As multiple leagues mull plans to return to play in the United States amid the still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, some of the many logistical issues involving that return are starting to be realized. Baseball needs to settle a considerable disagreement between its owners and players union, while the NBA needs to negotiate with the Mouse House about a potential Bubble League restart.

We now know that at least one of those potential issues leagues may have in restarting is now solved. According to the U.S. government’s Department of Homeland Security, athletes returning stateside to play will not be barred by existing immigration and travel restrictions that have been enacted in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to CNN, which reported on the order on Saturday, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security signed an order insuring that professional athletes will not be barred from travel to the United States in order to resume their careers as leagues restart.

“Professional sporting events provide much needed economic benefits, but equally important, they provide community pride and national unity,” said Acting Secretary Wolf. “In today’s environment, Americans need their sports. It’s time to reopen the economy and it’s time we get our professional athletes back to work.”

The order apparently applies to the following organizations:

Major League Baseball
National Basketball Association
Women’s National Basketball Association
Professional Golfers’ Association Tour
Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour
National Hockey League
Association of Tennis Professionals
Women’s Tennis Association

And for those leagues trying to resume operations this summer, it’s a legitimate hurdle they now no longer have to overcome. As leagues abruptly shut down, many international athletes left the United States and returned to the comforts of home and, possibly, locations that were less impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. But subsequent travel restrictions made the logistics of safely getting players and staff to various places in an attempt to restart leagues much harder in recent weeks.

Other leagues have encountered issues with keeping staff in the United States as well. Some teams, like the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, have actually sued immigration officials to prevent a strength and conditioning coach from being deported amid the COVID-19 shutdown. It’s unclear if situations like that are solved with these exemptions, but we do know that athletes who have left the United States to wait out the pandemic shouldn’t have many issues returning if and when practices and games resume.

Brian Cage arrived in All Elite Wrestling at Double or Nothing, and now he’s earned a shot at the world title.

Cage made his AEW debut as the mystery entrant in the Casino Ladder Match for a shot at the AEW World Championship. This was a nine-man, delayed-entry ladder match in which two men started in the ring, then another entered every two minutes. The winner of the match would be the wrestler who retrieved the large novelty casino chip suspended above the ring.

After eight men — Frankie Kazarian, Scorpio Sky, Kip Sabian, Orange Cassidy, Joey Janela, Luchasaurus, Darby Allin, and Colt Cabana — had entered the match, Allin began to climb the ladder to victory as the timer counted down to the reveal of the mystery competitor. When the clock hit 0:00, Tazz’s voice said, “Who can stop the path of Cage?” and Tazz entered the arena, followed by Brian Cage.

Cage began to lay waste to other competitors, who soon teamed up against him, first attacking him in the ring, then burying him under one of the giant casino chip set-pieces at ringside. Despite their efforts, Cage was later able to free himself and reenter the ring. He ultimately won the match and the title shot after throwing Allin (on a ladder) over the top rope.

Before arriving in AEW, Cage wrestled prolifically on the independent circuit and for major companies like Lucha Underground, AAA, and Impact Wrestling. He is a former Impact World Champion and X Division Champion. He was initially reported to have signed with AEW in January of this year, but his wife, Melissa Santos, said those reports were false.

While the NBA is strongly considering a bubble league played out at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, baseball has a much different decision on its hands when it comes to restarting play amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Tension between owners and the MLBPA have centered around just how much salary the former will try to withhold from the latter as the traditional early months of the MLB calendar pass by without games played and, by extension, revenue coming in.

According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the league intends to send players and their union an official proposal about potentially starting the 2020 season, which was shut down amid spring training in March as the severity of coronavirus solidified in North America. Initial plans were of an 80-game season with an expanded postseason, and teams playing regionally to limit travel.

In the days that followed that initial report, however, players bristled at taking the brunt of paycuts as owners remained vague about their potential losses in a season almost certain not to include fans in attendance.

The decision-makers who answer that question are professionally skeptical because they can’t afford to trade in optimism, but they see a pathway to a deal. There will be late nights, countless Zoom calls, horse-trading and compromise. The entire operation is fragile. And the coming days are paramount.

“Everything,” one high-ranking official involved in the discussions said, “is going to happen next week.”

Things are complicated for baseball for a variety of reasons, but perhaps the most important thing to note in Passan’s piece is the very real reality that there may not be any baseball in 2020 if the two sides are unable to agree on a deal. Losing an entire season of baseball would be disappointing for fans, damaging to the league and would certainly limit the earning potential and careers of active players in a variety of ways. But changing the structure of baseball itself in order to get an abridged season in this summer is also a complicated piece of a negotiation between the league and the union, which haven’t had the best relationship in recent years for a variety of reasons.

Adding into all of this, of course, is the concerns about the health and safety of players, coaches and essential staff in putting a season on in the first place. It’s all complicated, for sure, but the report indicates that things will get settled one way or another in a matter of days.

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As they prepare their next body of work and follow up to their 2019 album Ginger, Brockhampton has been on a roll in May with their music. The group shared a pair singles for fans for the past weeks, starting with “Things Can’t Stay The Same” and “N.S.T.” before returning the following week with “M.O.B.” and “Twisted.” Keeping their streak of weekly releases alive, the boy band returns with not two, but three new singles for fans this week.

Returning with “Baby Bull,” “Downside,” and “I.F.L.,” which stands for “I Feel Like,” Brockhampton continues to add music to what seems more like a Technical Difficulties series than an upcoming album. “Baby Bull” sees vocal contributions from Kevin Abstract, Henock Sileshi, Matt Champion, Merlyn Wood, bearface, and Jabari Manwa and finds the artists describing the lengths they would go to make their significant other happy over the acoustic production.

“Downside” finds Matt Champion speaking on the often-overlooked negative aspects of fame and the effects of his work ethic on himself. The track also features Ryan Beatty who also contributed to last week’s “Twisted.” Lastly, Matt Champion, Joba, and Kevin Abstract connect for “I.F.L.” On the song, the trio makes it clear that outsiders will not be welcomed to alter the group’s dynamic, one that has proved to work well for their careers.

“Things Can’t Stay The Same,” “N.S.T.,” “M.O.B.,” and “Twisted” were all removed from Brockhampton’s YouTube page shortly after they were posted so the same can be expected for “Baby Bull,” “Downside,” and “I.F.L.”

Kim’s home workouts > our home workouts

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AEW Double Or Nothing (2020) airs this Saturday night, May 23, available on B/R Live, Fite TV, and on pay-per-view. The show features an AEW World Championship match between Jon Moxley and The Exalted One Mr. Brodie Lee, a “Stadium Stampede” match, the finals of the TNT Championship tournament, an appearance by Mike Tyson, and more. We’ll be here all night with news, breakouts, and results.

Here’s the complete card.

AEW Double Or Nothing Card:

1. AEW World Championship Match: Jon Moxley (c) vs. Mr. Brodie Lee
2. Stadium Stampede Match: Inner Circle (Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, Santana, Ortiz, Sammy Guevara) vs. The Elite (Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, Hangman Adam Page, Broken Matt Hardy)
3. TNT Championship Tournament Final (with Mike Tyson presenting the belt to the winner): Cody vs. Lance Archer
4. AEW Women’s Championship Match: Nyla Rose (c) vs. Hikaru Shida
5. Casino Ladder Match for a shot at the AEW Championship: Colt Cabana vs. Kip Sabian vs. Rey Fenix vs. Luchasaurus vs. Orange Cassidy vs. Scorpio Sky vs. Frankie Kazarian vs. Darby Allin vs. TBA
6. Dr. Britt Baker DMD Penelope Ford vs. Kris Statlander
7. MJF vs. Jungle Boy
8. Shawn Spears vs. Dustin Rhodes
9. (Buy-In) AEW Tag Team Championship Number One Contender Match: Private Party vs. Best Friends

If you’d like to read our predictions and analysis for all nine matches, you can do that here.

Make sure to give your favorite comments from tonight’s open discussion a thumbs up, as we’ll include ten of the best, funniest, or most insightful in tomorrow’s Ins and Outs of AEW Double or Nothing column. Be sure to flip your comments to “newest” in the drop-down menu, and enjoy the show!

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Doja Cat began Thursday morning by reading comments from Lana Del Rey, who had included her, as well as other female artists, in an open letter about how she was treated by the industry and by fans. While Lana received plenty of backlash for her comments, the attention would soon be turned in part to Doja Cat, as fans discovered insensitive comments, songs, and more from her past.

First, fans discovered Doja Cat’s involvement in the Tiny Chat community after videos emerged of her in a group discussion with mostly white men. According to XXL, the chat was made for men in the alt-right/incel community, a collection of white supremacists who are “involuntarily celibate.” Examples of her contribution to the chat were revealed on Twitter in the form of videos and screenshots, with one video reportedly made less than a week ago.

This Tiny Chat discovery was then linked to a December 2019 interview with Paper, in which she admitted to having an obsession with a chatroom during her youth, one she admitted to still being involved with at the time of the interview. “People would pick on me and use horrible, horrible language, just the worst, and I just didn’t understand why people were so crazy on there,” she said. Instead of leaving the chat, she opted to become “the person who would make offensive jokes and do things sort of out of the box.”

On top of Tiny Chat, fans also discovered a 2015 song by Doja Cat titled, “Dindu Nuffin.” They also learned that the song title is actually a racial slur used by the alt-right members for African Americans and people of color, who claimed their innocence after being victims of police brutality. It is also believed that Doja made fun of the 2015 murder of Sandra Bland, who suspiciously died while in police custody.

As Doja’s past remarks came to light, fans began to share their own comments about the situation. Check out the tweets above to see Doja Cat’s Tiny Chat interactions.