Category: News

April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day where hundreds of thousands of landmarks, buildings, homes, and communities around the world come together to light up blue in recognition of people with autism and those who love and support them.

It also kicks off World Autism Month, featuring 30 days of Autism-friendly events and educational activities to increase the understanding and acceptance of people with autism and inspire a kinder, more inclusive world.

About one in 59 children has autism spectrum disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Anyone who has experience with someone with autism knows the disorder is seriously misunderstood. So if there’s one message we can share with the world this month, it’s this: People with autism think differently.

Not better or worse, just differently.

People who think outside of the box are the greatest innovators and their spark of unique inspiration pushes the world forward. In fact, it’s believed that some of the world’s greatest minds such as Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin, and Michaelangelo may have been on the autism spectrum.

There’s no clearer example in this day and age than the work of environmentalist Greta Thunberg. Thunberg credits having Asperger’s, a profile on the autism spectrum, for her tireless devotion to stopping climate change.

People with Asperger’s are known for their ability to hyper-focus on a subject of interest.

“That makes you different; that makes you think differently,” Thunberg said. “Especially in such a big crisis like this one, we need to think outside the box, we need to think outside our current system, we need people who think outside the box and who aren’t like everyone else.”

She credits Asperger’s for giving her the ability to speak truth to power like when she dramatically chastised the United Nations General Assembly for its lack of action on climate change.

“How dare you,” she said. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.”

She’s credited autism for giving her the power to ignore her critics. “I have Asperger’s, I’m on the autism spectrum, so I don’t really care about social codes that way,” she said.

To commemorate Autism Awareness Day, Thunberg shared a series of tweets about what it’s like being diagnosed with autism and how it’s unfortunately misunderstood by many. She also shares why her diagnosis is something she accepts with a sense of pride.

Thunberg’s unapologetic embrace and openness about living with Asperger’s is a wonderful example of promoting the positive aspects of being neurologically atypical. It also shows people on the autism spectrum and those who support them that being diagnosed doesn’t necessarily limit their abilities.

People with autism think differently. Hopefully, World Autism Month can push people across the globe to openly embrace those who think differently, because they may be humanity’s greatest hope for solving our biggest problems.

Eager travelers got some good news from the Centers for Disease Control on Friday, though that news came with a bit of a caveat and a warning from health officials that staying home is still the best policy as the COVID-19 pandemic continues this spring.

As CNN laid out on Friday, the CDC detailed guidelines for those who have been fully immunized by a COVID-19 vaccine and hope to travel. The good news: there’s much less risk to themselves for those vaccinated, but some uncertainty remains for everyone else.

Fully vaccinated people can travel at low risk to themselves, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Friday, but travel still isn’t recommended at this time because of rising numbers of coronavirus cases.

The agency said that as long as coronavirus precautions are taken, including mask wearing, fully vaccinated people can travel within the United States without getting tested for Covid-19 before or self-quarantining after.

News of little risk for vaccinated travelers was initially seen as a green light for travel by many, but the CDC later clarified that it doesn’t recommend traveling just yet.

But being vaccinated, while helping bring America one step closer to ending the COVID-19 pandemic and hopefully reaching herd immunity, does at least in theory make travel a bit less of a hassle than it would if you’re unvaccinated. Not needing to quarantine or acquire a negative test before a trip is good news, though proper masking and staying away from crowds is still recommended for the foreseeable future.

And despite the good signs that vaccinated people are unlikely to contract coronavirus, the science is still unclear just yet about whether it can be spread to others who are unvaccinated, which is why the CDC has not officially recommended for anyone just yet.

“We haven’t changed our guidance for nonessential travel at all. We are not recommending travel at this time, especially for unvaccinated people,” Walensky said, emphasizing that the update is meant for those who are vaccinated — only about 20% of the adult population.

“I still continue to worry that with 80% of the population unvaccinated that we still have a lot of work to do to control this pandemic,” Walensky said.

With vaccine safety still being studied in children under 18, many families won’t be able to travel fully vaccinated for some time. But for those dreaming of a travel-filled future in a post-coronavirus world, the sense is that we’re finally getting a bit closer to actually making that a reality.

[via CNN]

Major League Baseball pulled its 2021 All-Star Game and Draft from Atlanta on Friday afternoon, responding to calls to leave Georgia in light of the state’s recent passing of a law that restricts voting rights. It wasn’t just outside voices wanting the league to make the decision, as commissioner Rob Manfred cited “thoughtful conversations with Clubs, former and current players, the Players Association, and The Players Alliance, among others” for informing this decision.

While the Atlanta Braves issued a statement in opposition to the decision, one of MLB’s owners came out in support of moving the game. LeBron James, who recently upped his stake in Fenway Sports Group and is expected to “weigh in” on matters related to the Boston Red Sox (along with the Group’s soccer team, English giants Liverpool), expressed his pride in being “part of the MLB family” following the league bringing these two events to a new home.

James also retweeted an ad from his voting rights organization, More Than A Vote, which debuted during the NBA All-Star Game.

James was vocal about the role Georgia would play in determining the balance of power in the United States Senate ahead of January’s special elections for both seats. Ultimately, a pair of Democrats, Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, won them, giving the party control of the Senate for at least the next two years. He also made it a point to praise the efforts of individuals like Stacey Abrams in mobilizing voters in November’s election, which made the aforementioned Senate run-offs possible and led to Joe Biden becoming the first Democrat to win in the state since 1992.

Regé-Jean Page was the breakout star of Bridgerton, the steamy Shonda Rhimes Netflix drama that got a lot of people talking back in December. The show’s sex scenes were all over the place for a while, and Page was one of the main reasons. But the relationship with The Duke and Daphne Bridgerton, while full of lust and romance, will apparently continue off-screen as the show reaches a second season.

The show’s Twitter account announced on Friday that Page will not be part of Season 2, doing so by sharing a letter from Bridgerton‘s narrator and resident gossip.

“Dear Readers, while all eyes turn to Lord Anthony Bridgerton’s quest to find a Viscountess, we bid adieu to Regé-Jean Page, who so triumphantly played the Duke of Hastings,” the message said. ““We’ll miss Simon’s presence onscreen, but he will always be a part of the Bridgerton family. Daphne will remain a devoted wife and sister, helping her brother navigate the upcoming social season and what it has to offer – more intrigue and romance than my readers may be able to bear.”

In some ways, the move makes sense as (spoilers incoming) his storyline ends fairly happy after the first season. There’s bound to be far less drama between the couple now that they’re happily with child, and filming the show itself is going to be a challenge moving forward for anyone involved. It seems that his wife will help the family here, but The Duke officially has business elsewhere.

Page shared the news on Friday, saying it was an honor to play the role but admitting that he’s not taking part in Season 2.

But his reaction was more, well, measured than everyone else’s. Fans basically freaked out that they won’t get to see Page, you know, act and maybe smolder a bit more for the camera while wearing historically accurate garb.

Even Kim Kardashian freaked out.

Not everyone was so glum, though.

Considering his run on the first season put him in the James Bond rumor mill and got him a gig hosting SNL, it does seem like the future is bright for Page. Which is good news, but Bridgerton fans are still going to need some time to mourn.

Kevin Durant has been at the center of some controversy in recent days. In a series of Instagram direct messages to Michael Rapaport from December that Rapaport posted to Twitter on Tuesday, Durant used a number of misogynistic and anti-gay slurs that were directed toward Rapaport in response to a tweet about a postgame interview he gave to TNT.

Durant addressed this on Thursday night before the Brooklyn Nets played the Charlotte Hornets. He previously tweeted “my bad” to Rapaport, but on Thursday, he did not apologize, instead saying he was sorry “that people seen that language I used,” and that “that’s not really what I want people to see and hear from me.”

One of the only remaining questions here was whether the NBA would respond to all of this, and on Friday, the league stepped in and levied a $50,000 fine against Durant. The news was originally broken by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, who used some interesting language to convey that this is happening.

Shortly after, the league issued a statement, saying that the fine was “for using offensive and derogatory language on social media.”

The league has doled out fines and suspensions for players using anti-gay language in the past, with two famous examples being Kobe Bryant getting fined $100,000 and Rajon Rondo receiving a one-game suspension. Both of these, however, were on-court instances.

Made For Love (HBO Max series) — HBO Max recently struck dark-comedy gold with The Flight Attendant, and the WarnerMedia streamer is poised to do so again with Cristin Milioti maneuvering around a premise that’s even more dizzying than that of Palm Springs. Cristin stars as Hazel, and Ray Romano plays her father, who’s attempting to help her flee from a god-awful marriage with a guy (Billy Magnussen) who’s implanted a chip in her brain so that he can track her every move and emotion. It’s such a cynical spin on relationships, and it’s terrifying, all of it, to consider, but heck, this show will suck you into its compelling vortex. Did we mention that dad is a widower with a “synthetic partner”? Oh boy.

Concrete Cowboy (Netflix film) — Idris Elba in a cowboy hat should be enough of an attraction here, but assuming that you want to know about the all-important plot, here we go. A troubled teen (Caleb McLaughlin) spends the summer in North Philadelphia, where he’s torn between diving into a life or crime or embracing the urban-cowboy subculture that’s embodied by his estranged dad (Elba). The story’s based upon Ghetto Cowboy, the novel by G.Neri, and the film co-stars Jharrel Jerome, Byron Bowers, Lorraine Toussaint, and Clifford “Method Man” Smith.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+ series) — After WandaVision proved that Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige could still bring their A+ game, even on the small screen, Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes are here for the buddy action-comedy that fans have dreamed of. Last week, the show mined the depths of systemic racism with a side of couple’s therapy, and Sharon Carter still hasn’t showed up, but she got a shoutout last week, so hopefully, we’ll see her kicking butt soon. Oh, and it’s Zemo time this week, so that should be plenty confrontational.

SNL (Saturday, NBC 11:29 p.m.) — Daniel Kaluuya hosts with musical guest St. Vincent.

Supermarket Sweep (Sunday, ABC 8:00 p.m.) — Leslie Jones and every bit of her enthusiasm will host contestants in this revival of the grocery-shopping game show.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (Sunday, NBC 9:00 p.m.) — Jane Levy continues her leading-lady musical turn by celebrating Zoey’s 30th birthday. Party time gets interrupted by coping with unresolved relationship feelings, though.

The Walking Dead (Sunday, AMC 9:00 p.m.) — The bonus episodes of Season 10 continue with the Negan origin story. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s real-life wife, Hilarie Burton joins the show to portray Lucille, who’s also the namesake of Negan’s famed (and murderous) baseball bat.

Q: Into the Storm: Episodes 5 & 6 (Sunday, HBO 9:00 & 10:00 p.m.) — You’ve heard all of those wild QAnon conspiracy theories, and this weekend, this six-part documentary series continues to chart the movement’s evolution. Filmmaker Cullen Hoback drives into the rabbit hole to reveal how the mysterious “Q” wields conspiracies as information warfare to manipulate thinking and influence American culture.

The Gloaming (Sunday, Starz 8:00 p.m.) — Molly’s feeling increasingly suspicious about Freddie in regards to the Moxley murder.

Shameless (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — Kevin and V are about to make a big announcement, and Lip might actually come close to selling the Gallagher family abode. Meanwhile, Ian and Mickie are attempting to adjust to West Side life, and Liam is telling things straight to Frank.

City On A Hill (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — Season 2 of this Kevin Bacon show continues with Decourcy pressing the DOJ, and Jackie looking into his rival’s romantic past for dirty. Meanwhile, Siobbhan wants to plan a family, and Jenny receives an unsettling call that makes her think again about her mother.

Gangs Of London (Sunday, AMC 10:15 p.m.) — AMC+ viewers already enjoyed the first season of this series and may even be tempted to revisit the turbulent power struggle all over again as it hits the traditional TV schedule. Fans of the beloved Peaky Blinders, as well, should pay attention because this new series makes Peaky seem like a pleasant walk in London’s Hyde Park. Warring gangs and a power vacuum and a city on its knees are only part of the attraction here. The rest is down to character-based writing and a wonderful cast that embodies a decidedly unglamorous take on warring criminal elements, all of which will prove to be addictive for anyone who loves The Sopranos or any of Marty Scorsese’s mob pictures.

Last Week Tonight (Sunday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — Everyone’s favorite sarcastic and satiric late-night host is here to throw down, and not a moment too soon. Can’t wait to see who he skewers this week.

Here are some more fresh streaming picks:

The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers (Disney+ series) — Emilio Estevez is back in this new-generation revival of the classic films. Co-starring Lauren Graham and Brady Noon, the Mighty Ducks junior hockey team is now a powerhouse in its division, and it’s brutal in selecting who can make the cut. Estevez is still the Ducks’ original coach, and he’s helping a new team of underdogs after the New Ducks boot a 12-year-old boy named Evan. Rude!

Godzilla vs. Kong (Warner Bros. film on HBO Max) — As you are well aware, we’ve seen a very long year without blockbusters (or almost any movies at all) in theaters, but a mega-blockbuster has arrived in both streaming and theatrical formats. It’s quite literally an actioner of gigantic proportions in a battle (starring Alexander Skarsgard and Rebecca Hall) for all of the ages. Not only does Kong punch Godzilla, but Godzilla punches back. It’s not quite Fast 9 in terms of ripped dudes with one-liners, but damn, it’s one hell of a movie event.

WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn (Hulu documentary) — Hippie-messianic leader Adam Neumann’s story gets the spotlight, along with the rise and fall of a venture-capitalist bubble-bursting for the ages. Former WeWork members, journalist, and experts come together to tell the tale of how this venture transformed into a unicorn investment while much more was going on behind the scenes.

The Serpent (Netflix series) — This series is inspired by real events with entirely scripted dialogue, all to bring viewers the saga of a serial conman, Charles Sobhraj, and law enforcement’s attempt to nab him. He and his girlfriend, Marie-Andrée Leclerc, became prime suspects in a serieas of murders of tourists, and they also carried out crime sprees in Asia during the mid 1970s. It’s up to a junior diplomat to help set off a chain of events to eventually help Sobhraj transform into the subject of arrest warrants around the world, which in turn makes him Interpol’s most wanted man.

Invincible (Amazon Prime series) — This animated romp drops a new episode and pleases both fans of The Boys and The Walking Dead, and the latter reference has everything to do with the source material by Robert Kirkman. Invincible is an ultraviolent deconstruction of the superhero, and yes, we’ve seen plenty of dismantling already, but this story has heart. Stephen Yeun makes a fantastic leading man here, and the cast (J.K. Simmons, Sandra Oh, Seth Rogen, Walton Goggins, Jason Mantzoukas, Zazie Beetz, Zachary Quinto, Mark Hamill, and several TWD names) is ridiculously good.

Creepshow: Season 2 (Shudder and AMC+ series) — The spooky anthology show returns with many, many featured players on board, including Ali Larter, C. Thomas Howell, Ted Raimi, Kevin Dillon, Anna Camp, Josh McDermitt, Adam Pally, and Ashley Laurence. Just FYI, the Marilyn Manson episode got axed following Evan Rachel Wood’s allegations against the so-called shock rocker.

Like most bands, Big Thief isn’t touring right now, but they are still selling merch. It appears they have misfired with one shirt design, though, as the band has offered an apology about it today.

The band shared a lengthy Instagram post today about the shirt in question, which features “an illustration of cartoon purple arms and hands holding onto jail cell bars.” In the apology, the band wrote:

“We feel that this is reckless, offensive imagery. The jail cell was meant to be a metaphor symbolizing imprisonment and oppression of the mind and spirit because of constructs, etc… The arms were intended to be purple so as to avoid realism and race all together, but we feel that that thinking was misdirected. We believe that something as pervasive, horrific and insidious as incarceration can not be lightly approached and most especially in avoidance of the issue of race, as the entire incarceration system is fueled by racism. The lack of attention we paid to this symbolism, to us, is a reason to bring it up. Letting this image get printed on a shirt is just another example of a symptom of being conditioned in a culture of normalized white supremacy and we apologize to anyone who may have felt hurt by or uncomfortable with this image.”

The band goes on to say the shirt is just “a piece of a much larger, much more important conversation” about “the ways in which we have been steeped in and benefiting from a patriarchal white supremacist capitalist culture.” They also note that starting now, they will be “allocating a portion of the money we make from all of our masters and publishing into causes that we feel will help start to address these injustices, starting with initially giving to the Equal Justice Initiative,” as well as “donating a portion of our earnings [from touring] towards environmental justice and the climate emergency.”

The message concludes, “We continue to be committed to the work of repatterning and reconditioning ourselves to being actively anti-racist and an ally to communities and individuals affected by oppression and, in turn, to ensure that energy is what encompasses every aspect of the physical and virtual spaces that envelop the culture we are co-creating with our audience.”

In response to a comment on the post, Big Thief also noted, “We are no longer using the design or selling the shirt.”

Find the band’s full message below.

“Today, we want to take a moment to address something that has been brought to our attention. One of our t-shirts (multicolored with parrots and sound waves on the front and many small images down the long sleeves) includes an illustration of cartoon purple arms and hands holding onto jail cell bars. We feel that this is reckless, offensive imagery. The jail cell was meant to be a metaphor symbolizing imprisonment and oppression of the mind and spirit because of constructs, etc… The arms were intended to be purple so as to avoid realism and race all together but we feel that that thinking was misdirected. We believe that something as pervasive, horrific and insidious as incarceration can not be lightly approached and most especially in avoidance of the issue of race, as the entire incarceration system is fueled by racism. The lack of attention we paid to this symbolism, to us, is a reason to bring it up. Letting this image get printed on a shirt is just another example of a symptom of being conditioned in a culture of normalized white supremacy and we apologize to anyone who may have felt hurt by or uncomfortable with this image.

Our band t-shirt isn’t the main point here — Rather it is a piece of a much larger, much more important conversation which we have been having that considers all of the ways in which we have been steeped in and benefiting from a patriarchal white supremacist capitalist culture — about how the music industry which serves as the vehicle for our art getting into the world functions much the same as any other industry — and how we as a band of people who are white, benefit from a system that was built unfairly.

Going forward we will be allocating a portion of the money we make from all of our masters and publishing into causes that we feel will help start to address these injustices, starting with initially giving to the Equal Justice Initiative. On the touring side of things, we will be donating a portion of our earnings towards environmental justice and the climate emergency.

We are limited by our perspectives, and much of the time we have been able to move along in relatively peaceful, uninterrupted ignorance of how BIPOC communities and individuals are affected by the systems in place. As a queer woman, Adrianne has been passionate about dissolving and ripping apart the misogynistic, homophobic constructs that have worked to oppress her in the world, but we see clear! that it is not enough to address only the things that affect one of us, or even to simply express empathy for that which affects “others” (and this otherization in general may be the most dangerous of all pitfalls, fertilizing the thought pattern that one can live in avoidance of pain or discomfort or prejudice so long as we are not the direct recipient of it).

Almost everything that we as a band address in our songs has to do with internal and external healing of the wounded spirit body and the wounded earth body in some form. If there is suffering, it permeates, and those who feel unaffected by it are cutoff from true vitality. If music is to be a unifying force, which we have always believed it can be, then as a band we need to better acknowledge and recognize the stark differences in experience that people face. We are committed to facing up to our own conditioning and internalized racism. We continue to be committed to the work of repatterning and reconditioning ourselves to being actively anti-racist and an ally to communities and individuals affected by oppression and, in turn, to ensure that energy is what encompasses every aspect of the physical and virtual spaces that envelop the culture we are co-creating with our audience.

Love, Big Thief.”

John Boehner was once a very powerful Republican lawmaker. And as of Friday, he’s one of the most notable haters of Ted Cruz in the Republican party. The Ohioan was once the Speaker of the House, and now he’s got a book he’s promoting that was the talk of Twitter because of some fairly explosive quotes about some of his former co-workers.

The book, “On the House,” promises to include “colorful tales from the halls of power, the smoke-filled rooms around the halls of power.” But mostly what got people talking was the colorful language he used to describe some Republicans he doesn’t seem to like very much.
According to the Boston Globe, Boehner’s new book has a number of swipes at some of his Republican colleagues. Perhaps the most telling comment, which was published in an excerpt in Politico, described the scene in 2010 after midterm elections when a number of new Tea Party-fueled Republicans were elected to the House.

“You could be a total moron and get elected just by having an R next to your name—and that year, by the way, we did pick up a fair number in that category,” he writes.

On their arrival to Congress, things did not improve, in Boehner’s view.

“I had to explain how to actually get things done. A lot of that went straight through the ears of most of them, especially the ones who didn’t have brains that got in the way,” he says.

As the Globe piece mentions, he saves some special ire for Ted Cruz, who wasn’t even a member of the House. But the Texas senator who’s been in plenty of hot water this year got a special shout-out in the new book.

He writes that even from outside the House, Cruz had marshalled the far-right members of the Republican caucus and became what Boehner describes as the “head lunatic.”

“There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless [expletive] who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Senator Ted Cruz,” Boehner writes.

As quotes like that made the rounds on Friday, a reported shared on Twitter that Boehner’s disdain for some GOP mainstays is certainly confirmed. Jonathan Swan shared on Friday an audio clip from the Boehner book recording session that was described as “wine-soaked.” It certainly sounds like it, including a rambling moment where, out of nowhere, Boehner tells Cruz to “go f*ck yourself.”

“P.S. Ted Cruz: Go f*ck yourself,” Boehner said at the end of a recording for seemingly no reason at all. The audio added insult to injury for Cruz, to say the least. But it’s even more proof that even many of the people seemingly on Cruz’s side don’t seem to like him very much.

[via Politico]

Although Playboi Carti didn’t technically release a new album this year, he has still been one of 2021’s biggest artists so far. He dropped his sophomore effort Whole Lotta Red on December 25, 2020, the final Friday of the year, and it went on to become his first No. 1 album. Now he’s keeping the party going here in April with a fresh video for album highlight “Sky.”

The video is presented mostly in green monochrome and in it, Carti and some cohorts cause chaos in a supermarket by eating food, throwing items on the floor, disrupting shoppers, and otherwise behaving in ways that would probably get them permanently banned from the establishment were this reality and not a music video. As for the song, Carti raps mostly about how it feels being under the influence of drugs, a situation he views favorably.

Meanwhile, it looks like Carti might have a new project on the way soon. In a post from March, he wrote on Instagram, “LeTs dr0p thiS new Album . w3 noT done .” He added in the post from the next day, “i waNt to DroP like RN.”

Watch the “Sky” video above and revisit our review of Whole Lotta Red here.

Major League Baseball has officially responded to calls to move its 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta by pulling the game, along with the upcoming MLB Draft, from the state altogether. In a statement released by the league on Friday afternoon, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that conversations with “Clubs, former and current players, the Players Association, and The Players Alliance, among others” regarding a new sweeping bill passed by Georgia Republicans to restrict voting rights in the Peach State informed the league’s decision to find a new home for both events.

“Major League Baseball fundamentally support voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box,” Manfred said. “In 2020, MLB became the first professional sports league to join the non-partisan Civic Alliance to help build a future in which everyone participates in shaping the United States. We proudly used our platform to encourage baseball fans and communities throughout our country perform their civic duty and actively participate in the voting process. Fair access to voting continues to have our games unwavering support.”

The controversial bill was signed into law by Republican governor Brian Kemp last month after it made it through the state legislature behind a wave of support from the GOP. The impetus for the bill’s passing was the widespread misinformation spread by now-former president Donald Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election — Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to lose in Georgia since 1992, and was recorded as having called the state’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger with a request for him to overturn the result by “finding” votes that did not exist. Even if Raffensperger broke the law to do this, Trump still would have lost in the Electoral College.

According to CNN, the law, “imposes new voter identification requirements for absentee ballots, empowers state officials to take over local elections boards, limits the use of ballot drop boxes and makes it a crime to approach voters in line to give them food and water.”