Category: News

Millions of animals have been euthanized and buried in mass graves. Their bodies decaying after a life spent in captivity. It’s a staggering loss of life and resources. And the stark reality of how fragile and ill-prepared our industrialized food system was for handling a pandemic.

On the latest episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, the comedian breaks down how the Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the massive problems within our various supply chains. The episode starts off talking about our medical equipment supply chain as a warm-up for the thrust of the episode — targeting industrial meat supply chains across America.

As with all of these segments on comedy/ news shows, there’s a bit of an information dump, with a joke thrown in at the end of every point to keep you listening. But Minaj seems to understand the bigger issue well and does a good job laying bare how a centralized food supply, dominated by a few national brands has created a system that’s easily broken.

The episode pivots around a clip of famed food journalist Michael Pollan. “The trade-off with efficiency is resilience,” Pollan says. “A highly efficient system is so brittle that when you have a disruption — such as a pandemic — it starts breaking down.”

Minhaj then goes onto illustrate that the way the United States has acted to deal with this brittleness has been to throw the workers under the bus, so to speak. Minhaj explains how it took Trump two months to enact the Defense Production Act to start producing vital PPE for medical professionals across the country, but it only took him two days to enact the DPA to get the meatpacking industry back online. Basically, Trump issuing an executive order to “reopen” the meat industry was seen as vital to the American economy.

You know what’s coming. But, as Minhaj points out by, well, actually reading the executive order Trump signed — there actually wasn’t anything in the document explicitly about reopening plants. What’s damning about this is the montage of every major news network announcing that Trump is “forcing” the meat industry to stay open via executive order when, in reality, his executive order was actually absolving the six main industrial meat companies from any liability if their workers were to get sick and die. Minhaj and his team figured this out by, again, simply reading the executive order.

The kicker to the story? According to Patriot Act digging, of the 25 counties around the United States that have seen the highest spike in COVID-19 cases, half of them are traced directly to reopened meat factories. The cramped conditions, cool, damp air, and lack of basic services have allowed the meat factories to become what one expert called a “petri dish” for the virus. What’s more, Minhaj relays that Smithfield — one of the six parent companies that run big meat in America — used Trump’s executive order to get a case of worker abuse thrown out of court immediately after it was enacted. It just feels like a mess all around.

All told, this should be a huge wake-up call to move away from industrial meat and towards locally-grown and sustainably raised protein (plant and/or animal-based). Whether or not it will be remains to be seen.

You can watch the whole clip below. The meat factory report starts at the 10:30 mark.

Cardi B forced a Los Angeles news anchor to apologize to her after a segment about her recent comments in support of protests against police brutality across the nation when she took offense to how her words were taken out of context.

KTLA reporter Doug Kolk accused Cardi of using “her massive platform to promote the violence” in a segment about her recent post on Instagram encouraging protestors to vote. In her original post, Cardi says, “It makes me feel like, ‘Finally, yes. Motherf*ckers are gonna hear us now.’ And as much as people is so against it, at this point, I feel like I’m not against it even though it do scare me and I don’t want anybody to get hurt. It’s really frustrating because police brutality been going on even way before I was born, but it’s been more visible ever since social media started getting popping… How many peaceful protests have we seen? How many trending hashtags have we seen?”

After being tagged in a video of the report, Cardi, who does not play that way with news reporters getting too comfortable talking to or about her out of pocket, launched into a tirade after the report, letting Kolk know exactly how she felt. “Why your no-lip, square head-having ass ain’t put the part were I said to vote?” she wondered. “You cottage cheese breath-having b*tch. Why don’t you post how a conservative Christian Trump supporter posted my address and encouraged people to loot my home?”

Kolk replied a few hours later, apologizing for mischaracterizing Cardi’s words and promising to issue a retraction on his next segment.

Watch how the entire episode played out above.

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

Run The Jewels’ Killer Mike, a known activist, has spoken up many times about police brutality, prison reform, and injustices in America. As the rapper prepares to release another album this week amid protests across the country, Killer Mike sat down with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show to discuss how white people can effectively show their solidarity and become better allies.

Responding to Colbert, Killer Mike said that white Americans shouldn’t stay silent. “No. We don’t need you to stay out of the way,” he said, continuing: “Get your butt down there, and help those organizations in the physical. But, what I need white America to do beyond right now, is understand that right now is always. It isn’t just helping in the now. It is being a part of fixing it always.”

The rapper then offered “homework” for white American to learn about their indoctrinated racism:

“The first thing I want you to do, is go to YouTube and Google Jane Elliot, and spend one hour watching Jane Elliot teach people. Not just speaking. She’s not just speaking, she’s teaching people about the racism that is given to them that they aren’t even aware they have. She asks the question: ‘How many of you all see how Black people are treated in this country? If you’d like to be treated like that, stand up.’ And no one in the crowd stands up. So that immediately tells us that you know how we’re treated, you know how it’s burdensome, you know it’s troublesome and wrong, but you simply don’t do anything because its the ‘well it’s not me’ factor.

But if there’s a riot in the street, you’ve got to understand that it’s time to stand up with the people who are getting beaten up, with the people who are tired of being treated that way. So my homework for all the white Americans, including you, is to spend an hour learning from Jane Elliot on YouTube.”

While Killer Mike spoke to the Black Lives Matter movement on The Late Show, he also offered a succinct summary of Run The Jewels’ upcoming album: “It’s like drinking a cup of coffee and getting punched in the face […] and then smoking a joint and getting a hug afterwards.”

Watch Killer Mike on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert above.

Run The Jewels 4 is due 6/5 via Run The Jewels LLC and BMG Records.

Keeping up with the best new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw Lady Gaga’s return to dance-ready tunes and a whole slew of exemplary hip-hop collaborations. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.

Lady Gaga — Chromatica

After much anticipation, Lady Gaga’s latest has arrived, and gone are the more stripped-down days of Joanne. Instead, she is back to her dance-pop ways, as she shows on collaborations with Ariana Grande and Blackpink to offer up one of the best new music releases of the week.

Lil Yachty — Lil Boat 3

Lil Yachty’s new album is the final release of his Lil Boat series, and he’s sending it off in style: Lil Boat 3 features guest spots from Drake, DaBaby, Lil Durk, Young Thug, ASAP Rocky, Tyler The Creator, and Tierra Whack, with those last three all appearing on one track.

Gucci Mane — “Both Sides” Feat. Lil Baby

Gucci Mane has been more productive than most rappers this decade, but the first few months of 2020 yielded no new songs from Guwop. He took care of that last week, though, when he linked with Lil Baby and dropped a video for “Both Sides,” his first single of 2020.

Young Dolph — “RNB” Feat. Megan Thee Stallion

Megan Thee Stallion is fresh off her first No. 1 song, so she’s as hot of a commodity as she as ever been. What timing this is for Young Dolph, then, who got the “Savage” rapper to join him on his boastful new single, “RNB.”

El-P — Capone (Original Motion Picture Score)

El-P has always been a versatile talent, and he has reinforced that fact with his latest endeavor: the soundtrack for Capone. Shades of Run The Jewels-style production are present on the album, and it’s a treat even as an entity separate from the movie.

Freddie Gibbs and The Alchemist — Alfredo

The Alchemist has kept himself busy in 2020: He teamed up with Conway The Machine’s Lulu EP earlier this year, and now he is back with another joint project, this time working with Freddie Gibbs on their new Alfredo album. The effort is mostly feature-free, but Tyler The Creator and Rick Ross can also be found here.

RMR — “I’m Not Over You”

RMR only became a familiar (perpetually masked) face in the hip-hop community not that long ago, but he is already faring just fine for himself. For example, he just dropped a new song, “I’m Not Over You,” and the Timbaland-produced tune scored a premiere on Desus & Mero.

Juice WRLD — “Tell Me U Luv Me” Feat. Trippie Redd

The late Juice WRLD has popped up on a smattering of new tracks since his passing, but they’ve mostly been features. A posthumous album is supposedly on the way though, and if that’s the case, his estate just dropped what may be the latest preview of it, the Trippie Redd-featuring “Tell Me U Luv Me.”

Rosalía and Travis Scott — “TKN”

Now is your chance to hear Travis Scott rap in Spanish, as he does so on his latest collab with Rosalía, “TKN.” The pair first linked up on a “Highest In The Room” remix, and they’re a terrific pair, so here’s to hoping more from this duo is to come.

Blimes And Gab — “Shellys (It’s Chill)”

Disco-inspired music is having a moment right now, and Blimes And Gab have cemented themselves as a wonderful part of that with “Shellys (It’s Chill).” The latest taste from their upcoming debut album, Blimes And Gab have busted out a delightfully funky and upbeat tune that ought to soundtrack living room dance parties the world over.

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

John Boyega is known worldwide for playing Poe in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and he’s using his platform for good. The actor, who’s been telling off racists out on Twitter (“I really f*cking hate racists,” he recently tweeted), delivered an impassioned speech in London’s Hyde Park on Wednesday, telling fellow demonstrators, “I’m speaking to you from my heart. Look, I don’t know if I’m going to have a career after this, but f*ck that.”

“Today is about innocent people who were halfway through their process, we don’t know what George Floyd could have achieved, we don’t know what Sandra Bland could have achieved, but today we’re going to make sure that won’t be an alien thought to our young ones,” Boyega said, according to Metro, his voice amplified by a megaphone:

“Black lives have always mattered. We have always been important. We have always meant something. We have always succeeded regardless. And now is the time. I ain’t waiting.”

Boyega referred to everyone at the protest as a “physical representation of our support” for George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, and Stephen Lawrence, a British teen who was murdered in a racially-motivated attack in 1993. “I need you to understand how painful this sh*t is,” he continued. “I need you to understand how painful it is to be reminded every day that your race means nothing and that isn’t the case anymore, that was never the case anymore.” The 28-year-old actor also marched with the family of Belly Mujinga, a rail worker who died from the coronavirus after being spit on.

Hopefully the worst Star Wars fans are listening and learning.

(Via Metro)

Even in moments of crisis, we often don’t expect directness from the world of pro wrestling, especially not from a company as large and generally conservative as WWE. Sure, wrestlers speak up on social media (more than they used to, it seems), and WWE can release a statement that carefully avoids phrases like “police violence” and “black lives matter,” but we don’t expect to hear much on the actual TV shows.

Of course, WWE Backstage is a bit unusual as WWE programs go, because it’s a talk show rather than a wrestling show. And CM Punk’s role on it since the beginning has been to say what nobody else in the company will say.

Still, his frankness last night was pretty surprising. Talking with Renee Young, Booker T, and Mark Henry, Punk was visibly emotional as he addressed his fellow white people about the need to listen to black people, and use white privilege to protect them when possible. He also called out the President directly, which might not have gone over well with Fox TV or WWE.

Well, I think people people talk about the need to have a conversation. And you know, I’m a white guy. I’m not here to pretend to understand how black people feel, and I don’t think it’s my place to tell them how they need to react. This country has a problem, that much I know. I’m here to tell the white people: you need to listen to your black brothers and sisters, and you need to understand where they are coming from. It’s hard to try to walk in somebody’s shoes or try to understand where they come from, but this country — there’s almost two Americas. You know, when I get pulled over, I’m nervous that I’m going to get a ticket. I don’t want to live somewhere where, Mark, if your son gets pulled over, he’s worried he’s going to get murdered. So I’m just here to tell white people, you probably need to shut up more, and you certainly need to listen more. There is a problem, and the paradox is the only way to deal with intolerance is with intolerance. If you are a white person, you more than likely are privileged. Use that privilege and support your black brothers and sisters, especially now because we need it.

We live in a time where hatred is stoked at the highest level, and I don’t like things I see. I do what I can to stop it, and I think I’m hopefully using my voice for good, but fascism and racism cannot win, and if you’re struggling to try to come up with a way that you can help, the easiest way to help is combat that intolerance with intolerance. There’s no room for it. How I relate that all to myself — even though none of this is truly about me — is that the first tattoo that I ever saw in my life was a number on my grandfather’s arm. And he rode a horseback towards Nazi Panzer tanks. And now it’s 2020, and we live in a world where a President says that Nazis are very fine people. You can’t walk that back, and you can’t tell me that you meant something different. If you’re white, use your voice, protect your black brothers and sisters, and protect the people who this country was not built for. They might say it was, but everybody has a different experience. And just listen more.

Punk’s mention of combating intolerance with intolerance is a little confusing since he doesn’t give the line much context, but he seems to be alluding to Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance, which is the idea that a tolerant society can only be achieved by being intolerant of intolerance.

Fat Joe and Remy Ma’s “All The Way Up” was a big song: Although it only managed a peak at No. 27 on the Hot 100 chart, it because Fat Joe’s only 2-time Platinum single, and it earned him a pair of Grammy nominations, for Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song. After the initial release, Jay-Z hopped on the official remix, and it turns out that version of the single also almost included Drake. However, Fat Joe has explained why, at Jay-Z’s request, Drake was kept off the song

On a recent episode of Open Late With Peter Rosenberg, Joe told the story, saying that Jay-Z didn’t want anybody else on the remix because it was his and Joe’s first song together since ending their long-standing beef:

“I always wanted to do a song with Jay-Z. I’m honored that he got on the remix. The craziest story is that I got a FaceTime call maybe three different times while ‘All The Way Up’ was out, and it was your man, the 6 God, Drake. He called me three different occasions out of nowhere, ‘Yo, send me the instrumental, send me the instrumental to ‘All The Way Up.” But, when I told Hov we were doing the song, he said ‘Look, Joe. It means so much to our history between me and you, let’s not put nobody else on the song.’ He’s not referring to Drake [specifically]… it could have been Kanye. 50 Cent was asking me to get on the remix. […] I’m beyond a huge fan of Drake, but I had to keep my word. My word is everything. So when I told Jay-Z, ‘Nah, nobody else is on the song,’ I had to keep my word. But man, I wish it was Jay-Z, Drake, Fat Joe, and Remy [Ma].”

Watch the full Open Late episode below, with the Drake story coming at about 29 minutes into the video.

Reports have indicated that the NBA will come up with some sort of resolution for its return to play a little later this week, and on Wednesday, the plan that Adam Silver plans to present to the league’s Board of Governors gained a bit more clarity. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Silver will bring forth a 22-team plan, something that had been speculated in recent days as a full, 30-team restart and a straight jump to a 16-team postseason have fallen out of favor.

As Charania lays out, the 22-team plan will bring the 16 current playoff teams and an additional six squads that will battle for the 8-seed.

The NBA’s 22-team format at Orlando’s Disney World would bring the 16 teams currently in a playoff spot, six additional teams, and include a play-in tournament for the eighth seed, sources said. The play-in tournament would work as follows, according to sources: If the ninth seed is more than four games behind the eighth seed, the eighth seed earns the playoff spot; if the ninth seed is four or fewer games behind, then the eighth and ninth seed will enter a play-in tournament that is double-elimination for the eighth seed and single-elimination for ninth. ESPN first reported the league was working on 22-team models.

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN added some more details, indicating that all 22 teams will play games with an eye on seeding and that the expectation is this plan will get approved by the league’s Board of Governors.

The news comes on the heels of some reporting about the NBA’s plan to have these games occur in Orlando. On Tuesday, Wojnarowski added some additional details on a timeline, saying that the plan is for the league to restart on July 31 (something that was confirmed by Charania) and have mid-October as the latest possible date for the season to reach its conclusion.

There are still some logistical questions that would need to be sorted out, like timelines for a return, how all of these games will be scheduled out, and how this will impact the 2020-21 season. But while we’ll have to wait for Thursday for this plan to become official, all signs are pointing to the NBA’s return.

TMZ reports that the 17-year-old rapper Danielle Bregoli — aka Bhad Bhabie — has entered rehab for prescription medication abuse for the “next few weeks” as she also copes with childhood trauma. According to TMZ’s sources, Bregoli decided to seek treatment at an undisclosed location for 30 to 90 days on the advice of her management, which stated, “We are very proud of Danielle for recognizing that she needed help and seeking it out.”

The news comes just days after Bregoli was again called out for appropriative behavior as part of a discussion about allyship stemming from ongoing protests of police brutality. In the wake of several highly-publicized incidents of police brutality — police officers in Louisville killed Breonna Taylor while serving a warrant on the wrong person, while video shows officers in Minnesota choking George Floyd to death with a knee on his neck as he struggled to breathe — the importance of non-Black people being allies arose on social media. Commenters noted that many celebrities who rely on Black culture and music for a paycheck, including Bregoli, were suddenly silent on issues that deeply affected Black people and communities.

Bregoli, who was one of the earliest flashpoints in the ongoing debate when she first debuted her viral catchphrase on an episode of Dr. Phil, has been a target of criticisms ever since, parlaying her viral ubiquity into a rap career and a label deal with Atlantic Records. She often defends herself by claiming “no one can act a color,” which only makes things worse for her.

Bhad Bhabie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Our current situation has led to months-long shutdowns for almost every place a crowd can gather, including concerts, restaurants, and movie theaters. In the case of the latter, the in-person experience can’t be entirely replicated at home, but movies like Trolls World Tour have proven that people are more than willing to give it a go (with AMC Theaters reacting with a Universal ban). Now the largest U.S. theater chain is declaring “substantial doubt” that it can continue operations after months of closures for over 1,000 multiplexes.

The theater chain’s public regulatory filings were noted by CNN, which reports that AMC Theaters will have lost up to $2.4 billion in this year’s first quarter. Continuing for months with “effectively no revenue” this quarter could lead to bankruptcy and eventual closure for the company. Although U.S. states are lifting restrictions in stages right now, and theaters are allowed to open in many places, the company still faces another great challenge — a barren release schedule:

“Even if governmental operating restrictions are lifted in certain jurisdictions, distributors may delay the release of new films until such time that operating restrictions are eased more broadly domestically and internationally, which may further limit our operations,” the company said.

The release-schedule issue won’t be solvable overnight, given that when tentpoles like Fast and Furious 9 began pushing back nearly a year on the calendar, other moneymakers soon followed suit. At this point, a few big titles (a Russell Crowe road-rage movie, along with Tenet and Wonder Woman 1984) still appear to be holding firm on release dates for summer, but will audiences return to theaters before fall? Hollywood Reporter quotes an analyst (Wedbush Securities’ Michael Pachter) that notes previous doubt about the theater chain’s liquidity, and he predicts that the company will “have to restructure completely” if the situation doesn’t dramatically improve by November. Many high-profile movies are lined up for fall, when the ball will be in theatergoers’ courts.

(Via CNN & Hollywood Reporter)