Category: News

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week sent the country into a tizzy. If a moderate-sized bank like that can fail, is that a bad omen for the entire country? To make matters worse, during a discussion with super-businessman and Shark Tank “shark” Mark Cuban on The Problem with Jon Stewart, the former’s connection cut out at the most awkward and ominous time.

Stewart and Cuban were joined by FDIC chair Sheila Bair, who, like Stewart, was not happy that SVB’s rich stockholders are being bailed out. Cuban argued they were in fact losing big. Stewart didn’t like that.

“The shareholders have taken a haircut of a loss and they are last in line,” said Stewart.

“They’re not even in line,” Cuban pushed back. “It’s not like there was this big saving where we bailed out and the shareholders and all the tech bros came out okay. They got crushed, they got crushed.”

Stewart interrupted him, saying, “Well, I think that’s a little misleading because these are not average depositors so for the people that are going to be getting their money back because it’s not fully guaranteed by the United States, there are people there who had hundreds of millions of dollars. I mean you’ve got Roku that had, I don’t know, $500 million in there. These are not mom and pop investors.”

That’s when something foreboding happened. Cuban was in the middle of saying something about “the entire banking system of the world” when his connection abruptly dropped. That left Stewart and Bair on edge.

“Oh, did we lose him? Son of a bitch,” Stewart joked. “He just said ‘the entire banking system of the world’ and then we lost him! Holy sh*t! Now what do we do? Mark Cuban just created a bank run! The entire banking system of the world…”

“I’m sure he was going to say that it’s perfectly safe and sound,” Bair chimed in.

Cuban, who was doing the chat from his plane, did return to blame the collapse on regulatory failure, only to have his call dropped again.

When news of SVB’s collapse was revealed last week, a lot of people freaked out. Some took their anger out on Jim Cramer, the frequently wrong Mad Money soothsayer who, of course, advised people to buy stock in the bank only last month. There were worse places to direct it, for sure.

(Via Mediaite)

Donald Trump has another government investigation to contend with, this time tied to his failing social media platform, Truth Social.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind the platform, is currently being probed by federal prosecutors for its ties to Russia’s number one warmonger, Vladimir Putin. According to a report from The Guardian, $8 million in funds were wired to Trump’s company between 2021 and 2022. The money allegedly came from “two obscure entities that both appear to be controlled in part by the relation of an ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin.”

This isn’t the first time Trump’s media company has come under fire. Back in 2022, it was set to merge with the SPAC Digital World Acquisition Corp. to become a publicly traded company. That deal would’ve given Trump’s organization $1.3 billion in spending money but it was put on hold after the U.S. Justice Department and the SEC got wind of the merger. Apparently, Trump Media & Technology really needed that money to keep the company afloat, which explains why it may have accepted multi-million-dollar infusions from some shady sources. According to the report, Trump’s company was on the “brink of collapse” with just $12 million in cash at the time.

But the Feds weren’t investigating the former president when they uncovered the laundering scheme, they were looking into where the money came from — Paxum Bank — and Anton Postolnikov, who serves as one the bank’s directors. Postolnikov is believed to be a relation of noted Putin ally Aleksandr Smirnov and his bank is known for servicing “pornography and sex worker industries” that have a high rate of illicit financing.

We all knew Trump as a corrupt businessman, we just didn’t realize he had so many Russian friends.

After spending the past decade fronting the surfy garage rock group La Luz, Shana Cleveland began putting down roots in rural California with her partner and newborn child. Moving back to California not only allowed Cleveland the chance to write music outside year-round, but it also gave her the opportunity to immerse herself in the natural world. The result of her outdoor songwriting sessions is her resplendent third solo album Manzanita.

Nature creeped into this record not only in its title (Manzanita trees are evergreen plants native to California), but also in her use of synthesizers. “They are actually the best vehicle for conveying the sounds of nature (bugs, wind, birds, chainsaws—rural white noise); we used synthesizers as a way of recreating the atmosphere of being outside in the natural world while in the studio,” Cleveland said in a statement.

Throughout most of the tracks on Manzanita, synthesizers hum and lull in the background of the music, while Cleveland’s hypnotic vocals narrate snapshots of domestic life. Songs like “Faces In The Firelight” and “A Ghost” exemplify her’s charming and spectral folk songs led by her nimble fingerpicking.

To celebrate the release of Manzanita, Cleveland sat down with Uproxx to talk Richard Brautigan, Smashing Pumpkins, and the one time her band slept in a former slaughterhouse in our latest Q&A.

What are four words you would use to describe your music?

Supernatural, Love, Haunted, California.

It’s 2050 and the world hasn’t ended and people are still listening to your music. How would you like it to be remembered?

I would like for people to feel at peace with mystery when they listen. And I would like to still be alive and making it.

What’s your favorite city in the world to perform?

Seattle.

Who’s the person who has most inspired your work, and why?

Hard to choose one. Maybe Richard Brautigan.

Where did you eat the best meal of your life?

Istanbul. Every meal I ate while there with my band La Luz was the best.

What album do you know every word to?

Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream.

What was the best concert you’ve ever attended?

Solange at the Hollywood Bowl.

What is the best outfit for performing and why?

My stage style is in flux since coming back after Covid and becoming a mom. Lately I gravitate toward outfits that are loose and comfortable and ideally one-of-a-kind.

Who’s your favorite person to follow on Twitter and/or Instagram?

Bandmemes666

What’s your most frequently played song in the van on tour?

Anything by Yanti Bersaudara.

What’s the last thing you Googled?

How to spell Bersaudara.

What album makes for the perfect gift?

Eddie and Ernie’s Time Waits For No One.

Where’s the weirdest place you’ve ever crashed while on tour?

The list is LONG. Maybe the haunted mansion in Youngstown, OH. Or the former slaughterhouse in Vienna, Austria.

What’s the story behind your first or favorite tattoo?

I only have one, it’s a lightning bolt on my right arm. I think at the time I thought of it as a reminder of death.

What artists keep you from flipping the channel on the radio?

Anything that sounds like something I’m surprised to hear on the radio, I love that. And Nirvana.

What’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you?

Oh, it’s impossible to choose. I feel grateful to so many people for so many things.

What’s one piece of advice you’d go back in time to give to your 18-year-old self?

You’re so bored and you have so much time, you should learn how to play piano.

What’s the last show you went to?

I went to see some friends play at a kombucha bar.

What movie can you not resist watching when it’s on TV?

Crybaby.

What’s one of your hidden talents?

I like to sew and make clothes.

Manzanita is out now via Hardly Art. Get it here.

Earlier this month, filmmaker Kevin Smith revealed that he quit smoking weed after 15 years of regularly getting stoned, which all allegedly started with getting high with Seth Rogen on the last day of filming the 2008 comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Smith described himself as “very crisp” and “very here” while explaining his decision.

“When I started smoking weed, kids, I had a very big wound in my heart and weed was a really nice bandage that I put on top of it, and the wound kept getting bigger,” Smith said on the first Fatman Beyond episode that he’s ever recorded while sober. “And then I put on more bandages, and then one day I realized I was as bandaged up as a mummy and I couldn’t see clearly and I couldn’t hear clearly, and wasn’t really present anymore.”

As it turns out, Rogen is doing press for the paperback release of his memoir, Yearbook, and just found out about all of this while doing Justin Long’s Life Is Short podcast. Via Pajiba:

“I just heard that Kevin Smith stopped smoking weed?” Justin Long said.

“Did he?! Wow! He went the other way with it,” Rogen said. “I think if you come into weed late in your life, it’s easier to give up. You’re an interloper. You’re a tourist. It’s just a phase for you. You think you’re adopting a whole thing and years later, you’re like, ‘What am I doing? This is not me.’”

Just in case anyone thinks Rogen is about to abandon his well-documented love of pot, that ain’t happening.

“But for me, it is me,” Rogen said to wrap his thoughts on Smith quitting weed. And then, while they were already on the subject of Zack and Miri, he got very candid about Harvey Weinstein, who, in addition to committing a whole bunch of terrible crimes, deeply screwed the release of the movie.

“It’s so nice when you hate someone, and you know they are going to die in prison,” Rogen said. “That doesn’t happen often in life, and that I do not take for granted.”

(Via Pajiba)

News of blue-eyed soul singer Bobby Caldwell’s death this morning was met by an outpouring of loving — and befuddled — messages online. While the former stemmed from the love audiences have for the lauded singer’s long-lasting hits like “What You Won’t Do For Love,” the latter were echoes of a semi-annual occurrence in which longtime listeners learned his ethnic background — a phenomenon of which the man himself never seemed to tire.

Then, there were the more personal messages. Chance The Rapper offered one of those on Instagram, fondly recalling a time the singer reached out to thank him for sampling one of his songs. Caldwell, who was an active Twitter user and enjoyed responding to messages from fans astonished to discover that he wasn’t Black, graciously told Chance that he’d be “honored” if Chance sampled the song.

Chance himself commented on how rare of an occurrence this is in the caption, writing, “This never happens. I’ve never received a message from an artist thanking me for sampling their record. This is a record that hasn’t even come out, and the legend himself reached out. I was so excited to meet you, I have not felt broken like this at a strangers passing in so long. You are a true legend and incredible person who I know I will see one day.

Chance isn’t the first artist to sample from Caldwell; in fact, his extensive experience being sampled within hip-hop (and the songwriter’s royalties they brought him) likely contributed to his encouragement. While many target=”_blank” title=””>artists who’ve been sampled have reached out to block the use of their songs or sue rappers for using them, Bobby, whose songs were used by Common, The Notorious B.I.G., and Tupac, among others, always seemed happy to share his music with the hip-hop world. Here’s looking forward to hearing what Chance cooked up in the very near future.

Ever since James Gunn was named the co-head honcho of the DC Universe, people have been wondering, “Who is going to the direct Superman: Legacy?” It turns out the answer was in front of us all along. “Yes, I’m directing Superman: Legacy to be released on July 11, 2025,” Gunn tweeted. “My brother Matt told me when he saw the release date he started to cry. I asked him why. He said, ‘Dude, it’s Dad’s birthday.’ I hadn’t realized.”

Along with the Gunn news, the plot synopsis of Superman: Legacy was also released. The film “tells the story of Superman’s journey to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as Clark Kent of Smallville, Kansas. He is the embodiment of truth, justice, and the American way, guided by human kindness in a world that sees kindness as old-fashioned.” It’s pretty much the usual Superman story — unless it turns out he works in Smallville’s only Dunkin’. Now there’s a twist not even Ben Affleck’s Batman saw coming.

The Gunn project is the first in a planned universe of cross-platform storytelling (presumably one that will mingle with streaming projects for HBO Max), a series the studio is calling “Gods and Monsters.” Cast has not yet been announced.

We know who won’t be in it, however.

Superman: Legacy comes out on July 11, 2025.

(Via Variety)

Adolescence is a harrowing time for body image and self-esteem all around, but few milestones are as universally daunting as finding a prom dress. Whether it’s due to budget constraints, not being able to find a dress that fits, or both, what should be a fun event is often viscerally dreaded.

This was certainly the case for Summer Lucille. Lucille told Today.com that growing up, “if you weren’t skinny, there weren’t many options, and it was devastating for me because I’ve always loved fashion.”

She recalled, “I went to my prom looking like a church lady in a suit dress with a jacket because it was the only thing that fit. It was a very sad period in my life.”

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Wanting to ensure a more positive experience for others, Lucille opened up her plus-size-only dress shop, Juicy Body Goddess, in 2016. The boutique, based in North Carolina, features mostly Lucille’s own designs of formal dresses up to a size 6X.

Juicy Body Goddess really started gaining traction when Lucille set up a TikTok account sharing truly joyful interactions with customers as they try on different styles.

Besides having an eye for fashion, Lucille is a masterful hype woman, making others feel beautiful with her enthusiastic, heartfelt praises. She clearly loves what she does. Here’s one of many, many examples:

@juicybodygoddess I had to get her number so she can model🤩 #plussizefashion #plussizeboutique #birthday #plussizetiktok #juicybodygoddess ♬ original sound – JuicyBodyGoddess

Juicy Goddess’s TikTok presence is how 18-year-old Elyse Monroe found out about the store. Monroe and her family drove nearly six hours for a consultation, determined to find the perfect dress.

Lucille shared with People that Monroe was initially “nervous and shy,” but after trying on a sparkly, form-fitting purple gown, everything changed.

“When she got into that purple dress, she lit up,” Lucille told People.

There was still a budget problem, however. Monroe’s family could only afford to pay $400. The dress was $700.

Thankfully, Lucille had one more surprise up her sleeve.

A now viral TikTok video shows the Monroe family approach the register, asking how much the dress would cost.

Lucille can be heard saying, “This dress is $700…but it’s free.”

Yeah, as you can probably expect, this leaves the teen and her family a bit emotional. Watch below:

@juicybodygoddess I didn’t cry until I did edit #plussize #plussizetiktok #juicybodygoddess #plussizefashion ♬ original sound – JuicyBodyGoddess

The video has had an overwhelming number of responses. Many commiserated with their own painful prom memories and applauded Lucille for her generosity. Some were even inspired to perform their own act of kindness by donating. Lucille told People that since posting the video, there has been $12,000 worth of gift card purchases. Yowza.

This is such an amazing example of what can happen when we celebrate uniqueness, spread generosity, and prioritize making everyone feel worthy of praise.

If you’d like to purchase a gift card from Juicy Body Goddess, click here. Or, if you wanna just follow along on some gorgeous fittings, you can find the Juicy Body Goddess TikTok here.

In the 17th century, the wealthy people of Scotland would escape to the small town of Moffat for its healing sulfurous springs. Today, people appreciate Moffat for another kind of healing escape…into darkness.

That’s right. The healing power of the dark of night is a thing, not only for people but for the planet.

If you’ve ever had the bounty of sitting out under the stars far away from city lights, you know how magical it can be to gaze at the night sky, but there are benefits to natural darkness that go far beyond enjoying the aesthetic beauty of space. That’s the premise behind Dark Sky Communities.

Moffat became an official Dark Sky Community in 2016 after it invested in changing the town’s lighting to prevent light pollution. Now it’s an ideal place for stargazing, with a community observatory housing a state-of-the-art telescope and townspeople dedicated to preserving the night sky. Moffat was one of the first Dark Sky Communities in Europe and is one of just 38 around the world as of January 2023.

What exactly is a Dark Sky Community and why does it matter?

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The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) began designating places around the world, from natural environments to cities and towns, as Dark Sky Places in 2001 as a way of recognizing “excellent stewardship of the night sky.” Dark Sky Places preserve and protect the dark through responsible lighting policies and public education about the importance of reducing light pollution. A Dark Sky Community is a legally organized city or town that adopts outdoor lighting ordinances that reduce light pollution and undertakes efforts to educate residents about the importance of dark skies.

Darkness matters—a lot. Not only does light pollution make it harder to see the beauty of the night sky, but it also has a negative effect on wildlife and ecosystems. Many animals, from insects to migratory birds to nocturnal animals rely on the natural rhythm of sunlight and darkness, and artificial light can disrupt their natural behaviors, sometimes to deadly effect. Light pollution also has a detrimental impact on plants, disrupting the circadian rhythm of certain pollinators and leading to reduced plant-pollinator interactions.

Too much artificial light at night can impact human health as well, as light messes with our own circadian rhythms. It’s also just a waste of energy when lights are left on unnecessarily. The IDA estimates that around 30% of outdoor lighting is wasted, just in the U.S. alone. The Artificial Light at Night (ALAN) Research Literature Database provides a wealth of scientific literature on all aspects of artificial light at night research.

But as much as science tells us about the importance of reducing light pollution, there’s also what the IDA refers to as our “night sky heritage.”

The IDA website explains:

“Until recently, for all of human history, our ancestors experienced a sky brimming with stars—a night sky that inspired science, religion, philosophy, art and literature, including some of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets.

The natural night sky is our common and universal heritage, yet it’s rapidly becoming unknown to the newest generations.

Van Gogh painted his famous “Starry Night” in Saint Rémy, France, in 1889. Now, the Milky Way can no longer be seen from there. If he were alive today, would he still be inspired to paint “Starry Night”?

Experiencing the night sky provides perspective, inspiration, and leads us to reflect on our humanity and place in the universe. The history of scientific discovery and even human curiosity itself is indebted to the natural night sky.

Without the natural night sky we could not have:

• Navigated the globe
• Walked on the Moon
• Learned of our expanding universe
• Discovered that humans are made of stardust”

Our relationship with natural darkness is both practical and poetic, but in a world full of lights and screens, most of us probably don’t it as much thought or care as we should. That’s the whole purpose of naming and certifying Dark Sky Places.

The IDA shares that as of January 2023, there are 201 certified Dark Sky Places in the world, including 115 Parks, 38 Communities, 20 Reserves, 16 Sanctuaries, 6 Urban Night Sky Places, and 6 Dark Sky Friendly Developments of Distinction.

You can find the list of Dark Sky Communities here and an interactive map of all official Dark Sky Places here.

Let’s all do our part to turn off lights and limit light pollution for the good of people and our planet.

West Coast crooner Blxst plays Prince Charming in the new video for “Ghetto Cinderella” from his recently released EP, Just For Clarity 2. The song, which is produced by Mustard and features an instrumental appearance by Terrace Martin (who else could blow a sax like that?), finds Blxst in full-on lothario mode, making a play on a woman he calls his “Ghetto Cinderella.”

The video, which contains plenty of allusions to the classic fairy tale, takes place mainly in a neighborhood beauty shop, where Blxst gets his hair braided while flirting with one of the shop girls as she sweeps up. After spending some alone time in the LA sunshine, the pair puts in an appearance at a classy-looking gala, where a massive diamond is being displayed.

This is no fairy tale, though, and with no fairy godmother in sight, they make their own dreams come true, leaving behind only a bedazzled Nike Air Force 1. The clip ends with the remaining shop girls perusing a newspaper proclaiming the couple’s wanted status after they disappear with the diamond.

Blxst’s new EP follows the release of his debut album Before You Go. It also contains his Larry June collaboration, “Keep Calling,” as well as a Roddy Ricch team-up.

Watch Blxst’s “Ghetto Cinderella” video above.

There are so many stories out there of celebrities losing their cool when they don’t receive the recognition and reverence they feel they deserve. Lamb Of God singer Randy Blythe had a moment that was pretty much the exact opposite of that, though, and went viral after his kindhearted reaction was captured on video.

As Consequence notes, the scene took place at the 2022 Bloodstock festival in the UK. In the clip, Blythe is walking up stairs to access a backstage area. As he approaches the top steps, a security guard asks Blythe if he has proper credentials on him. He starts to tell her that he doesn’t as she puts her arm out to stop him. Both Blythe and a person off-camera politely explain that Blythe is the heavy metal band’s singer. As the guard understands what’s happening and lets her guard down, Blythe gives her a pat on the shoulder and says, “Thank you for doing your job.” The guard then offered a meek “sorry” but Blythe wasn’t hearing that, replying, “No, don’t be sorry! You’re doing your job, I like you.”

A recent re-upload of the video, shared on Twitter on March 8, went viral, as the tweet currently has about 22 million views and drew a lot of comments praising Blythe’s humble and joyful response to the misunderstanding. The original video was shared on the Bloodstock TikTok account back in November and has about 10 million views.

Well, the band is now back on tour in England and they had the opportunity to reunite with the guard, whose name is Rachel. The band shared a photo of Blythe and Rachel posing, all smiles as Blythe had his arms around her, and wrote, “Look who we ran into in Bristol! Rachel from @BLOODSTOCKFEST.”

Lamb Of God also shared a new video, of Blythe and Rachel re-creating the viral moment but with the roles comedically reversed.