Category: News

People are absolutely loving Felix and his grandpa Bruce Carrier. A clip showing Felix gifting his home run baseball to his beloved gramps is already sweet enough, but it’s the loving words that really have folks tearing up.

The heartwarming video, posted to Instagram by Felix’s mom, Melissa Carrier-Damon, shows the young boy step up to his grandpa, all while smiling from ear to ear.

“So you know I got two home runs right?” Felix says to Carrier, before adding in that he also got a grand slam during the game.

He continues: “I signed the ball for you and it says ‘Papa I love you’.”

“Why did you do that?” Carrier asks, his voice instantly full of emotion.

Without missing a beat, the doting grandson replies, “because you taught me everything about baseball.”

“Oh honey bunny,” Carrier cries as they share a hug.

See on Instagram

It’s such a simple moment, but it really contained so much feel-good fuzzies that it quickly went viral, getting nearly 500,000 views.

Several commented on how touching it was.

“I’m crying! such a special bond they have, I love how Grandpa calls him honey, so sweet,” wrote one person.

Another gushed, “this is all heart ❤️ ❤️ thank you for sharing this beautiful moment.”

It also inspired some grandparent appreciation.

“Goodness this is the sweetest video! Grandparents are so damn precious!” exclaimed one person.

Another shared, “that made me miss my grandfather.”

In an interview with TODAY, Carrier-Damon shared that the baseball gift had been entirely Felix’s idea. Since Felix began playing at the age of 4, Carrier (a former college baseball coach) had been a constant support to Felix—one who played catch with him, took him to batting practice and never missed one of his games.

“[He’s] just a really big part of the family,” Carrier-Damon told TODAY.

Carrier confessed with USA Today that he still gets “teary-eyed’ revisiting the video. “I’m so proud he let me be part of that day.”

You’re not alone, Carrier. As far as wholesome, happy tear-inducing family videos go, that one is a bona fide home run.

Youth sports have gotten more intensely competitive, to the point where overeager parents and coaches have to regularly be reminded to take it down a notch. So when humanity takes precedence over team rivalries, it’s extra heartwarming.

And considering how many “kids these days” laments we see coming from older generations, it’s also heartening to see kids showing excellent character qualities when no one directly asked them to.

A viral video from a Little League baseball game is giving us a nice dose of both—good sportsmanship and basic human kindness from two players from opposing teams.

As reported by USA Today, Isaiah (Zay) Jarvis, a batter from Oklahoma, took a pitch from Texas East pitcher Kaiden Shelton right to the side of his helmet. It was a hard blow that caused Jarvis to spin around and crumble to the ground, grabbing his head. The replay in slow motion shows that the ball basically just knocked his helmet off, though it was undoubtedly jarring and probably painful as well.

Jarvis was able to continue playing, but Shelton was shaken up. No matter how fierce the competition, no one wants to be responsible for injuring another person. He was visibly upset on the mound, so Jarvis left first base and approached him.

Watch the classy interchange:

u201c”Hey, you’re doing just great”nnOklahoma little leaguer gets hit in the head and then comforts the pitcher who is shaken up afterwardu201d

— Jomboy (@Jomboy)
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That a kid this age would approach a player who hit him with a ball and comfort him with a hug, especially knowing that all eyes were on him, is just so lovely. Someone raised this young man to put people’s feelings ahead of competitiveness and not worry about what others might think.

And the fact that the pitcher was so distraught at the possibility of having hurt someone is also so sweet. This was a moment that showed the true character of both of these boys, and both of them exemplified caring and compassion.

u201c@JakeOffield @Jomboy_ Same with the pitcher. His instant remorse is such a human aspect thatu2019s missing in sports these days.u201d

— Jomboy (@Jomboy)
1660067195

People praised the boys’ empathy and humanity.

“Both of those boys are what you want your kids to aspire to,” wrote one commenter. “One willing to forgive and knows it wasn’t intentional and the other showing remorse and sorrow. I love it!!”

u201c@PaganLady3 @Jomboy_ thanks for the smart comment. exactly my reaction. there is hope. what a great kid, and compliments to his parents.u201d

— Jomboy (@Jomboy)
1660067195

Good sportsmanship all around. Love to see it. Big kudos to these kiddos and whoever raised them.

In 1989, 11-year-old Brian Dahl had no idea that a message in a bottle he cast out to sea near Oxford, Mississippi, would one day be the final words the world would hear from him. But according to a report from U.S. News, his family believes that his message was heaven-sent.

It all began last April when Billy Mitchell of Big River Shipbuilders saw a green bottle bobbing up and down in the water near a barge. “I’m always that way,” Mitchell, the salvage diver with the company, told USA Today. “I always look for stuff that’s unique—driftwood or anything … I told my buddy, I said, ‘there’s a message in this bottle!'”

Mitchell grabbed the bottle out of the ocean and 30 minutes later gently removed the message inside with the help of shish kebab skewers.

Most of the letter was destroyed but he was able to make the name Tahl (close, it was Dahl), the year 1989 and the location of Oxford, Mississippi, all in a child’s handwriting.

“My first instinct was let’s play detective. Let’s do this and find this kid,” Brad Brabb, a compliance officer with Big River, told U.S. News.

The guys from Big River posted a photo of the note on Facebook where it was shared 127 times. A few days after the picture was posted, Dr. Eric Dahl received a phone call from someone who told him about the post. Melanie Parker Dahl then left a comment on the post.

“It’s astounding it happened,” Eric said. “We get a message 33 years after Brian put it in the river. It’s like something in a fictitious novel or something you’d see on TV,” Eric continued. “To see Brian’s handwriting from when he was 11 or 12 years old — it was miraculous.

Brian was an athlete who beat cancer at one point in his life but died after an accident at home at the young age of 29.

“It was a gift from on high. We’re a praying family and this is a part of God’s providence,” Eric said.

The message in a bottle was part of a sixth grade project.

“We had a field trip,” his sixth grade teacher, Martha Burnett, now 82, told USA Today. We dropped our bottles in the water, and for many years we heard nothing,” said Burnett from her home in Oxford, Mississippi. The bottle floated 200 miles to the Yazoo River in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Eric, his wife Melanie and their son Chris made a trip to the shipyard in Vicksburg to meet the workers who found the bottle and to take their son’s project home. It was an emotional moment for them to see the note at the shipbuilders’ office.

“One thing that jumps out at me is an 11-year-old boy saying ‘please’,” Eric said after seeing the note. “Knowing that something he wrote is connecting strangers, that really helps.”

Melanie told U.S. News that Brian had a wonderful sense of humor, so there’s no doubt he would have loved to know that his message was received. He probably had no idea that his family would ever see it so one could assume that the letter was directed to a stranger somewhere in a far-off land.

“Who would ever have imagined this would happen?” said Burnett. “I think it brings him back to life in a way.”

It’s August and the NBA is in vacation mode, but that doesn’t mean Giannis Antetokounmpo has stopped destroying worlds. Greece played a game against Spain in preparation for EuroBasket next month, and as he’ll do on occasion, Giannis was magnificent, scoring 31 points in just 20 minutes in an 86-70 victory.

This was supposed to be a simple tune-up game for both teams to get some live reps, but Yankuba Sima, a big man for Spain, made a grave mistake: He tried to jump with Giannis, who had a full head of steam and the chance to go grab a perfectly placed lob.

Hopefully this is a warning for everyone competing in EuroBasket (and, for that matter, in the NBA to never challenge Giannis at the rim. Giannis has never won an international competition with Greece and will certainly be on a mission to add that to his resume. EuroBasket 2022, which begins on Sept. 1, will feature three of the NBA’s best players: Giannis, Luka Doncic and Slovenia, and Nikola Jokic’s Serbia. Greece, Slovenia, and Serbia were all placed in different groups, so a potential matchup between any of these three MVP-caliber players will have to occur in the knockout stage. Luka and Slovenia won the most recent EuroBasket, which happened in 2017 right before he entered the NBA.

Back in May, Fred Savage was fired from the reboot of The Wonder Years, the show that made his name. He wasn’t acting on it; he was an executive producer, as well as one of its directors. At the time, details were not made public; all that was revealed was he had engaged in “inappropriate conduct.” Now a report by The Hollywood Reporter has filled in some of the gaps, and the allegations aren’t pretty.

According to the report, six women on the crew united to report Savage’s alleged misconduct, which led to an investigation and his eventual ouster. There were claims of verbal outbursts at female employees and that he would flip like a “switch” between two personalities: charismatic/supportive and darker/angrier. (“His eyes would go dead,” one of his accusers told THR.)

Then there was behavior around a “much younger” crew member. At first it was “very platonic,” although he soon started taking her to dinner, buying her expensive gifts (which she declined), encouraging her comedy career, even meeting her parents. After she was abruptly fired, things allegedly took a turn. Savage invited her to a bar where the crew was gathering. At one point, she went to the bathroom, and Savage followed her inside, pushed her against a wall, began kissing her, and put her hand on his groin.

“I said, ‘Please, don’t do this.’ I meant ruining the friendship,” she told THR. “I was pleading, not from fear so much, but this was no going back.” Eventually she “angrily” stopped. “I shoulder-checked him so I could get out.”

Savage continued texting her, but she stopped responding. A few weeks went by and Savage sent her a voicemail, which she shared with THR. “It’s your old friend Fred,” he said. “We worked together for a while, and then we didn’t, and then I was a huge asshole. A huge asshole. And I’m really sorry. And I’ve kind of owed you an apology for a minute here and so, uh, the truth is I really like you and I really want to be friends, and I’m so sorry that I f*cked that up.” She did not respond.

Savage released a statement to THR, in which he denied some claims while acknowledging that he has to do better:

“Since I was 6 years old, I have worked on hundreds of sets with thousands of people, and have always strived to contribute to an inclusive, safe and supportive work environment. It is devastating to learn that there are co-workers who feel I have fallen short of these goals. While there are some incidents being reported that absolutely did not and could not have happened, any one person who feels hurt or offended by my actions is one person too many. I will work to address and change any behavior that has negatively affected anyone, as nothing in this world is more important to me than being a supportive co-worker, friend, husband, father and person.”

You can read the full report at THR.

In fall of 2017, songwriters Sean Hall and Nathan Butler filed a lawsuit against Taylor Swift, accusing her of copyright infringement and claiming that the chorus of “Shake It Off” stole lines from their 2001 track “Playas Gonna Hate,” which they co-wrote for 3LW. The case was dismissed the following year, with the judge calling it ridiculous, but then it was reopened it in 2020. The “Love Story” singer filed a motion to dismiss it again last year, but the plaintiffs fought back and the U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald ruled that the matter will indeed go to trial.

The latest installment in this case is Swift’s sworn declaration which was filed yesterday claiming that the “lyrics to ‘Shake It Off’ were written entirely by me,” she wrote. She continued:

“In writing the lyrics, I drew partly on experiences in my life and, in particular, unrelenting public scrutiny of my personal life, ‘clickbait’ reporting, public manipulation, and other forms of negative personal criticism which I learned I just needed to shake off and focus on my music.

I recall hearing phrases about players play and haters hate stated together by other children while attending school in Wyomissing Hills, and in high school in Hendersonville. These phrases were akin to other commonly used sayings like ‘don’t hate the playa, hate the game,’ ‘take a chill pill,’ and ‘say it, don’t spray it.’”

The full response can be read on Billboard.

The basketball world got one hell of a report involving a Brooklyn Nets All-Star on Tuesday. No, I’m not talking about the rumor that Kevin Durant told Nets owner Joe Tsai that he had to choose between Durant or the duo of head coach Steve Nash and general manager Sean Marks. Tsai responded a little later in the day and made clear he was not going to fire either guy.

Instead, I’m talking about a pretty interesting rumor that Ric Bucher shared on The Herd with Colin Cowherd. The long and the short of it is that Ben Simmons left a team group chat when he was asked if he was going to play in Game 4 of the team’s playoff series against the Boston Celtics — Simmons did not suit up for the team after being acquired at the trade deadline due to back issues, but there were rumblings he’d be able to go once the postseason rolled around, something that never came to fruition.

It is, objectively, a sensational story, but Simmons appeared to have gotten word that it was going around and responded on Twitter earlier in the day on Tuesday.

To further drive that point home, Simmons retweeted the following video from The Pat McAfee Show in which Shams Charania of The Athletic said “it’s an amazing story but it didn’t happen.”

There is no such thing as a boring day when the Brooklyn Nets are involved.

Monday was an interesting day for the New York Giants, as the team tried going through practice but could not get through the whole thing without a brawl breaking out. According to reports, things started to get tense and eventually boiled over when Bobby Johnson, the team’s offensive line coach, shoved linebacker Cam Brown, which led to a whole lot of other stuff happening that you normally do not want to see teammates do.

The one video we have of the brawl is from quite a ways away, but things were so bad that teammates from both sides of the field had to run in and break things up.

Usually when fights happen during training camp it’s because a pair of players get into it. This one was unique, however, as a coach played a role in things getting tense. New Giants head coach Brian Daboll said “that’s not what we’re looking for,” per the New York Post, while Johnson apologized for his role in the skirmish on Tuesday.

“It’s a regrettable incident that can’t and won’t happen again,” Johnson said about shoving a player on the other side of the ball, which led to the offense and the defense fighting and you know when you put it that way it makes sense why that probably shouldn’t happen again.

On Monday, FBI agents arrived at Mar-a-Lago, the resort former where president Donald Trump now lives, brandishing a search warrant. What they were looking for is classified. What they took hasn’t been revealed. But it immediately set off a firestorm — and several meltdowns — by the right, who deemed it a breach of power despite not knowing why the fed were there. Among Trump’s defenders were his former vice president, who may have forgotten about that time he almost got him killed.

“I share the deep concern of millions of Americans over the unprecedented search of the personal residence of President Trump,” Pence tweeted. “No former President of the United States has ever been subject to a raid of their personal residence in American history.”

Never mind that Trump is a key part of multiple investigations, from the Department of Justice, the New York State attorney general’s office, and the Jan. 6 committee. Never mind that, again, it’s not yet been made public what exactly FBI agents were hoping to find. What most people dwelled on was that, even after helping incite a riot that wanted him hung — and then defending those that almost did just that — he was still acting like everything was kosher between them.

And so there was a lot of online dragging, with some accusing him of being forgetful, others of having a nasty case of Stockholm Syndrome.

Some reminded Pence that Trump is a criminal suspect.

Others reminded him of the time he called on Hillary Clinton to be investigated over alleged email tomfoolery, “because no one is above the law.”

And there was miscellaneous dragging.

There’s an architectural adage that explains how the sign of a healthy city is an ever-evolving skyline. In San Francisco, the colorfully reflective Salesforce Tower replacing the iconic Transamerica Pyramid as the most prominent pillar in Downtown’s lineup of buildings is a prime example of this concept. A permanent fixture signifying a period of growth.

Lasting music festivals are similar in their nature. The sign of a healthy festival is one that also flashes an ever-evolving landscape and more importantly, one that continues to reflect the city where it takes place in new and exciting ways. Outside Lands, San Francisco’s most significant pop music festival, operates like a city within a city, one that welcomed 225,000 people to an unusually sunny Golden Gate Park this past weekend for its 14th edition. But unlike a skyline, a lot of those changes — besides the new light-up windmill which replaced the double wooden mills of old — can’t be seen from a distance and are only fully appreciated when traversing the festival’s bountiful paths and walkways to “Lands” within Golden Gate Park, one of America’s quintessential music festival venues.

It’s nothing short of a privilege to be coursing through Golden Gate Park’s meadows and fields for the weekend. It’s an easy walk to the end of the Polo Field to catch Green Day, Post Malone, or SZA’s headlining sets, but walk beneath the cypress tree-coverings of McLaren Pass, and you might just stumble into DJ’s Q-Bert and Shortkut of the famed Invisbl Skratch Piklz turntablist crew throwing down a world-class display at a pop-up stage in a cocktail-themed corner of the fest. Stroll through the festival’s outer edge along the North entrance and you can cross the street into Marx Meadow for the electronic music-focused SOMA Tent. While last year’s 1,000 capacity area was an overpopulated mess, this year’s tent had double the capacity for DJs ranging up to Tokimonsta and Claude VonStroke. Pull open the door to Outside Lands’ only indoor stage and you’re transported into a strikingly large space akin to one of San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood underground clubs, complete with LED cubes encrusting the stage. Fine-tuning an indoor electronic music component to the festival was long overdue for Outside Lands and for the club kids and ravers who want to dance in a warehouse-like setting all weekend, it’s a swell function that also funnels away traffic from the rest of the fest.

You see, every corner of the footprint is built to showcase the beauty of the grounds. At the sweeping, sunken meadow of the Sutro Stage — where Faye Webster dazzled, Wet Leg roused, and Robert Glasper proved once again that he’s one of this summer’s must-see festival acts — unsightly porta potties that lined the outer edge were removed this year in favor of a more concealed and functional facility on the opposite side of the field. To say it improved aesthetics is an understatement and it was one of many functional improvements that Outside Lands is beginning to deploy as it becomes increasingly well-oiled.

Walk through a tunnel beneath the Polo Field bleachers and you slide into the flowering Grasslands, a legal cannabis wonderland with dispensary booths selling every variant of cannabis product imaginable. Over the last handful of years as cannabis laws have become relaxed, Outside Lands has worked to perfect this unique music festival experience. There are newly expanded “consumption areas” where folks can lounge and puff. A stoner jam band played on Sunday while carving up tiki idols as dispensary hacks hucked “buy one get one” deals like your typical pot shop experience. One dispensary even offered a “FREE GUNNA” t-shirt with the purchase of an eighth (I support this, #FreeYSL).

And for as much of a marketing-palooza as any music festival experience can be, Outside Lands’ corporate interests blended seamlessly into the background, with the exception of the new Music Den by Toyota stage. But to be fair, this was hands down the best addition to the festival’s overall music offerings. Acts who played earlier in the festival got an opportunity to appear again in a natural amphitheater-like setting. If you didn’t get in between noon and 2pm, you could still catch indie acts like The Beths, L’Rain, and Cassandra Jenkins later in the day. It proved a welcome respite to lay on the grassy slope looking at the obscure reflections of ourselves on oversized ornaments perched above on the cypress branches, while the artists played intentionally lowered volume sets.

And while the transformation of Golden Gate Park into this colorful community is always the star of the show, the music was better than I anticipated compared to last year’s sublime lineup over Halloween Weekend. Green Day broke through across the Bay as an Oakland punk trio in the ’90s and here they were, closing down Saturday night’s slate with the #hits that got them here. “I remember one time we tried to play in Dolores Park. There were a lot of punk bands and then the cops came and shut it down,” singer Billie Joe Armstrong said to the crowd. “Well, they didn’t shut this one down!” The set was also a reminder of how under-appreciated Mike Dirnt is as a bassist. His grooves on “Longview” and “Welcome To Paradise” belong in whatever the equivalent of the punk rock Louvre is.

Green Day as a local headliner was part of a bigger theme for Outside Lands 2022, one that saw a bigger commitment to Bay Area artists than ever. San Francisco rapper Larry June put down the best party set of the weekend with a prime 5:30 pm slot on the Twin Peaks Stage — the festival’s second largest. The chill, weird, lit Bay Area ethos was blowing through the diverse crowd in clouds of smoke all the way to June rapping “Bitch I feel like I’m dreaminnng…” on set closer “Smoothies In 1991.”

EDM producer Illenium, who went to St. Ignatius High School in the nearby Sunset district, closed down Twin Peaks Stage on Sunday. But the weekend felt like a true showcase for emerging Bay Area talent too; a “risk” that Outside Lands wasn’t always willing to take. In building this true ecosystem that reflects its locale, sets from Bay Area-bred acts like rising pop singer Thuy, Atlantic Records rapper Symba, flamboyant empowerment pop group Planet Booty, indie stalwart Spellling, and the biggest surprise of the weekend, Odie, bridge the great divide of the stratification of festival crowds. In effect, it hits different when we can all score more than one for the home team.

And then there’s the big ticket stars. the artists most people end up remembering the most. And it’s hard to begin this conversation without bringing up Pusha T first. King Push is bar none of the best lyricists in the game and he proves it every time on stage. Incredible energy, no bells and whistles, just a non-stop flow and series of poised death stares delivered while standing in the cleanest pair of coke white Yeezy Boost 350s you’ve ever seen. He’s the type of dude who can shout sweeping statements to the crowd like, “It’s Almost Dry! Rap album of the muthaf*ckin year. Easy!” And then perform with such conviction that you can’t help but think how right he is when it’s over.

SZA’s Friday night headlining set was evidence of Outside Lands’ growing continuity in booking. The singer, who came out standing on an elaborate lighthouse erected on stage, first graced the noon slot at Twin Peaks stage in 2015. And even without that long-awaited new album in tow, the crowd was still wrapped around her finger on all of the Ctrl jams, a Doja Cat-less rendition of “Kiss Me More,” and an explosive set-opening “All The Stars.”

The largest crowds of the weekend felt like they were (weirdly) for Weezer and Jack Harlow, but largely a function of people preparing for headliners Post Malone and Green Day, who played right after them, respectively. On Saturday, Harlow made a rare performance backed by a live band, commanding the youngest crowd of the weekend that gradually became older as folks started positioning themselves for Green Day. Weezer playing a sing-along set on the main stage’s penultimate slot of the entire festival Sunday night was a masterstroke of understanding what works and what doesn’t at a music festival in 2022. Organizers Another Planet Entertainment learned from 2016’s debacle of a Lionel Richie closing set that was very sparsely attended. Sure, it’s the legacy act, but look, you can’t please everyone and acting as such is important. So send the aging hipsters home early along with Rivers Cuomo and the Microsoft ball cap he took off (facts only, you can’t make this stuff up) so they can make it to work on time on Monday, and let the rest of the crowd vibe out to Post Malone.

For those who stayed, they’d have seen an artist on top of the music world showing the crowd exactly why he belongs there. You might’ve not known it right off the bat though. “I’m here to play some shitty music and get f*cked up!” Malone told the crowd at the beginning of his set; red cup in hand. Make no mistake about it, this was a galvanizing performance for easily the most diverse crowd of the weekend and Posty kept us guessing the entire time.

At one point, he straddled a mic with his mouth on the ground to sing “I Fall Apart” (surely making Karen O proud) then got up to take a seat, grabbed an acoustic guitar to play “Stay” and “Go Flex” while never putting his cigarette down. “The world has been such a shitty place and it just feels so beautiful to be out here with you to have a good time,” Malone said, radiating a message of love that was a resounding theme for just about every artist on stage over the weekend. And you know what? This is music to get f*cked up to. And this day and age, when we have no clue what virus is floating in the air around us when we’re surrounded by tens of thousands of people, surrendering to the music is the only way to enjoy ourselves in this environment. And nobody did surrender better than the guy who set his guitar on fire and smashed it, after performing alone on stage for the last hour and a half of an unforgettable weekend.

Check out some photos from this year’s festival below.

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