Category: News

The Suns and Mavs faced off on Monday night in a rare game for either team featuring most of their full rosters. Both teams have dealt with injuries and players in COVID-19 protocols this season, but had just about their complete rotations (Dario Saric was out for Phoenix) and put on quite the show, trading the lead in a highly entertaining fourth quarter that was punctuated by a Devin Booker game-winner.

The Booker winner came with 1.5 seconds to play and the Suns down 108-106 on a gorgeous ATO from Monty Williams, who got Booker working off some misdirection on the weakside and then coming back to the ball on a screen from Deandre Ayton to free him up to catch and shoot off the Chris Paul feed.

The Mavs were unable to answer on their final possession, as the Suns got a 109-108 win to move to 11-8 on the season, while Dallas slipped to 8-13. Booker had 24 points in his first game back after missing four games with a hamstring issue, and while it took some time for him to shake off the rust, he did so just in time for a 15-point fourth quarter.

In the early going, it was Chris Paul who carried the load for Phoenix, with 34 points, nine assists, and eight rebounds in his best individual performance on his new squad.

On the other side, Luka Doncic had 25 points, eight assists, and five boards, while Josh Richardson added 24 points, five rebounds, and four assists, but they just couldn’t find enough stops or enough buckets in the fourth quarter as Phoenix erased a five-point deficit entering the final period to get the win. It’s another frustrating loss for Dallas, but they’ll be looking at least a bit on the bright side, which is that they finally can try to start really building from here now that they’re back to full strength.

The Suns, meanwhile, still haven’t gotten the absolute best out of their core trio but are finding their way to wins and working out how to get Booker, Paul, and Ayton all going at once, which could be very scary if they can figure that combination out.

The people have been clamoring for Dolly Parton to get a medal. After her philanthropic donations helped fund some of the medical research that led to the eventual development of the COVID-19 vaccine, the internet exploded with appreciation for the country icon, and calls for her to be recognized by her country. Well, apparently, former President Trump was trying to do just that. On an appearance on The Today Show, Dolly revealed that she’d been offered The Presidential Medal Of Freedom not once but twice — but she turned it done. Not because of any partisanship, but simply because she wasn’t willing to risk her husband’s health and the associated risks of traveling during the pandemic.

“I couldn’t accept it because my husband was ill and then they asked me again about it and I wouldn’t travel because of the COVID,” she told Today. And since she didn’t take it before, she’s now worried that if she does accept it under President Biden — and apparently he has already reached out — that her deferral will be taken as a political statement. “Now I feel like if I take it, I’ll be doing politics, so I’m not sure,” Dolly said. “But I don’t work for those awards. It’d be nice but I’m not sure that I even deserve it. But it’s a nice compliment for people to think that I might deserve it.”

Dolly, if you’re reading this, two things: One, you absolutely deserve it. Two, take the medal under Biden. Have you ever watched the speech he gave when President Obama surprised him with the same award? There won’t be a dry eye in the place. Oh and finally, President Obama has also kicked himself for not just giving Dolly the medal when he was in office. Hopefully that’s another part of his legacy Biden can carry forward.

Silentó has been arrested and charged with murder. The rapper, whose real name is Richard Lamar Hawk, was apprehended by police officers in DeKalb, Georgia Monday. Per a report from TMZ, Silentó was charged for the murder of his cousin Frederick Rooks. The report states that officers found Rooks’ dead body on the street on January 21 after he appeared to have sustained several gunshot wounds. An investigation into the shooting began and police were able to obtain security camera footage captured by nearby neighbors which seems to have led to Silentó’s arrest.

This was the third time Silentó has been charged with a crime in the last year. Back in August, he was arrested when police responded to a report of a domestic disturbance at his home. He was eventually booked and released after being charged with inflicting corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant.

The very next day, however, Silentó allegedly entered a home wielding a hatchet and looking for his girlfriend, who did not live at that residence. After fleeing the scene, he was captured by police and charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

The 23-year-old rapper is best known for his single “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),” which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and has been certified six-times Platinum.

The Los Angeles Lakers picked up a second straight win as their seven game East Coast road trip concluded in Atlanta on Monday night, with a 107-99 win over a scrappy Hawks team that is still struggling with how to close games.

LeBron James, who had 21 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds, does not have any issues closing games out and took advantage of some Hawks errors to put the game on ice. The Lakers trailed by one after three quarters but were able to run away late thanks to a big three from James after Atlanta had cut the lead to one and, once again, his fourth quarter was spurred on by some heckling fans courtside. In the early fourth quarter, referees stopped the game after some fans courtside were jawing with James and two of the women in that group apparently crossed a line and were ejected.

Afterwards, LeBron, who was laughing on the court during the ordeal, said he didn’t feel the fans should’ve been tossed out, noting that he missed and “needed” that interaction with fans.

“Nah, at the end of the day, I’m happy fans are back in the building. I miss that interaction. I need that interaction,” James said. “We, as players, need that interaction. I don’t feel like it was warranted to be kicked out. There was a back and forth between two grown men. We said our piece. He said his piece. I said my piece. And then someone else jumped into it and said their piece. But I didn’t think they should’ve been kicked out. But they might have had a couple drinks maybe, and they could’ve probably kept it going and the game wouldn’t have been about the game no more. So, the referees did what they had to do. It’s fine. I don’t think, taking down the mask or whatever the case may be at that point in time, would’ve harmed anybody but the people that was right next to her. I wasn’t close enough to her. I don’t think any of my teammates was close enough to them. Maybe a couple of the refs maybe, so I hope they’re okay. But, you know, safety first.”

LeBron has been pretty adamant on this point since last March that he wasn’t thrilled about playing in fanless arenas, so it’s not a surprise to hear him say that. He also is just a week from having a huge fourth quarter in Cleveland that he credited to a Cavs front office member that got a little to aggressive taunting him after a missed shot.

The NBA is already threading a needle with allowing fans seated courtside, even if pushed back off the floor more than usual, and a fan standing up, maskless, to yell at players is, at the very least terrible optics and at worst could endanger those on the court. Frank Vogel noted that part when asked about the incident in his postgame remarks.

In this moment, the league is going to be far more quick with the trigger on ejecting fans, which is the right move — especially if some teams are going to insist on having fans seated courtside right now. Still, it’s clear that LeBron has enjoyed that rush of adrenaline that comes from getting to shut someone up that he hasn’t quite been able to have for some time.

Kat Dennings recently returned to the Marvel-verse, popping up in a key role in the fourth episode of the renegade oddball spin-off WandaVision. It was her first time since Thor: The Dark World, all the way back in 2013, when she reprised the character of Darcy Lewis, the poli-sci major and bud to Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster. But if you’re thinking Darcy will be back in the fourth Thor, you’re almost certainly out of luck.

Called Thor: Love and Thunder, the fourquel takes the wing of the MCU in yet another different direction, bringing back Jane Foster, absent in Ragnarok, as well as throwing in a handful of Guardians of the Galaxy mainstays. But looks like Darcy will have to make do on the TV show featuring Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch and Paul Bettany’s Vision doing pastiches of old television shows.

“Well, I have not gotten a call so I kind of doubt it since they’re shooting it right now so probably not,” Dennings told IGN. But she added that “anything Marvel ever asks of me the answer’s always yes.”

Oh well — at least there’s a few more episodes of WandaVision, whose next go looks like it will get even darker than it was. Besides, Dennings already has her own new Twitter emoji.

(Via IGN)

They did it reluctantly, but the Republican party eventually rallied around Donald Trump, at least once he won their party’s ticket in 2016. But right now the GOP is split in two. Longtimers have reverted to their old ways, but the newbies are stubbornly trying to carry on Trump’s legacy. Among the latter is Marjorie Taylor Greene, the instantly controversial new Georgia representative, whose views are so extreme that many are calling for her ouster. And one longtimer who’s belatedly come for her is no less than Mitch McConnell.

The former Senate majority leader released a statement Monday, just three weeks after she took office, where he condemned…well, he didn’t use her name, but it’s pretty clear who he meant.

“Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country,” McConnell wrote. “Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality. This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party.”

These are just a touch of Greene’s beliefs. Unmentioned by McConnell were her calling for certain people in Congress to be “executed,” video of her harassing school shooting survivors, and a bizarre conspiracy theory involving Jewish-run space lasers. Oh, and she thought Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been replaced with a body double.

Greene fired back on Twitter, claiming that “the real cancer for the Republican Party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully. This is why we are losing our country.”

Though McConnell seems to want to return to some semblance of normality, Trump and his minions have threatened to run against any Republican lawmaker who questions the authority he recently relinquished. Fun times for America but fun times especially for the GOP.

(Via CNN)

There are nine teams in the NBA that are currently allowing a limited number of fans in their arenas and already twice on this East coast road trip, LeBron James has found himself the target of some courtside jawing.

Last week, it was a Cavaliers’ executive excitedly clapping and yelling after James missed a jumper to end the third quarter, which LeBron said after the game gave him the spark he needed to torch the Cavs in the fourth as the Lakers ran away with a win. On Monday, James and the Lakers were in Atlanta where fans were courtside and in the fourth quarter, referees stopped the game to have security come and eject two women who were standing and yelling at James — with their masks not on.

The two women would be escorted off the floor and, per The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner, one gave the old two finger salute on her way out.

The lack of overall fans in the stands makes any courtside talking stand out, and it certainly didn’t seem like James was getting too bothered by it as he laughed with some of his teammates and Hawks players at the free throw line. Still, given everything going on, a fan being courtside and barking at players with a mask as a chinstrap isn’t a great look and there probably needs to be a bit more aggressive policing of mask policies, at the very least, for those seated courtside.

Despite all that occurred in the world, Ariana Grande had an eventful 2020. The singer showed a new, sultry side of herself on her No. 1 album Positions, starred in the Netflix tour documentary Excuse Me, I Love You, and also announced that she is officially engaged to her now-fiancé Dalton Gomez. Now, just in time for Valentine’s Day, she’s showing love and gratitude for her fans’ continued support by blessing them with a handful of new tracks.

Grande took to social media to make a surprise announcement Monday, revealing the deluxe version of her recent album is coming, and it features four previously-unheard tracks. She shared the news in the form of a tracklist, which includes her Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion remix of “34+35” and four additional songs whose titled are scratched out. “happy february,” she wrote alongside the post.

Grande’s announcement also includes a cryptic close-up photo of a vintage television screen showing the date of January 28, 2021. She has yet to reveal the exact date of the deluxe album’s debut, but, per the singer’s caption, its likely to see a release this February.

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

The military coup that began in Myanmar on Sunday, with the detainment of its state counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, is a terrifying ordeal, to put it lightly. But there can be a lighter to just about anything. That includes, apparently, this: Amidst the confusion and panic that spread with the news came a viral video of a woman recording an aerobics tutorial while the actual coup occurs right behind her.

According to BuzzFeed News, the woman in question is one Khing Hnin Wai, and she’s a physical education teacher in the employ of Myanmar’s Ministry of Education. In the video, which lasts three minutes, she appears to be oblivious to the armored vehicles rolling up behind her.

As the video made the rounds on social media, some internet sleuths deduced that the PE teacher was filming not far from the nation’s Parliament.

There was, as per BuzzFeed News, some question of whether the teacher was performing in front of a green screen, but other videos from her show her in the exact same spot.

The absurd video was greeted as a masterpiece of 2021 content.

Some set it to different music.

In the meantime, things are still scary in Myanmar. According to The New York Times, though she won a landslide election in 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi had to share control of the country with military powers. Her job was seen as keeping the generals in check, but their stalemate ended after an election in November, in which the public had overwhelmingly voted for her National League for Democracy. The military then complained of mass voter fraud and demanded a recount. By Monday they had seized control of the nation by force.

Is it any wonder everyone’s turning to a video of someone blissfully unaware of the nightmare around them?

(Via BuzzFeed News)

The last single Cardi B released was in August, and it was a biggie: “WAP,” her collaboration with Megan Thee Stallion, went on to break the internet, swiftly debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and became the most-Googled term of the year. Fans have been patiently (and not so patiently) awaiting new music from the rapper since. After teasing a special “announcement” Sunday evening, Cardi has finally shared details about her next single — and you don’t have to wait long to hear it.

Cardi took to social media to share the exciting news: Her next single “Up” is debuting on Friday. The song is going to be available on streaming services, as well as in the form of a limited-edition CD, which Cardi is making available for pre-order alongside the single’s debut.

Ahead of the single’s announcement, Cardi revealed how costly it has been for her team to maintain productivity during the pandemic. Not only does she get COVID-tested about four times a week, but she also has to pay for regular tests for her glam team as well, which cost about $250 each. After releasing the video alongside her song “WAP,” Cardi also said she spent nearly $100,000 on COVID tests for the entire crew.

Cardi B is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.