Month: September 2023

Server Flavaine Carvalho was waiting on her last table of the night at Mrs. Potatohead’s, a family restaurant in Orlando, Florida when she noticed something peculiar.

The parents of an 11-year-old boy were ordering food but told her that the child would be having his dinner later that night at home. She glanced at the boy who was wearing a hoodie, glasses, and a face mask and noticed a scratch between his eyes.

A closer look revealed a bruise on his temple.

So Carvalho walked away from the table and wrote a note that said, “Do you need help?” and showed it to the boy from an angle where his parents couldn’t see.

The boy shook his head, no. “I knew it that he was afraid,” she said.

Carvalho made two more attempts until the boy nodded yes.

The server then called the owner of the restaurant to let her know that she was going to call the police on the boy’s parents.

“SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING: An Orlando waitress saw a family withholding food from a boy at a table. She noticed bruises on his body and created this sign to secretly ask the child if he needed help. When he signaled “Yes” she called us. The stepfather & mother were arrested.”

u201cSEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING: An Orlando waitress saw a family withholding food from a boy at a table. She noticed bruises on his body and created this sign to secretly ask the child if he needed help. When he signaled “Yes” she called us. The stepfather & mother were arrested.u201d

— Orlando Police (@Orlando Police)
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The police arrived and arrested the boy’s father

on one count of third-degree child abuse. His mother Kristen Swann was arrested with two counts of child neglect. A four-year-old girl was taken from the family by authorities. They say she showed no signs of abuse.

Detectives spoke with the boy and learned his parents frequently withheld food from him as a form of punishment. He was 20 pounds underweight. After searching his body, they discovered that he was nearly covered in bruises.

His father had recently beat him with a broomstick and back scratcher.

The boy told detectives that he was once hung upside down from his ankles in a door frame by his father and had been restrained by being strapped to a furniture dolly.

“To be honest what this child had gone through was torture,” Detective Erin Lawler said. “There was no justification for it in any realm of the world. I’m a mother and seeing what that 11-year-old had to go through, it shocks your soul.”

u201cChief Orlando Rolon, @OrlandoPolice, with waitress Flavaine Carvalho (middle) who saved an abused 11yo when he was dining with his family. They say the boy was u201ctortured.u201d The full details of his salvation on @fox35orlando at 5/6pm. #FOX35 #news #crime #updateu201d

— Matt Trezza FOX 35 (@Matt Trezza FOX 35)
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Carvalho’s quick thinking and bravery may have saved the lives of two children.

“This could have been a homicide situation if she had not have intervened,” Orlando Police Chief Orlando Rolon said.

“The lesson here for all of us is to recognize when we see something that isn’t right to act on it… This saved the life of a child,” he added.

The restaurant’s owner, Rafaela Cabede, hopes that Carvalho’s bravery inspires others to look out for signs of abuse as well.

“We understand that this has to encourage other people that when you see something, say something,” Cabede said. “We know when we see a situation that is wrong, we know what’s the right thing to do. We know that speaking up is the right thing to do. But it takes more than acknowledging it. It takes courage.

This article originally appeared on 01.15.21

The pandemic has caused many people to reevaluate their surroundings. When you’re stuck at home more often than you’d like, you start to pay a lot more attention to what goes on in your own backyard.

This type of introspection inspired wildlife photographer Carla Rhodes to get a closer look at the furry friends that live near her home in the Catskill mountains of New York.

What she found was magical.

“The winter of 2020-2021 was particularly brutal to humankind. After months of enduring the Covid-19 pandemic, we were now collectively slogging through winter. As a result of being stuck at home, I focused on my immediate surroundings like never before,” Rhodes said in a statement.

Rhodes positioned a DSLR camera trap beneath her bird feeder to get an up-close glimpse of the wildlife that came to sample her delicious seeds. The results are an incredible series of photos of birds and other woodland creatures from a vantage point most people never see. Rhodes calls her project, “Beneath the Bird Feeder.”

The birdfeeder photos also gave a new glimpse into the behavior of several species of birds and rodents that call the Catskills home.

“As I got deeper into the project, intriguing observations emerged,” Rhodes says. “I noticed distinct repeat visitors such as a Dark-Eyed Junco with an overgrown beak, a deer mouse with a notched ear, and an irruption of Red-Breasted Nuthatches. Dark-Eyed Juncos always showed up at the crack of dawn and Northern Cardinals would always be the last visitor of the day as dusk turned into evening.”

Here are 15 of the most captivating photos that Rhodes captured from beneath her bird feeder.

1. Dark-eyed junco

“Often overlooked and considered drab ground-feeding birds, Dark-Eyed Juncos hold a special place in my heart due to their funny and curious behaviors. Every day they were first to arrive beneath the bird feeder,” Rhodes says. “Dark-Eyed Juncos were one of the most frequent and curious subjects beneath the bird feeder.”

2. Dark-eyed junco

3. Dark-eyed junco

4. Tufted titmouse

According to All About Birds, the tufted titmouse is “common in eastern deciduous forests and a frequent visitor to feeders.”

5. Mourning dove

​”Observing Mourning Doves was a daily pleasure, especially when they gathered to form a clean-up crew beneath the bird feeder. Mourning doves are monogamous and possibly mate for life,” Rhodes writes.

6. Mourning dove 

7.  Mourning doves

8. Blue jay

“Blue Jays are known for their intelligence and complex social systems with tight family bonds,” All About Birds says. “Their fondness for acorns is credited with helping spread oak trees after the last glacial period.”

9. Northern cardinal

“Northern Cardinals were always the last to show up beneath the bird feeder, shortly after dusk every evening,” Rhodes writes.

10. Black-capped chickadee

“Little flocks of Black-capped Chickadees enliven the winter woods with their active behavior and their cheery-sounding chick-a-dee callnotes as they fly from tree to tree, often accompanied by an assortment of nuthatches, creepers, kinglets, and other birds,” the Audubon field guide to North American birds says.

11. Black-capped chickadee

12. Eastern gray squirrel

Eastern gray squirrels are important members of forest ecosystems as they play a vital role in dispersing seeds.

 13. American red squirrel

The American red squirrel is known for its distinct bushy and dark red tail with hints of a white outline.

14. American red squirrel

15. Northern short-tailed shrew

If you see a northern short-tailed shrew, be careful. It’s venomous and paralyzes its victims with poisonous saliva. In humans, a bite can cause swelling and intense pain.

This article originally appeared on 01.03.22

It seems everyone needs subtitles nowadays in order to “hear” the television. This is something that has become more common over the past decade and it’s caused people to question if their hearing is going bad or if perhaps actors have gotten lazy with enunciation.

So if you’ve been wondering if it’s just you who needs subtitles in order to watch the latest marathon-worthy show, worry no more. Vox video producer Edward Vega interviewed dialogue editor Austin Olivia Kendrick to get to the bottom of why we can’t seem to make out what the actors are saying anymore. It turns out it’s technology’s fault, and to get to how we got here, Vega and Kendrick took us back in time.

They first explained that way back when movies were first moving from silent film to spoken dialogue, actors had to enunciate and project loudly while speaking directly into a large microphone. If they spoke and moved like actors do today, it would sound almost as if someone were giving a drive-by soliloquy while circling the block. You’d only hear every other sentence or two.

But with today’s technology, microphones are so small they can be strapped just about anywhere on an actor. This allows the actor to move about the set freely and speak at a normal volume without worrying that their words won’t be picked up. So then why can’t we hear them? Turns out it’s super complicated…and also not.

“A lot of people will ask, ‘Why don’t you just turn the dialogue up?’ Like, ‘Just turn it up.’ And…if only it were that simple,” Kendrick said before explaining, “If you have your dialogue that’s going to be at the same volume as an explosion that immediately follows it, the explosion is not going to feel as big. You need that contrast in volume in order to give your ear a sense of scale.”

Sure, you may be thinking, well that kinda explains it, but why do the music and other cinematic noises sound like they’re beating on your eardrum while the dialogue sounds like the actors are whispering every line? That doesn’t seem very balanced. There’s more to it, and again, it falls back onto technology.

In the video, they explain how our televisions are too thin to hold large speakers facing in the correct direction, and until this video, it didn’t dawn on me that the speakers to my television are indeed in the back. No wonder we can’t hear. The actors are quite literally talking to our walls.

And there’s more. Check out the full explanation in the video:

This article originally appeared on 2.1.23

If we’re being honest, rap music fans are experiencing sample fatigue. Whether it’s an interpolation, instrumentation loop, or vocal modification, most listeners only crave original concepts. However, now sample clearance issues could be keeping one of the classics of the mixtape era from coming to streaming.

Fabian Marasciullo, Lil Wayne’s longtime engineer, started rumors that Lil Wayne‘s Da Drought 3 could be coming to DSPs soon when he uploaded a video to his Instagram Stories with the caption: “A new mix on a classic.” After fans identified the song to be “Ride for My N****s (Sky is the Limit),” which appeared on the project, they were flooded to ask Wayne if he would be taking the Nicki Minaj route by re-releasing the tape for fans to enjoy. Unfortunately, Marasciullo has remained tight-lipped.

Due to the legal headache of getting clearance for the samples used across mixtapes, many might never make it onto a streaming platform’s server. However, thanks to a recently shared clip, a classic from the “Kat Food” rapper could be the exception. So, is Lil Wayne’s Da Drought 3 mixtape coming to streaming?

Da Drought 3, initially released on April 13, 2007, was Wayne’s sixth mixtape overall but the third from the series. Prior to Lil Wayne’s mixtape run, he had already established himself as a consistent hitmaker with Hot Boys on Cash Money Records. However, Mixtape Weezy propelled him to another level of success. But don’t expect any new mixtapes from Lil Wayne. During an interview with The Pivot Podcast on July 11, he told hosts Channing Crowder, Ryan Clark, and Fred Taylor that likely won’t happen again.

“As soon as [the song] drops, those artists call our people, like, ‘Hey, we want that to be a single,’” said Wayne. “They need a [release] date. They’re about to pull that off [of streaming], pay how much you want them to pay for it, and boom, that’s the original new verse. Ain’t no such thing as a remix no more. That’s all that really is, but that’s their new single. We’re about to shoot a video and everything. And that’s what takes the allure of what I was doing with that away from me. Now, I’m approaching it knowing that this might be a single.”

If Da Drought 3 does make it onto streaming, fans old and new will have the chance to revel in Wayne’s lyrical greatest all over again. Take a look at the original tracklist for the two-disc mixtape below.

Disc 1

1. “Intro”
2. “Black Republicans” (feat. Juelz Santana)
3. “Upgrade”
4. “Put Some Keys on That”
5. “Ride 4 My N***** (Sky’s the Limit)”
6. “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop” (feat. Nicki Minaj)
7. “We Takin’ Over” (Remix)
8. “Get High, Rule the World”
9. “I Can’t Feel My Face”
10. “Dough Is What I Got”
11. “Seat Down Low”
12. “New Cash Money” (feat. Brisco)
13. “Promise”
14. “Outro”

Disc 2

1. “Intro”
2. “Blooded”
3. “Live from 504”
4. “King Kong”
5. “Dipset”
6. “Forever”
7. “Walk It Out”
8. “Swizzy” (Remix)
9. “Boom” 3:22
10. “N.O. N****”
11. “Back on My Grizzy”
12. “Dipset 2”
13. “President” (feat. Curren$y)
14. “Crazy”
15. “Outro”

Hello, fellow sun seekers, heat lizards, and soleil savants! I trust this finds you in what can be a difficult time. The days, while warm, don’t offer the same oppressive and relentless dosage of UV, or people who you used to trust are cheerfully advising you to “layer up.” And that permanent sheen of sweat in a layer over your body? Gone.

While it’s true, summer does last until September 21 (and you should be telling it to everyone you meet), it’s also true that our watch is ending. Like the brevity of the season, so too is the offseason, and the impending reality of training camp start dates have made it into the phone calendars of all NBA athletes except James Harden, so summer vacations are officially drawing to a close.

A balm to take the sting (aw, remember sun burns?) out of our new reality of “autumn” is the annual awarding of the NBA Summer Vacation Watch MVP. This award is given to the person who showed utmost dedication in their pursuit of offseason leisure, who didn’t just take the one requisite trip to Cancun but indeed, leaned into summer as a lifestyle. It is, in the NBA and really all of pro sports, the most prestigious award there is. So please, keep your shorts on for one last ride to enjoy these last few offerings, and the naming of NBA SVW MVP.

Russell Westbrook

A cute jaunt here for their anniversary, Westbrook and his wife, Nina Earl, celebrated in the city of love. The Arc de Triomphe didn’t know what hit it.

Rating: The real Triomphe is always love!!

Jimmy Butler

Butler has spent, I’d say, the entire last quarter or his summer glued to the courts at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, taking in the U.S. Open. There, we’ve seen him act as an honorary ball boy (I guess not even honorary, since true to form, he went through some training), get a point on Carlos Alcaraz, and endearingly declare the tennis stars of today his friends, whether they knew him or not.

Rating: You’re not going to find Butler reclined on a beach for any long stretch of time, so paying avid attention while sitting in the stands, sometimes with a really big hat on, is a pretty good stretch of leisure for him.

Devin Booker

As we know from earlier entries, Booker took his passion for rustic ass trips on the road this summer, most notably to the Swiss Alps. He has since returned and returned hard to his first love: swimming holes and piney creeks. Here he was, getting out of a rowboat under cerulean skies.

Rating: You know what they say, you can take a man to the Alps but you can’t make him want to stop ATVing around Colorado or wherever.

Jarrett Allen

Extremely rare publicly shared vacation alert! Jarrett Allen, sweet robotics genius on this earth and the person most likely to have the same smiling attitude whether he is dunker or dunkee, went to Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. He camped out, did some dune surfing, made something (beans???) on a camp stove, and took some beautiful photos on his film camera. This is my favorite trip of the summer and I am incredibly biased.

Rating: Is there anything more equitable on this earth than how public campsites everywhere will give you the bare minimum? A picnic bench, a fire pit, and a big rock or tree or some other natural landmark if you’re lucky.

Kyle Kuzma

Kuz has taken quite a few summer romps and his most recent was to Paris. While he was probably there to do, like, a luxury watch collaboration, he also got some currywurst and took in some football, the pastimes of the people.

Rating: The double peace sign is also the summer vacation pose of the people.

Pascal Siakam

Pascal Siakam’s world summer vacation tour continues and like the famous quote, does not go gentle into the regular season. Siakam landed in Rome, toured some gorgeous antiquities, ate some gelato, then popped over to the Vatican to stroll around cavernous halls filled with their own, slightly more religious antiquities. Then, he made a short le saut over to Paris where he literally put his feet up and had some croissants, took a nice stroll, a boat ride, then had a crepe with his initial dusted on it in icing sugar.

Rating: I hope Toronto’s team chef’s icing sugar stenciling is on point.

Rudy Gobert

Gobert was in Okinawa and Manila for the FIBA World Cup, but en route (and probably after, considering France’s rapide out) did some touring and eating around Tokyo, and then the Philippines. I know Gobert was coming back from that whole “rubbing his microparticles all over everyone’s mics and tape recorders” thing, but a man like that shouldn’t be allowed to have a monkey just hang out on his shoulder.

Rating: Outbreak really affected me as a child.

Myles Turner

Turner has taken some delightful trips this summer, both close to home and abroad, and they continued with this pilgrimage to the giant LL Bean boot in Freeport, Maine.

Rating: Not the reminder I wanted or needed that those very boots are sitting in the bottom of my winter clothes storage trunk, Myles!!!

Paul Millsap

Have to say, this was a relief. Millsap’s not such a huge poster, but when he is, is it ever a treat. Especially if we’re talkin’ summer. Here, he takes us on not two summer trips, but two complete summer meditations. First, fishing, and some wise words about how waiting for fish can be like waiting for dreams to come true (Paul George’s ears are ringing). Then – and my personal fav – a reflection on hammocks. To be fair, judging by the palm fronds this is from a totally different trip, but Millsap really spent some time contemplating what hammocks and life is all about. I found myself in a hammock shortly after this and can say, the gentle swinging found therein will never be the same again.

Rating: Protect Paul Millsap at all costs.

Gary Trent Jr.

A late season rip around on a speedy yacht and subsequent jet ski but we love it folks, and we’ll take it, because this dispatch was feeling a little thin.

Rating: Where does the drop for Supreme life jackets happen? On land or in international waters?

Spencer Dinwiddie

A real mystery trip from Dinwiddie which, if anyone knows that guy who figures out where people are from blurry photos out the window, could they get him on this one? Anyway, I’m glad he had such a nice time.

Rating: Or “Decent,” according to Dinwiddie. My bad.

Jusuf Nurkic

Nurk alert! Nurkic hung out on the picturesque (man made, for my geo-heads) Lake Perućac in Bosnia. There he either did some hiking with friends where no one was really appropriately dressed, or there’s a nice place where they’re all chilling just out of frame.

Rating: My vote is on the latter.

Chris Boucher

Boucher with the late-summer Saint Lucia rip!

Rating: Noice.

Gradey Dick

Doubling up on Raptors here, but come for his introduction to Toronto’s Caribana parade and stay for him holding a fish like fire arm.

Rating: He probably gently put it back in the water, yes?

NBA SVW MVP: Pascal Siakam

Congratulations to Spicy P on having the most sustained, slow burn summer of them all! This might be the first time this award has gone to someone still on vacation, who may in fact never have returned from one vacation or another all summer, who instead chose to treat “vacation” as a steady state, a new reality. Honestly the best thing to do when your employer isn’t really giving you the answers you want is to slap on your OOO and take all the trips you’ve been putting off with the vacation days you’ve been storing up.

Mitski‘s highly anticipated new album The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We is out today. Enticing singles like “Bug Like An Angel,” “Star,” and “Heaven” built up the excitement, and now the track “My Love Mine All Mine” has received its own eerie music video.

The video depicts Mitski stacking chairs into a massive sculpture and defying gravity as she climbs it. It conveys the subtle poignance of the sprawling song, which is as haunting as it is beautiful as she sings of the power of love: “Nothing in the world belongs to me / But my love, mine all mine all mine.”

The indie sensation is currently on the road bringing this new material to stages. The first performance was in Mexico City on September 11, and the next one is in Los Angeles on September 20. This is a relief to fans, since she said her show in New York in 2019 was her “last show indefinitely.” “I was thinking this was the last show I would perform ever, and then I would quit and find another life,” Mitski told Rolling Stone in an interview in 2021.

Watch the video for “My Love Mine All Mine” above.

The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We is out now via Dead Oceans. Find more information here.

I’ve watched The Simpsons all the way through (well, seasons 1 through 13) countless times, and all it’s taught me is that Scooby Doo can doo doo but Jimmy Carter is smarter. Meanwhile, a 12-year-old boy in Florida saved someone’s life because he learned how to perform CPR from Stranger Things.

USA Today reports that over the long Labor Day weekend, 12-year-old Austen and his behavioral therapist, Jason Piquette, were “competing to see who could hold their breath under water longer when something went terribly wrong.” Piquette was floating motionless face down in the family pool for at least five minutes, so Austen pulled him to the shallow end of the pool and began administering CPR. Piquette regained consciousness thanks to the pre-teen’s quick thinking — and Stranger Things.

[Austen’s mom Christina Macmillan] later asked Austen where he had learned CPR. He told her he remembered it from a scene in the show Stranger Things. The emotional, two-minute scene shows Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) and Jim Hopper (David Harbour) giving chest compressions to Byers’ unconscious young son Will (Noah Schnapp). Hopper beats frantically on Will’s chest in desperation to revive him. Mimicking those chest compressions, the home video shows Austen hitting Piquette’s chest and bringing him back to life.

The Stranger Things writers should bring a sign saying “We Literally Saved Someone’s Life” to the picket lines. The greedy executives can’t compete with that.

(Via USA Today)

This past weekend’s 2023 MTV VMAs were full of surprises, like Madonna’s 34-year-old commercial and supposed beef between Megan Thee Stallion and Justin Timberlake (which was quickly debunked). The most surprising element of the evening for Ice Spice appears to be herself, as she was shocked about how her body looked in a photo she saw.

Recently, Ice Spice shared a photo of herself and Taylor Swift hugging at the VMAs, and in the picture, both artists are shown from the side. Ice Spice was apparently surprised to see how her profile looked as she tweeted, “damn i aint kno i was that thick hold on.” The post has proven to be popular, as it’s been seen over 35 million times on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Ice Spice had a good night at the VMAs. She won the Best New Artist award and had three other nominations: Push Performance Of The Year for “Princess Diana” and two nods in Song Of The Summer, for her and Nicki Minaj’s Barbie movie song “Barbie World” and her and Swift’s “Karma.” Her and Ben Affleck’s new Dunkin’ commercial also debuted during the broadcast.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Last year, Bella Poarch of TikTok fame unveiled her alluring Dolls EP, whose title track had an unhinged music video featuring Grimes, Madison Beer, and other celebrities. Now, she’s back with her new song and video “Crush.”

“‘Crush’ is this fun, brighter side of me that I’m excited to showcase,” the 26-year-old said in a statement. “The song itself is light, cheeky, and it gives you the flirty feeling of butterflies in your stomach that you get when sparks begin to fly. It’s about being in the moment and indulging in the simple things like binging Love Island, or having an innocent crush without overthinking it (which I’m guilty of). Lauv is such an incredible artist and being able to work with him is such an honor. He’s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and I LAUVed working with him hehe.”

Lauv added, “’Crush’ is about that feeling when you’re into someone but don’t wanna cross the line ’cause it’s so fun just being slightly into them. I wrote this song in Thailand with some amazing songwriters and when Bella wanted to record it, I was so excited to hear her take on it. Love singing with her and so happy ‘Crush’ is finally out!”

Listen to “Crush” above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Jarred Vanderbilt’s energy and defensive versatility made him an important part of the Los Angeles Lakers‘ midseason turnaround last season, and now, he’s being rewarded with a lengthy contract extension. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Vanderbilt and the Lakers came to terms on a new deal that will last four years and pay him $48 million.

Vanderbilt bounced around during the early part of his NBA career, as he was drafted by the Denver Nuggets in 2018 before getting traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2020. While he flashed his considerable potential on the defensive end of the floor in Minnesota, he was sent to Utah last offseason in the deal that sent Rudy Gobert to the Timberwolves. Eventually, Los Angeles made it a point to acquire him at the trade deadline as part of a multi-team deal.

While the hope is that his jump shot will come around, Vanderbilt brought a ton of value due to his ability to guard multiple positions, rebound, and do the dirty work that is crucial alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis. During his time in L.A. last year, Vanderbilt appeared in 26 games with 24 of the coming as a member of the starting lineup and averaged 7.2 points, 6.7 rebounds, 1.6 assists, and 12 steals in 24 minutes a night.