Category: News

Game 2 of the 2022 WNBA Finals brought sky-high stakes on Tuesday evening. The Connecticut Sun aimed to even the series after losing Game 1 on the road, while the Las Vegas Aces eyed a stranglehold on the series with the potential for another home win. While it wasn’t a complete onslaught, the Aces led for the lion’s share of the evening, eventually finishing off a 85-71 victory to climb within one win of a title.

In the early going, there was an amusing moment when the Aces seemingly forgot which basket to defend. That allowed the Sun to make a wide-open layup to open the evening, and it was a back-and-forth affair in the first quarter. The Aces took control with a late 9-1 run to end the quarter, grabbing a 23-15 lead behind 10-of-18 shooting and only one turnover.

Las Vegas built its lead to 14 points, with stars at the forefront. Reigning WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson and Kelsey Plum were quickly able to compile double figures in scoring, and the Aces were able to play off the home crowd in Las Vegas.

Connecticut did have its best run of the evening down the stretch of the first half with the help of repeated defensive stops. The Sun used a 12-4 spurt to slash the deficit back to six, though a beautiful set from the Aces beat the buzzer and gave the home team an eight-point edge at halftime.

Neither team shot well from long distance before halftime, combining for a 2-of-15 mark, but Las Vegas converted nearly 52 percent of overall field goal attempts and 9-of-10 at the free throw line. Wilson was the star with 18 points on 7-of-9 shooting, and that continued a season-long theme.

The Sun started well after halftime, scoring seven straight points. That push brought Connecticut within a single possession with plenty of time remaining.

Then, Aces do-everything guard Chelsea Gray exited the game with an apparent ankle injury, signaling potential trouble for Las Vegas. However, the Aces immediately stretched the lead back to double figures before Gray was able to return, pouring cold water on Connecticut’s optimism.

Las Vegas then scored nine consecutive points between the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth quarter, putting space between the two teams on the scoreboard. The Aces led by a 72-54 margin, the largest spread of the series to that point, and Connecticut was in a desperate position.

In the closing period, the Aces led by as many as 20 points, and the Sun were never able to make a credible push. Wilson set a new franchise record for scoring in the WNBA Finals with 26 points and 10 rebounds, and both Gray (21 points, eight assists) and Plum (20 points, seven assists) had outstanding nights. As a team, Las Vegas enjoyed real success on both ends of the floor, and the pre-series favorites looked the part over the course of a comfortable win.

The series will continue with Game 3 on Thursday evening in Connecticut, with the Sun needing a win to avoid elimination. All hope is not lost for the Sun, but the Aces are certainly rolling, and Game 2 was a clinic in myriad ways from Las Vegas to instill further confidence in the team’s ability to close things out on the road.

A few days ago, Nav released his new album Demons Protected By Angels, which included features from Babyface Ray, Bryson Tiller, Don Toliver, Future, Lil Baby, and more. In a quick talk with HipHopDX, he revealed the moment he realized he’d made it as a rapper — which happened to be while he was on some psychedelics.

“When I took mushrooms, I looked at myself from a third person perspective,” he said, “and I was like, ‘Yo I f*ck with you dude. Dude really do this sh*t. Dude really take care of his mom, his family, everybody else. Boys is straight.’ What? I’m real!” Sounds like he had a good trip.

Nav also revealed in a different interview recently that he and Drake collaborated on a song that didn’t make the cut for Demons Protected By Angels. “We did a song. I feel we could’ve done a better song and the timeframe was just not good, it didn’t work out,” he said. He added, “He’s such a big artist that I didn’t want to put the song on the album and have it take away from anything else on the album. You know, take away life from all the other moments.”

Doja Cat’s latest album Planet Her was one of the biggest releases of 2021, overflowing with hits like “Woman,” “Get Into It (Yuh),” and “Kiss Me More.” Though it may be hard to follow up, fans have been begging for a new LP. Lucky for them, the rapper discussed that very subject today in a new interview.

While speaking to CR Fashion Book, she said, “We just have so many ideas and making those ideas consistent is the challenge right now. I can’t really tell much. I just know there’s a lot going on.” Then, she divulged that she’s been inspired by rave music. “I’m very into this ’90s German rave kind of vibe right now and it’s really fun. I know that’s kind of the trend at the moment but I loved that stuff as a kid and now that I can express it (obviously, I couldn’t buzz my head and wear a furry bra and have a belly button piercing back then), I’m sort of embracing that. That’s kind of a hint to the album. Rave culture, not house.”

In May, Doja revealed to Elle that the record will be “predominantly rap.” She added, “There’s some really cool stuff that I got sent from friends. They’re all working on beats, and I’m giving them notes and they know what I want, so I’m excited.”

The summer was partly devoted to the blockbuster Jan. 6 hearings, in which a bipartisan House committee meticulously laid out damning evidence about Donald Trump. As the season winds down, it’s the Justice Department’s turn. Merrick Garland and team have sent out a flurry of subpoenas to Trump World cronies. Perhaps that’s why Mike Lindell had his phone seized by the FBI in, of all places, a Hardee’s.

As per The Daily Beast, the My Pillow guy and relentless cheerleader for 2020 voter fraud claims he’s never been remotely able to back up was stopped while in the fast food chain. “They took my phone,” he told the publication. “The FBI did!”

Lindell is claiming the feds were looking for information on fellow election fraud conspiracy theorist Dennis Montgomery.

In a separate video, Lindell denounced the FBI, continuing the GOP’s unexpected turn into ACAB advocates.

“What we’ve done is weaponized the FBI. It’s disgusting,” Lindell said. He also claimed that he didn’t have a computer, that everything was on the phone that is now in the hands of the feds. He also held up a letter of the search warrant, telling people that he was told not to show it.

Did social media have jokes about the My Pillow guy getting his phone seized in a Hardee’s? You bet your ass it did.

It’s yet another Mad Libs misadventure from the creatively accident-prone pillow salesman, who recently shuttered his last MyPillow brick-and-mortar store, which was apparently a thing. In the meantime, kudos to Hardee’s, who haven’t had this much publicity since at least the Reagan administration. May they go the way of Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

The WNBA Finals are not the place you expect there to be significant mental lapses by either team, but after a hard fought Game 1 win, the Aces opened Game 2 with a team-wide blunder on the opening tipoff.

Jonquel Jones won the tip over Kiah Stokes, but instead of tapping it backwards as most do, she flicked the ball forward towards Alyssa Thomas, who corralled it as the Aces ran the other way. The problem was, that was the Sun’s end of the floor and Thomas was able to very calmly jog into the paint and lay it in with not a soul around her, giving Connecticut an early 2-0 lead.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw something like this happen in a professional basketball game, much less a Finals game (on a team’s home floor), but the Sun, which can have some offensive lulls and struggles, certainly weren’t going to turn down a freebie to open the contest. The good news for Las Vegas is they quickly bounced back from the blunder, opening up a 21-14 lead on Connecticut after the first eight minutes of the game, but if this game does end up coming down to a single bucket at the end in favor of the Sun, the very first score of the game will be memorable.

While the NBA has multiple television partners, TNT’s studio coverage is in a tier of its own, headlined by the famous Inside The NBA crew that arguably operates as the best sports studio show of all-time. Three years ago, Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade signed on to join TNT’s studio roster on a multi-year deal, and the legendary Miami Heat guard added a new element to the mix on their Tuesday night studio show.

However, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported on Tuesday evening that Wade’s run with Turner is over. It remains to be seen as to how TNT might replace Wade’s on-air contributions, but Marchand reports that TNT did make an offer to keep Wade beyond his initial contract. However, Marchand indicated that Wade “has various other business interests he wants to focus on” at this juncture.

A future reunion would not be stunning, as many prominent former players seem to come and go from studio duty across networks. In addition, Marchand’s reporting points out that “were no ill feelings” between Wade and Turner as the contract ended. Wade is also a natural television talent with clear charisma, and it would be at least a mild surprise if his run as an analyst, regardless of platform, did not resume at some point.

Disney has so many live-action remakes of their animated classics that sometimes they just dump them on their streamer. That ain’t happening with their redo of The Little Mermaid, the 1989 favorite that helped save the company’s feature-length animation department after a string of underperformers and outright bombs. In fact, it has a pretty plum release date. But what is it?

The Little Mermaid is set to arrive on May 26 of next year, nabbing the coveted Memorial Day Weekend slot and arriving the weekend after Fast X hits multiplexes. It’s the next Disney live-action remake on the docket, to be followed by Peter Pan & Wendy, due elsewhere in 2023, and the Lion King sequel Mufasa, in 2024. Then there’s that Hercules remake, which original film voice talent Danny DeVito thinks should feature him.

The teaser for The Little Mermaid dropped during the D23 expo last weekend, and it reduced its star, Halle Bailey, to tears. It also drove her not-quite-namesake Halle Berry to once again joke about the innocent confusion the casting has caused.

The 1989 original helped reinvigorate Disney’s feature-length animated films, which had struggled for a voice ever since the death of co-founder Walt Disney in 1966, in the midst of making the original The Jungle Book. Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman wrote the memorable songs and helped create a template that essentially turned Disney feature length cartoons into full-blown musicals, leading to a run of hits, including Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King.

The Little Mermaid 2.0 hits theaters on May 26, 2023. You can watch the teaser in the video above.

Earlier this year, indie rock trio Dehd unveiled their fourth studio album, Blue Skies, after releasing the stunning singles “Empty In My Mind” and “Stars.” They’re back today with a new song called “Eggshells,” which was recorded during the album’s sessions for but didn’t make the cut.

The track is mellow and surfy, with a simple refrain sung by Jason Balla: “Walk along, walk along, eggshells / I’m done, I’m done, yeah / Better off, better off, on my own.” It makes for a catchy melody, which is their strong suit, and it builds into a trance-like, reverberating outro. It comes with a trippy, monotone video shot in Taos, New Mexico by vocalist Emily Kempf, alongside filmmaker Kevin Veselka.

In our 2020 interview with Kempf for the Dehd LP Flower Of Devotion, she discussed her quarter-life crisis during which she briefly stopped playing music. “I’d just given up everything to be a musician and I thought maybe that I f*cked up,” she said. She found herself wondering, “I’m not successful yet. Should I buy a house and get married and have a baby and go to college?’ So I quit.” She persisted for a year in corporate. “I basically tried to conform,” she recalled, “which did not work out because I’m too punk.”

Watch the video for “Eggshells” above.

Mike Pence has stayed remarkably — one could say foolishly — quiet about his experiences during the Jan. 6 riot. Instead, others have had to spill the beans about what happened as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, some hellbent on hanging him. Even his own secret service agents thought they were done for. But not Pence, at least if you’re to believe his new memoir.

Axios obtained a copy of the book, entitled So Help Me God, whose final chapters are devoted to the day that ended the one-term Trump presidency in disgrace. It’s here that the former vice president, who’s continued to defend Trump even after Trump defended the people who wanted him strung up on a noose, finally takes a stand. Sort of. Not really.

“I was angry at what I saw, how it desecrated the seat of our democracy and dishonored the patriotism of millions of our supporters, who would never do such a thing here or anywhere else,” he said, trying to separate regular Trump supporters whipped up on lies from the many who took that to extremes. But if you thought chants for his death got to him, think again.

“I was not afraid, but I was angry,” Pence writes.

And so, a man whose own life was threatened by MAGA extremists has once again refused to condemn those who could always do it again. Perhaps he thinks some of them will even vote for him in that far-fetched presidential bid he thinks will get off the ground.

(Via Axios)

Have Grimes and Kyrie Irving started hanging out? It’s very plausible, since the two have no qualms about spewing baseless theories that have been proven otherwise by science.

Irving, of course, thought the Earth was flat after he watched “a whole bunch of Instagram videos” that led him to that conclusion. Grimes — in her latest totally unpredictable topic of discussion on Twitter — seems to think that the world is merely 4,000 years old. Nevermind that basic anthropology, archaeology, and countless other branches of science have facts and data that prove otherwise. But Grimes is getting a rise out of her Twitter followers no less. In fact, she also added she thinks “Dinosaurs were planted by god to confuse us.”

Surely we must all be witnessing what is simply an elaborate ploy to draw attention to her #brand, which might or might not still involve releasing new music, but seems more concerned with finding the right ear and fang prosthetics these days. And typically, these rants by Grimes become juicier and invite more online…errr, discourse, when her ex-boyfriend Elon Musk replies to them. As of press time, Musk has not weighed in on what he thinks of this theory, or what he thinks of the fact that the mother of his child, X Æ A-Xii, believes in it. But writer Miles Klee, who went deep on the breadth of Grimes’ creationist hoopla over at Rolling Stone, was just as effective in his reply to Grimes:

Totally outrageous, you guys.