Category: News

The Utah Utes threw a major wrench in USC’s plan to make it to the College Football Playoff on Friday night. The Trojans needed a win in the Pac-12 championship game in order to secure a chance to play for a national title, but the Utes physically dominated them en route to a 47-24 drubbing that will send them to the Rose Bowl.

USC’s struggles in the game largely seemed to revolve around the fact that star quarterback Caleb Williams suffered an injury early in the game. Williams, the Heisman Trophy favorite, hurt his hamstring and stayed in the game, even though he was very obviously physically compromised.

It’s a tough way for Williams’ season to potentially end, but it is a little extra satisfying for the Utes. Coming into the game, Williams got “F*CK UTAH” painted on his nails. It’s not a new thing for him, but it was something that his opponents rallied around and, eventually, used as fuel to troll him.

The Utes’ quarterback, Cameron Rising, got asked about Williams’ nails after the game, and while he said that Williams could “do whatever you want,” it’s evident that it didn’t sit especially well with him.

There is no word on what Williams’ availability will be for the Trojans’ bowl game.

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Jacobi started on the traditional photography path in 2011, focusing mostly on human portraits.

When he noticed that his kitty content generated a lot more buzz online (no surprise to cat people), Jacobi started developing a niche, and now has made a career out of it. He not only does commissioned shoots for individuals, but is often called on for commercial work in magazines and pet food ads. In other words: cats on cats on cats. All day, every day.

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This was certainly an unexpected life path, since Jacob admits to not even liking cats as a kid—a lot of that due to a temporary childhood allergy. It wasn’t until he met his adopted cat Fritz, aka the “love of his life,” that he started to have a change of heart.

Here’s Fritz in full Halloween glory.

@furryfritz Count Fritzula wishing you a spooky Halloween 🎃🧛‍♂️👻 #furryfritz #catographer #cat #halloween #halloweencat ♬ Solitude – Felsmann + Tiley Reinterpretation – M83 & Felsmann + Tiley

Despite having worked with so many cats, Jacobi says that every photoshoot is unique, and that’s what keeps things exciting. The key, he tells Upworthy, is being flexible and patient. “You can’t force a cat to pose in front of the camera. If it feels uncomfortable, you will notice it in the photos and it won’t look good.”

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See on Instagram

See on Instagram

See on Instagram

He also stresses the importance of tending to the needs of each individual cat. Some respond to play more, kittens especially. Others are a bit more treat oriented. Occasionally he’ll even pull out the “kitty drugs” like valerian, catnip or silvervine if a feline client is particularly high strung.

Actually, there is one thing that remains the same. Every photoshoot begins with a thorough sniffing of Jacobi’s equipment.

In case you’re still on the fence about whether or not this guy has the best job in the world, one of the biggest perks is meeting kittens on the regular. It’s one of the things he finds the most rewarding, along with collaborating with shelters. For two years in a row, he’s participated in a charity photoshoot for his local animal shelter, and he has offered free photoshoots in exchange for shelter donations. You could say he’s using his talent to be a top-notch catvocate.

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And of course, when not sharing images of his fabulous meowdels, Jacobi offers us vital info on his TikTok, like how to make kitty Christmas cookies:

@furryfritz Cat cookies for xmas 🍪😻 #furryfritz #catographer #cats #xmascat #christmascookies #catcookies ♬ Jingle Bell Rock – Bobby Helms

Or you can stick to following his work on Instagram. It’s never without amazing cat inspo.

On Friday, chaos agent Elon Musk did something chaotic, again: He gave journalist Matt Taibbi some supposedly damning intel about how Twitter handled the 2020 election. It wasn’t that damning. Over an epic tweet thread, Taibbi argued that it showed the social media service deleting tweets about a since exonerated New York Post story about the Hunter Biden laptop story, at the behest of the Biden campaign, including one by former actor and current far right stooge James Woods. But as Mediaite pointed out, most of those tweets involved pornographic photos of Hunter Biden. (It also revealed Twitter deleted some tweets at the request of the Trump administration.) Many on the right were left disappointed. Others tried to claim this rendered the 2020 election compromised. One of them was, of course, the biggest loser of the 2020 election, Donald John Trump.

The former president took to his rinky dink Twitter clone to make a mountain out of the molehill that was Taibbi’s report. Where many on the right saw as an anticlimactic nothingburger, Trump saw a “revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION.” He then proposed doing one of two things, asking, “do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION?”

Trump was of course referring to himself as the “RIGHTFUL WINNER,” as he’s spent the last two years-plus crying voter fraud without supplying anything approaching proof. He’d probably prefer simply being reinstated in his old gig, as the “red wave” that failed to materialize during the midterms last month strongly suggest most voters want nothing to do with him or his bozo MAGA candidates, who either underperformed or flamed out. But at least this gives him something else to distract people from some of his recent dinner guests.

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.