Month: August 2024

Uproxx cover stars, Jonas Brothers’ discography is massive, thanks in part to their early start. The “Waffle House” musician’s Five Albums, One Night Tour supports this claim.

But, even with enough music to filled their impressive setlist, Jonas Brothers decided to squeeze in a few of songs by others acts. Yesterday (August 3), during the second night of their Hard Rock Live run in Hollywood, Florida, they performed a cover of Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!”

In the clip captured by a concertgoer, Jonas Brothers did the track justice with a comforting three part harmony. The crowd quickly chimed in to sing along with the rising pop star’s beloved single.

In a statement, Roan revealed the inspiration behind the track. “I needed to write a song about a common situationship within queer relationships,” she said. “Where someone is struggling with coming to terms with themselves. It’s a song about wishing well to someone who is avoidant of their true feelings.”

Although the Jonas Brothers don’t identify as queer, the record’s deep storytelling transcends sexual orientation. Typically, Roan isn’t a fan of newly garnered attention, but a co-sign from Jonas Brothers isn’t something to shy away.

With a rendition of Chappell Roan’s music knocked out, fans are curious as to which cover’s Jonas Brothers secretly have tucked away for future shows.

Noah Lyles has had an eventful past year, and while he came into the Olympics as the reigning world champion, he was not considered the favorite for the gold medal. That title belonged to Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson, who had the fastest time in the world this year (9.77) and ran the fastest time in the semifinals (9.80).

In fact, Lyles hadn’t won either of his first two races at the Olympics, coming second in both the preliminary heat and in his semifinal. However, they don’t hand out medals for the heats or semis, and when it came time for the finals, we were treated to perhaps the greatest 100 meter race in history. Thompson came out hot, pushed by American Fred Kerley, but it was Lyles who ran them down on the outside to win gold in a photo finish by an outrageous five thousandths of a second.

Both Lyles and Thompson ran 9.79, but Lyles did it in 9.784, while Thompson was 9.789 — with a reminder the timing is to your torso, not your feet.

While the NBC feed showed limited angles on the live coverage, the BBC feed showed some incredible overhead looks to show how Lyles overcame an early deficit to win gold.

Kerley finished in bronze medal position with a 9.81, while South Africa’s Akani Simbane missed out on a medal by the narrowest of margins, running a 9.82. It was a truly incredible race and the tension only built in the immediate aftermath, as all three medalists stared up at the board waiting for official results to come through, as Thompson thought he had won, thinking Kerley was closest to him not realizing Lyles was on the outside right alongside as well.

Last year, Morgan Wallen experienced vocal issues that resulted in canceled concerts. Now, the “I Had Some Help” singer is rested up and on the road as part of his One Night At A Time Tour. Unfortunately, Wallen’s Kansas City stop sparked some push back online, one even reportedly led to an arrest.

According to TMZ, a Morgan Wallen fan was arrested for terroristic threats. In the report, the outlet alleged on August 2, Aaron Brown was detained by local authorities following Wallen’s performance for remarks he supposedly made online against Kansas City Chiefs’ stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.

Prior to the show, which was held at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium, Brown allegedly ranted that he didn’t want the duo to make a duo at the show. “Mr. [redacted] at Arrowhead with the wife. If he brings out [redacted] or [redacted] I’ll take the f*ckin shot. F*ck em!” he allegedly wrote. “Also, f*ck you b*tch!! [hand emoji with middle finger].”

Despite Brown’s wish, Mahomes and Kelce were not only in attendance, but they escorted Wallen to the stage. Fortunately, the athletes were not harmed at the show. But, that reportedly did not stop the police from acting on Brown’s threat. After attending the show with his girlfriend, Brown was contacted by the authorities.

He was later arrested for the online remarks. According to the outlet, during his arrest, Brown was apologetic. “It was a stupid, stupid, stupid mistake,” he reportedly said.

Brown’s bail was supposedly set at $15,000.

The USA men’s basketball team cruised into the knockout rounds of the Olympic basketball tournament on Saturday, beating Puerto Rico in their final game of the group stage by 19. While they got off to a shaky start, they cruised to a win thanks to a big performance from Anthony Edwards, who put up 26 points in the win.

As tends to happen in the Olympics, it was the third straight game for Team USA with a different leading scorer, as with the depth of talent on the roster we often see different players taking the lead on any given night. After leading the way against South Sudan with 18 points, Bam Adebayo had much more pedestrian game against Puerto Rico, doing a little bit of everything with three points, five rebounds, three assists, and two steals. That’s certainly not a bad stat line, especially since Team USA wasn’t asking Adebayo to carry the offensive load, but it wasn’t really one to write home about.

Despite that, the Miami Heat tweeted out Bam’s stat line with a bunch of fire emojis, hyping up his perfectly solid outing, and the star center couldn’t help but poke some fun at his NBA squad tweeting out his “quadruple single” performance.

In early August, NBA team social media accounts are going to look for any opportunity for a post, and having your guy in the Olympics is your best chance for some easy content. The problem is, with how restrictive the Olympics and NBC are about highlights on social media, you have to hope an official account posts something involving your player or else you just have photos and stat lines. In this case, the stat line wasn’t all that impressive, even if he did perfectly fine in a win, and Adebayo had to call them out for trying to make his performance seem better than it really was.

Kanye West (Ye) and Ty Dolla Sign surprised fans with their spontaneous release of their latest album, Vultures 2. But the body of work’s arrival isn’t the only thing to shock the public.

Yesterday (August 3), Portishead’s Geoff Barrow was annoyed to learned that the duo sampled the group’s song “Machine Gun” without permission. Over on X (formerly Twitter), Barrow called out the duo for featuring its revered instrumental break on the Vultures 2 track, “Field Trip,” which features Playboi Carti, Don Toliver, and Kodak Black.

“For f*ck’s sake,” he wrote. “Not again .”

Users online chimed in to encourage Barrow to take legal action.

“Dude, you need to sue the f*cker,” wrote one user.

“Jeezus, that’s not even sampling, they just used the entire song for a backing track for some sh*t karaoke. Zero creativity,” penned another.

“Now that’s just a blatant ripoff, and you deserve to be compensated,” added another.

“Make them delete the whole album ,” demanded another.

However, not everyone shared the same sentiments. Fans of Ye, begged Barrow not to take things to court.

“Don’t sue Ye, this song is amazing, let us have it man,” wrote one user.

“You should’ve said something after the first listening party it was previewed at bro we finally got the music and now you wanna take it away,” added another.

“Better to ask for forgiveness,” chimed another.

Ye has reportedly already been hit with several copyright infringement lawsuits from past projects, Donda. Even Vultures 1 was surrounded with sample clearance issues (from Donna Summer’s estate to Ozzy Osbourne). But based on Barrow’s response, this is Ye’s second time ripping off his past work. Could this be his legal breaking point?

Basketball has, typically, been dominated by Team USA at the Olympics on both the men’s and women’s sides, but when it comes to the new 3×3 format, the USA men have not been able to figure out how to get on the medal stand. After failing to podium at the Tokyo Olympics, the Americans came into Paris with plenty of pressure but not a lot of star power.

Jimmer Fredette was the big name on the team, with Canyon Barry, Kareem Maddox, and Dylan Travis joining him, and it was apparent early in the competition that they were not going to be among the favorites. After losing to Serbia, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia in their first three games of pool play, the Americans would need a big finish to make the knockout rounds. They did beat France and China, but in their final game of the competition on Sunday, they got absolutely dog-walked by the Netherlands in an embarrassing 21-6 loss.

It’s not abundantly clear why Team USA can’t figure out how to find four players that can compete with the rest of the world in 3×3, but after two Olympic cycles, it’s clear the American men just aren’t close. While it’s certainly a different style of play, it’s fairly incredible Team USA cannot figure out how to put together a competitive roster in any basketball event. The American women were able to turn around their own slow start to punch a ticket to the knockout rounds, winning their play-in against China to earn a spot in the semifinals on Monday against Spain, keeping their hopes of a second straight gold alive.

The men, meanwhile, will be headed back home empty handed (where they goin’, Chuck?) and USA Basketball has a lot of work to do to figure out the formula for 3×3 going into the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

50 Cent’s reputation as hip-hop’s Teflon Don in the courtroom lives on. While the musician-turned-mogul is supposedly involved in several ongoing cases (allegedly including a defamation lawsuit against his youngest son’s mother), the weight from one massive legal matter has reportedly been removed from his back.

According to AllHipHop, the “In Da Club” rapper $1 billion lawsuit surrounding his hit television show, Power, has been dismissed.

In the report, the outlet claimed that the preceding judge declared the similarities of the show’s characters and plot, Cory “Ghost” Holland argued were from his life, did not amount to anything beyond “mere coincidences.”

Yesterday (August 3), 50 Cent wasted no time boasting about the victory in court. On Instagram, 50 Cent posted a screenshot of HotNewHipHop‘s coverage captioned: “Fool thought he was GHOST da f*ck wrong with these n****s man LOL.”

50 Cent wasn’t the only party named in the lawsuit, originally filled in 2021. Power‘s co-creator Courtney Kemp, the Starz network, and Lionsgate were also named in the case. Although the likeness lawsuit has seemingly been dismissed, 50 Cent isn’t done fighting with Cory “Ghost” Holland in court.

Holland has also filed a $300 million lawsuit where he accused 50 Cent of intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon him and allegedly attempting to have him physically assaulted. Holland also claimed Lionsgate Entertainment didn’t make any effort to stop the harassment. This case is still pending.

The stars of the 2024 Olympics for the USA women’s basketball team so far have been A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart, as the two former MVPs have dominated opponents inside and kept Team USA afloat despite some shaky shooting performances.

On Sunday against Germany, it looked like those two would again have to carry the scoring load against Germany, as they both hit double figures in the first half to erase a 4-point deficit after the first quarter to push Team USA ahead by 12 at the half. However, coming out for the third quarter, USA coach Cheryl Reeve decided to lean on her bench unit more and got rewarded in a big way, as the American reserves went to work extending their lead.

Leading the bench was Aces guard Jackie Young, who led all scorers with 19 points, including five three-pointers as she finally pried the lid off the basket from beyond the arc for the Americans — including an incredible buzzer-beater to end the third quarter.

Young wasn’t alone in having a big game off the bench, as her Aces teammate Kelsey Plum helped get the USA offense going with her energy, posting six points and five assists.

Alyssa Thomas also had six points and five assists, while Kahleah Copper (nine points), Sabrina Ionescu (six points, five assists), and Britney Griner (six points) all had positive impacts off the bench.

It was an impressive showing from the Americans, as they flexed their depth against Germany and shook off another rough night offensively from their veteran starting guards, as Diana Taurasi and Chelsea Gray were held scoreless for the second straight game. We’ll see if Reeve decides to make any changes to her starting lineup going into the knockout rounds to try and add a little more scoring pop from the backcourt to Stewart and Wilson (who combined for 27 against Germany, but were not needed in the fourth quarter).

In any case, Team USA continues to look the part of the gold medal favorites. Wilson and Stewart give them a leg up on just about any competition, and if they can get some of their threes to fall, it’s hard to see how anyone keeps up with them.

The 2024 Paris Olympics have been filled with shocking moments and celebrity cameos. However, not every musician can drop their obligations to rally behind their home country during showdowns.

Despite being swamped with international The Eras Tour dates, Taylor Swift still managed to uniquely root on Team USA. Yesterday (August 3), the “So High School” singer lent her award-winning voice to the latest Olympic promotion video.

In the clip soundtracked by Swift’s 2015 song “Style,” the entertainer praised medal holders, Simone Biles, Sha’Carri Richardson, and Katie Ledecky.

As part of the voiceover, Swift provided a few words of encouragement. “Never be afraid to show them who you are, especially when the whole world is watching,” she said. “Because there is no one way to be the best. No one way to inspire everyone else who will someday follow.”

But Swift’s aspirational message did stop there. “You do what you love,” she said. “You love what you do.”

To close out the message, Swift’s lyrics drive home the uplifting spirit of the visual. “We never go out of style / You believe in your style, whatever it is,” was displayed on the screen.

Watch the latest 2024 Paris Olympics promotional video narrated by Taylor Swift below.

I’m trying desperately to be respectful of the person speaking to me, but my husband keeps texting me.

First he sends me a selfie of him with Rafi*, then it’s an account of who stopped him on his way into the NICU.

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Then he suggests I take a selfie with Jillian* so he can post them side-by-side on Facebook and boast that we finally have two babies.

People will ask if they’re twins, I’m sure. But they’re not twins. In fact, the babies aren’t even ours.

I take care of these babies because I’m what’s known as an “interim parent.”

The program I’m part of is rare; there are very few like it in the United States.

While the babies are in my care, the birth parents retain their legal rights as parents and are encouraged to visit their babies (if that’s something they would like).

If they weren’t in the care of interim moms like me, these tiny babies might wait in the hospital a few extra days while their adoptions are finalized — or they might enter the foster care system.

In New York, biological parents have 30 days after adoption proceedings begin to change their minds about their placement plan.

I became an interim parent when a local mom posted about it on our neighborhood Yahoo! group.

“That! THAT I can do!” I thought, as I looked at the computer screen.

I was thrilled. I felt incapable of doing other types of volunteer work, but I felt like I had finally found a community service that I could perform. So, my husband and I applied. And after months of doctor appointments, background checks, interviews, and letters of reference from close friends, we were accepted.

The hope with the interim boarding care program is that biological parents have time to gain clarity about their decisions without pressure.

It also helps adoptive parents feel secure in their status as parents.

The children don’t usually get the chance to be present when one of our babies goes home, so this was a special day. Roughly 30% of the babies I’ve cared for have returned to their biological parents after their stay with me, and the rest have been adopted. Many of the birth mothers I’ve known have pursued open adoptions, selecting and meeting their child’s forever families.

People often ask me what the experience of interim parenting is like, but there’s no rule: Each case is different.

Babies stay with us, on average, for a few weeks. But one baby stayed with us with five days, another for nine and a half weeks.

Whatever the scenario, my family and I are available to care for these babies until they go home … wherever “home” may be.

This work can be emotionally challenging, too. Some biological parents do not interact with us at all while they’re making big decisions, and some end up being very involved. Some text regularly, requesting photos and updates on the baby while the baby is in our care. Sometimes they schedule weekly visits with the babies. One birth mom became such a constant in our life that my son asked if we could bake her cookies.

I am often blown away by the biological parents’ gratitude.

Melody* was one of the most beautiful babies I’d ever cared for, and I met her parents a couple of times. When they came to take her home, it was as though she was the only one in the room. When they thanked me for taking care of her, my lip started to quiver.

I had also never met Jibraan’s dad, either, when I placed him in his arms the day they went home together. “From the bottom of my heart … I can’t tell you what you’ve done for me,” he said. I remember that he towered over me, the size of a linebacker, clenching his jaw to keep the tears from spilling down his cheeks.

When I wave goodbye to the social workers at the agency after introducing each baby to their forever family, I always wonder how long it will be before I get to hold another baby.

I don’t get attached to each baby, per se. But I get attached to having a baby, to taking care of a baby. I resent my empty arms, and I feel like I’ve lost my purpose. So each time I see the adoption agency’s phone number pop up on caller ID, my heart skips a beat.

When the voice on the other end says, “Hi, Ann … are you ready to take another baby?” my first thought is, “Baby! I’m getting a BABY!” That excitement lasts for at least 48 hours.

But even as the adrenaline calms down and the sleepless nights begin to take their toll, the experience of caring for each baby proves to be more than enough motivation for me to keep going.

The emotions that swell when my babies go home with any parent — their adoptive parents or their birth parents — are not just because of the emptiness I feel in my arms or even because of the happiness I have for my babies and their families.

The emotions I feel are because of the fullness in my heart and the gratitude I have for being a part of each of these babies’ stories, even if it’s just for a moment.

This article was written by Ann Lapin and originally appeared on 04.08.16