Month: February 2024

This year’s NBA trade deadline didn’t feature much in the way of star power, as teams instead spent the deadline hunting for depth improvements and ways to bolster their rosters for the playoff push rather than completely shake them up.

That said, the lack of big activity meant there were opportunities to make moves on the edges to improve rosters while much of the league stayed put. Figuring out winners and losers this year was a bit tricky, because there didn’t seem to be a ton of opportunities to make a big swing, as everyone seems intent on saving those moves for the summer now. That said, there were teams with clear needs at the deadline and only some of them addressed them. Others that were supposed to be big players at the deadline were left without a dance partner, while some top teams still managed to find some smaller upgrades to bolster their position for the playoff chase.

So, who won and lost the 2024 NBA Trade Deadline? Let’s dive in…

WINNERS

New York Knicks

The Knicks already had been the stars of trade season with their acquisition of OG Anunoby earlier in the year, sparking their run up the standings, but they continued to bolster their roster at the deadline by way of the Detroit Pistons. New York brought in Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks for Quentin Grimes, Evan Fournier, Malachi Flynn, Ryan Arcidiacono, and two second round picks, giving them some additional depth and shooting on the wing without parting with any of their best draft assets.

Losing Grimes is not nothing, and they certainly gave up some long-term upside in the deal for what they hope is a short-term boost. Defensively they got worse, but Grimes was playing just 20 minutes a night and similarly to the Anunoby deal, giving up some talent that didn’t necessarily fit Tom Thibodeau’s vision to get vets that do makes sense for the Knicks. Bogdanovic will provide some needed floor-spacing and secondary shot-creation on the wing, although he’ll need to be paired with the Knicks best defensive groups to work. Burks is a vet who has played for Thibs and the Knicks recently and should slot into a lower-usage role in New York than he was playing in Detroit, where his value as a spot-up shooter will be valuable and some of his issues as an on-ball player will be mitigated.

To be clear, the Knicks didn’t make a massive leap at the deadline, but they did make some improvements (while maintaining flexibility for this summer) which is more than can be said about most of the East’s top teams. If nothing else, after years of lacking any sort of coherent vision or plan, New York at least has identified the path it wants to take as an organization and keeps making moves that push that vision along, which is a win for fans that have wanted that for so long.

Furkan Korkmaz

The NBA’s longest active trade request has finally come to an end as Furkan Korkmaz was included in the deal between the Sixers and Pacers that brought Buddy Hield back to Philly. Korkmaz has been trying to get traded for five years now, asking to be included just about every time the Sixers are on the market for a deal but continued to be employed in Philadelphia. Now, he finally gets his wish and is joining the Pacers, although it’s hard to see him having much of a larger role in Indy than he had with the Sixers. Still, perseverance pays off and Furkan has finally been freed.

UPDATE: Korkmaz has been waived by the Pacers, so…maybe not a winner.

Dallas Mavericks

I include the Mavs in the winners category because I think they made their team undoubtedly better at the deadline, but I certainly understand those that aren’t thrilled with the process that got them here. Dallas effectively undid a large chunk of its offseason and had to unload a pair of first round picks (and swap 2028 picks with OKC) in order to right the wrongs of this summer, so it’s not as if this was some dominant deadline by them. That said, P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford certainly seem like considerable upgrades in the frontcourt to what they’ve gotten this year from Grant Williams and Richaun Holmes.

Dallas desperately needed another center behind rookie Dereck Lively II, and Gafford fits a similar role as Lively that should allow the Mavs to play a similar style no matter what center is on the floor. Gafford is not as tall as Lively but is still a good rim protector (2.2 blocks per game) and is very bouncy and active on that end — he graded out positively on the defensive end in most metrics this year despite [gestures at everything else in Washington]. On offense, he’s not a deft post-scorer but he’s a great play finisher, which is the exact kind of center you want with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. Gafford is a very good roll man and vertical spacer, and should provide another lob threat for Luka and Kyrie to throw it up to. That archetype has worked very well for the Mavs with Lively, and adding another at a relatively low cost to have 48 minutes of solid center play that fits your needs is an upgrade for the Mavs.

Washington is an interesting player with some upside who is having a down shooting year in Charlotte but historically has been able to space the floor at the four and has some defensive versatility. That, of course, was also the idea with signing Grant Williams this offseason, but aside from a solid year as a spot-up shooter, Williams did not pan out in his first season with Dallas. They quickly chose to flip him into Washington, who is on a smaller deal with two more years left after this one, and hope that he’ll find more comfort playing alongside Luka and company. On the whole, Dallas is better but gave up some future flexibility (and trade assets) to make it happen. That’s the cost of missing on an offseason of moves with expectations to compete now, and they’ll hope they remedied those mistakes on Thursday and can get back in the contender realm of the West.

Boston Celtics

The Celtics also did some nice work on the fringes at the deadline, adding Xavier Tillman from the Grizzlies as another strong and versatile defending big and picking up Jaden Springer for a second round pick from the Sixers. The Tillman pickup is a bit of a luxury add for a Boston team that isn’t desperate for frontcourt help but it certainly doesn’t hurt to add some insurance for both Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford. Mostly, the Celtics are winners cause no one really closed the gap on them at the deadline.

Without any star movement, the only team that clearly got better at the deadline in the East was the New York Knicks. Philly was fairly active — Buddy Hield is a nice addition for them but I’m not particularly high on the Cam Payne for Patrick Beverley swap — but they failed to address their frontcourt issues, which is a considerable issue with Embiid out for awhile. The Bucks adding Beverley makes a lot of sense given their awful perimeter defense, but that’s doesn’t feel like a needle-mover in terms of being a contender and they didn’t address their needs on the wing at all. The Cavs unsurprisingly stayed put having made their moves this offseason and are banking on getting healthy being their midseason upgrade. All told, the Celtics still feel like the class of the East by a decent margin and made some solid moves on the periphery, which makes them a winner.

Oklahoma City Thunder, Minnesota Timberwolves, and Phoenix Suns

Like Boston, none of these teams made ground-shaking moves, but each bolstered their roster while seeing other contenders in their conference stand pat. OKC adding a veteran wing in Gordon Hayward and clearing out some of their backcourt bloat on the roster (while doing some more vintage Presti stuff by moving a pick this year for a future pick swap with Dallas) was a nice move to consolidate a bit of talent and hope Hayward can help out in a smaller role than he played in Charlotte. The Wolves likewise take two players that were mostly out of the rotation and add Monte Morris, who has proven to be helpful on a playoff team in the past, to backup Mike Conley and give them steady point guard minutes for all 48. The Suns flip a bunch of their end of the rotation guys for Royce O’Neale, who is an upgrade on the wing in terms of two-way help provided he can pick up his three-point shooting when surrounded by more talent, and David Roddy (who probably isn’t a factor but will be a body to replace some of the guys on the way out).

They were all solid moves on a quiet day, and improving the roster when others didn’t is a win at a slow deadline.

The “Did The Most Stuff” Award Winners

Detroit Pistons

I have no idea what the Pistons are doing, but they were definitely active over the last 24 hours. They spent Wednesday and Thursday smashing a big button that says TRADE and no one seems quite sure what the plan is in Detroit. I don’t want to call them losers, because to be honest, there’s not a whole lot more to lose and I think some of what they did was understandable. It’s just, similar to what I mentioned with the Knicks, they’re in that zone of seemingly just pressing buttons and hoping for a good outcome, rather than having a cohesive plan for constructing this roster.

First they traded a second round pick (that should be quite good) and Kevin Knox to the Jazz for Simone Fontecchio. They then traded Monte Morris to Minnesota for Shake Milton, Troy Brown Jr. and a second round pick. After that they flipped Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks into Quentin Grimes and two second round picks from the Knicks — respectfully, I can’t see Evan Fournier, Malachi Flynn, or Ryan Arcidiacono being contributors this year or beyond. They also traded for Danuel House and a second rounder, waiving House immediately, and waived Joe Harris and Killian Hayes to make room for all the players they brought in.

On aggregate, they added three second round picks and a couple interesting players in Grimes and Fontecchio (the latter of whom they will have to re-sign this summer as a restricted free agent) and cleared up any questions about who their backcourt of the future is by giving Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey the keys. That, in and of itself, is a positive and why I don’t want to call it a terrible deadline or anything. That said, the second they gave up will be better than any of the ones they added, and given they were reportedly turning down first round picks for Bogdanovic a year ago and asking for one again this year, it seems they overplayed their hand with his trade value and ultimately had to settle for what they could get. It wasn’t a disaster, which is why they get their own space in between the winners and losers, but the plan in Detroit still isn’t particularly clear.

LOSERS

Atlanta Hawks and Chicago Bulls

As is now an annual tradition, the Hawks and Bulls were focal points of trade rumors for months and then did pretty much nothing at the deadline. We’ll start with an Atlanta team that was very clear in their intention to trade Dejounte Murray, only to fail to find the market they hoped for him. They reportedly talked to the Lakers, Pelicans, Raptors, and others, but could not get the two first rounders in return they wanted for the former All-Star. Not only that, they’ve been trying to move Clint Capela and De’Andre Hunter since the offseason, and again failed to find a trade partner. Now the Hawks will again push for a Play-In berth and maybe a first round appearance before the same rumors pick up this summer around the Draft. They did it with John Collins for years (and long before that, Josh Smith), and it seems one of the few constants of the organization is dangling key players publicly in trade rumors only to hold onto them by insisting the right deal wasn’t out there. That’s fine, but it certainly doesn’t help locker room morale to hear your name constantly in trade rumblings and don’t know if or when you’ll be dealt to ensure ownership can duck the luxury tax.

Then you have the Bulls, who haven’t made a deadline deal involving a player since 2021 despite similarly being heavily involved in rumors each January and February. This year they have a little cover in the form of Zach LaVine’s foot surgery, but even before that it seemed they were unlikely to move their All-Star guard. There were whispers about Nikola Vucevic and DeMar DeRozan, murmurs about Alex Caruso, and damn near shouting about Andre Drummond, but all four will be on the floor for Chicago in their next game against Memphis. Running it back loses its luster after awhile, and despite a decent run of late, you’d be hard-pressed to find many Bulls fans excited about the overall team’s prospects going forward — even if Coby White’s leap is genuinely exciting. Arturas Karnisovas even said the Bulls had the greenlight to go into a rebuild from ownership, but have decided to “remain competitive” in the East, sitting at that famously competitive record of 24-27 on the season.

Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors

The Lakers and Warriors are the same teams they were a week ago, which comes as a bit of a surprise given how things have been going. It’s not a shock given the reporting we’ve heard over the past few days, but that also doesn’t make a dud of a deadline any more palatable to fans (or stars) on either team. LeBron James has been making his displeasure known in a vintage, passive-aggressive manner of late, with cryptic tweets and walking off the floor with a Knicks towel draped around his neck after a win at Madison Square Garden. Stephen Curry, meanwhile, offered the definition of insanity in response to questions about his desire to see the Warriors make improvements, offering a rare glimpse at his own frustrations with Golden State’s struggles this year.

And yet, neither star got any reinforcements at the deadline, with the Lakers not making any moves and the Warriors only shipping out Cory Joseph for a pick. Both teams will sell it as them keeping their options open for this summer and both will probably look to make a buyout signing — the Lakers are expected to chase Spencer Dinwiddie — but I’m not sure that’s enough consolation for their stars who don’t particularly care about future flexibility. The truth is, there wasn’t a singular deal that could solve all the issues both rosters have, but doing nothing certainly seems like throwing in the towel on the season.

Toronto Raptors

On the whole, Toronto has made clear their plans for the future are to build around Scottie Barnes. They made their big moves, trading OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam, well before the deadline and I think they did solidly in those deals all things considered. However, what they did at the deadline wasn’t my absolute favorite.

I know this isn’t a great draft and they didn’t trade a great pick, but they must really believe in Ochai Agbaji or be determined to acquire all the Canadians by bringing in Kelly Olynyk. The part that makes the least sense to me about the trade with the Jazz is the Olynyk portion. The veteran big is a helpful player on an expiring, but Toronto is a team that seems determined to tank out the season to retain their top-6 protected pick that would otherwise go to the Spurs this summer. I’m fine taking a swing on Agbaji — they need shooting and that was his whole upside in the draft two years ago even if it’s not panned out in limited action in Utah — but I’m just not sure about the Olynyk addition fitting with either their short or long-term goals.

They then dumped Dennis Schroder’s salary on Brooklyn for Spencer Dinwiddie and released him, which makes more sense for the tanking efforts, but certainly isn’t a particularly great deal. Again, in terms of trade season as a whole, the Raptors have at least picked a direction which I can appreciate and added some talent and draft assets that certainly didn’t appear to be available at the deadline. That said, with regards to the deadline itself, their moves didn’t make a ton of sense with the short-term plans, with the caveat that if Agbaji pops it was all worth it.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will be facing Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia, but there are an awful lot of WWE fans who are not excited for the return of The Great One. That’s because many believe The Rock is taking an opportunity away from Cody Rhodes, who ceded his chance to exact revenge on Reigns for last year’s Mania loss and “finish the story” of winning the title he so greatly covets.

There are reports and rumors abound about what exactly is going on behind the scenes at WWE, but many of them point to Rhodes going into the Royal Rumble believing he’d get his shot at Reigns, only for plans to change dramatically once The Rock signed on and CM Punk got hurt — ending his chance to go after Seth Rollins. This week on Raw, Rollins and Rhodes met face-to-face in the ring while “Rocky Sucks” chants cascaded down, prompting Cody to tweet this to the very vocal fans believing he’s getting screwed out of his Mania moment.

On Thursday evening in Las Vegas, taking advantage of the mass of media on hand for Super Bowl week, Reigns, Rhodes, Rollins, and The Rock will all take the stage for a press event to hype up WrestleMania 40. Prior to that, The Rock stopped by The Pat McAfee Show and decided to warm things up by cutting a vintage heel Rock promo on the “Cody Crybabies” online.

If he’s letting this one rip on TV before the event, you can bet he’s got more planned for Thursday night. I must say, hearing The Rock talk in the third person, tell people to shut their “bitch asses up”, and make a joke about them shoving McNuggets up their asses after firing off tweets is oddly comforting.

It’s also funny watching him flip the kayfabe switch in realtime, toggling between making sure to be careful he explains he’s talking only of a subset of Cody’s fans and not most fans and not Cody himself, then cutting the promo, and then laughing about how fun it is to get back in that world.

Fifty years ago, when Paul McCartney announced he had left the Beatles, the news dashed the hopes of millions of fans, while fueling false reunion rumors that persisted well into the new decade.

In a press release on April 10, 1970 for his first solo album, “McCartney,” he leaked his intention to leave. In doing so, he shocked his three bandmates.

The Beatles had symbolized the great communal spirit of the era. How could they possibly come apart?

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Few at the time were aware of the underlying fissures. The power struggles in the group had been mounting at least since their manager, Brian Epstein, died in August of 1967.

‘Paul Quits the Beatles’

Was McCartney’s “announcement” official? His album appeared on April 17, and its press packet included a mock interview. In it, McCartney is asked, “Are you planning a new album or single with the Beatles?”

His response? “No.”

But he didn’t say whether the separation might prove permanent. The Daily Mirror nonetheless framed its headline conclusively: “Paul Quits the Beatles.”

The others worried this could hurt sales and sent Ringo as a peacemaker to McCartney’s London home to talk him down from releasing his solo album ahead of the band’s “Let It Be” album and film, which were slated to come out in May. Without any press present, McCartney shouted Ringo off his front stoop.

Lennon had kept quiet

Lennon, who had been active outside the band for months, felt particularly betrayed.

The previous September, soon after the band released “Abbey Road,” he had asked his bandmates for a “divorce.” But the others convinced him not to go public to prevent disrupting some delicate contract negotiations.

Still, Lennon’s departure seemed imminent: He had played the Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Festival with his Plastic Ono Band in September 1969, and on Feb. 11, 1970, he performed a new solo track, “Instant Karma,” on the popular British TV show “Top of the Pops.” Yoko Ono sat behind him, knitting while blindfolded by a sanitary napkin.

In fact, Lennon behaved more and more like a solo artist, until McCartney countered with his own eponymous album. He wanted Apple to release this solo debut alongside the group’s new album, “Let It Be,” to dramatize the split.

By beating Lennon to the announcement, McCartney controlled the story and its timing, and undercut the other three’s interest in keeping it under wraps as new product hit stores.

Ray Connolly, a reporter at the Daily Mail, knew Lennon well enough to ring him up for comment. When I interviewed Connolly in 2008, he told me about their conversation.

Lennon was dumbfounded and enraged by the news. He had let Connolly in on his secret about leaving the band at his Montreal Bed-In in December 1969, but asked him to keep it quiet. Now he lambasted Connolly for not leaking it sooner.

“Why didn’t you write it when I told you in Canada at Christmas!” he exclaimed to Connolly, who reminded him that the conversation had been off the record. “You’re the f–king journalist, Connolly, not me,” snorted Lennon.

“We were all hurt [McCartney] didn’t tell us what he was going to do,” Lennon later told Rolling Stone. “Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it! I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record…”

It all falls apart

This public fracas had been bubbling under the band’s cheery surface for years. Timing and sales concealed deeper arguments about creative control and the return to live touring.

In January 1969, the group had started a roots project tentatively titled “Get Back.” It was supposed to be a back-to-the-basics recording without the artifice of studio trickery. But the whole venture was shelved as a new recording, “Abbey Road,” took shape.

When “Get Back” was eventually revived, Lennon – behind McCartney’s back – brought in American producer Phil Spector, best known for girl group hits like “Be My Baby,” to salvage the project. But this album was supposed to be band only – not embroidered with added strings and voices – and McCartney fumed when Spector added a female choir to his song “The Long and Winding Road.”

“Get Back” – which was renamed “Let it Be” – nonetheless moved forward. Spector mixed the album, and a cut of the feature film was readied for summer.

McCartney’s announcement and release of his solo album effectively short-circuited the plan. By announcing the breakup, he launched his solo career in advance of “Let It Be,” and nobody knew how it might disrupt the official Beatles’ project.

Throughout the remainder of 1970, fans watched in disbelief as the “Let It Be” movie portrayed the hallowed Beatles circling musical doldrums, bickering about arrangements and killing time running through oldies. The film finished with an ironic triumph – the famous live set on the roof of their Apple headquarters during which the band played “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down” and a joyous “One After 909.”

The album, released on May 8, performed well and spawned two hit singles – the title track and “The Long and Winding Road” – but the group never recorded together again.

Their fans hoped against hope that four solo Beatles might someday find their way back to the thrills that had enchanted audiences for seven years. These rumors seemed most promising when McCartney joined Lennon for a Los Angeles recording session in 1974 with Stevie Wonder. But while they all played on one another’s solo efforts, the four never played a session together again.

At the beginning of 1970, autumn’s “Come Together”/”Something” single from “Abbey Road” still floated in the Billboard top 20; the “Let It Be” album and film helped extend fervor beyond what the papers reported. For a long time, the myth of the band endured on radio playlists and across several greatest hits compilations, but when John Lennon sang “The dream is over…” at the end of his own 1970 solo debut, “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,” few grasped the lyrics’ implacable truth.

Fans and critics chased every sliver of hope for the “next” Beatles, but few came close to recreating the band’s magic. There were prospects – first bands like Three Dog Night, the Flaming Groovies, Big Star and the Raspberries; later, Cheap Trick, the Romantics and the Knack – but these groups only aimed at the same heights the Beatles had conquered, and none sported the range, songwriting ability or ineffable chemistry of the Liverpool quartet.

We’ve been living in the world without Beatles ever since.

Tim Riley is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director for Journalism, Emerson College

This article was originally published by The Conversation on 4.10.20. You can read it here.

A video created by Blake Kasemeier has made a lot of people feel seen because it perfectly explains the mindset people develop when they grow up poor. But it’s not just about remembering the hard times of the past. It describes how even though Kasemeier has overcome poverty as an adult, the effects of growing up financially disadvantaged still follow him to this day.

Kasemeier tells stories on social media about parenting, grief, growing up and where they sometimes collide. He documented the loss of his mom in the 2019 podcast series “Good Grief” and has written for some of the world’s leading health and fitness brands.

The video begins with Kasemeier admitting that when he was young, he’d always save half of his food until he got home “just in case.” It was a symptom of living in a financially unstable family with a single mother who had him at 23 years old. To help them get by, she occasionally wrote “hot checks” at the grocery store and blasted a Counting Crows tape to cover up any scary sounds coming out of the car.

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Even though sometimes it seemed like they wouldn’t get by and it was “close most days” — “moms always find a way.”

See on Instagram

The video ends with a poignant stanza about the lasting effects of growing up in an economically unstable home.

“It sits inside of you. Kinda like a worry but a lot like a flame,” Kasemeier says. “These days, we are doing alright. Maybe the fire finally went out, but there is a part of me that will always taste the smoke.”

“The thing about being born rich or, rather, not poor, is that when you are broke, it feels like you are a tourist on a bad trip. A place that you don’t belong,” Kasemeier continues. “The thing about being born the other way around, is that as hard as you work to escape it, it’s always gonna kinda feel like home

The post received some emotional reactions from people on Instagram.

“I feel the last sentence is the most profound of this video—and the underlying sense of entitlement many have vs the underlying sense of lack of self-worth others may have,” thewitchofportobell0 wrote.

“Tasting the smoke is a great way to put this. Growing up this way really makes you look at some of your frugality and not norm habits in a new light. Hard to relearn,” Jakemerten added.

See on Instagram

Even though there were hardships growing up in an economically disadvantaged family, Kasemeier wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I am deeply grateful for the way I was raised,” he told Upworthy. “Unfortunately, everyone experiences some trauma in their upbringing—I wouldn’t want to trade mine for someone else’s. I grew up to be grateful for what I have and without a feeling of entitlement to success: I expected that everything that came to me was going to come through hard work and being kind to people and that has served me very well. It also allowed me to have a great deal of empathy for what everyone is going through.”

Kasemeier further explained the mindset to help those who weren’t raised in that environment better understand the mentality.

“I can tell you that what I experience is a feeling that the other shoe is going to drop, that when I’m up (financially), I don’t expect it to last—that leads to a lot of imposter syndrome,” he told Upworthy. “There are little things—like constant anxiety that your card will decline when you go to check out at a grocery store (knowing full well that you have more than enough money). There are big things, like financial literacy.”

The video talks about economic insecurity, but is also touching tribute to his late mother, who, as he said in the post, found “a way.”

“She came from a tiny farm in rural Arkansas, moved to Hollywood where she met my dad and had me at 23 without a degree or any connections,” Kasemeier told Upworthy. “They had a shotgun wedding and divorced shortly after, my mom was left to navigate parenthood in a pretty challenging way—something I appreciate so much having kids of my own at a totally different place in my life than she was.”

We’ve all been there. Standing in line to be seated at a fairly busy restaurant while your stomach growls in protest. But when two women left a concert August 22 in search of food, they had no idea they’d find themselves taking orders and cooking food. Sylvia Arrendondo and her mother Idalia Merkel went to a local Denny’s in Texas and were seated by another customer before realizing the restaurant was extremely short-staffed. Instead of taking their business elsewhere, they decided to roll up their sleeves and get to work.

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Arrendondo wrote about the unique experience on her Facebook page where she explained that only two people were working. One was serving tables and the other was the cook. As for the man that was acting as host, seating new guests, he had no idea what he was doing because he didn’t work there. He told Arrendondo and Merkel that his wife used to work at Denny’s so she started helping to serve tables and he decided to help get people seated.

The service industry has been hit hard by the pandemic and the subsequent “great resignation.” Complaints about low wages, poor management and rude customers that abuse staff members are just a few of the reasons cited by people who have left the industry. It may be surprising for some to learn that the federal minimum wage for tipped employees like servers and bussers is just $2.13 an hour. The rest of the wage is supposed to be made up of tips, which, depending on where you work, may be split at the end of the night between other workers. This act of splitting tips is called “tip pooling” and is calculated by number of hours worked.

Splitting tips after a long day of work dealing with customers who may not have been so kind would understandably make some people upset. But it didn’t take a deep dive on the treatment of restaurant employees for Arrendondo and the other customers who helped out. They saw two seemingly college-aged kids doing their best to keep the place running and they didn’t hesitate to jump in to help, completely unpaid.

When asked why she didn’t just leave, Arrendondo said, “We just looked at each other and it wasn’t even a question. We both knew what we had to do.”

“This was probably the most beautiful act of American unity that I have personally encountered,” Arrendondo told Upworthy. She added that the sole paid server would occasionally start to cry before being comforted by the cook, only to return the favor when he would get overwhelmed.

Talk about community.

These two kids had exhausted all of their resources, including calling their manager multiple times. And instead of customers getting angry, demanding better service or walking away, Arredondo and Merkel stepped up. The kindness of this group of strangers will surely stick with these employees and the people who were involved.

“The strength, courage and integrity by these two workers was beyond admirable. My mom and I have never been so proud and happy to help,” Arrendondo told Upworthy. “After all, we have all been there.”

Eventually after some convincing, the two employees shut the restaurant down and Arrendondo and Merkel went home much more tired than anticipated. Still hungry, but full of gratitude and pride.

This article originally appeared on 08.26.22

It’s been said countless times, but teachers really are the best and bravest of us all. Anyone who has spent time surrounded by kids, trying to help them learn while managing the countless crises that can occur when hundreds of immature humans are put together in one place, knows that teaching encompasses so much more than just academic instruction. Teachers serve as mentors, counselors, nurses, mediators and sometimes even security guards.

That’s why a middle school teacher who thought there was a fight happening in her classroom ran full speed toward it—in a dress and heels, no less.

A TikTok video shared by @lilythern shows a teacher sprinting down a school hallway with an overlay of text that reads, “This middle school teacher thought she was running to break up a fight.” As she runs into the classroom, she sees a couple of dozen students gathered in a tight circle and shouting. The teacher immediately starts pushing her way through the outside of the circle, yelling, “Hey! Break it up! Break it up!”

But there is no breaking up to be had. In fact, what she finds is the exact opposite.

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As the students part to let her through, we see some of them holding up signs and smiling. Then we see a man down on one knee.

Watch:

@lilythern

#fyp #touchingmoment #middleschoolersbelike #loveit

How fast was that adrenaline switch from fight-or-flight to genuine joy? Seriously, the fearlessness with which she ran into that room is as heartening as the proposal itself.

People in the comments loved it:

“She is so strong. She was running towards the chaos to stop it with her bare hands. What a fighter. This is the best proposal ever.”

“That was the ‘Not in my school!’ run! 😂😂😂😂”

“Fearless teachers are the ones that deserve the most respect.”

“Don’t marry her, she has to join the Avengers.”

The students were clearly thrilled to be a part of the sweet proposal, and the teacher’s immediate and enthusiastic “yes” made it all that much sweeter.

Definitely a moment none of these students—or their teacher—will ever forget.

This article originally appeared on 4.12.23

Pablo Schreiber is good at multitasking.

It’s something I become more and more grateful for as we chat by phone about the upcoming second season of his big-budget Halo series. He’s on the road, driving to places unknown, and jokingly prepping me on what to do should I suddenly hear a loud crash. I never do – he assures me he wouldn’t blame me if something had happened – but I get the sense that there’s a bit of a daredevil in Schreiber which makes him suited to roles like that of Master Chief in the Paramount+ video game adaptation.

Filled with gritty, pulse-ratcheting action and political intrigue, the show’s second season is a vast improvement, mostly because it gives Schreiber a chance to wield his imposing physical presence to great effect. With a new showrunner in David Weiner (Brave New World) and cast additions like Joseph Morgan (The Originals), the tone of the show has shifted. Things are darker and more dangerous in a thrillingly visceral way and, while Master Chief can sense the looming threat The Covenant – a horde of militant aliens hellbent on eradicating mankind from every nook and cranny of the galaxy – poses, no one else is willing to acknowledge the planet’s impending apocalypse.

Uproxx chatted with Schreiber about the show’s season two upgrade, gaming fandoms, and what he’s learned after years of playing a tough guy on screen.

It was interesting to see how gaming fans received the first season of the show versus how newcomers responded to it. How did you handle the criticisms of season one?

I handle the criticism in the same way that I handle the love and the accolades. There’s plenty of that too. There were a lot of successes that came out of season one. There’s a massive fan base behind this game with so many different opinions on how it should be carried out. I really love it, to be honest with you. To me, the passion of the Halo fans is something that, regardless of which particular opinion or take they have, it’s still passion, it’s still engagement. I love that people love the franchise so much. I knew going in that people feel very protective of it.

One of the things that dawned on me as I’ve gone through this experience is how much of a personal ownership people have, not just over the franchise, but over the character of Master Chief. Because when they played the game they played along as the character. The way video game protagonists are designed, they’re blank slates that you’re asked to project your personality traits onto so you can feel more like you are the character. Every single person who’s ever played Halo has a sense of ownership over the character and almost feels like there are pieces of him that are them and they’re right.

And that creates a potential cognitive dissonance in trying to then see somebody else as the character. That can be a challenge for some people. And that’s okay too. The biggest thing is a lot of people involved have worked tirelessly to try to make it the best version of itself that it can be. We have a fantastic showrunner named David Wiener who’s come in and taken the reigns and we are working to fulfill his vision of this beautiful universe with a captivating mythology and a wealth of storytelling opportunities inside of it.

You were friends with David Weiner before he signed onto the show. What were those early conversations about season two like?

He made it clear early on that he was interested in making an eight-episode war movie that was as gritty, authentic, and realistic as possible. And I thought that tonal shift was perfect for the places that we were heading this season. It’s a darker, more dangerous place for humanity and to have a more subjective point of view where you’re really thrust into it with the soldiers themselves and getting a sense of what war feels like, I thought was a perfect shift.

How do you work on a show with a friend — especially a show like this with so much pressure on it to perform — and still walk away as friends once the job ends?

Yeah, it was a really intricate process and one that demanded a lot of attention because creativity can be really personal territory. When you’re doing the best work, you are always messing around the edges of some really personal stuff, stuff that feels close to home, stuff that can be emotionally charged. I made it clear early on that our friendship took priority over anything that would happen in the course of this creative endeavor. Because it did get difficult at times. There were times when I quite honestly didn’t agree with what he was doing and I had to let him know that and we had to agree to disagree as it were, and just move forward.

And at the end of the day, it’s his show. Just like in the first season, it was Stephen Kane’s show and the power that I have is really just to offer my opinion and say what I think is the best direction, and if that’s listened to or followed through on, fantastic. If it’s not, I have to accept that and I have to move on and I have to get behind the ideas and the vision of the showrunner. That’s collaboration, right? I had to make a mental break between what work was and what friendship was and just decide that there was nothing that would bridge that gap.

It kind of mirrors what your character is going through this season. He’s trusting his intuition and no one’s listening to him.

[laughs] I told you sometimes art gets really personal. Sometimes it hits close to home.

He’s got some autonomy this season. He’s thinking for himself for the first time.

Yeah, there are glimpses of that. There was so much that he was unsure about and he was being confronted with for the first time in the first season. I think when you see him in the second season, he’s been burned. He’s felt some things and he’s felt the complications of that. He’s a bit of a man on an island in the sense that things are not going well in the struggle against the Covenant and things are not going well for his team in particular. They’re doing work that they feel they’re overqualified for. The rest of the team is grumpy and they’re looking at him wondering why they’re in this position. And then he also is in a place that he never has been before where people start to question his judgment and question his decision-making.

It’s all new territory. One of the interesting things about that arc is that in terms of the first four episodes, you’re wondering about the sanity of your main character, whether he’s losing it or not. And, spoiler, ultimately he is proven to be right. But I thought an interesting way to take that journey was for him to become more and more sure of himself and more clear that what he saw was true. Even as the evidence becomes more and more damning and people are not believing him, he’s sure of himself, which is I think the opposite of what you normally see in that kind of journey. You usually have a lot of self-doubt and questioning.

What’s your response to authority? Are you a rule follower?

[laughs] I believe that people should be respected and when authority deserves respect, I’m the first one to give it. I have a really clear sense of my own instincts and I’m not afraid to share what I believe. So that can contribute to some bumps with authority when I don’t believe that authority is handling its powers in the best way possible.

But it’s interesting, it also dovetails with leadership, which this process of playing this character has also paralleled with my journey of trying to figure out what it means to be a leader and what the best methods of leadership are in terms of providing a good tone on set. How important is honesty, which is really important to me as a quality? When is it necessary and when is it more important to set the right tone? Those are qualities of leadership that I think anybody who’s put in that position has to face at certain times.

You’ve played a tough guy opposite a lot of other tough guys in Hollywood. Of the people you’ve worked with, who’s the real deal?

I’ve been lucky enough to interact with a lot of really tough guys, not all of them actors. I’m talking about special forces people, I’m talking about MMA fighters. I know a lot of people who have the ability to end your life in a second. One thing that seems to be mostly consistent is a lot of these people are actually some of the most humble and gentle people you’ll ever meet. Maybe I avoided having to weigh in about other tough actors, but that’s what you get.

New episodes of Halo stream on Thursdays on Paramount+.

It looks like the “Water Challenge” on social media hasn’t run dry just yet. According to Tyla, the remix of her breakout single “Water” featuring Travis Scott will receive a music video. While sitting for a Complex segment, “What’s In Your Phone?” the South African star confirmed that the video is done (after making sure it was okay for her to share that information with her team), which means the wait is officially on.

The news of the remix video follows the announcement of her self-titled debut album, which is due on March 1 via Fax and Epic Records. Earlier this month, Tyla released the video for “Truth Or Dare,” the album’s second single, and attended her first-ever Grammy Awards ceremony as she was nominated for — and won — Best African Music Performance for “Water.”

“Water” was not only Tyla’s first top-ten-charting hit in the US, peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it was also the first song by a South African solo artist to enter the Hot 100 in 55 years following Hugh Masekela’s “Grazing in the Grass” in 1968. Tyla is also the youngest South African artist with that distinction, as Maskela was 29 in 1968.

As for when the “Water” remix video officially drops, there’s no word yet — but the odds are high it’ll be sometime before the release of Tyla to ensure maximum interest in Tyla’s debut album.

With Reacher Season 2 officially wrapped up, fans of the giant behemoth punching man are clamoring for information on Season 3. Well, they’re in luck. Amazon has just confirmed two new cast members, and one of them sounds like a potential new love interest for Alan Ritchson‘s drifter guy.

According to reports, Reacher Season 3 will jump a little bit and tackle an adaptation of Persuader, the seventh book in the popular series from author Lee Child. Thanks to TVLine, we now know at least two castings for the upcoming season:

Anthony Michael Hall (most recently of Bosch: Legacy) will play Zachary Beck, a formidable and successful businessman/owner of a rug import company that Reacher suspects is a cover for a more nefarious operation, while Sonya Cassidy (Lodge 49) has been cast as Susan Duffy, an extremely intelligent and tough DEA agent from Boston with a sharp and sarcastic sense of humor.

As for a Season 3 release date, there’s some good and bad news. The bad news is that Amazon hasn’t confirmed a premiere date yet. However, the very good news is that Season 3 has been filming since December 2023. That means there’s a very good chance that Reacher could return in December 2024 with a similar release schedule as Season 2.

Don’t hold us to that, but the odds are in our favor of more punching on the way sooner rather than later.

Reacher Seasons 1 and 2 are available for streaming on Prime Video.

(Via TVLine)

You would think that Paul Rudd might be too busy preparing for the Super Bowl, murdering Meryl Streep, or running his cute little candy shop to keep taking on jobs. but time and time again, the man has proven to be unstoppable, and that’s not just because he was Ant-Man. So he’s doing another thing.

National Geographic has tapped Rudd to narrate the upcoming docuseries Secrets of the Octopus for Disney+. The series follows the mysterious and often misunderstood masterminds of the deep. Because there is water involved, James Cameron is serving as executive producer.

Rudd expressed his excitement in a statement:

It’s been an incredible journey learning about these mysterious creatures and their interconnected lives. I can’t imagine audiences won’t be as blown away with the secret lives of octopuses as I was working on this series. If you’re going to dive deep into natural history, you have to do it with National Geographic. I’m thrilled to be working with James Cameron and the Nat Geo team to deepen our connection with the ocean and all of its creatures and curiosities.

This is the latest docuseries with an A-list narrator to land on the streamer. Previous specials include 2021’s Secrets of the Whales narrated by Sigourney Weaver and 2023’s Secrets of the Elephants narrated by Natalie Portman. Hopefully, we can expect a new installment that will explore the untold secrets of the common Parisian street rat narrated by Stephen A. Smith.

Secrets of the Octopus will consist of three episodes and premiere on April 21 (Earth Day!!) on Nat Geo, streaming the next day on Hulu and Disney+.

(Via Variety)