The Brooklyn Nets had a potentially all-time great trio in Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Kyrie Irving. Due to injuries and Irving’s refusal to get vaccinated against COVID-19, that group only played in 16 games with one another, with the trio losing a member when Harden was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers last year.
This era of Nets basketball officially came to an end this week when the team traded Irving to the Dallas Mavericks and Durant to the Phoenix Suns. And in a pretty strange coincidence, Saturday also marked Harden’s first game back in Brooklyn since he was sent to Philly last year. The game itself was quite good — the Sixers rallied to win, 101-98, despite Spencer Dinwiddie hitting a shot from near halfcourt that the officials ruled was not out of his hand in time.
After it ended, Harden spoke to the media and got asked about things coming to an end in Brooklyn. He did not hold back, calling the era “frustrating” and saying that “I don’t look like the crazy one. I don’t look like the quitter or whatever the media wanna call me.”
James Harden on his time with the Nets: “…fast forward to today, I don’t look like the crazy one. I don’t look like the quitter or whatever the media wanna call me. I knew what was going on and I just decided I’m not built for this. I don’t wanna deal with that…” (1/2)
Harden, while discussing his tenure with KD/Kyrie:
“Frustrating. It’s a lot of what ifs, I think when you play less than 20 games together. So it’s a little bit frustrating, but it is what it is. Hopefully everybody’s in a good place now and we can move on.”
The Super Bowl is a pretty popular day for those who gamble. This includes — you may be shocked to learn — Basketball Hall of Fame inductee and TNT personality Charles Barkley, who revealed on the “Steam Room” podcast that he plans on pulling an all-nighter in Las Vegas on the day of the game and intends to put six figures on the line for this weekend’s matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Chuck is planning on pulling an all-nigher after the Super Bowl
“Me and 12 of my friends go to Vegas every year for the Super Bowl,” Barkley said. “There’s a good chance I’ma be pulling an all-nighter … Sunday into Monday, because we’re playing golf Saturday and Sunday, the Super Bowl starts around 3, 3:30 Pacific Time. So by the time the game ends, I’ll probably gamble all night Sunday and go straight to the airport.”
Ernie Johnson then asked Barkley how much he plans on putting on the game, to which Barkley said “probably $100,000.” And while he did not say what, exactly, are his best bets for the game, he did reveal which team he unsurprisingly wants to win.
“Go Eagles,” Barkley said. “E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES.”
Earlier this week, Barkley appeared on The Dan Patrick Show and said that he’s putting money on the Birds. “I think they’re gonna win no matter what,” Barkley predicted. “They’ve been my team for a long time, and man, they’ve been the best team all year.”
In a historic legal maneuver, ClientEarth is personally suing 11 of Shell’s board of directors for failing to bring its business policies in line with the Paris Agreement. The suit is the first time that a corporate board of directors has been sued due to a lack of climate action.
The Paris Agreement is a landmark 2015 international treaty to reduce global warming below 2° and, preferably, 1.5° Celcius.
ClientEarth is a Shell shareholder, giving it the right to bring a suit against the company for failure to manage the risk posed by climate change under the UK Companies Act.
“Shell’s Board is legally required to manage risks to the company that could harm its future success, and the climate crisis presents the biggest risk of them all,” ClientEarth said in a statement.
“Ensuring the company stays competitive in the energy markets of the future, as countries and customers worldwide choose cheaper, cleaner energy, means,” the statement continues. “Shell needs to move away from fossil fuels towards an alternative business model.”
The lawsuit is supported by Nest, the UK’s largest workplace pension scheme with over 10 million members. “Investors want to see action in line with the risk climate change presents and will challenge those who aren’t doing enough to transition their business,” said Mark Fawcett, Nest’s chief investment officer. “We hope the whole energy industry sits up and takes notice.”
The lawsuit has the backing of a group of investors that hold over 12 million shares in the company.
u201cLast year, we announced the start of legal action against Shellu2019s Board of Directors, for failing to move away from fossil fuels fast enough. nnAnd now, weu2019re going to court. Read more: https://t.co/IMPaFGhX7gu201d
Shell believes it’s acting according to the Paris Agreement because its goal is to become a net-zero emissions company by 2050. The company says it supports the “most ambitious goal” of the Paris Agreement, limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5° Celsius.
ClientEarth says Shell should be more aggressive in moving away from fossil fuels towards an alternative business model. It also believes that the company’s current efforts are inadequate and will lead to diminishing profits.
“[Shell] fails to deliver the reduction in emissions that is needed to keep global climate goals within reach and continues with fossil fuel production for decades to come,” ClientEarth said in a statement. “This will tie the company to projects and investments that are likely to become unprofitable as the world cleans up its energy systems.”
u201c.@ClientEarth has filed a lawsuit against the Board of Directors of Shell plc for failing to manage the material and foreseeable risks posed to the company by climate change. nnNest is in support of this lawsuit ud83euddf5u2935ufe0fu201d
In 2022, Shell reported its largest annual profit of nearly $40 billion, fuelled by rising energy costs due to the war in Ukraine.
“We do not accept ClientEarth’s allegations,” a Shell spokesperson said. “Our directors have complied with their legal duties and have, at all times, acted in the best interests of the company.”
While efforts to push companies to do more to solve the climate crisis tend to come from the outside, ClientEarth’s approach to sue as a shareholder is a unique way to pressure Shell to change. It also makes a lot of sense. Whether you’re a citizen of the Earth or a multinational corporation—we need to do something about climate change before it becomes impossible to do business altogether.
For generations, students have read the extemporaneous speech Sojourner Truth gave at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851, known widely as “Ain’t I a Woman?” As a formerly enslaved Black woman speaking out against slavery and for women’s rights, Truth made some powerful points in her speech—except the speech most of us read is almost nothing like the one she delivered.
The way “Ain’t I a Woman?” is written makes it sound as if Truth walked straight off a Southern plantation. But Truth was a Northerner her entire life. The Southern dialect that permeates the popular version of her speech is a total fabrication.
It wasn’t Truth who altered her speech, though. A white abolitionist woman named Frances Dana Gage published the speech 12 years after it was given, and her version is the one that became popularized, in all its glorious inaccuracy.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Sojourner Truth was born as Isabella Baumfree to parents who were enslaved by Dutch settlers in Ulster County, New York, in 1797. When she was 9, she was sold away to another New York enslaver, and by the time she was 14, she’d been sold to several different slave owners around New York State. After being raped by her final enslaver, harassed by his wife, and heartbroken over the man she loved being beaten to death by his owner on a neighboring farm, she escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826—the year before New York’s gradual phasing out of slavery was set to be complete.
Truth chose her famous name in her forties, after a religious awakening in which she felt called to travel and speak out against slavery. She became a powerhouse in the early abolitionist movement. In addition to her fierce civil rights advocacy, she successfully sued one of her former owners for custody of her youngest son, who had been sold illegally, making her the first Black woman to take a white man to court and win.
During her adult life, Truth lived in New York and Massachusetts and eventually settled in Michigan. She traveled extensively, but since her entire childhood was spent in New York—and since her first language was Dutch—she wouldn’t have had a Southern accent or spoken in a Southern dialect at all.
Since she couldn’t read or write, the speech Truth gave in 1851 was never written down by her, so history relies on the people who were present to know what she said. The first attempt to publish a full account of her speech came a few weeks after she delivered it, when journalist Marius Robinson published his version in The Anti-Slavery Bugle on June 21, 1851. According to The Sojourner Truth Project, Robinson was good friends with Sojourner Truth, and there is documentation that she went over his transcription before it was published.
That version, titled “On Woman’s Rights,” begins:
“May I say a few words? I want to say a few words about this matter.
I am a woman’s rights.
I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that?”
It’s a strikingly different account than the one published in 1863 by Francis Gage, which reads in part:
“Dat man ober dar say dat women needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have de best place eberywhar.
Nobody eber helps me into carriages or ober mud-puddles, or gives me any best place.
And ar’n’t I a woman?”
Gage’s version has been altered over time to smooth out the spellings, and “ar’n’t” morphed into “ain’t,” but the distinct Southern accent remains in the speech we famously attribute to Truth today. (For instance, check out the speech shared by The Hermitage museum, which is the version most of us have read, here. The two originally published versions can be compared side by side here.)
According to The Sojourner Truth Project, “Frances Gage admitted that her amended version had ‘given but a faint sketch’ of Sojourner’s original speech but she felt justified and believed her version stronger and more palatable to the American public than Sojourner’s original version.”
But changing her speech matters for a couple of reasons. For one, making Truth appear to be Southern adds to the oversimplification of slavery as only a Southern problem, when in reality slavery existed in the Northern states as well. They just abolished slavery earlier than the South, and without fighting a heinous, bloody war over it first.
“In an 1851 issue of the Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph, an article states that Truth prided herself on ‘fairly correct English, which is in all senses a foreign tongue to her…People who report her often exaggerate her expressions, putting in to her mouth the most marked southern dialect, which Sojourner feels is rather taking an unfair advantage of her.'”
It also matters because the truth matters. As the United States grapples with its history of racism and slavery and Americans argue over the lenses and narratives through which we tell our national story, it’s vital that we strive to be truthful. Learning about history requires that we constantly stay open to not only learning things we may not have learned, but also relearning things we may have learned wrong.
Check out The Sojourner Truth Project for more details about Truth and to see a more accurate representation of what she actually said in her famous speech. And listen this reading of Robinson’s version of her speech, read by a woman with a contemporary Dutch accent in an attempt to get closer to Truth’s original speech:
David Rossler, 84, and his mother were taken in by Georges Bourlet and his four young adult children in 1944 and allowed to hide in their home in Brussels in the waning months of World War II. Rossler and his mother were Jewish, and Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany. If caught, they’d be taken to a concentration camp.
Rossler had already lost his uncle and grandfather after they were taken to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland and he would lose his father, hiding elsewhere, to an illness.
Bourlet and his family were also in danger if they were caught hiding the mother and child from the Nazis. “People who protected Jews were simply risking their lives. You wouldn’t end up in jail, but in Auschwitz—and Auschwitz, you didn’t end up anywhere but in the crematoria,” Rossler said in a video produced by MyHeritage.com.
After Allied forces liberated Belgium in 1945, Rossler, who was born Daniel Langa and later took the name of his stepfather, moved to Austria and lost touch with the Bourlets.
As Rossler entered his 80s and was in declining health, his final wish was to thank Bourlet’s family for the incredible bravery and humanity he showed him and his mother during the war.
For years, Lionel Rossler, David’s son, did everything he could to find the family, including putting ads in the paper and posting on social media. After one such post, he received a message from Marie Cappart, country manager for MyHeritage in Belgium, who wanted to help.
MyHeritage is an online genealogy platform with 90 million family trees. Rossler’s story hit close to home with Cappart.
“My husband lost his grandfather during the war. He died at the concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau,” Cappart told Newsweek. “My own great-grandmother also died in the camp at Ravensbrück. She was British and was in Belgium as part of the resistance. Sadly she was caught by the Nazis and deported. She never came back.”
u201cDavid Rossler, center, with members of the Bourlet family. A Belgian genealogist recently helped the 83-year-old man reunite with the family that saved him and his mother during World War II.nnhttps://t.co/CVWQ3SLbH0u201d
“After browsing records and cross-referencing data, Cappart found an Anne-Marie Bourlet, born in Auderghem in 1929,” Lionel said, according to SWNS. “She discovered that Anne-Marie married someone with the surname Dedoncker and had five children—all of them possibly still alive.”
“After a bit more research, Cappart found Xavier, one of Georges Bourlet’s grandsons, and managed to contact him,” he continued.
Finally, after 75 years, David Rossler returned to the place where he hid in 1944 and 1945 and thanked Bourlet’s five grandchildren.
u201cA man has returned to the home he and his mother hid in from the Nazis nearly 80 years ago – while his uncle and grandad died in Auschwitz. David Rossler, 85, was just five years old when he and his mother, Haja Sura Zoltak, were hidden by the Bourletnnhttps://t.co/jmFZsupNaJu201d
“It was an incredibly emotional day for us,” Lionel explained. “I was able to see, with my own eyes, the place where my father was kept safe from the Germans all those years ago.”
“If I had Mr. Bourlet in front of me, I would want to kiss him,” said David. “To say thank you with all my body, with all my life, I am alive, I have a family of which I am very, very, very proud. To tell him that my life is thanks to him.”
Bourlet didn’t know it then, but his bravery saved the lives of nine people.
“Because of his heroic action, Georges was able to save the lives of my father and grandmother,” Lionel said. “Nine people were saved thanks to what he did; my brother, myself and our children would not be here today if not for his courage and kindness.”
As a final “thank you” to Bourlet and his family, the Rosslers want him to be recognized as Righteous Among The Nations at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. This honor is for non-Jews who risked everything during the Holocaust to save Jewish people.
The medal given to honorees has an inscription with the Hebrew saying: “Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe.”
Many parents dream of becoming grandparents. Oftentimes, people think about grandkids before they even become a parent as a “when I’m old” daydream about what life will be like at a later stage. It shouldn’t be surprising that some parents of adult children may feel a little bummed when their child decides not to have children or can’t have them. Or in some cases, parents assume their child’s membership in the LGBTQ community would prevent them from having babies.
The majority of parents simply want their children to be happy, so they readjust their dream and support their children. But in the case of one mom of an adult child, her assumption was simply wrong.
TikTok creator Aurelia uploaded a video to reveal a birthday surprise for her mother wrapped in a large box. She explains to her mom why she’s recording but doesn’t give away what’s inside the box.
Shortly after unwrapping it, Aurelia’s mom pulls a teddy bear dressed in a t-shirt and little pants out of the box. Through excited confusion, she yells, “What is this?!” before Aurelia instructs her to press the paw on the bear.
The unmistakable sound of a baby’s heartbeat can be heard and that’s when more screaming occurs as the clues click into place. “When your only child is a lesbian so you give up on having grandchildren,” reads the writing across the screen. Currently, the video has 16.2 million views and over 2.5 million likes.
It had to be difficult for Aurelia to keep it a secret that she was pregnant, knowing how badly her mother wanted grandchildren.
Nowadays, being part of the LGBTQ community doesn’t automatically exclude you from having your own biological children should you want them. As for Aurelia, she kept her IVF treatments a secret in an effort to surprise her mom, writing on the screen, “studs can do this my IVF journey twins.”
Stud is a label used among Black people within the LGBTQ community when a Black lesbian presents in a more masculine manner. And Aurelia not only proved that masculine-presenting people can and do carry children, she just gave her mom the best birthday present she’ll ever get.
Congratulations Aurelia and grandma-to-be. Wishing the new mom a smooth, healthy pregnancy and delivery.
As we head into the rivalry-packed weekend leading up to the Super Bowl, a story of friendship and shared passion—and now, internal organs—between two opposing fans seems all too apropos.
Billy Welsh is a hardcore fan of the Philadelphia Eagles. John Gladwell, on the other hand, is avidly rooting for the Kansas City Chiefs. Welsh and Gladwell first met nearly 20 years ago while serving in the Marines.
They didn’t immediately hit it off. Gladwell, with years of experience under his belt and ready to come home, came across as “mean” to Welsh. Similarly, Gladwell wasn’t fond of the incoming recruit’s high energy.
Still, there was no bad blood between them. Though they didn’t actually speak to one another after going their separate ways, they did keep in touch through Facebook from time to time, as people are wont to do these days.
Then, in 2019, their friendship went beyond the occasional like or comment when Welsh wrote on Facebook, “Anyone got a spare kidney? Mine are junk.”
“John Gladwell is my hero,” Philadelphia Eagles fan Billy Welsh told TODAY about Gladwell, a Kansas City Chiefs fan and an old military friend who donated the kidney that saved his life. https://t.co/slydOwwrZi
“I’m like, ‘What’s your blood type, I’ll check and verify mine,’” Gladwell told the Inquirer. “Two hours of looking through medical records, I finally found it. I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m a match…let’s do what we have to do to get this started.’”
Two decades apart were followed by a 1,000-mile plane ride and a 10-hour transplant surgery. For Gladwell, it was all a no-brainer. “You never leave your brother behind,” he told Hoda Kotb on TODAY. “Marines are a band of brothers. You don’t…don’t leave someone behind.”
He added: “I wasn’t going to let his son grow up without his dad being there for everything.” Welsh is a father to a son not much older than Gladwell’s grandson.
Gladwell and Welsh’s story eventually made its way to Eagles president Don Smolenski, who was so moved that he instantly reached out to Chiefs president Mark Donovan to arrange an expenses-paid trip for both men to Arizona so that they could sit side by side and watch their favorite teams play in the Super Bowl on Feb 12. Both Smolenksi and Donovan gave the guys a surprise video call to deliver the good news.
“The opportunity to bring these two guys together, their two teams playing on the biggest stage in sports, it’s very, very humbling and gratifying,” Smolenski told the Inquirer.
And though the two have formed an unbreakable bond, they are still frenemies when it comes to football. Welsh has even joked about being at odds with his life-saving kidney, saying, “Now there’s a battle going on in my body like, ‘Does my kidney not want to work, because if the Eagles win, it’s just going to go on strike?'”
Sounds like whichever team takes home the trophy this year, these two have already won something priceless. Sometimes, total opposites end up being a perfect match.
It’s a godsend for parents when they can take their kids who have specific needs somewhere they won’t be judged. Parenting a child with disabilities or neurodivergence is hard enough without dealing with the stares, judgment and misunderstandings that can happen in public places.
Haircuts can be especially stressful for children with sensory issues and their parents.
Vernon Jackson, barber and owner of Noble Barber and Beauty salon in Cincinnati, Ohio, understands these families’ unique needs. So he opens up his shop one day a month for what he calls “The Gifted Event,” where he welcomes them for a free haircut.
The most common medical conditions he sees are autism, Down syndrome and spina bifida.
Jackson told Today there are a few things that these children worry about in the barber’s chair. Specifically, many don’t like the sound of the clippers and the feeling of hair falling on their skin. “One child told me it feels like needles,” he told Today.
The barber’s sweet approach while giving a haircut to Ellison, a child with Down syndrome, went viral on TikTok, earning over 3 million views. It’s touching because Ellison is all smiles and loves having some control over the stressful situation by telling Jackson when to “stop” and “start” with the clippers.
Everyone here’s the video without the music! Idk what tik tok did🤦🏾♂️ but please consider donating! All of my cuts for my gifted clients are paid for by donations 🙏🏽
The viral video shows what can happen when a barber has the time to focus on the child as an individual and create an atmosphere where they are comfortable.
“Every child is different and I need to be present with them and meet them in the moment,” Jackson told Today. For Julie Eubanks, Ellison’s mother, who took the heartwarming video, being able to have Jackson cut his hair is a huge relief.
“I’m always in the state of anticipating the worst because you never know with these types of situations with Ellison, or with any kid with special needs, they can turn with a blink of the eye,” Eubanks told WLWT. “I was trying to enjoy it and record and peaking my head out of the side of my phone to be like, ‘Is this really going on?'”
The commenters on TikTok thought the video was adorable.
“Thank you for having such a kind soul with these precious children that just need a little extra attention in a different way! This is awesome,” Jackie Griggs wrote. “Hard to tell who had more fun here. This is great!” Carrie Deal added.
Jackson has set up a GoFundMe where people can donate free haircuts to children with disabilities and he’s received over $17,000 in donations.
“As a barber, I saw the need for a place where children with disabilities are supported during a haircut and an environment where parents or caregivers don’t have to explain their child’s behavior or apologize for something they may do or say,” Jackson wrote on the GoFundMe page.
It’s incredible that Jackson sets aside time every month so that his business can focus on those who need a little extra love and attention. It’s a beautiful gift to these children and their parents and a wonderful example to share with the rest of the business community.
Justin Bieber and Kodak Black are among those that have been named in a lawsuit stemming from an incident last year— following a Super Bowl party in West Hollywood— that left two people shot. The entertainers, along with the city of LA, have been accused of negligence, Deadline reports. The shooting allegedly took place after a private concert Bieber held for a few A-listers at The Nice Guy, a restaurant and event venue in LA.
According to reports, two men claim they were shot and severely injured during a February 2022 shooting incident outside The Nice Guy following the party. The suit primarily places the blame on Kodak, who reportedly instigated the shooting while he was exiting the venue. Notable attorney Gloria Allred is representing the alleged victims.
The lawsuit also named several others, including The Nice Guy restaurant, where the party was held; hospitality company The Hwood Group; the Revolve Group, an online fashion and lifestyle company; as well as the City of Los Angeles, the City of West Hollywood, and Los Angeles County.
Footage recently caught by TMZshows the events leading up to the shooting. The “Tunnel Vision” rapper was spotted exiting the venue with an entourage, along with Lil Baby and Gunna. The trio met with fans outside to sign autographs and take photos before a fistfight broke out nearby, spilling out into the street. At least 10 Gunshots could be heard moments later, causing a flurry of madness among the attendees and fans.
The avalanche of George Santos revelations and accusations has long been fodder for late night TV. A few weeks ago, multiple chat shows did the same thing: having some comic actor portray the noted fabulist, who last month was sworn in as a GOP representative after deceiving voters about, well, pretty much everything. Now, mere days after Santos got into a spat with Republican Mitt Romney, even Fox News is getting in on the action.
On his own late night ratings powerhouse Gutfeld!, Greg Gutfeld included a segment with multiple Santos jokes, although at least one was the expense of Democrats. He started by saying Santos “would definitely steal your mail and poop in your garden.” He added, “But compared to this current woke insanity, he looks like Mr. Rogers.”
Gutfeld then brought on comic Joe Machi, who did his own take on the guy accused of multiple dog-related scams. He asked about claims that he defrauded dog breeders.
“Consider the source, Greg,” Machi’s Santos said, with a gravelly voice that made him sound like Harvey Fierstein. “They make money off of dogs having sex. They’re the real golden retrievers.”
As for fellow lawmakers trying to get him removed from office, Fake Santos said, “They’re trying to get me fired? That’s like Tucker Carlson telling to stop sunning my testicles, Greg! The American people don’t care about me lying. They’re focused on the Super Bowl. Go Eagles.”
Okay, it’s not funny that even Fake George Santos is rooting for the birds. But even allowing a Fox News guest to drag Tucker’s weird testicle-sunning obsession is pretty ballsy for the network.
Yep, Gutfeld included a dig at the libs, but at least he’s acknowledging that Santos is not to be trusted. Baby steps! Also Gutfeld, the Fox News host with the best taste in music, was wearing a Cramps shirt. Welcome to the resistance, sort of.
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