Category: News

Last summer, just days after he released his third album Hall Of Fame, which went on to become his first No. 1 album, Polo G was arrested in Miami. The rapper was leaving an album release party in celebration of Hall Of Fame when officers pulled him over. According to Billboard at the time, Polo G, who was a passenger in the car with his mother and manager, was stopped after cops suspected that there were weapons in the car because they overhead a passenger say that the car was bulletproof. Shortly, after he was pulled over, an altercation between Polo G and an officer occurred before he was placed in handcuffs.

As a result of the incident, Polo G was hit with two felony charges for battery against a police officer and threatening a public servant. He also received misdemeanor charges for public servant/influence performance threat, resisting an officer without violence, and criminal mischief. Back in November, Miami-Dade County prosecutors decided to drop the felony charges, as well as the charge of criminal mischief, due to insufficient evidence. Now, the remaining misdemeanor charges have reportedly been dropped after Polo G completed an anger management class.

According to TMZ, the final charges were dropped after Polo G completed a 6-hour anger management course. It was a part of the Pre-Trial Intervention program which allows non-violent offenses to have charges dropped through courses like the anger management class.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are very much in love, but for the second time in their lives, they’re ready to tie the knot! Lopez shared the news in a message to readers of her On The JLo newsletter and it came days after she was spotted earlier this week with what many believed to be an engagement ring on her finger. Prior to sharing the exciting news, Lopez teased a “major announcement” in a video she posted on Twitter Friday night. “So I have a really exciting and special story to share…” Lopez said in the video. She also added a ring emoji to her name on Twitter.

In the newsletter, Lopez included a video of her fawning over the large, green diamond ring, and her sister Lynda also shared images of the ring on her Instagram Story. Lopez and Affleck’s engagement comes nearly 20 years after their first engagement which occurred back in November 2002. At that time, the couple planned to get married in September 2003, but the wedding was postponed with four days’ notice. Two months later, the wedding was called off. Their engagement also comes a year after Lopez and ex-fiance Alex Rodriguez called off their own wedding.

In a past interview with People, Lopez was asked what makes her connection with Affleck different this time around. “We’re older now, we’re smarter, we have more experience,” she said. “We’re at different places in our lives, we have kids now, and we have to be very conscious of those things.”

You can view images of Lopez’s engagement ring above.

Friday night’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Race at Martinsville featured some fireworks on and off the track. While Brandon Jones came out on top in a double overtime finish, tensions boiled over after the race between Ty Gibbs and Sam Mayer, which led to punches getting thrown and Mayer having a shiner under his left eye.

The two drivers approached one another, at which point Gibbs shoved Mayer, who took off his helmet. While Gibbs looked like he wanted to walk away, Mayer went up to him to continue the confrontation, which led to more pushing and shoving before Gibbs threw a few punches that connected with Mayer’s face. While the two were eventually separated, Mayer was understandably not happy that another person just punched him several times.

Reporters managed to catch up with Mayer after and get his side of the story.

“$100,000 on the line, put the bumper to him because that’s what short track racing’s all about, and he got upset,” Mayer said before making baby noises to relay what Gibbs said. “It’s short track racing and all that nonsense, so, whatever. He threw a couple punches, they were weak, so I can’t say much about that, it’s kinda funny. I just put the bumper to him for $100,000 and he got upset about it, but he’s been doing that to everyone else every week so far.”

Mayer went on to say that, because Gibbs kept his helmet on during the confrontation, “obviously, he was scared about something, or he had it in his mind to throw a punch the whole time.” While one can appreciate that sentiment, all of us at Uproxx Sports must advise that if you are ever wearing a helmet and an altercation could potentially break out, do not take your helmet off under any circumstances.

The Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz both did their respective things during fourth quarters of basketball games on Friday night, as the Suns managed to rally back from a huge deficit while the Jazz completely collapsed in the game’s final 12 minutes. Despite the fact that Utah entered the fourth with a 17-point lead in front of their hometown fans, Phoenix managed to pick up a 111-105 win.

In a season that has been defined in part by an inability to see out wins when they lead after three quarters, Utah once again appeared to be in a pretty good spot. The Jazz held a 92-75 lead and did an impressive job stymieing the Suns’ offense, only to fall apart down the stretch. Phoenix won the final frame, 36-13, and at one point went on a 26-6 run to take the lead.

While Devin Booker led the Suns with 33 points, Mikal Bridges came up huge late in the game, scoring nine of his 18 points in the fourth and playing his usually pesky defense.

Unfortunately for Utah, this sort of thing has become par for the course. The team has a habit of completely melting down late in games, something that has been shoved to the forefront in recent weeks — much has been made of a recent press conference in which Quin Snyder attempted to address this narrative, but the fact remains that the Jazz continue to lead the league in blown fourth quarter leads.

With the loss, Utah falls into a tie with the Denver Nuggets for the 5-seed in the Western Conference. They do hold the tiebreaker between the two teams, but now enter the final game of the regular season needing to beat the lowly Portland Trail Blazers to secure their spot. If they lose and Denver beats the Los Angeles Lakers, the Nuggets will jump them in the standings on the final day.

The Dallas Mavericks will not have the services of their best player when they wrap up their season on Sunday against the San Antonio Spurs. At the end of the first quarter of Dallas’ game against the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night, Luka Doncic brought the ball up the floor and attempted a heave from mid-court as the clock hit zero.

Doncic decided to let it fly while Elijah Hughes hit him on the shoulder, and understandably, the All-NBA guard thought that there should have been a foul called as a result. Doncic didn’t heat a whistle, so he decided to ask for an explanation from a referee. He didn’t get one, and instead, Tony Brothers hit him with a technical foul, Doncic’s 16th on the season.

After it happened, Doncic still wasn’t sure exactly what happened and tried to get an explanation for how he’s the one who got hit with a foul of any sort on this one.

Doncic has a point that Hughes got him on the shoulder, but instead of letting it go, he’ll now sit out the team’s last regular season game of the year. The good news for Dallas is they aren’t entering that game in any sort of danger to fall out of the top-4 of the Western Conference, so Doncic will get a nice night off.

In an era of fake news, social media gossip, and rumors galore, sometimes going straight to the source is the way to do it. After Dead and Company released the news of their latest tour in late March, fans were thrilled the band would be getting back together. A hodgepodge of Grateful Dead members and new musicians carrying on the legacy of the late Jerry Garcia, Dead & Company includes Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, John Mayer, and Bob Weir, with Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti. Their 2022 set is slated to quick off on June 11 in LA at Dodger Stadium and runs through July, with a two-night stand at in New York on July 15 and July 16.

And for all the excitement that news of the band’s band’s seventh tour since forming in 2015 caused, even more hullaballoo broke out over a report that this would, in fact, be their last tour together. But as band member Bob Weir tweeted earlier today, that’s news to him! After Rolling Stone published a tweet confirming the band would stop touring after this year, he pretty much put the rumor to rest:

The body of the story doesn’t quite assert what the tweet does, relying on rumors that this might be the last tour, and not really asserting that. So perhaps something got lost in translation along the way. Anyway, it comes back to good news for Dead & Company fans in the end.

The long-awaited return of James Corden’s bonafide hit segment, Carpool Karaoke, is finally here — and Nicki Minaj brought the show back with a bang. Finally getting around to returning the favor for Adele’s epic impression of her “Monster” verse from years ago, Nicki did a spot on Adele impression too, and the show even managed to splice them both rapping the verse side by side. This is as full circle as it gets with internet memes, people.

But because it’s Nicki and James, don’t worry, the hilarious moments didn’t stop there. While rapping along to her new collaboration with Coi Leray, “Blick Blick,” Nicki suddenly realized that James had no idea what “opps” meant. “James, if you’re going to hang out with me, you have to at least understand the lingo,” Nicki asserted, when James offered “opportunities?” as a weak guess for the slang phrase around the 5:30 minute mark. She followed up by getting him to name an opposition in his life (his neighbor’s dog ended up being the example), and explaining how they would roll up on Graeme and Brenda to let them know when it’s time to put that dog inside.

It’s a pretty hilarious moment, and a great example of how applying rap lingo to IRL, mundane situations is… never not funny. Watch up top starting around 5:30.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is out in theaters, and so far, the reception to it among fans has been pretty positive. Fans have really enjoyed all the nods to the games and Idris Elba’s interpretation of Knuckles has been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews, even if his voice isn’t sexy like everyone hoped.

When Elba was first cast as Knuckles, he was really excited about the different directions he could take the character. One direction that he considered was not approved by the director for the movie, Jeff Fowler, and was quickly shut down: Squeaky Knuckles. In an interview with the New York Times, Elba elaborated on what he meant.

We did try out some voices to figure out what he might sound like. He looks sort of menacing — [exaggeratedly flexes arms] rarrrr. I actually wanted to try to play him with a squeaky voice. I thought that might be funny. But they didn’t think that was funny and that idea got nixed immediately. [Laughs] But we did try different voices, cadences, accents. Knuckles isn’t a big talker, but when he does speak, he’s very blunt.

Yeah, anyone that’s played a Sonic game before knows that Knuckle does not give off the vibe of someone that would have a squeaky voice. Knuckles started off the franchise as an antagonist before he became a member of Sonic’s entourage in later games. In every game he’s been in, he’s had a tough and at times gruff personality, one that wouldn’t match a squeaky voice.

Maybe one day we’ll get lucky enough to see Elba’s interpretation of a squeaky Knuckles.

Looking for some lighthearted pop to listen to this weekend? Look no farther than Achoo!, the debut EP (and sneeze) from Nashville-based artist Corinne Savage, aka Corook, that dropped earlier this month. This unabashedly queer, young singer-songwriter stood out to us early on for the catchy pop hooks that her lead single, “Sims,” a tongue-in-cheek meditation on how much easier life is within the confines of a digital framework like the titular game, than, you know, the IRL complications of being human. Following that debut track up with “Bad Friend,” a reflection on the sometimes complicated dynamics of maintaining relationships long-term, complete with Corook’s own heartbreaking experience with homophobia from her former friend, Savage’s songwriting chops become more evident.

“Achoo! is the first batch of songs from the world of Corook,” the artist said of her first release. “It’s a weird world that includes speaking simlish, roleplaying my father, my phobia of snakessssssss, and a song written by ADHD itself. In every case though, the humor is simply the white bread slices to the gooey condiments of vulnerability we call peanut butter and jelly. So grab your butter knife, add banana if you’re feeling spicy, and dig into my trauma. Achoo! Bless me.”

Rounding out her initial EP release with the more standouts like the existential, searching “IDK God,” and a song on the potential pitfalls of college education “Degree,” Corook’s first song collection is at turns funny, clever, self-deprecating, and so hooky these melodies will be stuck in our head long after the first listen. The songs are lighthearted, but just deep enough that mulling them over for a few days is a good thing. And some of them, like “Snakes” are really just funny. Stream the EP below and look for more from this emerging artist, likely coming very soon.

As the Sandy Hook defamation case against Alex Jones continues, the InfoWars host is once, again, allegedly, engaged in what appears to be some very shady behavior. According to accusations in a new motion, Jones is using a shell company to hide InfoWars’ assets by continuing highly suspicious financial transactions that conveniently occur around the same he faces a legal setback in court. The legal team representing the Sandy Hook families filed the motion and called the alleged financial shenanigans “jaw-dropping” in their brazenness.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening via The Daily Beast, and don’t feel bad if you start to go cross-eyed halfway through, because the whole point is to obfuscate InfoWars’ net worth:

On paper, InfoWars parent company Free Speech Systems seems to lose money every year. Yet Jones has allegedly transferred significant amounts out of the company—financial transactions that often coincide with legal setbacks Jones has faced in the Sandy Hook cases. After the families sued him in 2018, for example, Jones allegedly started personally withdrawing a total of $18 million from the Free Speech Systems bank account over three years, along with drawing an annual $600,000 salary.

Many of the suspicious transfers center on a mysterious company called PQPR, which the plaintiffs claim is controlled by Jones and his family members. Shortly after Jones lost his last appeal to block the defamation cases in Texas, PQPR claimed that Free Speech Systems owed it $54 million—almost all of InfoWars’ assets.

And in a surprising move, here’s a lawyer for the Sandy Hook families putting the whole thing in layman’s terms: “They’re transfers designed to siphon off [Jones’] assets to make them judgment-proof.”

If the allegations are true, and Jones is conducting suspicious financial transactions to hide InfoWars’ assets, that can be seen as a sign that he doesn’t expect to win the defamation suit. Then again, he tried to claim that the Sandy Hook children didn’t exist and their families were crisis actors, so he was already facing an uphill battle from the jump because that kind of talk is morally repugnant on top of downright crazy.

(Via The Daily Beast)