Category: News

To some Tommy Tuberville is the senator who doesn’t know what the three branches of U.S. government are. To others he’s the guy who keeps saying white nationalists are people, too. Lately, though, he’s become best known as the guy who’s singlehandedly holding up hundreds of military promotions, all so he can make a culture war point. Now, after months of putting up with his intransigence, Tuberville’s fellow Republicans finally gave him what for.

Per Mediaite, the Senate floor blew up Wednesday night after Tuberville took his blocking next level. The college football coach-turned-Alabama lawmaker has placed holds on over 300 nominations to the Department of Defense. Why? Because he wants the Pentagon to revoke a policy that reimburses out-of-state expenses for service members who seek abortions but are stationed in states where it’s now illegal.

For months, Tuberville has said he’d allow his colleagues to find a workaround: They could do each one one-by-one. It would take ages, but he claimed he wouldn’t block them. On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader called his bluff…only for Tuberville to block each one.

But it wasn’t just Democrats who called Tuberville out on his short-sighted sabotage. It was Republicans.

Alaskan senator Dan Sullivan was among Tuberville’s harshest critics, calling his antics a “national security suicide mission.” He also wondered aloud if this will make China think about attacking Taiwan as the U.S. military sleeps.

Tuberville’s actions were so beyond the pale that they enraged no less than backbone-less Lindsey Graham, who tried desperately to talk some sense into him.

As some noted, if you’re too crazy for the guy who can’t stand up to Donald Trump for too long, well…

The scene on the Senate floor Wednesday evening was really the culmination of months of the GOP tension.

As of this writing, Tuberville had not come to his senses. For now, you can enjoy a clip of the senator falling down some stairs.

(Via Mediaite)

Reneé Rapp cut her artistic teeth portraying Regina George in Mean Girls on Broadway and Leighton Murray on Max’s The Sex Lives Of College Girls. She’s since released her debut album, Snow Angel, in August and staged her subsequent Snow Hard Feelings Tour. On Tuesday, October 31, she indulged her acting instincts for Halloween.

Rapp performed a sold-out show at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, New York — the second of four New York City shows this week to wrap the Snow Hard Feelings Tour — and couldn’t help but mention the holiday. The rocketing pop star dressed up as My World 2.0 era Justin Bieber and serenaded The Summer I Turned Pretty actress Lola Tung with “One Less Lonely Girl,” replicating the now-famous manner that Bieber serenaded a different fan with his classic ballad during his My World Tour in 2010-11.

“only you shawty @lola.tung,” Rapp captioned her Instagram carousel, showing the moment play out. Tung commented, “I was starstruck” and “thanks for making me feel so special.” Even the official The Summer I Turned Pretty account chimed in, writing, “reneé is now mayor of cousins beach.”

Don’t fret, Mean Girls fans: The singer, songwriter, and super producer Alexander 23, who produced and co-wrote Rapp’s Snow Angel album, dressed up as Rapp’s Regina George for his opening set. (Fittingly, Alexander 23’s 2022 debut LP Aftershock housed a song called “Cosplay.”)

Once upon a time Nicolas Cage almost played his favorite superhero. In the late ‘90s there was nearly a Superman reboot. Tim Burton and Kevin Smith were involved at various points. Cage did test shoots, in a costume. Obviously it didn’t happen. But about a quarter century later he got a second chance to do it. And he’s not all that crazy about the results.

In a new chat with Yahoo!, the Oscar-winning actor opened up about his quickie cameo in The Flash, in which he can be seen as a long-haired Kal-El, shooting down a giant spider with his heat vision. Thing is, that’s not what he filmed.

“When I went to the picture, it was me fighting a giant spider. I did not do that. That was not what I did,” Cage said. He said it looked like they used CGI, not AI, to “de-age me” and make it look like he’s fighting a spider. But, he added, “I didn’t do any of that, so I don’t know what happened there.”

Cage admitted it was all “out of my control,” but explained what he actually did when he was on-set. “I literally went to shoot a scene for maybe an hour in the suit, looking at the destruction of a universe and trying to convey the feelings of loss and sadness and terror in my eyes. That’s all I did.”

On the other hand, Cage was a lot more sanguine about the whole thing than Tim Burton.

Cage also used the occasion to make like Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, and President Joe Biden and trash artificial intelligence.

“I would be very unhappy if people were taking my art … and appropriating them,” he said. “AI is a nightmare to me. It’s inhumane. You can’t get more inhumane than artificial intelligence.”

Cage’s The Flash cameo is brief, taking place during a stretch where we see lots of old DC movie stars, including the late Christopher Reeve as Superman. Knowing that Cage was supposed to be doing something completely different — looking aghast at mass destruction, as it were — certainly changes the scene where he battles a giant spider, which had long been a dream of producer Jon Peters. Peters eventually got his wish with 1999’s disastrous Wild Wild West.

You can watch Cage’s The Flash bit in the video below.

(Via Yahoo!)

In August, The Kid Laroi gave an update on his debut album, The First Time, promising that fans’ patience would be rewarded. The multi-platinum-certified artist said he believed the finished work would have 20 tracks: “rap sh*t, alternative sh*t, kind of pop sh*t on there, too, R&B.” He also teased an accompanying short film. Since then, he has dropped the singles “Too Much,” featuring Central Cee and Jung Kook, as well as “What Just Happened.”

On Wednesday, November 1, Laroi revealed the full The First Time tracklist. Yes, it comes in right at 20 tracks. And yes, the features indicate that his description of the album’s range was spot-on.

Laroi first mentioned The First Time in January but didn’t confirm its November 10 release date until last week, when he shared the album’s cover art alongside a lengthy caption explaining why he has taken so much time in between projects.

“MY NEW ALBUM “THE FIRST TIME” IS OUT NOVEMBER 10TH!!!!!!!” Laroi captioned his Instagram post. “It’s almost been 2 and half years since I last dropped a project and im proud to say that this one is SO much better than anything I’ve ever released… ever. thank you for sticking around this long and im sorry that sometimes it’s hard being a supporter of mine.”

He continued, “I’ve had a lot of different experiences these past couple of years and life has been nothing short of insane. there’s no record or song or lyric that could ever fully describe to you what it’s been like but I hope this album gives you a slight idea! extremely grateful that I get to share this stuff with you all. I wouldn’t be anything without y’all so thank you again. I love you all beyond words.”

Check out the full tracklist below.

1. “Sorry”
2. “Bleed”
3. “I Thought That I Needed You”
4. “Where Do You Sleep?”
5. “Too Much” Feat. Jung Kook and Central Cee
6. “Tear Me Apart”
7. “Strangers (Interlude)”
8. “Nights Like This”
9. “What’s The Move?” Feat. Future and Baby Drill
10. “Strangers Pt. 2 (Interlude)”
11. “Deserve You”
12. “Call Me Instead” Feat. YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Robert Glasper
13. “What Went Wrong???”
14. “The Line” Feat. d4vd
15. “What Just Happened”
16. “You”
17. “Love Again”
18. “Where Does Your Spirit Go?”
19. “You Never Forget Your First Time…”
20. “Kids Are Growing Up”

The First Time is out 11/10 via Columbia Records. Find more information here.

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

Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire,” her lead single from Guts that became her latest No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, naturally generated jokes related to The Twilight Saga film franchise. But now, Rodrigo is aligning with a different blockbuster franchise from the 2010s.

On Wednesday, November 1, Rodrigo confirmed that she wrote “Can’t Catch Me Now” for The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes. A snippet of the ethereal song can be heard in the prequel’s latest trailer. “Can’t Catch Me Now” will be released this Friday, November 3 ahead of The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes‘ November 17 theatrical release. Rodrigo previously teased her involvement with the soundtrack.

Per a press release, Rodrigo’s “Can’t Catch Me Now” is the opening track on The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (Music From & Inspired By), which will be released simultaneously with the movie. The soundtrack was executive produced by Dave Cobb and will feature songs by Rachel Zegler, Flatland Cavalry, Sierra Ferrell, Molly Tuttle, James Newton Howard, Bella White, The Covey Band, Billy Strings, Charles Wesley Godwin, and Josie Hope Hall.

Watch the latest The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes trailer above, and check out the The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (Music From & Inspired By) cover art and full tracklist below.

1. “Can’t Catch Me Now” by Olivia Rodrigo
2. “The Hanging Tree” by Rachel Zegler
3. “Wool” by Flatland Cavalry
4. “Nothing You Can Take From Me” by Rachel Zegler
5. “The Garden” by Sierra Ferrell
6. “The Ballad Of Lucy Gray Baird” by Rachel Zegler
7. “Bury Me Beneath The Willow” by Molly Tuttle
8. “The Old Therebefore / Singing At Snakes” by Rachel Zegler and James Newton Howard
9. “Burn Me Once” by Bella White
10. “District 12 Stomp” by The Covey Band
11. “Nothing You Can Take From Me (Boot-Stompin’ Version)” Rachel Zegler and The Covey Band
12. “Cabin Song” by Billy Strings
13. “Lucy Gray (Part 1)” by Rachel Zegler
14. “Pure As The Driven Snow” by Rachel Zegler and The Covey Band
15. “Winter’s Come And Gone” by Charles Wesley Godwin
16. “Keep On The Sunny Side” by Josie Hope Hall and The Covey Band
17. “Lucy Gray (Part 2)” by Rachel Zegler

“Can’t Catch Me Now” is 11/3 via Geffen Records. Find more information here.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (Music From & Inspired By) is out 11/17 via Geffen Records. Find more information here.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is in theaters on 11/17.

Armie Hammer hasn’t been on social media in ages, and with good reason: Nearly three years ago he was accused of various forms of disturbing sexual abuse. His acting career naturally stalled, and he retreated from public view. At one point he was allegedly (but not really) working at a resort. What he’s up to nowadays is anybody’s guess, but his new Instagram post isn’t making anything clearer.

As caught by Entertainment Weekly, Hammer posted a cryptic video of what appears to be him on a train. On his lap is a laptop, on which is shown a clip from a film: 1968’s The Swimmer, an enigmatic drama starring Burt Lancaster as a man spending a summer’s day running through the affluent Connecticut suburbs, going from pool to pool. In the brief clip Hammer showed, Lancaster, clad in only black trunks, is gleefully running along a fence, trying to outrun a horse.

Accompanying the scene is Gitkin’s 2018 track “El Millonario.” There is no caption. Right now it is the only post on his feed, which has been scrubbed.

What does it all mean? Does Hammer identify with Lancaster’s character, who [SPOILER] we eventually learn is a broken man, once well-off, but who has since lost touch with reality? Does Hammer just enjoy the film, which is a classic of late ‘60s quasi-experimental Hollywood? It’s not our place to speculate about where Hammer’s mind is these days, but maybe he’s just watching some good cinema.

Hammer has largely kept quiet about the allegations against him. Earlier this year an LAPD investigation resulted in no charges, citing insufficient evidence.

Last month one of Hammer’s old costars, Timothée Chalamet, did break his silence about him, sort of. In a profile by GQ, he remarked on the surreal coincidence of making a cannibal movie, Bones and All, with he and Hammer’s Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino…around the time DMs revealed that Hammer was telling a woman, “I am 100% a cannibal. I want to eat you.

“I mean, what were the chances that we’re developing this thing?” Chalamet said. After false reports claimed the movie was inspired by the Hammer news, instead of wanting to back off the project, it “made me feel like: Now I’ve really got to do this,” adding, “Because this is actually based on a book.”

The Swimmer, which is very good, is available for rental on Amazon Prime.

(Via EW)

Self-described “degenerate mom” Emme Nye took a bold stance on TkTok recently that a lot of parents disagreed with. She admits she’s “that annoying mom” who has no problem with her daughter climbing up the slide.

“I’m so passionate about it, I will get in verbal disagreements at the park with parents about why,” Nye, 29, shared in a TikTok video.

Nye’s stance violates most park rules, plus it can be seen as rude. When a child is climbing up the slide, the kids at the top have to wait until they get off to slide down. Further, the kid climbing up the slide can get hurt if a kid coming down doesn’t see them.

Many commenters thought Nye’s confidence in bucking up the rules of playground decency comes off as entitled.

@garbagegally

AITA? idc #momsoftiktok #parkmom

“’I am encouraging them not to follow the rules.’ Literally, all I hear,” Livforthehair wrote in the comments. “Teacher who has seen kids thrown from high on the slide while climbing up from being hit by a kid coming down that knocked them off. Ambulance call,” Kryssalon added.

After Nye’s video went viral, she made a follow-up where she calmly described the benefits of climbing up the slide. Nye lives in Idaho and has a background in early education.

@garbagegally

Replying to @itsmespears reason i let my kid climb the slide at the park #momsoftiktok #parkmom #preschool #childdevelopment

In the follow-up, she shared 3 reasons why she thinks that it’s great for kids to climb up the slide, even if other children are using it as well.

“It’s just a lot more engaging for their little bodies and muscles to climb up the slide versus like walking up a flight of stairs with a handlebar — which often most slides are on a play set,” Nye said. “And they’re essentially crawling up the slide, right? And anytime that you’re crawling, you’re having that cross-brain connection, which is so good for their little developing minds.”

She also touted the socio-emotional benefits of climbing up the slide.

Depending on the kid, the slide and the skill set, they’re often not going to make it their first attempt,” Nye continued. “They’re sliding back down. They don’t feel discouraged, and they’re going to try and try again until they finally get to the top. The confidence that they build from trying again and again and finally succeeding again is so good for the little developing minds.”

Finally, she believes that when one kid climbs up the slide, it provides a lot of opportunities for social development.

“It forces communication and problem-solving skills to look out for one another in these kinds of unwritten rules of society,” Nye said. “There’s just a lot more to offer.”

Nye’s posts made a great point about how important it is for us to occasionally reconsider conventional wisdom and see that sometimes, there are more benefits to breaking the rules than following them. “There’s just a lot more to offer developmentally than climbing up a staircase, waiting in line, and going down a slide,” she concluded her video. “It’s just better for them.”

Cancer is a scary word no matter what kind of cancer it is. But skin cancer is extremely common for those with fairer skin though it can and does occur in people with darker skin as well. It’s often advised to slather yourself in a high SPF sunscreen, wear hats, sunglasses and stay in shaded areas when needing to be outside for long periods of time, skin cancer still can still develop.

While the disease is common, treatments can still be fairly expensive. One teen put on his thinking cap to attempt to find a way to not only treat skin cancer but make the treatment more affordable. 14-year-old Heman Bekele recently won an award from 3M’s Young Scientists Challenge, for what he’s named STS, which stands for skin cancer treating soap.

That’s right, a boy who just barely reached his teen years has created a soap that treats milder forms of skin cancer.

The soap uses nanoparticles to release cancer fighting drugs when it’s being used by activating the body’s immune cells. Heman lives in Virginia but immigrated to the United States from Ethiopia, where he explained that people didn’t have much knowledge on what happens when you’re constantly exposed to the sun.

“People work really long hours in the sun and there is no awareness or any sort of information being shared around about how dangerous sun exposure really is,” He tells ABC News. “So when they do end up developing issues like skin cancers, it’s really just incredibly difficult for them to be able to afford the affordable cures.”

Heman’s skin cancer treatment soap only costs about $8 a bar and you can learn all about it below:

Have you ever heard yourself recorded on a voice memo and asked people, “Do I really sound like that?” You’re not alone. There are many people out there who get uncomfortable when they hear the sound of their voice, and there are some excellent reasons why.

The big reason is that the voice we hear when we speak sounds different than it does to other people and on recordings.

The voice we hear when we’re speaking is a mixture of the sound transmitted through the air, known as air conduction, and the sound we hear internally, which is a combination of vibrations from airways, vocal cords and bones inside the head.

These internal vibrations make our voices sound deeper than are in reality.

“When we talk, it’s like everyone hears the sound through speakers, but we’re hearing it through a cave complex inside our own heads,” Martin Birchall, professor of laryngology at University College London, told Time. “The sound is going around our sinuses, all the empty spaces in our heads and the middle part of our ears, which changes the way we hear sounds compared to what other people hear.”

Here’s why you hate the sound of your own voice

However, when you hear a recording of your voice, the sound travels through the air into your ears, where it vibrates small ear bones. These vibrations are then sent to the cochlea, which sends an auditory sound to the brain.

These two distinct processes are the reason why people always think that their voice sounds different on a recording. “The voice that you hear on a tape recorder is actually how your voice sounds,” Dr. Yale Cohen, director of the Hearing Sciences Center at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told Live Science.

There are a few reasons why many people feel uncomfortable hearing a recording of their voice. First, the fact that it sounds different than we think messes with our self-perception. “Because your voice is unique and an important component of self-identity, this mismatch can be jarring. Suddenly, you realize other people have been hearing something else all along,” [name] writes in The Conversation.

People also don’t like hearing the sound of their voice because they don’t listen to it that often.

“Imagine you didn’t have a mirror for six months and you had a perception of what you looked like. Meanwhile, you start eating lots of food and you gain lots of weight. If you [suddenly looked in a mirror], you’d be shocked,” Cohen said.

Lastly, when people hear themselves recorded their voice always sounds thinner and higher pitched than it does in their heads, which makes a lot of folks cringe.

The interesting twist in all of this is that people actually prefer the sound of their recorded voice when they don’t know that it is them. A study from Science Daily, albeit 10 years old, found that people tend to rate their voice as more attractive than others when they don’t know who’s speaking.

So, being that most people like their voices but don’t know it, there’s hope. One way to get over the discomfort is by listening to recordings of yourself often. You will get over the initial shock of it sounding different and begin to feel more comfortable listening to it.

Further, by listening to yourself talk you can make modifications to your voice so it’s more pleasing to yourself and others.

This summer, Travis Barker and his daughter, Alabama Barker, sat down with Complex and debated the “GOAT baby name.” The iconic Blink-182 drummer said, “I like Rocky 13.” When Alabama interjected, “That’s so bad,” Barker admitted it was bad then explained what he meant: “Rocky George played guitar for Suicidal Tendencies, and 13 is just the greatest number of all time.”

Well, Barker really meant it, and hopefully Alabama doesn’t actually hate it.

Barker was the guest for the October 30 episode of the One Life One Chance Podcast With Toby Morse and disclosed that he and Kourtney Kardashian Barker, his wife since May 2022, are planning on naming their unborn child Rocky.

Around the 76-minute mark, Morse asked if another Transplants album could happen someday. “I don’t know,” Barker said, but added, “There’s [a show] that’s like a benefit for Hawaii that we were gonna do, but it’s the week that Rocky is due.”

Morse responded, “Rocky Thirteen Barker — such a hard name.” Barker seemed to confirm the name again, saying, “Rocky Thirteen Barker. I was like, ‘He’s gonna come out of my wife’s vagina doing front-kicks and push-ups.”

Later in the episode, Barker also shared that the baby’s due date “could happen anytime, but I think the earliest [is] Halloween and the latest [would be] the first week of November.”

Technically, Barker first teased the name in June – or, at least that he had a name picked out — by commenting “I already know his name [winking emoji]” on one of Kardashian Barker’s Instagram photos.

In early September, Kardashian Barker revealed that she had undergone “urgent fetal surgery” and thanked her “incredible doctors for saving our baby’s life.” The weekend before, Barker had abruptly left Blink-182’s international reunion tour to be by Kardashian Barker’s side.

However, Barker will have to spend some time away from Kardashian Barker and baby Rocky in 2024, as Blink-182 recently announced their One More Time Tour in support of their album of the same name.

Rocky will be Barker and Kardashian Barker’s first child together. Barker shares three other kids, Alabama, Atiana, and Landon, with his ex, Shanna Moakler, while Kardashian Barker shares Mason, Penelope, and Reign with her ex, Scott Disick.