carl’s Jr.’ s Hash Rounds are what Chick-fil-A was going for with theirs. Though instead of these being a floppy, soggy, flavorless mess, these rounds manage to be perfectly crispy while still tasting like soft buttery potatoes.

I like these a lot, they’re delicious, but I don’t love the form factor. With rounds, you get a different ratio of crisp to potato and while I love a good crunch I’d rather have more of that fluffy potato texture.

The Bottom Line:

If you like the tiny bite-sized form factor, it doesn’t get better than this.

Find your nearest Carl’s Jr. here.

2. McDonald’s Hash Brown (Taste 2)

McDonald’s Hash Brown is probably the reason hash browns are even a menu staple in fast food breakfast. These things are by all accounts amazing, they’re crispy, salty, oily but not to the point of being off-putting — McD’s changes their oil famously often post Supersize Me — and delicious, offering a fluffy and buttery potato flavor and a nice audible crunch in every bite.

It’s also hackable, you can slide one of these into any of McDonald’s sandwiches and the result will be a much better sandwich. But at the end of the day, as good as this is, it’s not the best breakfast potato option in fast food in my opinion.

The Bottom Line:

A perfect fast food breakfast snack. If you explicitly want a hash brown and aren’t interested in the form factor of our number 1 choice, this is the no-brainer choice.

Find your nearest McDonald’s here.

1. Wendy’s — Seasoned Potatoes (Taste 1)

I love it when a blind taste test falls in order — each potato I tried was slightly worse than the last, making my very first taste the best experience of the five.

Ranking this one number is going to make a lot of people mad, but, bring it on. Sure, Wendy’s Seasoned Potatoes might not be hash browns, but this is a better form factor and provides a better flavor than any other breakfast side.

What you lose in crunch, you gain in flavor. This mix of cracked black pepper and garlic powder beats the salt, grease, and crunch combination that every hash brown delivers. It tastes so damn good that Wendy’s has no excuse to keep this a breakfast exclusive. If you could order these wedges at lunch and dinner time, Wendy’s wouldn’t even sell French fries anymore — they’re that good.

The Bottom Line:

Aside from the black pepper and garlic combination, the Seasoned Potatoes taste more like actual potatoes than any hash brown we tasted. They’re fluffy with a greater emphasis on the natural buttery flavor of fried potato.

Hash brown purists are going to hate, but if you want the best potato side in all of fast food breakfast, make it these Seasoned Potatoes every time.

Find your nearest Wendy’s here.

Christina Applegate has been open about her multiple sclerosis diagnosis and all that comes with it, even when it led to a fiery confrontation with Candace Owens after the conservative commentator made an offensive remark about a SKIMS clothing ad featuring a woman in a wheelchair. As part of Applegate’s candidness, the actress has revealed that Dead To Me Season 3 is probably the last time she’ll perform on camera.

Applegate dropped the news during an interview with Vanity Fair where expressed her gratefulness for having Linda Cardellini as her last on-screen partner:

Linda and I, from day one, were in love with each other and trusted each other and supported each other. It’s rare that you have an equal playing field and you get to play ping-pong instead of tennis. There’s a difference. Ping-pong is so much more fun when the other person is just as good as you are. I’m probably not going to work on-camera again, but I’m so glad that I went out with someone who is by far the greatest actress I’ve ever worked with in my entire life, if not the greatest human I’ve ever known.

When asked in a follow-up question if she is really done performing, Applegate kept it real about her ongoing health issues.

“I can’t even imagine going to set right now,” she said. “This is a progressive disease. I don’t know if I’m going to get worse. I can do voiceover stuff because I have to support my family and keep my brain working.”

(Via Vanity Fair)

You may or may not remember the writers’ strike of 2007-2008, but you do remember how convoluted the plot of Heroes got towards the end of season two, so that’s a good frame of reference. That strike took place for 100 days from November 2007 to February 20008, which interrupted production on basically every show you could think of at the time, besides Real Housewives which, believe it or not, is not scripted.

Now that the Writers Guild is striking again, many are wondering what this means for the next wave of shows, specifically for streaming series with overworked writers’ rooms and minimal residuals. The WGA is looking for better pay and structural changes, mostly at Netflix and other streaming services, due to the changes they ushered in. Netflix infamously uses smaller writers’ rooms called “mini-rooms” where writers hash out a series for 10 weeks before having to look for another job. This, the WGA says, is not sustainable.

But Hollywood insiders seem to think that this strike will last pretty long. Tara Kole, the co-founder of entertainment law firm JSSK, says that this has been a long time coming with no end in sight. “Any hope that this would be fast has faded. I hate to say it, but it’s going to be a while,” she told The New York Times.

Dozens of big-budget productions have been shut down or postponed, including Stranger Things, Severance, and basically every talk show out there. The chair of the WGA negotiation committee Chris Keyser confirmed that the strike won’t stop until an agreement is reached. “They’re going to stay out until something changes because they can’t afford not to,” he explained. The WGA currently includes over 11,000 writers across Hollywood.

Even though production has halted, many actors and showrunners have shown their support for the strike. The Ted Lasso crew stepped out to strike, along with Ayo Edebiri and Pete Davidson, who was set to host SNL before the season ended early due to the strike.

Paramount Global chief Bob Bakish recently told investors that the company is planning to “manage through this strike,” adding “even if it’s for an extended duration.” It sure does seem like it will last for an extended duration. Where is Conan O’Brien when you need him?!

(Via The New York Times)

It’s a question many of us have found ourselves asking in the wake of a breakup: “How Soon” is too soon to move on? UPROXX Sessions‘ latest guest, Austin Sanders, better known as ASTN, turned that question into the foundation of his moody breakthrough single, which finds him wondering whether moving on is the right choice if it just hurts his ex even more.

Of his latest single, he said, “I’ve always been perceptive of others’ feelings and would consider myself an empath. That made it really hard for me to make any sort of selfish decision, even if it was the right decision. Moving on from someone isn’t as easy as some people make it seem, and that’s what ‘How Soon’ represents for me. There’s no guideline to follow. There’s no set of rules. I just finally did what was right for me.”

Hailing from Florida and based in Los Angeles, ASTN had his first brush with fame in 2021 after he covered Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever.” His soulful rendition garnered a viral following and since then, he’s been on a steady climb to stardom, releasing a string of EPs of original tunes like “How Soon” and “Gradually,” signing to Warner Records in 2022. With a musical style reminiscent of R&B Justin Bieber and much more empathetic Brent Faiyaz, it’s only a matter of time before ASTN is the star he already has the chops to be.

Check out ASTN’s performance of “How Soon” for UPROXX Sessions above.

UPROXX Sessions is Uproxx’s performance show featuring the hottest up-and-coming acts you should keep an eye on. Featuring creative direction from LA promotion collective, Ham On Everything, and taking place on our “bathroom” set designed and painted by Julian Gross, UPROXX Sessions is a showcase of some of our favorite performers, who just might soon be yours, too.

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

The Roots co-founder Black Thought (real name Tariq Trotter) has made his name in music thanks to his top-tier lyricism and prolific storytelling. The “Glorious Game” rapper’s latest announcement is a culmination of his extraordinary talents. Taking to social media, the entertainer revealed that he’s penned his life story, this time in the form of a memoir.

Titled The Upcycled Self, the book will be released on November 14 via One World, an imprint of Random House Books. Sharing the cover image on Instagram, Black Thought wrote a touching message about the forthcoming release.

“The storytelling continues,” Black Thought captioned the post. “The medium is ever-evolving. I’m so proud of this work. It’s been years in the making — the story of the Upcycled Self — a focus on childhood forged from the fire. I hope in sharing so much about my upbringing; we can find new courage to start the difficult conversations that prompt healing with ourselves and others. As men. As Black men. As humans.”

The book is described as a “moving portrait of the artist as a young man, but gives readers a courageous model of what it means to live an examined life.” Although this is Black Thought’s first physical book, back in 2021, he released an audiobook, 7 Years, in partnership with Audible.

The Upcycled Self is out 11/14. Find more information here.