Category: News

Kevin Love doesn’t want to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers if it means he has to negotiate a contract buyout. Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN spoke to Love’s agent, who informed him that the two sides haven’t sat down to discuss a way out of the remaining two years and $60 million on his deal, nor is there any real desire from Love’s camp in doing that.

“There have been no talks with Cleveland on a buyout, nor is there any interest from Kevin in doing a buyout,” Jeff Schwartz told Woj.

Love and the Cavaliers agreed to a four-year contract extension that kicked in during the 2019-20 season. The deal was signed in the aftermath of LeBron James leaving Cleveland for the Los Angeles Lakers, and the thinking was Love could help the team stay afloat in a way that didn’t happen after James departed the franchise for the first time. That hasn’t happened — the Cavs have gone 60-159 over the last three years, while injuries have played a major role in Love’s productivity tailing off considerably. Last year, Love appeared in 25 games, with his 7.4 rebounds and 24.9 minutes a night the lowest marks of his career, while his 12.2 points per game were the fewest since he was a rookie.

It’s hard to fault Love for wanting to make sure he gets this big payday over the coming two seasons, and while he’s had a few incidents where he’s shown his frustration over how things are going in Cleveland, he has said that values helping the Cavs’ young core. Perhaps this is posturing, or perhaps the team will be able to find a trade that involves getting off of his contract and letting their sudden surplus of young big men not have to worry about playing time getting allocated to Love, but for now, it seems like Love’s next two years will be spent in Cleveland.

HER is a woman of many talents, and she’s looking to expand to a different part of the entertainment world. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the singer will appear in her first Hollywood film, namely director Blitz Bazawule’s new adaptation of the musical version of The Color Purple. HER will play Squeak, who progresses from a juke joint waitress to an aspiring singer. HER is working with the filmmakers to possibly create an original song for the movie as well. As for Bazawule, he was also the filmmaker behind the Beyonce-led film Black Is King.

Corey Hawkins from In The Heights will also star in the film. Oprah Winfrey, who earned an Oscar nomination for the 1985 (non-musical) film version will produce the film through her Harpo Films banner while Steven Spielberg, who directed that movie , is also listed as a producer. The Color Purple is set for a release on December 20, 2023.

While the film will be HER’s first acting role, it will continue the recent success she’s had in the film industry. Earlier this year, she landed her first Oscar for “Fight For You,” which appeared in the Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Steinfield-led film Judas And The Black Messiah. The win brought her halfway to the coveted EGOT award as she already has four Grammys to her name.

Back in June, fans of the NBC show Manifest were dealt quite the blow: The show had been cancelled after three seasons. That left things hanging, the story not yet resolved. The hope was someone else would swoop in and either save it or grant it a fitting farewell. And some two months later, that’s exactly what happened.

As per Variety, the supernatural show will get a fourth and final season, a whopping 20 episodes long, thanks to Netflix. (That’s longer than any previous season. The first ran 16 episodes while the remaining two clocked in at “only” 13.) It is not clear if all 20 episodes — presumably some 20 hours, maybe more — will be dropped all at once, as is the Netflix way, or if they’ll space it out in some fashion, à la Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max.

Manifest began with a simple premise: Passengers aboard a flight from Jamaica to New York experience a bit of turbulence, and when they land they discover five and a half years have passed. What’s more, they have the ability to glimpse events in the future.

When the news of the return broke, those who had campaigned to save it — fans of the show, as well as cast members — were beyond words.

(Via Variety)

For the third time in just a month, Kanye West held a listening event for his upcoming tenth album, Donda. Unlike the first two editions that were held in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, West held it at Solider Field in his hometown of Chicago. While the event made headlines for plenty of reasons, most of them being controversial, an interesting moment from the night came when the rapper’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian appeared in a wedding dress during a performance of “No Child Left Behind.” The duo left the stadium hand-in-hand after it ended.

According to TMZ, West and Kardashian are reportedly working to repair their relationship despite their ongoing divorce. Sources close to both parties say there is a small chance the two could continue their marriage. Still, the two have reportedly been privately spending time together while “working on rebuilding the foundation of their relationship.” The publication adds that Kardashian’s main goal ensure a healthy foundation of love and support remains present for her four children with West.

As for the latest listening event, it featured Marilyn Manson’s controversial appearance (as the singer is also set to feature on the album), West lighting himself on fire, and his decision to replace a Jay-Z verse with one from DaBaby.

During the pandemic, we’ve all learned a lot of things we probably wouldn’t have otherwise. Some of those things are good: People learned to bake bread, how to speak other languages. Seth Rogen discovered pottery. And some of those things are bad. Thanks to crackpots, a number of once-obscure — and potentially dangerous — drugs have become household names. Who can ever forget Hydroxychloroquine?

The latest is Ivermectin, which has heretofore been used as a dewormer on farm animals. But now people who are afraid of putting vaccines into their bodies are rolling the dice on something mostly used on horses — and getting really, really sick.

Rand Paul does not support injecting Ivermectin. But the Kentucky senator does evidently believe in using it to score culture war points. As per Cincinatti’s The Enquirer (as caught by Raw Story), his latest feat of medical quackery is claiming that the FDA and the CDC — both of whom have warned that the animal drug should not be used on humans — are refusing to test its efficacy because they don’t like the former president. Or something.

“The hatred for Trump deranged these people so much, that they’re unwilling to objectively study it,” Paul said during a packed townhall meeting in a Cincinatti suburb. “So someone like me that’s in the middle on it, I can’t tell you because they will not study ivermectin. They will not study hydroxychloroquine without the taint of their hatred for Donald Trump.”

When a woman in attendance, who said she had some Ivermectin stored away “just in case,” asked Paul about the not-so-miracle drug, he simply said, “I don’t know if it works, but I keep an open mind.” (Paul is ophthalmologist, by the way.)

Paul also dissed mask mandates and the vaccines that would be a more effective and safer treatment than a drug that was not made for humans. Meanwhile, cases in Paul’s state of Kentucy are soaring.

As ever, it’s not clear what the end game here is with those like Paul, who preach a bizarre version of personal freedom while endangering their constituents’ lives, to say nothing of the doctors who are struggling to treat them. In any case, please don’t take cow drugs.

(Via Cincinatti.com and Raw Story)

Last week, Netflix finally dropped the first stills from their live-action take on Cowboy Bebop, the beloved anime. Everyone looked swank! John Cho, playing hitman-turned-bounty hunter Spike Spiegel, not only has that already-beloved hair, but also some sweet duds. Mustafa Shakir, as spaceship captain Jet Black, looks badass. Daniella Pineda, as con artist Faye Valentine, has a kind of Han Solo vibe. Anyway, guess which one the more toxic strain of fans singled out for derision?

On the show, Faye has always been a male fantasy: low-cut tops, matching shorts, naked suspenders, white ankle boots — you get the idea. Not in the Netflix version. This did not sit well with some of the show’s fans. And Pineda decided to call them out.

“First, I wanted to apologize to the fans that I did not anatomically match the Faye Valentine character,” Pineda said in a video she uploaded to Instagram Stories. “Six foot, double-D sized breasts, two-inch waist. You know, they looked everywhere for that woman and they couldn’t find her, it was kinda weird. So they just went with my short ass — I know, am I right?”

She also addressed complaints that a woman of Mexican descent was playing a Japanese character: “You know, there was talk about like, ‘Can we put Daniella in a time machine and maybe give her different parents so she has different genetic information to make her look better?’ It proved to be too complicated.”

And she addressed her outfit. “You know, we tried, but doing stunts in tissue paper, things disappear, they rip, sometimes just got lost—” she continues before the edit jumps to another clip. “Anyway, like I was saying, that original costume, they made a couple of them, but like I said, they got sort of slurped up in my various crevices, never to be retrieved again, so we needed to build something that could withstand the test of time.”

Will this teach that genre of fan a lesson? Probably not. But a lot of people had Pineda’s back.

Some though that dropping a savage retort to critics, dripping with sarcasm, sounds very Faye Valentine.

The Cowboy Bebop redo will hit Netflix on November 19.

(Via The Daily Dot)

When it hit theaters, The Suicide Squad — which is to say the confusingly titled sequel to 2016’s freak hit Suicide Squad (no definitive article) — was a colossal bomb. So far it’s still only grossed $50 million domestically. But it’s not like a ton of people didn’t watch it. After the film’s dismal opening weekend, Warner Bros. claimed it was one of their most viewed day-and-date releases, i.e., the batch of big films they release in theaters and on their streamer, HBO Max. Now we have independent data to back at least some of that up.

As per Deadline, Samba TV, which measures streaming data in three million households, says The Suicide Squad out-streamed other DC movies in the last year, including Wonder Woman 1984 and the “Snyder cut” of Justice League. Not bad for a ragtag group of villains exploited by the government for their own cynical means.

James Gunn’s sequel wasn’t, however, able to nab the top slot among the company’s day-and-date releases. In fact, it only nabbed third place. Top honor still goes to an equally bloody picture: Mortal Kombat. Where The Suicide Squad claimed 4.7 million households, as per Samba TV, Kombat nabbed 5.5 million. Godzilla vs. Kong, which hit theaters as the first wave of vaccinations were going into effect, has silver with 5.1 million. At the box office, GvK grossed a whopping $100 million domestically, while MK only got $42 million. So people were more likely to watch the smaller-scaled movie about battling fighters at home while more went out to watch giant kaijus.

In any case, good news for The Suicide Squad, which opened right as the Delta variant escalated and just happened to be readily available on a very popular streamer.

Wendy’s is making a big change and it’s a direct reflection of how many of its customers are getting their burgers and fries these days. The fast food chain announced that it’s changing its french fry recipe in the coming weeks in an effort to fix a problem common among the considerable surge in fast food delivery in the pandemic era.

According to CNN, the move to a new kind of fry isn’t about the in-restaurant experience but in order to make the fries hold up after deliveries and consumers opting to use the drive-thru window over eating at the establishment.

The fast food chain is giving its top-selling menu item a makeover for the Covid era: a fry that retains more heat and keeps its crispiness longer compared to its predecessor. The upgraded fry, which will be available nationwide by mid-September, was created as more people shift their ordering preferences to drive-thrus and delivery because of the pandemic.

As anyone who has let Five Guys fries sit for longer than three and a half minutes knows, deep fried potato strips have perhaps the worst and smallest sweet spot of any fast food product. So Wendy’s trying to solve that problem with its offerings is welcome news unless the current version is atop your fast food fry power rankings. Because as leadership at Wendy’s notes, you’ll definitely taste the difference.

“They’re going to notice a difference as soon as they taste it,” Wendy’s President Kurt Kane told CNN Business in an exclusive interview. “The proof will be in the tasting.”

“What we’ve done is balance the cut of the fry and kept a little bit of the skin of the potato on the fry to be able to drive flavor,” he said. “We used a batter system that allows us to be able to maintain crispiness, both when they’re fresh and hot out of the fryer as well as several minutes later.”

There’s actually a good amount of food science at play here, so reading the full story is worth the time if you’re interested in how the starches reach your to-go bag. But just don’t be surprised by what’s in your bag the next time you settle on Wendy’s delivery to cure your hangover.

[via CNN]

From playing Spider-Man at children’s birthday parties to being the face of Marvel’s first Asian superhero in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Simu Liu’s career has taken some pretty extraordinary turns. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the star shared the story behind one of the biggest when he recalled the moment Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige called him to say he was being offered the role of Shang-Chi. According to Liu, he was in his apartment, eating shrimp crackers in his underwear, when he took the call that forever changed his life:

It was July 16th, 2019, about 6:30 p.m., early evening. I had just woken up from a nap, and I was in my underwear, eating shrimp crackers. My dog was napping in my apartment, and I just remember getting a call from an unknown number in Burbank, California. And just hearing Kevin Feige’s beautiful, booming voice on the other end, telling me that my life was going to change forever, was pretty memorable.

We are now a week out from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings theatrical release, and based on first impressions and the fact that the star is already eyeing more projects to take on with fellow MCU cast members, the idea that Liu’s life is “going to change forever” could almost be putting it lightly. In the Marvel comics, Shang-Chi is one of the universe’s fiercest fighters, eventually earning a spot in the coveted Avengers. It seems only likely that following the departure of some of the the MCU’s biggest stars (such as Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther, and Chris Evans’ Captain America), fresh faces, like Liu’s Shang-Chi, will start to fill the spots left behind by the former legends.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings hits theaters exclusively starting on September 3 and marks the first cinematic entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s “phase four.” The film is to be followed up by both Eternals on November 5 and Spider-Man: No Way Home on December 17.

This article first appeared on 9.8.17.

With cold season upon us, there’s no better time to learn a couple of awesome and easy tricks that will clear up the dreaded and annoying stuffy nose. Prevention magazine created a short video showing two easy ways to get you breathing free again no matter how stuffed up you might be.

Both tricks take less than two minutes and are certainly worth trying out when it feels like that runny nose might never go away.

How To Clear A Stuffy Nose Instantly

youtu.be

(h/t Prevention Magazine/YouTube)