“The Board has decided, for a period of 10 years from April 8, 2022, Mr. Smith shall not be permitted to attend any Academy events or programs, in person or virtually, including but not limited to the Academy Awards,” the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences wrote in a statement. Normally, the previous year’s Best Actor winner presents the Best Actress award, but not this time. Someone else will have to hand the trophy to Michelle Yeoh or Cate Blanchett.
As for whether The Slap will be acknowledged, the broadcast’s executive producer Molly McNearny said, “We’re going to acknowledge it, and then we’re gonna move on. We don’t want to make this year about last year. It’s certainly something we can and will address in a comedic fashion.” The crisis team will have to find something else to do, like keeping the donkey from EO away from the donkey from The Banshees of Inisherin.
Sometimes the best new R&B can be hard to find, but there are plenty of great rhythm-and-blues tunes to get into if you have the time to sift through the hundreds of newly released songs every week. So that R&B heads can focus on listening to what they really love in its true form, we’ll be offering a digest of the best new R&B songs that fans of the genre should hear every Friday.
Since the last update of this weekly R&B and Afrobeats column, we’ve received plenty of music and news from the genre’s artists. 6lack began his new era and the road toward his upcoming third album Since I Have A Lover with the release of the album’s title track and its free-floating music video. Chloe announced the In Pieces Tour while Wizkid postponed his More Love, Less Ego Tour over production issues. Elsewhere, Ari Lennox and Babyface released an intoxicating music video for their “Liquor” collaboration and SZA’s SOS spent a tenth week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Here are some more releases on the new music front that you should check out:
Masego — Masego
Nearly three years after his last project, Masego is back on the music scene with a new body of work. His sophomore album Masego is here with 14 songs that are both savory and hypnotizing. “I had to do a re-evaluation of a lot of things,” says about his state of mind with the project. “I said, ‘I can’t make this what I imagined it to be. So I cannot remain here. I need to move.’”
Kali Uchis — Red Moon In Venus
“Love is the message,” Kali Uchis says about her third album. “Red Moon In Venus is a timeless, burning expression of desire, heartbreak, faith and honesty.” All of that is evident through the album’s 15 songs which call on Don Toliver, Summer Walker, and Omar Apollo.
Jordan Ward — Forward
Whatever you do, please do not let Jordan Ward’s debut album Forward fly under your radar. The project is flooded with Ward’s unique touch that makes for a refreshing project perfect for the impending warm months. He also gets help from names like Joony, Ryan Trey, Gwen Bunn, and more to create the project that truly encapsulates his desire to “evolve and break cycles,” as he says in a press release.
Chiiild — Better Luck In The Next Life
For his third album Better Luck In The Next Life, Chiiild touches on the things he loves in life as well as some of the struggles he expressed. It makes for an honest and in-depth story that is told with help from Lucky Daye, Alina Baraz, Charlotte Cardin, and Caitlyn Scarlett. It’s a very honest record that begins to tell my story and answer some of the questions about why I’m doing this in the first place as well as who I am,” Chiiild says about the project.
THEY. — “In The Mood” Feat. Yung Bleu
Next month, THEY. — the singer-producer duo comprised of Drew Love and Dante Jones — will release their third album Nü Moon. For their latest offering, the duo returns with their new single “In The Mood” with Yung Bleu. The track salutes the quintessential 2000’s era while previewing the captivating music that’s expected to be on Nü Moon
Mac Ayres — “Again”
On March 17, Mac Ayres will release his fifth project Comfortable Enough. It’s the follow-up to his stellar 2021 output Magic 8Ball, and thanks to his new project’s lead single “Again,” it appears that the same success is in store for Comfortable Enough.
Lojay — Gangster Romantic
Just like he did in 2021 with LV N ATTN, Lojay arrives with a new project that’s nothing short of an exquisite listen. Gangster Romantic delivers six songs that whisk listeners away on a warm trip through infectious beats. “I made this project, because I wanted people to listen to something they can connect with and hold onto for a long time,” Lojay said in a press release.
Libianca — “People” Feat. Ayra Starr & Omah Lay
In a matter of a couple of months, rising singer-songwriter Libianca went from an unknown name to one of the hottest young names in afrobeats. She has her breakout single “People” to thank for that, and now, the track gets a lovely boost through a remix with Ayra Starr and Omah Lay.
WanMor — WanMor
After releasing a couple of singles to warm things up, the brotherly R&B group WanMor is here with their debut EP. The self-titled release delivers seven songs and a feature from King Combs for a project that the group hopes grants a look into their musical minds. They added, “With this project, we just wanted to bring the love, fun, and excitement back.”
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
During a February 8 episode of MSBNC’s Mad Money, host Jim Cramer instructed viewers to buy stock in Silicon Valley Bank. Just a month later, that advice is coming back to haunt the perpetually wrong Cramer, who John Oliver once called a “garbage can full of cocaine.” On Friday, federal regulators shut down SVB in one of the biggest financial sector collapses since 2008, which has sparked fears of a similar banking crash.
The shutdown came after a tumultuous morning for SVB, during which trading of its shares was halted after they fell by double-digits before markets opened. That downslide came on the heels of a more than 60% decline Thursday. Worries over a run at SVB led Wall Street investors to dump other bank stocks as well. Shares of other prominent West Coast lenders took sharp nosedives Friday, including First Republic Bank, PacWest Bancorp and Western Alliance Bancorporation.
In view of the tumult, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told House lawmakers Friday morning, “There are recent developments that concern a few banks that I’m monitoring very carefully, and when banks experience financial loss it is and should be a matter of concern.”
A potentially massive financial calamity aside, Twitter users immediately began dragging Jim Cramer for encouraging people to buy SVB stock just last month. According to the New York Post, Cramer told viewers that SVB was ““less dependent upon private equity and venture capital offerings,” which made it worth buying because “being a banker to these immense pools of capital has always been a very good business.”
You can see how well that advice turned out, and so did lots of people on Twitter who pounced on Cramer for making yet another wildly wrong prediction, as he so often does:
One month ago, Jim Cramer urged investors to buy Silicon Valley Bank stock $SIVB.
Today, the bank was closed by California regulators, making it the 2nd largest banking failure in US history. pic.twitter.com/5jgjqTGxld
Reality TV programming is nothing new. Neither are music competition shows. However, Kacey Musgraves and Reese Witherspoon are looking to shake things up. The powerhouse talents are coming together to executive produce an Apple TV+ original series centered around country music. As a highly decorated star within the genre, Musgraves, and with Witherspoon’s award-winning production background, there’s no one better for the job.
The competition show titled, My Kind Of Country, will search all corners of the world to find the next big name in country music. Casting such a wide net for potential acts could seem like a daunting task, but Musgraves and Witherspoon feel that it is absolutely necessary due to the genre’s long history of not being inclusive. As for the judging panel, recording stars Jimmie Allen, Mickey Guyton, and Orville Peck will serve as mentors to the budding acts along their way to win a special prize from the streaming giant.
In a post shared to her Instagram Stories, Witherspoon raved about the series, writing, “Y’all know how much I love country music…so I teamed up with the incredible Kacey Musgraves to create a global search for country music’s next big star.”
Witherspoon continued, “My Kind Of Country is a completely new kind of competition show coming to Apple TV+ on March 24. The talent on this show is insane. You do not want to miss this one.”
Instagram
Watch the full trailer for My Kind Of Country above.
My Kind Of Country is set to premiere to air on 3/24 via Apple TV+. Find more information here.
The debate over the origins of the COVID-19 virus has overwhelmingly come down partisan lines. Democrats tend to believe it came out of a wet market in Wuhan, China. Republicans tend to support the theory that it came from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
It’s easy to see why partisans have come down on different sides of the divide. Conservative media tends to demonize China and position it as an enemy of the United States. In contrast, liberals are more sensitive to race issues and don’t want to demonize Chinese people. This concern was played out in real time after there was a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But shouldn’t people choose to believe how the virus originated based on facts instead of blindly supporting their political tribe? Especially when discussing a deadly disease that has killed nearly 7 million people?
Jon Stewart thinks so.
In 2021, he caused a big stir when he broke ranks with many liberals by endorsing the lab leak hypothesis on ‘Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
“Science has, in many ways, helped ease the suffering of this pandemic…which was more than likely caused by science,” he said to nervous laughter.
Colbert added there was “a chance” the virus leaked out of the lab.
“A chance? Oh my god!” Stewart replied. “There’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.”
“The disease is the same name as the lab! That’s just a little too weird, don’t you think?” he continued.
Stewart then put his theory in perspective.
“There’s been an outbreak of chocolatey goodness near Hershey, Pennsylvania—what do you think happened?” he said. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe a steam shovel mated with a cocoa bean…or it’s the f**ing chocolate factory. Maybe that’s it!”
The idea is gaining traction two years after Stewart’s admission. On Tuesday, February 28, FBI Director Christopher Wray publicly acknowledged that the Bureau considers the lab leak theory the likeliest cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Energy has also endorsed the idea saying it has “low confidence” that COVID-19 “most likely arose” from a lab leak.
Stewart addressed the controversy on the latest episode of his Apple+ TV show, “The Problem with Jon Stewart.” When it was brought up on the show’s accompanying podcast, he shared how the debate shows an inability for people to discuss complex topics in today’s political climate.
WARNING: Strong language.
u201cToday @JonStewart talks to some of our staff about the news that the COVID-19 virus may, in fact, have leaked from a lab in China and what it reveals about the problem with the media narrative machine. Full episode drops Wednesday on @ApplePodcastsu201d
— The Problem With Jon Stewart (@The Problem With Jon Stewart) 1677530549
“The larger problem with all of this is the inability to discuss things that are within the realm of possibility without falling into absolutes and litmus-testing each other for our political allegiances as it arose from that,” Stewart added.
“My bigger problem with that was, I thought it was a pretty good bit that expressed kind of how I felt, and the two things that came out of it were, I’m racist against Asian people, and how dare I align myself with the alt-right,” he added.
Stewart said the backlash he received from people on the left was “swift, immediate and quite loud.”
“The part that I don’t like about it is the absolutes and the dismissive like ‘f**k you, I’m done with you. I will never forgive you, you have crossed an unforgivable line. You’ve expressed an opinion that is antithetical to mine, or not mine,’” Stewart continued.
“What was stunning to me, I think, was the anger,” he added.
There are numerous lessons we can learn from the COVID-19 era if we decide to look at the hard facts. One of the most important has to be our ability to think critically about important issues, whether that’s the origins of the virus or the facts about masks and vaccinations. During the pandemic, these were life-and-death tests and sadly, far too many people put their politics before the facts and paid dearly for it.
We need to know how the virus emerged, no matter how uncomfortable it makes people, so that we can prevent it from happening again.
Everyone wants to know how long they will live and there are many indicators that can show whether someone is thriving or on the decline. But people have yet to develop a magic formula to determine exactly how long someone should expect to live.
However, a doctor recently featured on the “Today” show says a straightforward test can reveal the likelihood that someone aged 51 to 80 will die in the near future.
NBC News medical contributor Dr. Natalie Azar was on the “Today” show on March 8 and demonstrated how to perform the simple “sit to stand test” (aka sit-rising test or SRT) that can help determine the longevity of someone between 51 to 80.
The test is pretty simple. Go from standing to sitting cross-legged, and then go back to standing without using any parts of your body besides your legs and core to help you get up and down. The test measures multiple longevity factors, including heart health, balance, agility, core and leg strength and flexibility.
You begin the test with a score of 10 and subtract points on your way up and down for doing the following:
Hand used for support: -1 point
Knee used for support: -1 point
Forearm used for support: -1 point
One hand on knee or thigh: -1 point
Side of leg used for support: -1 point
None
— (@)
A 2012 study published by the European Society of Cardiology found a correlation between the SRT score and how long people live. The study was conducted on 2002 people, 68% of whom were men, who performed the SRT test and were followed by researchers in the coming years. The study found that “Musculoskeletal fitness, as assessed by SRT, was a significant predictor of mortality in 51–80-year-old subjects.”
Those who scored in the lowest range, 0 to 3, had up to a 6 times greater chance of dying than those in the highest scores (8 to 10). About 40% of those in the 0 to 3 range died within 11 years of the study.
Azar distilled the study on “Today,” saying: “The study found that the lower the score, you were seven times more likely to die in the next six years.”
“Eight points or higher is what you want,” Azar said. “As we get older, we spend time talking cardiovascular health and aerobic fitness, but balance, flexibility and agility are also really important,” she stressed.
One should note that the people who scored lowest on the test were the oldest, giving them an elevated risk of death.
Dr. Greg Hartley, Board Certified Geriatric Clinical Specialist and associate professor at the University of Miami, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that we should take the study with a grain of salt. “Frailty, strength, muscle mass, physical performance—those things are all correlated to mortality, but I would caution everybody that correlation doesn’t mean causation,” he said.
And of course, the test doesn’t take into account injuries or disabilities that may make doing the test impossible. But one of the study’s authors says that the study is a call to take our mobility seriously.
“The more active we are the better we can accommodate stressors, the more likely we are to handle something bad that happens down the road,” Dr. Claudio Gil Araujo, told USA Today.
Everyone has their favorite place to eat, and if you visit enough, you get to know the regular servers and sometimes even form a bit of a friendship with them. When 8-year-old Kayzen Hunter started going to a local Waffle House in Arkansas with his parents and sometimes grandpa, he became familiar with his server, Devonte Gardner. Actually, Gardner became Kayzen’s favorite server, giving him high fives and letting Kayzen tell him jokes.
The relationship between Gardner and Kayzen’s family continued to develop, which led to the little boy noticing Gardner was often dropped off for work because he didn’t have a car. Eventually, the Hunter family found out Gardner had a wife and two daughters who were living in a hotel because of issues in their previous home.
“We wanted to find something affordable, so we moved into a low-income area,” Gardner told Today.com “We just got tired of infestations with rats and roaches and all this black mold. My daughters were getting sick. No heat and things like that. When it was cold outside, we had to bundle up with like four or five blankets in order to stay warm.”
Garner had been living in a hotel with his wife and two daughters, who are 2 and 3 years old, for the past eight months. I’m sure most people have spent a night or two in a hotel, and unless it’s a penthouse suite, the space is crowded with more than two people in a room. It serves the purpose for a vacation, but living in a standard hotel room would likely begin to take a toll on your mental health as well as your finances. But when your options are limited, it’s an understandable best option.
Of course, after learning this information about his Waffle House best bud, Kayzen wanted to do something to help. That’s when he came up with the idea to start a GoFundMe to help Gardner get a car to help him get back and forth to work. Kayzen’s mom took a bit of convincing to get on board, but since 8-year-olds can’t open an account on their own, his mom had to sign off.
Originally, the goal for the fundraiser was set at $500 to help Gardner get back and forth to work, but as it started to gain more traction, it blew past the original goal and continued to climb. People were moved by the GoFundMe page written by Kayzen and his mom.
“Devonte is one of the most joyous and positive people you’ve ever met!! He always greets us with the biggest smile,” Kayzen wrote on the GoFundMe. “I hope your heart is as BIG as mine and you will help me spread kindness in the world. Any amount helps!!”
Gardner has big plans for the money raised by Kayzen, but his first step is moving into a brand new apartment. The father of two told Today.com that he recently signed the lease on a two-bedroom apartment. As for the rest of the money? Well, the donations keep pouring in. It’s currently up to $108,000, and Garner isn’t planning on spending it frivolously.
“I’m gonna save the rest because I want to put my daughters in a good school, I want them to be in a good environment,” Gardner explained to Today.com. “Everything I’m getting is going mostly towards my daughters to make sure they have a great, great life. Make sure we won’t have to struggle anymore.”
And yes, he still works at Waffle House and greets Kayzen and his family just like always, high five and all.
Well, well, well, if it isn’t one of the cutest pranks I’ve ever seen pulled off. (I know I started that off like I was going to say something negative, but sometimes you’ve gotta mix it up a little.)
Usually, when you see pranks being pulled, there’s a line that can get blurred fairly quickly. Pranks can quickly go from harmless fun to questioning if the prankee is actually being hazed and we are being forced to witness it. But this prank is probably one of the most wholesome pranks ever committed. Kevin Christian was retiring and his co-workers weren’t going to let him go quietly into the night.
On his last day at work at Monterey County Probation Department in California, Christian’s co-workers decided the best way to send him off was to dress exactly like him—complete with a bald cap, in case he wasn’t quite sure who they were all supposed to be, I’m sure. Then they uploaded their shenanigans to TikTok, where the video got over 4 million views.
“People wanted to know how we knew he was going to wear that day. We just banked on it. We had been planning this for weeks,” Diana Manuel shared in a video update.
The co-worker then showed a clip of Christian on his birthday wearing the same outfit, so it’s probably safe to assume he wears that outfit a lot, putting the odds in their favor. The original TikTok video is set to the “Mission Impossible” theme song and you get to see how they worked together behind the scenes buying a ridiculous number of blue shirts.
Christian appears to be shocked by seeing himself multiplied before clocking out one last time.
“What is wrong with you people?” the new retiree repeated.
Obviously, nothing’s wrong. They’re all getting to retire too. Their names are all Kevin Christian, can’t you tell? It looks like Christian will be missed and his co-workers are a blast. Surly there wasn’t a dull day around there too often.
Smiling is the universal language of joy—an involuntary response and innate human behavior that starts when we are wee babes, long before we’re able to talk.
Research shows that children smile on average 400 times a day, but that dwindles to only 20 times a day for an average adult. Even particularly happy adults only smile around 40 times a day, so it seems we could all use a few more reasons to smile!
We’ve got 10 rounded up here for you, from a sweet love story between two lonely geese, a hilarious hammerhead shark prank, a mom with the patience of saint and more.
So take a few minutes to revel in the joy and share with some other smile-deprived grown-ups in your life.
1. Professor’s grad students surprised him with a silly response to his ‘irrational fear’ of hammerhead sharks.
None
— (@)
Usually, it would be considered unkind to taunt someone with their fears, but this kind of hilarious exposure therapy might just be healing. At the very least, it’s heartwarmingly entertaining. Clearly, these students love their teacher.
2. A soon-to-be dad asked parents to share their favorite parts of parenting. The responses were beautiful.
All Harris Fanaroff was hearing was horror stories of parenting, so he asked for the brighter side. Parents delivered, big time. Scroll through to see some of the sweetest responses and see more of what parents shared here.
3. Ever seen a bunch of parrots get tucked into bed with kisses and a bedtime story?
“I love you, my bebeees!!!” Talk about a bond. Read more about Johan Devenier and his macaw babies here.
4. Two lonely geese found a second chance at love through a singles ad.
Geese mate for life, so what happens when they lose their mates? You gotta read this one to see how Frankie and Blossom met and how they took to one another after a blind date. Read their full love story here.
5. This tattoo is proof of the power of tea at grandma’s house.
Every parent has been there, and it’s so hard to stay calm, cool and collected—AND clear AND firm AND loving—all at the same time. But this mama pulls it off beautifully, and the fact that the little guy is able to articulate his feelings so clearly is a testament to his parents.
7. A 62-year-old fashionista is inspiring older women on TikTok with her sense of style.
The fact that they can hear the creatures burrowing under the snow is pretty sweet, but watching them do their leap and dive is hilariously impressive.
10. Dance your way through the weekend with the smooth moves of this guy and…himself.
Hope that gave you a few reasons to smile! Come back next week for more, and if you’d like to get these posts delivered to your inbox, subscribe to our free email newsletter here.
Ted Cruz generally doesn’t let the world know whether he’s upset about being dragged, but the Internet might have struck a nerve this week. He’s endured (well deserved) Cancun jokes and a merciless dragging by the star of one of his favorite movies, The Princess Bride. Ted even left his much maligned Fight Club take remain intact, so it’s quite something when he actually deletes a tweet.
That appears to be exactly what happened. A tiny bit of backstory: Ted and many of his GOP colleagues love to criticize President Biden over the longstanding chaos at the U.S.-Mexico border. Heck, Marjorie Taylor Greene recently made what could be more than a typo by claiming that Biden had let a majority of the global population surge over the border. Ted has spent some time at the border while lurking in the bushes like a “Brooks Brothers Bear Grylls,” so he might think that Biden should do the same. And now there’s what appears to be a now-deleted tweet about how “Biden has never been to the border. He went to El Paso, which is 800 miles from the Rio Grande Valley.”
As screencaps indicate, Ted would have been promoting his recent Fox News appearance, in which he accused Biden of aiding the journey of cartel heads from “vicious murderers” into billionaires. Well, we now know that Ted Cruz has not been watching Narcos or Narcos: Mexico on Netflix. Also, here’s what Cruz said on Fox News (around the 4:00 mark in the below clip):
“You have Joe Biden, who’s been to the southern border once. He went to El Paso, 800 miles from the Rio Grande Valley. And amazingly enough, he says that he went to our southern border and didn’t see a single illegal alien, which is extraordinary political theater because they cleaned everyone off the streets and said, look. Nobody’s here.”
How could Ted not consider El Paso to be a border city? Social media seems puzzled by this as well.
Does Ted Cruz know that El Paso is literally on the border with Mexico, and is in fact a key border entry area?
— robert jon anderson (@RobAnderson2018) March 9, 2023
Actually, let me be clear. Cruz knows El Paso is a border town. But it is not one that fits his narrative. El Paso was one of the 10 safest cities in the US in 2019. It still ranks among the best to raise a family. So he redirects the gaze to fit his mythology. https://t.co/Ldqej2CuIY
Do you ever stop and think about how Ted Cruz, the 10 year Senator for Texas, thinks El Paso, a very important border town, is actually not on the border at all and is in fact 800 miles from it? Well you should because what the fuck dude. I’m in Ohio and I knew that. pic.twitter.com/qPwHKYtKU2
Our Senator, Ted Cruz, literally said that El Paso isn’t on the border. Even if he is evidently unaware of the geography of his own state, he ran against @BetoORourke who literally talked about being from the border town of El Paso every day of their race. https://t.co/ZOErUuI0PJ
“Biden has never been to the border” followed by “he went to El Paso” is, even for Ted Cruz, an insanely stupid comment especially from an elected official from the State of … wait for it … fucking Texas
Perhaps Ted was trying to make his own type of point, but whatever the case, it appears that he actually rethought his words and deleted a tweet. So this remains a mystery, but it doesn’t seem like this type of Twitter mess can be blamed on an intern.
Ted Cruz is technically right El Paso is not in “the Rio Grande Valley,” a very specific area that encompasses Brownsville, Matamoros, McAllen, and Reynosa. But El Paso is absolutely part of “the border”, and Biden was literally visiting an area where Trump constructed a wall. https://t.co/v0ISLzBpw6
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