Category: News

Lou Williams has found himself in some hot water with the NBA. The Los Angeles Clippers’ high-scoring guard left the NBA’s Orlando bubble earlier this week for an excused absence, but an image of him popped up on social media that appeared to show him at a club with Jack Harlow, with both wearing faces masks.

Questions popped up about what Williams was doing, and on Saturday afternoon, Shams Charania of The Athletic reported that the league has decided to respond to this by opening an investigation into what Williams — who has since returned to the bubble — did while he was away from the team.

The news of the investigation, which is being done to determined how long Williams will need to quarantine now that he’s back, was confirmed by Ramona Shelburne and Bobby Marks of ESPN.

Shelburne reported that as part of the investigation, Williams admitted that he went to Magic City, a gentleman’s club in Atlanta.

The good news for Williams is that he was tested every day that he was away from the Clippers, which means that his quarantine could be as few as four days, as we saw with Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans. The issue, though, is he may be held out for longer based on what is determined.

There is no word on whether there would be any additional punishment from the league or if Williams would just need to quarantine for an extended period. The Clippers begin their bubble schedule on Thursday night against the Los Angeles Lakers.

Baseball is back in the United States, with MLB’s 60-game regular season getting underway in earnest this weekend despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the rising case counts in the United States, the Blue Jays won’t play in Toronto this year and fans will not be allowed in ballparks, causing a problem for broadcasters showing games on TV: will fans get weirded out by empty parks?

For some teams, a lack of fans won’t be very unusual, but a barren Wrigley Field or Fenway Park might look a bit odd. Which is why Fox Sports claimed they had an answer in a video hyping the start of the MLB season: virtual fans.

Awful Announcing caught the Fox broadcast explaining the deal with these fake fans during Saturday’s nationally televised game, showing them turn from Cubs fans to Brewers fans on command and stand up just like, you know, a very unsettling video game.

As The Verge explains, the fans are very much video game-inspired, using the Unreal Engine to generate fans to place in on top of live images of the empty stands.

“We’re not looking to fool anybody, it’s still about the game. But shot-to-shot, when you’re watching a broadcast, it’s not more noticeable that you’re watching what is normally a broadcast with fans in just an empty stadium and having it feel weird — we want to give people a sense of normalcy,” (executive producer and head of production and operations at Fox Sports Brad) Zager says. “And we felt like going down this path and trying to use a virtual crowd will hopefully make it so that blends in, and you can focus on the game more because you’re not thinking about the emptiness of a Major League Baseball stadium during the game.”

The effect, well, certainly doesn’t fool anyone. And for many people it made the fact that baseball was happening during a pandemic that much more apparent.

It really did look very odd to have CGI crowds on things like foul balls.

And, of course, it’s computer technology so there are so many things these virtual fans can do in order to appear somewhat normal.

The alternative is to just keep the stands empty. Or, as some teams did, put cutouts of fans in seats for charity.

At least that goes to a good cause, though.

This weekend’s Comic-Con International proceedings are (unavoidably) taking the form of pre-recorded Zoom conference calls that are going live this weekend. Highlights for upcoming releases included panels for The New Mutants, The Boys, and an enthused Keanu Reeves for both a Constantine anniversary and Bill and Ted Face the Music. Elsewhere, the Justice Con thing happened with multiple panels, including one where Zack Snyder shared a first look at Superman’s black suit in the Justice League Snyder Cut that will be released on HBO Max. Here it is in motion:

This GIF is part of a scene that shows Superman approaching Jeremy Irons’ Alfred while paying a visit to Bruce Wayne. It’s pretty much a blip but (notably) arrives in the wake of Snyder’s own admissions that this cut is “an entirely new thing,” not to mention an installment that won’t affect the DCEU, continuity-wise or otherwise. After this panel previewed the dark Superman suit, Snyder revealed that he pressed hard for the suit to appear in Justice League to no avail. The suit will finally get its moment, and recently, HBO Max also previewed a first look at the cut that teases Darkseid’s arrival.

During an earlier panel, Cyborg actor Ray Fisher doubled down on his previous criticism of theatrical cut director Joss Whedon, who completed the movie when Snyder stepped down due to a family tragedy. As for the full panel mentioned above, you can watch Snyder talk about the dark Superman suit after the 36:00 mark below.

Earlier this week, Kanye West used Twitter to fire off a number of tweets about topics ranging from Lil Baby, Drake, Michael Jackson, and Larsa Pippen. However, the biggest bombshell from the tweets had to do with his wife, Kim Kardashian. In a string of tweets, West revealed that he had been attempting to divorce Kim for a couple of years now, citing an encounter with Meek Mill as the reason.

“They tried to fly in with 2 doctors to 51/50 me. I been trying to get divorced since Kim met with Meek at the Warldolf for ‘prison reform,’” West said. “Meek is my man and was respectful. That’s my dog. Kim was out of line.”

A few days after the tweets were posted and deleted from his Twitter account, West has returned to the platform to offer an apology to his wife for his comments.

“I would like to apologize to my wife Kim for going public with something that was a private matter,” West said.
“I did not cover her like she has covered me. To Kim I want to say I know I hurt you. Please forgive me. Thank you for always being there for me.”

West’s apology comes after Kim begged fans and followers to be more empathetic toward the rapper following his past statements. “We as a society talk about giving grace to the issue of mental health as a whole, however we should also give it to the individuals who are living with it in times when they need it the most.”

Just 11 months removed from her last album, Lover, Taylor Swift surprised her fans with her eighth album, Folklore on Friday. Presenting a much faster turnaround than she did with any album in her career, Taylor credited the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting quarantine, and her instincts for allowing her to craft and release the album in an Instagram post that announced Folklore on Thursday morning.

“Before this year I probably would’ve overthought when to release this music at the ‘perfect’ time, but the times we’re living in keep reminding me that nothing is guaranteed,” she said in the Instagram post announcing the album. “My gut is telling me that if you make something you love, you should just put it out into the world.”

Early reaction to the album has clearly made it a success. In under 24 hours, Folklore sold more than 1.3 million copies worldwide according to a press release from her label. The album also broke Spotify’s global record for first-day album streams, with 80.6 million, and became Apple Music’s most-streamed pop album in 24 hours with 35.47 million streams. The album also set the streaming record in the US and worldwide for an Amazon Music Indie/Alternative record.

Coming with 16 tracks, Taylor Swift recruited The National and Big Red Machine’s Aaron Dessner to help write 11 of the album’s songs while William Bowery and Jack Antonoff helped to write the remaining songs. Bon Iver also served as the lone feature on Folklore, appearing on the album’s fourth track “Exile.”

In another scare for the hip-hop community, multiple sources have reported that rapper, actor and DJ Biz Markie has been hospitalized for the past two weeks. Though some worried that Markie was hospitalized with coronavirus symptoms, a rep for Markie revealed to TMZ that his hospitalization is a result of complications with his Type II diabetes. Seeking to “remain positive about the outcome,” the rep for Markie also revealed that he is “receiving the best care from an amazing team of medical professionals” at a Maryland-area hospital.

Markie has spent most of the last decade battling diabetes, a fight often celebrated and appreciated by his fans. The New York native was named the spokesperson of Zelta’s sugar-free soda line in 2014 after Markie lost 140 pounds to ease the battle against diabetes. While Markie has been a bit inactive on the music scene, seeing that his last album arrived in 2003 with Weekend Warrior, Markie has spent much of time recently as an actor, appearing in Black-ish and Empire over the past five years. He also began hosting a radio show on SiriusXM’s LL Cool J’s Rock The Bells Radio this year.

Upon hearing the news, a number of celebrities, including El-P and Questlove, took to social media to send their condolences and love to Markie.

As is the case for everything in 2020, this year’s Comic-Con International proceedings are, well, different. Obviously, the usual gathering of the nerds couldn’t happen in San Diego. Most of the panels that are airing this weekend were pre-recorded in advance as Zoom conference calls, so it’s a toned-down affair — a status that’s further cemented by the lack (for the most part) of any Marvel, DC/Warner Bros., or Sony movie presence. The standouts so far, as far as panel views go, include The New Mutants and The Boys, but the Saturday proceedings include a real treat: Keanu Reeves.

On Saturday night, the Bill And Ted Face The Music panel will go live, but before that happens, a Keanu fix arrived in the form of a panel (moderated by Collider’s editor-in-chief Steven Weintraub) that looked back at the making of 2005’s Constantine. Even Keanu followers who aren’t familiar with his turn as the noir-soaked DC antihero could appreciate the event. His beard game is strong, and he’s all in for this Zoom thing.

Reeves raved for a full hour about how much he enjoyed making the movie alongside director Francis Lawrence (this was his first feature film after helming a ton of music videos) and producer Akiva Goldsman. The trio talked about how the R-rating put a real damper on proceedings, since this was essentially a PG-13 film, other than featuring demons and exorcisms and the like. They discussed wanting to go hard-R for a sequel, though, which isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility, given that Francis noted that the film’s cult following still lives, and people frequently mention it to him these days.

Clearly, the highlight of the whole hour was Keanu. He reflected on the now-infamous scene where he uses a cat as a window to hell (“I didn’t know what i was going to do with the cat until I met the cat, and then the cat told me what to do”), and he was essentially charming as hell. People were here for it:

And in the final moments of the panel, Keanu blew the audience a kiss, much like he recently did in Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe. You can watch the full panel (moderated by Collider’s editor-in-chief Steven Weintraub) below.

All-Pro safety Jamal Adams has made it clear that he wants the New York Jets to send him to greener pastures. Adams has issued a formal trade request, and while the Jets wanted to keep him long-term, Adams wants out. The good news for Adams is that he is a very good football player, and on Saturday afternoon, a team decided to push their chips to the center of the table to acquire his services.

According to Brian Costello of the New York Post, the Seattle Seahawks — which have been revered in years past for having an indomitable secondary — have come to terms on a trade to acquire the former LSU standout.

The trade was soon confirmed by Adam Schefter of ESPN, who reported the specifics of the deal. Schefter brings word that the Jets will get quite the haul for Adams, including a pair of first-round draft picks.

The package was confirmed by both Costello and Ian Rapoport of NFL Network. The move comes a day after the New York Daily News published an interview with Adams in which he challenged Jets coach Adam Gase.

“I don’t feel like he’s the right leader for this organization to reach the Promised Land,” Adams said. “As a leader, what really bothers me is that he doesn’t have a relationship with everybody in the building.

“At the end of the day, he doesn’t address the team,” Adams added. “If there’s a problem in the locker room, he lets another coach address the team. If we’re playing sh*tty and we’re losing, he doesn’t address the entire team as a group at halftime. He’ll walk out of the locker room and let another coach handle it.”

A two-time Pro Bowl selection and a first-team All-Pro after the 2019 campaign, Adams was taken by the Jets with the sixth pick in the 2017 NFL Draft and has quickly become one of the top safeties in the league.

This year has taken a number of talented artists for us, from Pop Smoke to John Prine to Bill Withers. Now Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green has died at the age of 73. His death was confirmed by family members in a statement to BBC.

Green, who was born in east London, formed Fleetwood Mac with the band’s drummer Mick Fleetwood in 1967. Bassist John McVie would later be recruited to the band. Green’s most popular songs with the group included “Albatross,” “Man of the World,” “Oh Well” and “Black Magic Woman” — the latter which became a hit for Santana. After three albums, Green left the band in 1970 and go off on his own. His first solo album, The End of the Game, arrived in 1970, but due to his struggles with schizophrenia, a diagnosis he received following his Fleetwood Mac departure, Green would not release another album until 1979. His final solo release came in 1983 with Kolors. He would them up with guitarist Nigel Watson and drummer Cozy Powell as the Peter Green Splinter Group, who released a number of projects between the 1990s and 2000s.

Green was a rock & roll hall of fame inductee, and his death was met by tributes from a number of artists in the industry who aimed to honor him and his work.

Green’s death also serves as the second passing of a current or former Fleetwood Mac act, with their former guitarist Danny Kirwan having passed back in 2018.

(via BBC)

The entertainment world took another tough loss on Saturday when legendary TV host Regis Philbin died at age 88. Multiple outlets reported Philbin’s passing on Saturday, and his family shared a statement with People that confirmed the Live host had died.

“We are deeply saddened to share that our beloved Regis Philbin passed away last night of natural causes, one month shy of his 89th birthday,” his family shares with PEOPLE in an exclusive statement on Saturday.

“His family and friends are forever grateful for the time we got to spend with him – for his warmth, his legendary sense of humor, and his singular ability to make every day into something worth talking about. We thank his fans and admirers for their incredible support over his 60-year career and ask for privacy as we mourn his loss,” the Philbin family says.

Philbin’s run on television began in 1988 when he became the co-host of Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee working alongside Kathie Lee Gifford, who left the show after 15 years. Philbin continued working on the show with Gifford’s replacement, Kelly Ripa, who he worked with until his departure in 2011. A legendary daytime host in his own right, Philbin also saw his popularity soar as the original host of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, a ratings bonanza for ABC that took the game show world by storm. Philbin served as the host of Millionaire from 1999 to 2002. He also hosted Million Dollar Password, the first season of America’s Got Talent, and he also had a role co-hosting Rachael Ray.

[via People]