Just a couple of months after her celebrated album Positions, Ariana Grande started teasing a remix of one of the project’s most popular songs, “34+35.” She made the announcements in a video that featured the silhouettes of two unnamed guests. The video quickly made its rounds online and left fans wondering who the two could be. Names like Doja Cat, Nicki Minaj, Chloe x Halle, and Megan Thee Stallion were brought up. Now, after Megan posted a comment in Grande’s Instagram post, some are wondering if she’s one of those mystery silhouettes.
Once fans caught wind of Megan’s comment, the reactions came pouring in, with many assuming they were right. That said, As of this post, the features on the “34+35” remix are still unconfirmed, but it’s clear the excitement for the song is increasing by the second. In the meantime, Megan Thee Stallion will definitely be working with Doja Cat on her upcoming album.
On Tuesday, Republican lawmakers who’d had their lives put in danger by marauding Trump supporters found something that made them hopping mad: The Capitol had installed metal detectors, in reaction to the violent attempted coup that left five dead. They were livid. They complained on social media. They gave security a hard time. At least one even evaded them entirely. But now if they try and bypass the checkpoint, they won’t just be mocked online. They’ll be fined as well.
As per The Hill, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced that any lawmaker who thinks they’re too cool to be scanned for weapons will have to pay $5,000. And that’s only for the first offense: If they do it again, the fine goes up to $10,000. That cash will be deducted from their salaries as congresspeople.
Among the Republican lawmakers — and they were all Republicans — who threw hissy fits over the metal detectors include new fish Lauren Boebert, Representative of Colorado, who is so pro-gun she’s tweeted out videos bragging about how she was going to take her weapon onto the floor of the House. When she tried to do that on Tuesday, she got into a stand-off with security. Boebert and others, among them the tooth-resistant Louie Gohmert, were roundly belittled on social media for complaining about the kind of security measures seen at even Disney World.
On top of establishing fines for politicians refusing to let officers check if they’re packing, House Democrats also recently mandated fines for those refusing to wear masks inside. That one packs $500 for the first fine then jumps all the way to $2,500 for each subsequent offense. So they’re probably not happy about that one either.
Warner Bros.’ decision to drop their entire 2021 film slate on their flailing streamer HBO Max (on the same day they hit theaters, mind you) was met with a lot of disdain, as well as worry about what it meant for the future of actual moviegoing. But there were a few upsides: At least people wouldn’t have to risk their lives to see The Many Saints of Newark, the big Sopranos prequel movie, in a theater. And it was due in March! But not anymore: As per Variety, the highly anticipated organized crime pic has been bumped all the way to October.
Mind you, the film — which revolves around the fathers of Christopher Moltisanti and Tony Soprano and who will be played by Alessandro Nivola and Jon Bernthal — was originally supposed to come out in October of last year. Then an unstoppable pandemic, which is now worse than it’s ever been, after nearly a year, put the kibosh on that. It was then bumped to March 12, which at the time seemed like a good approximation of when a rational society would get this under control. But even that was too generous.
No reason was given for the six month bump, though the move does place it in the heart of awards season. In the meantime, all the people who finally signed up for HBO Max in the hopes of watching a bunch of blockbusters can spend the extra time re-bingeing The Sopranos‘ six excellent seasons — or tooling around the service’s epic coffers, which includes everything from WB and DC titles to classic movies to Studio Ghibli to Looney Tunes.
Katie Schieffer is a mom of a 9-year-old who was recently diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes after spending some time in the ICU. Diabetes is a nuisance of a disease on its own, requiring blood sugar checks and injections of insulin several times a day. It can also be expensive to maintain—especially as the cost of insulin (which is actually quite inexpensive to make) has risen exponentially.
Schieffer shared an emotional video on TikTok after she’d gone to the pharmacy to pick up her son’s insulin and was smacked with a bill for $1000. “I couldn’t pay for it,” she says through tears in the video. “I now have to go in and tell my 9-year-old son I couldn’t pay for it.”
Schieffer explained that she has been working for 17 years and that she and her husband both work full-time. She works third shift and goes to school during the day. “How are you guys making it?” she asked. “Am I the only one struggling?”
She’s not the only one struggling, of course. The unaffordability of healthcare in the U.S. is a national crisis. While the Affordable Care Act helped millions access health insurance, there are still millions of Americans who are uninsured or underinsured. And medical bills can still be hard to cover, even if you have insurance.
Speaking from experience, out-of-pocket expenses after insurance can still cost thousands of dollars. Even just doing diagnostic tests, scans, and procedures to figure out what an issue is—not even getting into treating whatever it is yet—can be too steep after insurance pays their portion for many families to afford. Americans have to constantly weigh whether the risk of missing a serious health issue outweighs the debilitating cost of a test to rule it out.
Schieffer’s video went viral and she received a beautiful outpouring of support and advice. Some commenters shared how she can get insulin in an affordable way, including going to the medicine manufacturer’s website and getting their cost assistance forms. She explained in a comment and a follow-up video that it was actually the blood sugar monitor that was $1100 and not covered under their insurance, and people suggested the same cost assistance route.
Others just chimed in with words of solidarity, agreeing that our system is broken. More than a few suggested she share her Venmo account name in her profile so people could help crowdfund financial assistance for her son’s medical care. If that alone isn’t a sign that the system is broken, nothing is.
Schieffer is getting it all worked out with the helpful advice and generosity of strangers, and she shared a video from her son about how he’s doing as he learns to manage his diabetes.
When stories like this go viral, it’s a mixed bag. While it’s inspiring to see people rally around a fellow human being with love and support, it’s also infuriating to realize how dystopian it can be here in the “land of the free.” The U.S. is supposed to be some kind of beacon of light to the world, but what kind of shithole country lets its citizens go bankrupt or die because they can’t afford to go to the doctor or pay for their medications? Part of why our health outcomes are so abysmal compared to other developed nations is because people don’t get the medical care they need because they can’t afford it. That’s just plain ridiculous.
If anyone wants to help this mama and kiddo out, here’s where you can send donations. (Just be aware that someone has set up fake accounts with an extra “r” at the end, so be sure you only see one “r” in Schieffer.)
Venmo: @Katherine-Schieffer
PayPal:@KatherineSchieffer
No one should have to crowdfund to pay for healthcare, but here we are. Hopefully with a new administration coming in, we’ll make more strides toward joining the rest of the developed world in ensuring that healthcare is truly affordable for all Americans.
No mother should have to go through this.
A vial of insulin costs about $5 to make. Yet people with diabetes are… https://t.co/E5u09AMWss
For years Donald Trump has dominated social media, on top of being the most powerful person in the world. For the last five years he’s about all anyone has talked about, and his own tweets were furious, cruel, and frequent. That all changed in the last week. Starting with Twitter, almost all of the social media giants have either permanently banned him or severely limited his and his team’s abilities. There was one lone hold-out: Snapchat. But according to Axios, one week to the day after a whipped-up claque of his supporters attempted a failed coup, he’s gone from there, too.
Like other online services, the messaging app cited how dangerous he had become, especially in the wake of his failed bid for re-election. “In the interest of public safety, and based on his attempts to spread misinformation, hate speech, and incite violence, which are clear violations of our guidelines, we have made the decision to permanently terminate his account,” their statement read.
Of course, much like some of the other, not-quite-Trumpian social media titans that have recently cracked down on him — especially Pinterest — it made some wonder: Was he even on there?
Thing I learned today: Trump had a Snapchat account?
According to Axios, though, the Trump team did in fact use Snapchat, to reach younger audiences. (Most Snapchat users are under 30.) To be fair, a cursory glance at any of his rallies suggests those attempts didn’t go gangbusters anyway, and even many of the MAGA rioters who stormed the Capitol last week were not that young. Turns out Charlie Kirk, the babyfaced Trumpist, will only make you so popular with the kids.
That said, it looks like Snapchat was doing more than most social media apps to punish him. Axios reports that Trump violated their policies against misinformation, hate speech, and inciting violence “dozens of times,” prompting them to outright remove said content from their coffers. So take that, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg.
Now that Snapchat is out of Trump’s hands forever, some wondered if there are any social media services left to ban him.
Now that Snapchat has banned Trump, I’m refreshing Etsy every 5 minutes to see when he’ll post there. Stand by.
Last March, Kendrick Lamar and Dave Free, the former president of Top Dawg Entertainment, announced the formation of their company PgLang with a trailer — a surreal effort that featured Lamar, rapper Baby Keem, singer Jorja Smith, and actor Yara Shahidi. PgLang — which was described as a for-hire multimedia company at the time of its announcement — had yet to put out any content in the ten months since its launch, but that all changed on Wednesday.
On Thursday, PgLang will kick off a new campaign in partnership with Calvin Klein, which they broke with a series of posts previewing eight mini-trailers that would be made available over the next 24 hours. The first, entitled “SeeU,” was shared on the company’s Instagram page and features model Mecca Allah walking up an elegant spiral staircase. When she arrives at the top, she takes out a pair of binoculars to look out on the horizon before turning her attention to the camera.
The remaining seven videos will be shared on Thursday at 9am PST/12pm EST. The announcement comes after someone wearing a PgLang shirt was spotted in the video for The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights”, featuring Rosalía, although it’s unclear if that was intended as product placement or if that person just happened to be wearing the shirt.
One of the most highly-anticipated games of 2021 is now one of the most highly-anticipated games of 2022. Hogwarts Legacy, a Harry Potter RPG that is supposed to let every fan live out their dream of creating their own character in that universe, is being delayed until next year.
The reasoning for Hogwarts Legacy‘s delay was not given, but we can only assume that the world at large made it rather difficult to develop a video game in 2020 and finish development in 2021. As a result, the developers are choosing to delay it until the game is given “the time it needs” to be finished. Their statement on Twitter, while vague, definitely implied the game is not going to be ready by the time it was originally set for release.
This is really disappointing for the legions of Harry Potter fans that were waiting for their opportunity to traverse Hogwarts without having to fork over the cash to go to an amusement park. This also makes Hogwarts Legacy our first big title delay of 2021, and given how hard it is to create a game amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we probably shouldn’t be surprised if it’s not the last.
Hopefully this does not mean the developers of this game are going to have to grind themselves to dust to get this prepared. The good news is that they will be given a whole extra year to work on it, so we have to hope that’s not the case, but with the Cyberpunk disaster fresh on our mind, it’s hard to not think about.
We live in a pretty strange world. In 2021, we don’t even have to explain or qualify that statement. Sh*t’s weird in a whole lot of ways.
We’re going to assume you know the big ways the world is strange (or at least didn’t come to this particular article to discover them) and focus on some of the sillier strangeness: quirky beers. We’re not just talking about lactose-filled milkshake IPAs and chocolate and coffee-fueled barrel-aged stouts, either. We’re talking “pizza beer” and brews made with donut holes.
In an effort to #KeepBeerWeird, we decided to highlight some of the bizarro brewed oddities out there. So we checked in with some of our favorite bartenders, asking them to call out the most creative/occasionally unappetizing combinations of hops, malts, water, and yeast ever assembled.
Petalum from Cellador Ales in Los Angeles. According to their own verbiage, it’s bottle conditioned using the sugar from root vegetables. It’s specifically made using beet sugar in this case and has a crazy red color that’s unique to say the very least.
What does it taste like? Beets… mostly. But it’s fascinating and definitely worth a try.
Candace Marie Peterson, beertender at Lone Tree Brewing in Lone Tree, Colorado
One of the strangest beers I’ve had happened to have come out of 2020. It’s a Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake Slushy from 450 North Brewing. Sour and pumpkin were words that I never would have thought belonged together, but it really works well. You get everything that you should get. A little bit of pumpkin spice, some cheesecake notes, and a sour punch.
Andy Printy, beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis
The oddest beer I’ve had experienced has to be Fernetic from Chicago’s Forbidden Root. A dark beer inspired by one of my favorite spirits, Fernet-Branca. Using various ingredients from the digestif’s 175-year-old recipe, this brew is rich, malty, and aggressive with notes of saffron, wormwood, and rhubarb.
I’m a huge fan of trying unconventional crafty creations, but one that stands out for me is the Two Barrel Tom from Living the Dream Brewing. This delicious imperial wit is one of the reasons I wanted to work in the industry. Brewed with orange zest, coriander, and lemongrass then aged in gin and cabernet barrels, it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Average Price: $12.99-$14.99 for a 4-pack of 16-ounce cans
All I have to say is Mamma Mia! Pizza Beer. It does not taste as good as pizza and beer do on their own, even when enjoyed side by side. Stick to the classics.
I have to say the most niche style I can think of is a rauchbier. Because the restaurant I work for specializes in Southern food, I sought out Aecht Schlenkerla’s rauchbier to see how it would taste with our barbeque, since they’re widely considered one of the standard-bearers of the style. I love smoky flavors in just about anything, but I find the style really overwhelming. Something about it tastes vaguely like soy sauce and the liquid smoke condiment to me.
One of the strangest beers I’ve ever had was infused with green cardamom pods. Voorjaar, the Dutch word for “spring” is one of four seasonal saisons made at Monnik Beer Company. The cardamom works very well with the natural peppery note that you can sometimes get from Belgian style beers. You are not alone if you think this beer doesn’t sound delicious on paper, but it’s just one of those things in life that sounds horrible but is actually great.
Next time you’re in Kentucky, swing by Louisville’s Germantown neighborhood and throw back a few pints at Monnik.
The strangest beer I’ve ever had is Guavacation from Ivanhoe Park Brewery. Besides its amazing pink color from its guava infusion, it offers tart notes in the front palate, resembling a cider but with a malty finish that defines it as the beer it is.
Convenience store chain Sheetz has had a few strange collaborative beers in the last few years (including a hotdog beer), but one of its strangest is Project Happy Hole-idayz. This limited-edition, holiday beer made in collaboration with Wicked Weed was brewed with one pound per barrel of Shweetz Grazed Vanilla Donut Holes.
It tastes exactly like you expect it to taste. Sugary, sweet, and very strange.
Average Price: $7.99 for a 4-pack of 16-ounce cans
There’s been a lot of confusion in the last week about the definition of censorship. Here’s a simple breakdown: If the government restricts your speech, it’s censorship. If a private company, like Twitter, deletes your account because you broke its rules, it’s not. But many on the right are proudly ignorant of this distinction. One of them is newly sworn in representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. And during the hearing that ended with Donald Trump receiving his second impeachment, she wore a mask bearing the word “censorship”…while in the House of Representatives…braodcast on live television.
Speaking from the House floor on national television, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-QAnon) is wearing a “CENSORED” mask pic.twitter.com/bRSXxvVaGJ
Greene is one of the more famous new faces in the House, and for good reason: She’s a proud and well-documented supporter of the conspiracy theories, from QAnon to “Pizzagate,” which nearly got innocent people killed. She’s also now representing Georgia’s 14th district, as a member of one of the most powerful governmental bodies on Earth.
Greene likes to wear her political beliefs on her face: As per The Cut, she’s previously worn masks with the words “TRUMP WON,” “STOPE THE STEAL,” and “MOLON LABE” — the latter a Greek phrase that means “come and take [them],” which has been co-opted by 2nd Amendment advocates.
But the mask Greene wore on Wednesday, while railing against Democrats and Black Lives Matter and defending the outgoing president, was not met so kindly as the others.
Yes, Marjorie Taylor Greene is wearing a mask that says “CENSORED” as she speaks into a microphone on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. pic.twitter.com/i7401gseIU
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is wearing a mask that has “censored” on it as she speaks in the House chamber to millions of viewers. pic.twitter.com/uFVc9Nctd9
Wearing a “censored” mask while speaking on the house floor which is being broadcast live by multiple broadcast and cable news outlets and on the web is something something else.
In a perfect metaphor for cancel culture, Marjorie Taylor Greene is wearing a face mask that says CENSORED while literally speaking on the House floor.
Wearing a mask that says “CENSORED” while you’re giving a televized speech on the floor of Congress as a sitting U.S. House member, and a week after you refused to wear a mask while on lockdown, really is something. (This is Marjorie Taylor Greene, of course.)
Irony is dead as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green wears a mask emblazoned with the word “CENSORED”….as she speaks on the House Floor and on national television. pic.twitter.com/BSveOzRArv
If you’d like to watch Greene’s entire House speech in defense of outgoing president Trump, you can do so in the video below, starting around the five-hour-and 27-minute mark. (It was a long day.) Or you don’t have to. It’s a free country.
James Harden, in case you forgot, is still unhappy. We know because in his post-game after the Rockets lost to the Lakers Tuesday he reminded everyone again. Harden’s specific brand of unhappiness is like falling on your sword until you get the best angle and biggest audience and with a blockbuster trade to the Nets taking place less than 24 hours later, that have followed it appears he finally nailed it, though the man is now rife with self-inflicted sword wounds.
Around the same time on NBA Twitter, albeit from a different time zone on the other side of the world, Steven Adams was on a show I’m ashamed to say I’ve just learned existed called “Kiwis Abroad.” He talked about worms. Specifically, farming them. Specifically, obtaining compost worms to start a compost worm farm, that he watches closely under a microscope.
In a segment of the show that did not become as newsworthy a subject as where James Harden — the man who is as much his own immense boulder as he is Sisyphus — will go or what he hopes to do there, Adams was asked, sincerely, by host Simon Hampton how he’d been keeping busy between “games and training” considering the necessary movement restrictions players and teams have to follow in accordance with the NBA’s health and safety protocols. Basically, how he’s finding it living in a world turned never-endingly linear. Adams mulls the question, his brain likely expanding into to the similar state of static all of us experience when trying to recall the differentiation of one day to the next. But then he lands on something, some beautiful memory, and brightens like the sun rising on the proud island nation of New Zealand.
“Ah,” he gives a confident nod, “I got a worm farm now!”
“At my house,” he quickly adds for context. “Bought some worms the other day, some compost worms. I also got a microscope so I can check out all the little bugs in the soil and whatnot. Just real nerdy stuff.”
Before Hampton is able to ask about the worms directly, Adams furrows his brow and says firmly, “I’m going a bit mad.”
Then quieter, plaintive, “Help me.”
Recovering, Hampton asks in a casually charming Kiwi turn of phrase if the “worms are going well” and Adams confirms they are, for the most part, but that it might be a little cold for them at the moment.
Let’s turn from the worms and begrudgingly return to Harden, a man who could desperately use some time alone with a microscope if only he could slide his whole self under it. Adams went abruptly to New Orleans in a trade this year after six seasons, his entire NBA career, spent with the Thunder. Did he see it coming? Not likely. Did he have his doubts? Definitely. Is he enjoying the state of the world? Not really. But the man made due. He bought himself a worm farm. There are worthwhile lessons to be found digging in the dirt of oneself as much as ones compost worm farm, and Harden might be helped by that kind of molecular breaking down.
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(@Leighsydepe) January 13, 2021
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