Category: News

The United States men’s national team is out of the 2022 World Cup. After making it out of Group B and earning a knockout stage matchup with the Netherlands, the USMNT’s efforts to go on a run got caught up in an Oranje wave, and by the time the dust was settled, the Dutch picked up a 3-1 win over the red, white, and blue.

The Americans started the game with a golden opportunity. Tyler Adams played a speculative ball into the box that just happened to land at the feet of a totally unmarked Christian Pulisic. Unfortunately for Pulisic, the ball landed on his weaker left foot, and the Netherlands’ goalkeeper, Andries Noppert, was able to get the save with his left leg.

The USMNT continued to apply pressure to the Dutch, but Pulisic’s chance getting parried away came back to haunt them minutes later. The team put on a clinic in counterattacking football, which ended with Denzel Dumfries playing a ball into the penalty spot that Memphis Depay tucked away with ease.

Tried as they might, the United States were unable to break down a Dutch side that was happy to let them possess the ball. Their organization, mixed with the USMNT’s timidness when they were in and around the box, meant that team struggled mightily to create a good chance.

In fact, the best opportunity the team had in the first half aside from Pulisic came by way of Timothy Weah, who leathered a ball from outside of the box and made Noppert make a save.

And then, disaster struck. With mere seconds to go before halftime, the Dutch got a throw in that the United States was unable to deal with. Dumfries once again played a ball to the penalty spot, and this time, Daley Blind made the U.S. pay with the final kick of the ball before the two teams went into the locker room.

An opportunity came up for the Americans early in the second half off of a corner kick, with Pulisic playing a ball into a dangerous area. Tim Ream was just able to get his foot to the ball, but it was not enough.

With 20 or so minute to go, the Netherlands had a golden opportunity to put the Americans away, until Matt Turner made the double save of his life.

And much like the first half, a golden opportunity that got denied on one end turned into a goal on the other. One of the United States’ substitutes, Haji Wright, redeemed himself after an ugly miss that got sent out for a corner by a Dutch defender. Amid the chaos after that ensuing corner, Pulisic played in a ball that got to Wright’s feet. He just barely got enough onto it, and the USMNT had its first goal of the game.

With the wind finally at their sails, the Americans pushed and pushed with an eye on a second. But unfortunately for them, the dagger came by way of Dumfries. This time, he was on the receiving end of a cross from Blind, and while Antonee Robinson tucked too far inside to mark Cody Gakpo, Dumfries was totally free to put a ball past Turner.

Ultimately, the hill became too much for the Americans to climb. Their time in Qatar is over, while the Dutch will sit and wait to see if their quarterfinal game will be against Argentina or Australia.

Disney has always championed their back catalogue of classics, but for the last few decades, they’ve done their best to keep quiet about one of them. That film is 1946’s Song of the South, a “problematic” text, to put it lightly, concerning a plantation of happy former slaves in the Reconstruction Era. It’s never been released on home video (at least in America), and it’s certainly not on Disney+. Thing is, the company can’t completely deep-six it. After all, it features one of their most enduring songs, “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” and it’s the inspiration for one of their most beloved theme park rides: Splash Mountain. But if they can’t remove the latter from their parks, they can, finally, dramatically rework it.

As per USA Today, Splash Mountain — a thrilling log flume ride that produced plenty of famous pictures of screaming riders — will shutter on January 23, after years of planning. But it won’t be going away entirely. In 2024, it will reopen as Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, inspired by a very different Disney film, 2009’s The Princess and the Frog. That’s right: A ride based on a film widely criticized as racist will rebrand for the studio’s first animated film with a Black Disney princess.

How different will the ride be remains to be seen. Maybe all they have to do is remove references to Uncle Remus, the Tar Baby, et al. Otherwise, it’s a good ride! It’s not the first time Disney has altered one of their iconic theme park rides; they did the same with Jungle Cruise, which you might be surprised used to feature some racism, too.

Splash Mountain first opened at Disneyland in 1989, three years after the last time Disney reissued Song of the South in theaters. It made its Disney World debut three years later, where it’s attracted untold riders who probably have no idea about its dodgy origins.

(Via USA Today)

Over the last week-and-change, the world has unfortunately learned a lot about a certain fringe figure in the GOP. His name is Nick Fuentes. He’s a Holocaust denier. He’s a white nationalist. He’s a self-described incel who thinks “dating women is gay.” And on Thanksgiving, he had dinner with former president Donald Trump and fellow anti-Semite Kanye West. He wasn’t a well-known presence before the meet-up, but now he’s famous enough that he can get into food fights in top shelf fast food joints.

On Friday night, Fuentes received a rude Los Angeles welcome when he dared step foot in an In-N-Out Burger. Video emerged chucking a cup of Sprite at someone. Another West associate, the racist YouTuber “Sneako,” later confirmed that Fuentes meant to hurl it at a heckler. Instead, he only wound up dousing some people right in front of him. Fuentes himself acknowledged the incident on Telegram, claiming, “Nobody was hurt.” Real “sir, this is an In-N-Out” energy to this whole affair.

Before the now-infamous dinner — which newly back-on-the-scene Kanye campaign staffer Milo Yiannopoulos later claimed was a set-up meant to humiliate the ex-president — Kanye had already come out as an anti-Semite. Since then he has doubled, tripled, quadrupled down, even gushing to bankrupted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones about his love of Adolf Hitler. Anyway, fun times we live in.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Kevin Durant and Charles Barkley do not like one another all that much. Barkley has made clear on numerous occasions that he believes Durant is both “miserable” and in need of a championship away from the Golden State Warriors, while Durant has unsurprisingly never taken too kindly to any of that.

Barkley’s latest swipe at Durant came on Taylor Rooks’ podcast, where Barkley said that there are times when Durant can be “insecure.”

“I actually like Kevin,” Barkley said. “I think that he’s a great player, I think he’s actually a good dude. I think he’s insecure at times. He gets mad when the old guys like myself say, you gotta win a championship away from the Golden State Warriors. And I know he got offended by that, but that’s not my job to worry about people’s feelings.”

Rooks pushed back on Barkley a bit, asking what conversations he’s had with Durant to label him as insecure, to which Barkley said, “You don’t have to react to every fool. When I talk about insecurities, like, yo man, everybody’s opinion don’t matter. You don’t need burner phones, you’re Kevin Durant, you can say whatever the hell you want to. But you don’t have to react to every single thing.”

The video eventually got onto Durant’s radar, which led to the Brooklyn Nets star calling Barkley a “clown” and saying that the pair have “never had a real human interaction.”

Our hunch is that this is not the last time that Durant and Barkley will have some sort of back-and-forth with one another.

Britney Spears is ringing in her birthday today with an… interesting post that is confusing even the most devoted fans. Instead of posting selfies or dancing around her living room, Spears shared some photos of her notably estranged sister, Jamie Lynn, with a positive message.

“It’s my b-day but you’re my heart so I’m thinking about you,” Spears wrote. “Congratulations on being so brave, inspiring, and showing guts and glory in your show !!! You ain’t alone … if anybody knows what that feels like … I get it. My baby sister !!! I love you !!!”

Needless to say, it immediately caught fans’ attention. Britney and Jamie Lynn have frequently gone back and forth after the dissolution of her conservatorship. After Jamie Lynn used Britney heavily for the press cycle of her touted tell-all memoir, the pop star fired back. “Please please stop with these crazy lies for the Hollywood books !!!” Britney previously captioned a January post.

She also sent a cease-and-desist to her sister following Jamie’s press appearances. “Although Britney has not read and does not intend to read your book, she and millions of her fans were shocked to see how you have exploited her for monetary gain. She will not tolerate it, nor should she,” the legal document read.

In the months following, Britney and Jamie Lynn’s interactions have been limited… Until now. Whether you believe she was hacked or the two made amends, something clearly happened behind the scenes. She’s also followed the post with a number of other Instagram uploads, including comparing herself to Jessica Simpson and a video of a Christmas tree.

Continue scrolling for some Britney Spears fan reactions about her latest post.

Deion Sanders is one of the hottest names in the college football coaching carousel. His work turning Jackson State into a powerhouse in the SWAC, his ability to attract major talents to an FCS school as a recruiter, and the fact that he is one of the biggest personalities to ever play the game has made him an incredibly attractive target for FBS programs looking to make a splash.

A number of schools have offered him jobs, and Sanders has apparently said that he will announce where he is going to coach in the future sooner rather than later — Jackson State plays Southern in the SWAC title game on Saturday. But according to Pete Thamel of ESPN, Sanders is getting his ducks in a row to take the head coaching job at the University of Colorado, and that Sanders has spent the week reaching out to potential assistants and support staff members.

A source told ESPN on Friday night that Sanders’ outreach included a call to a prominent player in the NCAA transfer portal, encouraging him to not make a decision because Sanders was heading to Colorado and wanted to recruit him there.

Internally at Colorado, according to sources, the support staff has been seen preparing material for Sanders’ hire. There’s a widespread expectation in the building that Sanders will arrive there this weekend, although the staff has not been told formally.

Of course, there is no guarantee that anything happens until he signs on the dotted line, but Sanders has admitted that Colorado is among the schools that have offered him a job and recently got asked in an extremely funny way about it. During his three years as the head coach at Jackson State, Sanders has accrued a 26-5 record.

Cameron Rising is one of the toughest dudes in all of college football. Utah’s redshirt junior signal caller is known for taking big hits from opposing teams and getting up every time, and every now and then, he’ll lower his shoulder and lay the lumber on his own. He was a major reason why the Utes made it to the Rose Bowl last season, and played an equally big role this year, which has led to Utah taking on USC in the Pac-12 title game on Friday night.

Despite going down early, the Utes battled back to take a 24-17 lead in the third quarter. A little later in the frame, Utah drove down the field with a chance to extend their lead, and faced a third-and-3 from right near midfield. Rising rolled out to his right and tried to run for it, and Utah got a first down due to a defensive holding call.

Unfortunately for Rising, he got absolutely lit up trying to get the first. USC’s Ralen Goforth laid him out about two yards short of the line to gain, causing his helmet to go flying.

The play got reviewed for targeting, but there was nothing illegal here. Goforth just hit Rising really hard in a legal way, and fortunately for Utah, Rising was able to pop right back up and only missed one mandated play due to his helmet flying off.

Closing out the year with a bang, sample-drill rapper Cash Cobain has shared the video for the remix of his single, “Just Blick It,” featuring Chow Lee and Bizzy Banks. In the video, the rappers are seen hopping and dancing to the fast-paced track.

Over the course of the track, the three rappers ride the track with ease, never missing a beat.

“Did a perky / I don’t like xans / Told her, ‘slurp me, with no hands,’ / She said she won’t dance / blick it, blick it, blick it / Just blick it,” Cobain raps over a drill beat on the song’s chorus.

Those are perhaps the cleanest lyrics of the song, as there are many clever allusions to oral sex throughout.

Cobain has been dubbed the “sample god” in New York City drill scene, as many of the drill beats he raps over contain prominent samples of ’90s and 2000s hip-hop and R&B tracks. In a recent interview with Hype Off Life, Cobain revealed he is wanting to incorporate more of his own voice into the beats he produces.

“I’ve recently been looking at vocals as an instrument. Lol. The way the flows goes into the beat, the pockets that vocals go into are like completing the beat,” he said.

Check out the video for the “Just Blick It” remix above.

Ratboys, a Chicago-based rock band, has dropped a new cover of Kacey Musgraves‘ 2018 song, “Love Is A Wild Thing.” While the crossover might seem unexpected, their version appears as part of a compilation tribute to the country star’s Golden Hour album. With each artist tackling a different track, the Bandcamp exclusive benefits The Brigid Alliance, an organization that helps support people with access to abortions.

Their spin on “Love Is A Wild Thing” opts for an indie-electronic instrumental, as lead singer and bassist Julia Steiner performs Musgraves’ lines over a fuzzy guitar. It feels just as enticing as the original.

“thrilled to share a dancey cover of “Love Is A Wild Thing” for this dope comp! benefiting an important cause. check it out! happy bandcamp friday!” the band posted on Twitter.

Other acts on the tribute compilation include Pronoun (“High Horse”), Death Party (“Slow Burn”), Jetty Bones (“Velvet Elvis”), Future Teens (“Rainbow”), and many more. “this year is a tribute to the one and only @KaceyMusgraves record ‘Golden Hour’ and everyone crushed it,” Future Teens posted. “check it out, share, & donate if u can. all proceeds go to @BrigidAlliance who support ppl across the US to access abortion care.”

Listen to Ratboys’ cover of Kacey Musgraves’ “Love Is A Wild Thing” here.

The Los Angeles Lakers find themselves at the center of a new trade rumor seemingly every day. It comes with the territory of being both the Lakers and a team that has LeBron James on it, but despite the fact that they’ve been mentioned as a potential landing spot for a number of players dating back to this offseason, L.A. has not pulled the trigger on a major move to overhaul its roster.

The latest example of this came on the most recent episode of The Lowe Post, where ESPN’s Zach Lowe mentioned that a popular trade going around the Twitterverse involves the Lakers sending Russell Westbrook to the Chicago Bulls, along with the team’s 2027 and 2029 first-round NBA Draft picks, for DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic. As Lowe said, the Laker front office has discussed this, although he made clear that this is something “any responsible team” has to do.

“I can tell you 100 percent for sure the Lakers have had internal discussions about that very possibility (trading for DeRozan and Vučević) if it would ever come up,” Lowe said, per Rob Schaefer of NBC Sports Chicago. “Not that they (the Lakers) would do it, let me be clear. Just, you look around the league, like any responsible team would.”

It is worth mentioning that the Lakers’ decision to acquire Westbrook last offseason came at the expense of DeRozan, who has said that he was led to believe he was on his way to Los Angeles in the summer of 2021 before the team opted to pull off a trade for Westbrook.