The Los Angeles Lakers have three open roster spots for next season. The top of their roster is presumably set — headlined, of course, by LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and offseason acquisition Russell Westbrook — but there are still spots to fill.
Per Yahoo! Sports’ Chris Haynes, the Lakers have recently worked out three veteran guards — Isaiah Thomas, Mike James, and Darren Collison — as they look to add a backup point guard and perhaps a wing to round out the roster. Per Haynes, Thomas also worked out with James and Westbrook in Los Angeles on Tuesday. No signing, per Hayes, is “imminent” for any of the three players.
Considering a third guard makes sense for Los Angeles. Since coming to the Lakers, James has wanted playmaking around him and, despite adding both Westbrook and Kendrick Nunn this summer, a “break glass in case of emergency” option makes sense.
Thomas is the most notable name, considering he played with James for half a season in Cleveland and hasn’t really been an effective player since his last season in Boston. His last stint in the NBA was on a 10-day deal with the Pelicans last year, and were he to sign with the Lakers — who, incidentally, he played for after the Cavs traded him away — it’d be something of a real return for him, even if his role doesn’t seem big.
Collison, meanwhile, would be attempting his own comeback, as he retired in 2019 after a second stint with the Pacers. James made an NBA return of his own last year, appearing in 13 games for the Nets and contributing to their postseason run after playing a few seasons overseas.
Despite the clear and very obvious risks that surround COVID as it continues to spread throughout the country, there are a number of notable individuals who have taken a stance against masks. One of them is Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who recently tested positive for COVID-19. Last month, he used an executive order to ban the use of mask mandates across the state. An appeals court later issued a temporary restraining order that stopped Abbott from continuing the ban. And now Carrie Underwood is against them, too.
A fan of the country singer noticed that Underwood liked a tweet that displayed a clip of Matt Walsh, a prominent right-wing leader, speaking to the Nashville School Board. The video shows Walsh talking about “the cruel and indefensible mask mandate for children.” People were shocked at Underwood’s decision to like the post, and they did not hold back with their reactions. The interaction ushered a laundry list of responses from people on social media, with some making puns out her song titles and others referencing her time on American Idol in their posts.
You can scroll through it all in the tweets below and check out the tweet that started it above.
We’ve all spent several days watching the news from Afghanistan with a mixture of horror, sadness, and frustration. Images of crowds of people clamoring to get onto planes at the Kabul airport, human beings clinging to a flying jet before falling to their deaths from the sky, hoards of men, women, and children desperate to escape a violent, extremist regime crammed like sardines into U.S. cargo planes—it’s all too much.
A humanitarian mission has been pulled together by former U.S. military and special operations personnel to get hundreds of people on the Taliban’s kill list out of the country as soon as possible. The mission includes two planes, deep connections on the ground in Afghanistan, and the logistical know-how to get a group of 300+ women’s rights activists, translators and their families, as well as other high-value targets who are in imminent danger out of the country.
Several collaborators are coordinating the mission.
Sheffield Ford, a U.S. veteran with 24 years of service within the Army’s Special Forces, runs the private special missions company Raven Advisory, LLC. Ford was deployed in Afghanistan during his active duty time and has extensive knowledge of how things work on the ground there, as well as connections to the people in need of rescue.
Karen Kraft, an Army veteran who runs VME, a professional association of U.S. military veterans working in media and entertainment, also has connections to Afghans on the Taliban kill list. She is coordinating with people on the ground to get them out. Ford and Kraft have been working together for about a week to get specific people on the flight manifest who have been thoroughly vetted and known to be targets of the Taliban.
The planes, being supplied by a defense related products trading company, have pilots who are dedicated to carrying out this humanitarian mission. Two piloted aircraft are ready and prepared to go in within the next day to bring the people on the manifest to a country of asylum. The cost is the only real hangup, as each plane full of passengers (including fuel, crew, security, clearances, etc.) costs $225,000. (Looking at it another way, it costs $1500 per life saved, which seems a lot less daunting.) The hope was to get at least one planeload of people out, but mission operators were pushing for two or more.
The funds for the first planeload were raised injust 38 minutes.
And in a little over an hour, people had donated the full amount needed for two planeloads. 11,000 people donating $550,000, for an average donation of $50 a person, just like that. Amazing.
The goal has now been increased to $1.1 million in the hopes of getting more planeloads of people out. Any funds raised that do not end up being used for the rescue will be donated to the International Women’s Media Foundation, which is helping protect women journalists who are at high-risk in Afghanistan.
Things are moving fast in Afghanistan and there are lots of moving parts in such a rescue mission, but this is what people can do when we rally together, look for able and willing partners to team up with, and invite others to contribute.
As GOOD’s Head of Content and Innovation Gabe Reilich (who also served as an adviser for the mission) says:
“For everyone out there who is tired of the finger-pointing, tired of the virtue-signaling without action—this is for us. The opportunity to make a real impact, save real lives, help those people who need help immediately. It’s felt hopeless sitting on the sidelines watching this tragedy unfold, and now it’s possible to actually help.
Let there be no mistake, human decency and action make it possible to change the world—even if that’s just the world of one individual, one life being helped, one life being saved.”
Indeed. Read more about the mission and the fundraiser here.
CORRECTION: The original publication of this article contained the wrong name of the company that owns the planes being used. That information has been updated.
This year has been quite a big one for Jay-Z and his business moves, but the rapper’s latest deal finds him making history. The Parent Company, which is based in California and which houses Jay’s cannabis brand Monogram, announced that executive Tory Datcher will become the company’s newest chief executive officer. Datcher, who previously worked as the senior vice president and chief customer officer of Clorox, will begin the role next month, and according to a press release from Monogram, he’ll become the first Black CEO to lead a major public cannabis company in the United States.
Datcher spoke with Insider following the announcement and said that The Parent Company has a “unique opportunity to disrupt a sector that has disproportionately impacted communities of color — including my own — for far too long.” He added, “This is a chance to partner with cultural powerhouses like JAY-Z and Desiree Perez to rectify the wrongs of prohibition, eradicate antiquated laws and create a new cannabis infrastructure rooted in diversity, equity, and justice for our communities.” He concluded, “Together, we can shape a legal cannabis industry that is reflective of our entire culture in California and beyond.”
The newly-appointed CEO will work beside Jay-Z — who is currently the company’s chief visionary officer — andDesiree Perez, Roc Nation CEO and chief social equity officer of The Parent Company. “Troy’s business acumen, strategic thinking, and leadership skills are invaluable qualities that will be critical to our organization’s growth,” Perez said. “He understands and embraces the unique responsibility we have to redefine the cannabis industry and establish a new precedent for cannabis entrepreneurs to build successful businesses.”
Earlier this year, Lizzo confessed that she drunkenly slid into actor Chris Evans’ Instagram DMs. The result was a small back-and-forth, as well as a joke from the singer that she was pregnant with Evans’ baby. Now, Lizzo adds a new layer to the story by explaining what motivated her to try her luck with the Avengers actor in the first place.
“I saw a video of him hollering at this Black girl,” Lizzo said during a recent interview with Big Boy on Real 92.3. “It was like a paparazzi video and it was old. He was outside of this hotel or whatever and he was hollering at this Black girl. He didn’t know nobody was looking at him. He was Christopher Jamal, OK? I don’t know what happened with that, but I know it was years ago so I was like, well she probably not in the picture no more.”
She also admitted that she was inspired by Saweetie and Quavo’s icy-themed Instagram conversation, which led to the pair dating for two and a half years. She figured if it worked for them, it could work for her.
“There’s just something about that face,” Lizzo said about Evans. “When you come up to a Black woman, you gotta come correct. And when you do come correct, there’s nothing more attractive. So I said ‘He got game a little bit. I’m single.’”
You can watch Lizzo’s interview with Big Boy on Real 92.3 above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
In the last couple weeks, Mike Richards went from the most obscure person to guest host Jeoardpy! to a household name. Last Wednesday, he was officially named the late Alex Trebek’s permanent replacement, although another stand-in, Mayim Bialik, landed a prime-time spin-off. This, of course, enraged fans of LeVar Burton, who many wanted to see get the gig. But Richards did have higher ratings than every other guest host — with one exception.
As per Entertainment Weekly, Richards scored an average Nielsen rating of 5.9, while Burton, despite his online popularity, averaged only 4.4. (His tenure, however, partly overlapped with the Olympics, which, despite its record low ratings, surely siphoned off some viewers.) And then there’s Ken Jennings, the show’s most famous and accomplished champion. He had one point better, an average of 6.0.
There is an asterisk to this intel, though, argues EW:
Jennings was the first to guest host Jeopardy following the death of Trebek, with his episodes aired from Jan. 4 to Feb. 19 of this year. If the ratings for the show are any indication, there seemed to be general interest in seeing who would be tapped to fill in for Trebek in those first few months. Jennings also had the advantage of being someone the show’s audience knew well.
If it’s true that more viewers were tuning in to Jeopardy! in the wake of Trebek’s death, when the guest hosts first began, then that may also explain Richards’ perhaps surprising popularity. He was, in fact, the second guest host, following Jennings.
While Jennings, whose run lasted a record 74 consecutive wins, won’t be back to hosting Jeopardy! any time soon, the show is on hiatus till September, when Richards will assume the mantle. The show has instead been re-airing old episodes, including some of Jennings’ greatest hits.
The last month or so of summer is an interesting time of year. Will it be unseasonably cool and leave you craving a thick sweater and a creamy stout? Or will it be 88-degrees and sunny, when tank tops and citrus-driven IPAs are the name game?
While you might not know what clothing to wear every late summer day, you can be sure that there’s one beer style that works in all late summer/ early fall scenarios. We’re talking about sour beer.
Sour beer is a wide-ranging style that refers to a variety of beers, including the popular Gose, Lambic, Oud Bruin, Berliner Weisse, and American wild ales, to name only a few. These beers are typified by their tart, dry, sometimes rustic, or barnyard-funky flavors. Some even taste more like wine than beer. All of the varieties of sour beer are perfectly acceptable on a crisper fall pre-fall day or a hotter, more summery one — in short, this is their time to shine.
To find the best sour beers for the season, we went to the bar pros. We asked a handful of our favorite bartenders to tell us their picks for the best sour beers to drink as the season shifts from summer to fall. Check them all out below and click on the prices to try them yourself.
Revolutions Freedom of Speach has a slightly tart but in-your-face peach flavor. It will put you in the mood for some sundresses and silliness. Support local — hence, the fact that I selected a beer from Chicago.
Duvel Belgian Ale
Duvel
Austin Zimmer, bartender at Le Prive in New York City
I like the Duvel, it’s a Belgium beer. Technically not a “sour beer” but, it has a natural sour flavor that I like to light up with a squeeze of lemon.
Grimm Color Field American Wild Ale
Grimm Ales
Emily Lawson, bartender and owner of Foxhole Public House in Bentonville, Arkansas
As someone who loves sour beer, picking just one was tough. I ended up choosing Pryes Royal Raspberry Sour Ale, brewed locally here in Minneapolis. As a fruited sour the flavor of raspberry, with notes of passion fruit makes for a crisp, and delicious beer, perfect for spring.
The Royal Raspberry offers enough “sourness” to appease those who prefer something more tart, while still being approachable by someone new to the realm of sour beers.
Burly Oak Sorry Chicky
Burly Oak
Lauren Paylor, owner and co-founder of Focus on Health in New York City
My pick is Sorry Chicky Dry Hopped Sour Ale from Maryland’s Burly Oak. It’s perfect for late summer weather because this dry-hopped, lactobacillus beer is a perfect combination of floral hops, sweet fruit, and tangy, tart yeast.
Bruz Tart N Hoppy Sour Farmhouse
Bruz
Jake Conover, general manager at Bruz Beers in Denver, Colorado
I’m totally biased but the Tart N Hoppy Sour Farmhouse from Bruz Beers is everything I want in a sour ale. This beer starts as a classic Belgian-style Saison but gets kettle soured before it’s heavily dry-hopped with Azacca, Galaxy, and Motueka hops.
So fruity and floral — with a tart kick that doesn’t overpower the beer and at 7 percent it’s got a kick.
They call this beer Rodenbach Classic because it’s one of the most iconic sour beers ever made. This Flemish brown ale is sweet, sour, tart, and has a nice oaky finish due to being matured in wooden casks. It’s fresh, crisp, and perfect for a chilly late summer/early fall day.
This 7 percent sour IPA was brewed with Citra and Amarillo hops. It’s then dropped hopped before being mixed with 25 percent of the brewery’s Foeder-Aged Golden Sour. The result is a hoppy, crisp, sour, tart brew that appeals to both IPA and sour beer fans.
As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.
Like every other team still out in Las Vegas, the Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets will end their stints at NBA Summer League on Tuesday. But first, the two sides need to get past one another, and one moment by a Blazers big man attracted praise from the greatest player of his generation, even though the game was not exactly easy to watch.
Former University of Texas big man Greg Brown got out ahead of the play and was fed a pass. Without needing a dribble, Brown went between the legs and threw down, much to the delight of his broadcast team and his teammates.
James has been tweeting about Summer League throughout its duration, making clear that he finds the NBA’s annual excursion to Las Vegas one of his favorite things about this time of year. He even went out to Summer League alongside new Laker Russell Westbrook. Still, it takes a special level of dedication to have on ESPNEWS on a Tuesday afternoon for a Summer League game, so shout out to LeBron, and shout out to Brown for being able to do this.
When Sea of Thieves launched for the Xbox One and PC it was seen as a moderate, but somewhat disappointing, success. The game was initially well-received at launch for being a fun time with friends, but everyone who played the game had the same general complaint that the game was fun for the first few hours and then quickly lost its appeal after that. A game that delivered on the promise of a wide world, but filled it with a vast nothingness.
However, despite these initial complaints, a hardcore community formed around the game. One that gave it enough support to keep going and eventually that community grew. Despite releasing back in 2018, Sea of Thieves is one of the most popular games out there right now. So popular that back in June they hit a major milestone with 4.8 million active players at once. That was a record for the game and a sign of just how much the game had grown since 2018. The developers of the game at Rare recently sent out a thank you to all their fans for making the game such a hit today.
It’s been over a month since we released Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life into the wild blue yonder as part of Season Three, and since that emotional launch day we’ve been bowled over by the response from the Sea of Thieves community. From your reactions on social media to your fan art and stories of exploring the five new Tall Tales, it’s been amazing – and all this excitement resulted in our busiest ever month on the seas, with June seeing 4.8 million active pirates out on the water!
While most people know about how fun Sea of Thieves is now, anyone that fell off from the game when it was initially released may be a little bit surprised. How did a game that released the way Sea of Thieves did become so popular? Well, it was a mix of factors, but it was also an example of how it’s always okay to give a game a second chance.
From the developer side, Sea of Thieves has been one of the best at providing constant updates to keep the game fresh, combatting that initial complaint of players that the game grew stale quickly. In the old days when a game was released that was it, the game was done and there was nothing else that could be done to fix or improve a game. So if a game like Sea of Thieves had been released back in 2005 it would have faded off into obscurity with fans talking about its missed potential. Now that we’re in an age where a game can be constantly updated through patches, a game like Sea of Thieves can launch and make the necessary improvements through updates to address the initial disappointment from players.
The developers at Rare have been constantly updating Sea of Thieves in an effort to make it more fun. They’ve added content, balanced out the game, and created events that gave players more to do. As updates came in, and the game improved, more players started bringing in their friends to play with them. As of 2021, Sea of Thieves is on Season 3 and the latest patch is a crossover with the popular Disney series Pirates of the Carribean. It took a lot of work for the game to reach this point, but it’s one that has paid off in a big way for Rare.
On top of that, one of the biggest benefits to Sea of Thieves has been its inclusion on Game Pass. Microsoft’s service that allows players to pay a monthly fee and gain access to a library of games, similar to Netflix, has basically always had Sea of Thieves on it. When the game was still growing it became way easier for fans to check out their updates and events when it was already paid for on Game Pass. This gave it an opportunity to grow with people who were way more open to growing pains than someone that had just paid full price for a brand new game.
It may sound like a simple formula, but constant updates on a service that players were already using to try out new games? It was the perfect place for Rare to experiment and turn Sea of Thieves into a hit. The game may have set a record for most concurrent players back in June, but there’s no sign of that number going down anytime soon. With Rare initially saying they fully plan to support Sea of Thieves for 10 years we can expect more updates, more content, and more fun on the high seas until 2028.
One of the “white whales” from the Jan. 6 Capitol siege has finally been apprehended, and it’s partially thanks to his Instagram feed. Logan Barnhart, a former body builder who was allegedly photographed assaulting a police officer, was arrested by the FBI seven months after the failed but deadly coup, according to HuffPost. One of the most sought of the day’s perpetrators, he was known among the “Sedition Hunters” community by the colorful nickname “CatSweat.” (More on that in a second.)
Barnhart had eluded law enforcement for over half a year, in part because his face was partially obscured by sunglasses. But online hunters were able to track down video of him before the riot without the eyewear but still wearing a grey hoodie bearing the name “Caterpillar,” the name of the construction equipment manufacturer. (HuffPost claims they ID’d him earlier, thanks to citizen sleuths, but held back going public with it due to his history of violent behavior, including rioting charges as a teenager.)
That image of Barnhart’s face, plugged into a publicly available facial recognition website, pulled up several other images of Barnhart that are plastered across the internet on bodybuilding websites and photography portfolios. Photos of a shirtless Barnhart even graced the cover of romance novels with names like “Stepbrother UnSEALed: A Bad Boy Military Romance” and “Lighter,” which included the slogan “wrong never felt so right.”
But what “sealed the deal,” said HuffPost, was Barnhart’s Instagram account. Billing himself as a “Pipe Layerheavy machine operator,” he was prone to posting right-wing memes alongside “shirtless thirst traps.” In one post, from July 2019, he wore the same American flag hat he would later wear to the Capitol. In another image, from August 2020, he wore the same Caterpillar hoodie.
Barnhart is allegedly one of a number of Trump supporters photographed assaulting a D.C. metro police officer, whom they dragged down a set of stairs on the Western side of the building. His alleged participation in the failed insurgence didn’t inspire him to cool it on far right social media posts:
After participating in the attack on the Capitol, Barnhart continued to post right-wing material on Instagram that dismissed the threat of COVID-19. He posted a video of himself inside a Walmart (where he said he was the only person not wearing a mask) as well as memes about LeBron James and rants about Black Lives Matter.
In another of his posts, from February, Barnhart sarcastically joked about the “amazing FBI doing some fine investigative work.”
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