Fox News is not getting away with pushing Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that easily. The conservative news juggernaut failed to convince an appeals court to dismiss Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion lawsuit against both the network and its hosts who accused the election software company of “rigging” the 2020 election in Joe Biden’s favor. The lawsuit claims Fox knowingly pushed Trump’s false conspiracy theory in an effort to retain its right-wing audience, and the appeals court found unanimous cause to allow the lawsuit to continue.
In a 5-0 decision, the Appellate Division in Manhattan said Smartmatic USA alleged in “detailed fashion” how Fox News and some anchors and guests “effectively endorsed and participated in (defamation) with reckless disregard for, or serious doubts about” whether the company engaged in election fraud.
Smartmatic had sought $2.7 billion in damages, saying Fox News knowingly lied about its technology and how it was used in order to boost ratings, and keep Trump supporters from defecting to the right-wing networks Newsmax and One America News.
Despite the ruling, attorneys for Fox News are confident they will prevail in court.
“There is nothing more newsworthy than covering the president of the United States and his lawyers making allegations of voter fraud,” Fox’s legal team said in a statement. “Freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported, and not rooted in sound financial analysis.”
Keep in mind, this lawsuit is entirely separate from the legal action the network is also facing from Dominion Voting Systems. That software company is seeking $1.6 billion in damages from Fox, who also named Dominion in its promotion of Trump’s election fraud claims. To date, there has been no evidence that the 2020 election was rigged, so it should be interesting to see if Fox can get out of either suit without paying out the nose. So far, it’s not looking good.
After dropping a pair of fire singles — the vulnerable “Do You Like Me?” and the brutal “Let Me Go” — Daniel Caesar has finally announced his third studio album. His new effort, Never Enough, is set to drop this spring.
Ahead of Never Enough, Caesar has dropped a trailer for the upcoming album. The trailer sees Caesar swinging upside down from a tree. A woman is then seen standing opposite him, as the trailer fades to his logo.
New music can be heard in the trailer as well. On the song, which seems to come from the album, Caesar sings, over a brooding, minimalistic beat, “In the nick of time, that’s when you appear / Girl I was lost, until you found me here / My head was low.”
In an interview with Complex last year, Caesar revealed that while this album isn’t collaboration-heavy, however, working with producer Dylan Wiggins has been an inspiration to his craft.
“If I wasn’t excited about music before — like if I had started to wane in my love for the artform — he definitely has re-inspired me and made me excited about things,” Caesar said.
Watch the trailer for Never Enough above.
Never Enough is out 4/7 via Republic. Pre-save it here.
Marjorie Taylor Greene rarely gets her feathers ruffled, other than when one mentions her Jewish space laser conspiracy theorizing. Her general unruffled attitude is rather amazing, however, considering the earful that she received after torching the Black National Anthem without realizing that participating country singer Chris Stapleton is a Black Lives Matter supporter. So one would expect that we might have a quiet Marjorie week in the aftermath, but that’s not the case.
As Newsweek relays, Greene also spoke over the weekend in Idaho to the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, where she had quite an enthused audience. However, once she started talking about the Chinese Spy Balloon again, she drew a 9/11 analogy (while bashing Biden), and the room went pretty silent.
Marjorie Taylor Greene used the death count from hijacked 9/11 Flight 93 to minimize the risk of shooting down the spy balloon.
MTG: “Do you guys remember on 9/11 when an airplane crashed in Pennsylvania? …It killed everyone on board, but it didn’t kill anyone on the ground.” pic.twitter.com/uznQZ4zmk6
“The excuses that were given on this were pathetic, absolutely pathetic,” Marjorie ranted. “They told us it was too risky, oh, it was too risky to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon. Do you know what a bunch of bullsh*t that is?”
“OK, well, do you guys remember on 9/11 when an airplane crashed in Pennsylvania?” Greene continued. “It didn’t kill anybody on the ground. Killed everybody on board, but it didn’t kill anybody on the ground. So they want to tell all of us that it was too risky to take down that Chinese spy balloon over rural Idaho or Montana or any of these other states, or Alaska.”
Biden did eventually make the call to shoot down the balloon, and since that time, multiple other identified objects have surfaced and caused a world conspiracy theorizing about aliens and such. Considering Marjorie’s penchant for conspiracy theorizing, she could very well hop on the alien wagon, too. And considering that she’s now sitting on the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, this could get really interesting.
There is perhaps no greater sign of the rise of Afrobeats (aka Afropop, aka Afrofusion) in the US than this: The upcoming 2023 NBA All-Star Game features a wealth of Nigerian stars as halftime performers. Burna Boy, Rema, and Tems have all been announced as the performers for the halftime show, along with the performers for the national anthem and a pregame show featuring none other than Post Malone.
In addition to the three huge names listed above, the NBA announced that the pregame show will be performed by Post Malone, while the US national anthem, “Star Spangled Banner,” will be performed by singer-songwriter Jewel, who was actually born in Utah, where All-Star Weekend is being held this year (she was raised in Alaska, though. It probably can’t be easy finding too many nationally famous stars from Utah). Meanwhile, the Canadian national anthem, “O Canada,” will be sung by R&B star Jully Black.
Rihanna, ASAP Rocky, and their first child have graced the new cover of British Vogue, complete with an interview that sheds light on how the singer’s doing.
“So what changed? There’s still a lot of mending to be done in my eyes, but it’s powerful to break those doors, and have representation at such a high, high level and a consistent level,” Rihanna explained about her decision to finally perform. “Two Super Bowls back-to-back, you know, representing the urban community, globally. It is powerful. It sends a really strong message.”
“Of course, raising a young Black man is one of the scariest responsibilities in life,” she added. “You’re like, ‘What am I leaving my kids to? This is the planet they’re gonna be living on?’ All of those things really start to hit differently.”
Rihanna admitted that she was approached again to headline shortly before the official announcement but waited to give them a direct answer.
“It’s this knowing that you can do anything, even things that seem the craziest, like, ‘I’m going to say yes to the Super Bowl in the middle of postpartum?’” Rihanna described, and, as we now know, she used the event to reveal her second pregnancy. “What the heck am I thinking? But you’re geeked on a challenge like that because you know what your body just did. You feel this sense of ‘Nothing is impossible.’ It was almost like an out-of-body experience. I have not been on stage in seven years. Seven years! From zero to Super Bowl? That’s mental.”
Shannon Elizabeth hasn’t been in many movies lately, especially compared to the late 1990s and early 2000s, but it’s not because she hasn’t been busy. She played in the World Series of Poker, founded a non-profit animal rescue organization, and helped launch the One Woman’s Legacy Scholarship, “a program for African women to further their careers through postgraduate studies.” Elizabeth has lived quite the life, one that she recently discussed on the Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum podcast.
One topic that came up was her non-specific European accent as Nadia in the American Pie movies. “When I did American Pie, they called me in to do ADR,” she said. “They were like, ‘We’re gonna play with the accent.’ So I’d say something and then they’d go, ‘OK, do less of an accent.’ I was like, ‘Why are they messing with this accent so much?’ I had worked really hard with a dialect coach on this.”
Elizabeth told her friends that the 1999 sex comedy was going to “suck” because “they messed with my accent so much… I was like, ‘No, they’re ruining it. Don’t watch it.’ I was devastated after ADR.” The actress was only paid “couple thousand” dollars for her role (probably less than Blink-182), but she demanded more for the sequels. “I guess I had a number in my head I felt like they should pay and I got them to that number,” she said.
Halle Bailey is not letting any lingering rumors surrounding her romantic relationship distract her from the upcoming release of Disney’s live-action adaption of The Little Mermaid. The film, slated to hit theaters this May, will mark the singer’s biggest acting role to date.
Now, the official trailer is here, and if you weren’t excited before, you might change your tune after watching it. Bailey took to Twitter to share it with her followers, writing, “I’m so very excited to continue the #Disney100 celebration with this new look at #TheLittleMermaid just 100 days until it arrives in theaters!”
In the trailer, Ariel (played by Bailey) explores beyond her hidden cave oasis shown in the first look teaser giving up a glimpse into the full ocean city oasis. Bailey’s dreadlocks eloquently sway as she explores near the sea floor and onto the surface. Bailey embodies the innocence of the beloved Disney character, and any pressure she felt going into filming certainly melted away as soon as the cameras began rolling.
The Little Mermaid hits theaters on May 26. In the meantime, watch the new trailer above.
The live-action Little Mermaid movie has seemingly been in production forever. Remember when Harry Styles was in talks to place Prince Eric? That was almost four years ago! Time flies when you’re living in a simulation.
Last year, fans got a first glimpse of Halle Bailey as the Disney princess who gives up her voice in order to live among the people, kind of like what Prince Harry tried to do before he just went and told us everything anyway. We finally have a first trailer for the inevitable blockbuster that will hit theaters just in time for Memorial Day weekend, which shows off the highly anticipated reveal of Melissa McCarthy as Ursula.
The adaptation will feature an ensemble cast led by Bailey, along with Daveed Diggs, Javier Bardem, Jacob Tremblay, and Awkwafina. But the role everyone is talking about is McCarthy as the evil sea with Ursula who manages to trick the young mermaid into giving up her Grammy-nominated voice.
McCarthy beat out Lizzo for the gig after the pop star said she fumbled the audition by wanting to “make Ursula a THOT.” While McCarthy might not have the same amount of enthusiasm, she does have an evil laugh and a whole slew of fans who are ready for her villainous debut. Even though we got one split second of one (very dark) glimpse at the sea witch, it was enough to set the excitement into full gear.
Yes, many people are ready for her underwater reign, but others are looking to get their eyes checked since that trailer is too dang dark! Haven’t we been through this? It did not go unnoticed.
While NBA 2K is such a dominant force in sports games today, it took a minute for basketball video games to take off on the earliest consoles and in arcades like football did with Tecmo Bowl and others (do check out our previous episode on the very best football video games of all time).
In this edition of Recon, hosts Noelle Miller and Ray Apollo look back fondly on some of the best and most influential titles and developments in the long history of basketball video games, including the one that crossed over into broad cultural popularity.
Midway’s first edition of NBA Jam in 1993 was a huge step for basketball video games, timed well with the ascent of Michael Jordan (even though he wasn’t in the game) and the NBA turning into a global brand. So naturally, Noelle and Ray are going to talk about NBA Jam and how it blended high-adrenaline gameplay with real NBA stars pulling off cartoonish high-flying dunks. Talk about EA’s NBA Live follows before they dive into the NBA2K franchise and EA’s NBA Street games (which mixed elements from sims and the 2 on 2 fun of NBA Jam). Then they wrap things up with a quick look at how virtual headsets like the Meta Quest 2 are bringing the court into your living room.
Check out the episode above for all that and more.
Despite not having toured together in over a decade, RBD has become the hottest ticket of the summer. Last month, the Mexican pop group reunited to announce the Soy Rebelde Tour. The first round of shows that went on-sale in the US, Mexico, and Brazil sold out faster than recent tours by Bad Bunny and Daddy Yankee.
RBD was first formed in 2004 as part of the Mexican telenovela Rebelde. Anahí, Dulce María, Maite Perroni, Christian Chávez, Alfonso “Poncho” Herrera, and Christopher von Uckermann comprised the group that released anthems like “Rebelde” and “Sólo Quédate En Silencio,” which defined the generation of millennial fans that grew up with them. You can count Bad Bunny and Karol G as part of that group of fans. Bad Bunny name-checked RBD in his global smash “Me Porto Bonito” from his Un Verano Sin Ti album while Karol G recently convinced them to extend the Soy Rebelde Tour to her country of Colombia.
During RBD’s initial run in the 2000s, the band proved to become a legitimate Latin pop force with two Latin Grammy nominations. The group’s global success led to the release of a crossover album, 2006’s Rebels, where they translated a bunch of their hits into English. RBD officially disbanded in 2009 with the farewell LP Para Olvidarte De Mí. With RBD back in action (sans Herrera) and ready to return to the stage this summer, here’s 20 of the RBD’s best songs to revisit while the nostalgia is running high.
20. “Para Olvidarte De Mí” (from Para Olvidarte De Mí)
After performing their final concert in Madrid in December 2008, “Para Olvidarte De Mí” served as RBD’s swan song. In the nostalgic ballad, the members take turns sharing their heartfelt farewells to fans.
19. “Siempre He Estado Aquí”
“Siempre He Estado Aquí” is RBD’s newest taste of music on this list. In 2020, Anahí, Maite Perroni, Christian Chávez, and Christopher von Uckermann staged a one-off reunion to thank the fans who have stuck by RBD over the years.
18. “Tu Amor” (from Rebels)
For the crossover album Rebels, RBD covered the classic “Tu Amor” by Jon B. Christian Chávez belts his heart out in English in the ballad that reached No. 65 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, RBD’s highest peak.
17. “Celestial” (from Celestial)
“Celestial” lives up to its name as one of RBD’s most psychedelic tracks. In the charming love song, the members traded verses about a romance that felt out of this world.
16. “Este Corazón” (from Nuestro Amor)
“Este Corazón” is a tender ballad between the couples among the group on the Rebelde series. Dulce María, Christopher von Uckermann, Anahí, and Alfonso “Poncho” Herrera share sweet duet moments about stealing each other’s hearts.
15. “México, México” from (from México, México)
Proudly representing their country, RBD recorded the song “México, México” for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. The three women, Anahí, Dulce María, and Maite Perroni, led the charge for Mexico in the ranchera-infused club banger.
14. “Aún Hay Algo” (from Nuestro Amor)
RBD don’t give up on love in “Aún Hay Algo.” In the punchy pop-rock anthem, the members hold out hope for rekindling a romance that was on the verge of flickering out.
13. “Cariño Mío” (from Rebels)
RBD translate the reggaeton music sound into English in “Cariño Mío.” The sultry club banger where Alfonso “Poncho” Herrera shines was produced by RedOne, who later went on to work with Lady Gaga.
12. “Así Soy Yo” from (from Nuestro Amor)
The empowering “Así Soy Yo” is one of the most playful tracks in RBD’s discography. Backed by a rush of rock-infused electronica, Anahí sings about celebrating who you are despite any naysayers. It’s gone on to become one of RBD’s anthems for their fans in the LGBTQ+ community.
11. “Tras De Mí” (from Nuestro Amor)
“Tras De Mí” is RBD’s most hypnotic track where they give their sound an electronica and rock-infused makeover. The members trade verses about leaving the past behind in search of a better future.
10. “Bésame Sin Miedo” (from Celestial)
RBD blend their pop-rock sound with elements of electronica in the alluring “Bésame Sin Miedo.” The voices of each member soar as they sing about sharing one last kiss as if the world is about to end.
9. “No Pares” (from Live In Hollywood)
The standout song on RBD’s Live In Hollywood album is the empowering “No Pares.” In a concert at the Pantages Theatre, Dulce María shined as she sang about never losing sight of your dreams.
8. “Lento” (from Mas Flow: Los Benjamins)
RBD dabble in reggaeton music in the “Lento.” The band’s sexy club banger is produced by Luny Tunes, who were behind many of Daddy Yankee’s classics, and Tainy, who later shaped Bad Bunny and J Balvin’s hits.
7. “Inalcanzable” (from Empezar Desde Zero)
“Inalcanzable” is one of the RBD’s most vulnerable releases. In the heartfelt ballad, the six members deliver some of the best vocal performances of their career as they sing about a romance that was sadly out of reach.
6. “Nuestro Amor” (from Nuestro Amor)
“Nuestro Amor” is one of RBD’s most spellbinding releases. The group channele their lyrics about an otherworldly love into an electrifying anthem that truly feels larger than life.
5. “Ser O Parecer” (from Celestial)
The sassy “Ser O Parecer” is the biggest Spanish-language hit of RBD’s career. The song impressively climbed to No. 84 on the Hot 100 chart in 2006.
4. “Empezar Desde Cero” (from Empezar Desde Cero)
“Empezar Desde Cero” is RBD’s punchiest Latin pop song and it still packs a wallop years later. Maite Perroni takes on lead vocals and knocks the anthem about a love that feels timeless out of the park.
3. “Sólo Quédate En Silencio” (from Rebelde)
“Sólo Quédate En Silencio” is one of the RBD’s earliest classics and also one of their best. In the electrifying love song, the men and women of the group sing to each other about enjoying the final moments of a fleeting romance.
2. “Rebelde” (from Rebelde)
“Rebelde” is the song that started it all. In the pop-rock banger, RBD channel their teenage angst at the time into an anthem that rallied their fan base to embrace their inner rebels.
1. “Sálvame” (from Rebelde)
“Sálvame” is the most iconic song to exist in RBD’s vast discography. Anahí takes center stage and sings her heart out about trying to survive the fallout from a crushing breakup.
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(@patriottakes) 
just 100 days until it arrives in theaters! 
(@SpicyAABoy) 
(@Kail4yn) 