Category: Viral

When Max first arrived at the Susquehanna SPCA shelter, the workers didn’t think he’d stay long. The 5-year-old pit bull terrier mix was sweet and friendly—which ironically led to a longer than normal stay. As of March 3, he had been at the shelter for 444 days.

“When he came here, we thought he would find his home easily because he is such a nice guy,” executive director Stacie Haynes told Fox 5 News. “Turns out, he just kept getting looked over and he wasn’t on our radar as an urgent dog to get out because he is just so sweet.”

Max stepped into the limelight recently when Haynes swapped places with the dog for a day in an effort to raise awareness about the shelter and educate people about what life is like for a shelter dog. Max got to hang out in Haynes’s office and even wore a tie for the day, while Haynes did her work on Max’s bed in his kennel (with an occasional bathroom break, some enrichment activities, and people walking by to check her out, she said).

Haynes told WBGN that Max didn’t really know life outside the shelter, having been there so long.

“He’s a very good boy. He’s very friendly, he comes up to the kennel wagging his tail,” said Haynes. “He just wants to be your friend.”

However, shelter life is generally hard on dogs, as they’re constantly trying to protect their space from different people coming through. “You’re constantly trying to make sure you’re safe,” said Haynes.

Dogs often become anxious when they’re sheltered too long, always on alert and prone to panic. But Max’s response was different. The longer he stayed, the more he became depressed and lethargic, sometimes staring at a wall.

Haynes said the 444 minutes she spent in the kennel gave her an extra dose of empathy for Max. Shelters provide a wonderful service, giving animals food and a place to live while trying to find them permanent arrangements, but they aren’t meant to be long-term.

“Time feels like it’s stood still. It has gone very, very slowly. I can understand why Max is staring at the wall. I found myself sitting here trying to count the links of the chain link,” Haynes said of her time in the kennel.

The dog-director day swap got the attention of local news agencies, which led Ed Panus of Moravia, New York to come to the shelter to meet Max. Panus said he felt an instant connection with the doggo.

“I noticed he was almost like the dog I had that passed away here at the end of last year,” Panus told WBNG News 12.

So after 450 days living at the Susquehanna SPCA and four months at a different shelter before that, Max has finally found his forever home with Panus.

The shelter had said that when Max was adopted, they would help provide a behavioral specialist to ease him through the transition from shelter life to home life. So far, so good it seems. Panus said Max immediately made himself at home, even jumping right into Panus’s human bed.

Congratulations Ed and Max! Hope you both enjoy your new life together.

The search for an Indiana basketball coach has involved a whole lot of folks speculating that Boston Celtics head coach and Hoosier State native Brad Stevens potentially coming home. Despite the fact that Stevens said earlier this week that he had no interest in replacing Archie Miller, rumors have circulated for days that he is the name that folks in Bloomington want more than any.

In response, Stevens has apparently decided to come out far more forcefully than he did earlier in the week. During his pregame press availability before the Celtics took on the Sacramento Kings, Stevens once again said he has no interest in leaving the NBA for the Big Ten.

And then, in an attempt to show his Boston credibility, Stevens gave a quote that does seem to indicate he is not going anywhere any time soon.

If I may editorialize for a moment, I never imagined that a person would be so eager to shoot down job rumors that they would say they eat food from Dunkin’ Donuts (no disrespect to Dunkin’) and root for the New England Patriots. But hey, it’s pretty evident that these rumors have bugged Stevens and he wanted to shoot this down as forcefully as possible. Plus as an added bonus, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN has his back here.

You’ve just landed on our weekly streetwear roundup, where we pick out the best of the week’s apparel drops in order to help you get your spring fit on point and get you ready to step outside looking your best. This week, for whatever reason, a lot of labels decided to dip into a ’90s rave-meets-psychedelia aesthetic and you know what? We’re not mad at it.

Temperatures are beginning to heat up nationwide, vaccines are being distributed (though not as quickly as we’d like), and it’s seeming more and more likely that we’re going to have an actual real summer this year. You know, warm days spent with people that we love, and you’re damn sure that when that happens we’re going to be the best-dressed ones at the BBQ.

It’s time to ditch the sweat pants and pajamas and finally put on a pair of shoes. Let’s dive in.

Travis Scott Cacti Agave Spiked Seltzer Collection

Coinciding with the release of his new line of spike seltzer, CACTI, Travis Scott is dropping a brand new merch collection that celebrates the rapper’s latest venture. The collection consists of a total of 34 pieces and features streetwear staples like hoodies, shirts, work jackets, and crewnecks with a gritty workwear aesthetic.

Rounding out the collection are several accessories including ping pong balls, a neon sign, an ice cube tray, and a rug all bearing the CACTI spiked seltzer graphic.

The collection ranges from $20-$350 and is out now, hit up the Drink Cacti webstore to shop the full collection.

Lazy Oaf Summer 2021 Collection

London-based label Lazy Oaf is digging deep into its UK rave scene heritage with this summer collection that attempts to update the look of the 90s electronic music scene for the modern age. The collection is quite extensive, with a total of 53 pieces in total and is set to be released in three drops, the first of which is available this week.

Expect lots of smiley faces, because it wouldn’t be UK rave music without smiley faces, bucket hats, bags and accessories, pants that turn into shorts, and graphics-heavy button-ups, shirts, and sweaters of all kinds that really look more like what we imagine ’90s UK club culture to look like and not what it really looked like. Trust us, that’s a good thing.

The Lazy Oaf Summer 2021 collection is available now at the Lazy Oaf webstore.

Supreme Spring Summer 2021 Drop 4

This week brings Supreme’s fourth Spring Summer 2021 drop and compared to the previous weeks, this is a much quieter release. No big collaborations here, just a simple collection of skatewear essentials that harken back to the simpler, more playful days of the iconic brand.

The collection is still skewing more towards the cool weather days of early spring — as you can see in the S label hoodies, which are available in five colorways, or the back-printed middle finger Hysteric portrait hoodies, which are available in six colorways. The full collection shifts between minimal logo designs and louder more graphics-heavy offerings, with not a lot in between.

The fourth Supreme Spring Summer 2021 drop is available now at the Supreme webstore.

Garage Spring 2021 Collection

Montréal based label Garage is dropping a comfy and casual collection for Spring 2021 and has enlisted a star-studded cast of musicians to model the collection, including Tkay Maidza, María Isabel, and Justin Skye to name a few. The collection consists of loungey basics like sweat pants, knit crop top sweaters, loose button-ups and tank-tops.

A great collection if you’re looking for modern silhouettes without the loud graphics you’d expect from modern-day streetwear.

Garage’s Spring 2021 collection is out now, shop the collection at the Garage webstore.

Louis Vuitton Summer 2021 Menswear Capsule

If Lazy Oaf’s take on ‘90s rave culture was just a little too safe for you, look no further than this subtler rave-influenced collection from the mind of Louis V’s Virgil Abloh. Like most Abloh collections, this capsule has everything, whether you’re looking to suit up or chill in the sand, all featuring Louis Vuitton’s monogram print dipped in a psychedelic watercolor aesthetic.

Highlights of the collection include the blue splatter zip up and the tropical monogram crew neck and, yes, there are bucket hats here, too. For this release, Louis Vuitton tried to implement a more eco-friendly design process — the collection’s color palette was created without the use of Chlorine or harmful metals and the cotton used was officially certified by the Better Cotton Initiative and the Global Organic Textile Standard.

Shop the Louis Vuitton Spring 2021 menswear capsule at the Louis Vuitton online store.

UNIQLO AIRism Facemask

UNIQLO makes one of the most comfortable and easy to wear face masks in the game right now and they’ve finally heard our call to drop their AIRism facemask in any other color besides white! Now dropping in navy, blue and brown, this triple-layer mask features a lightweight mesh design that feels pleasing on the skin, featuring fabric-covered elastic ear straps with UNIQLO’s special UV and air-particle protection.

Pick up a set of three for $14.90 at the UNIQLO online store.

For the ninth time in college basketball history and the first time since 2016, a 15-seed has beaten a 2-seed in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament. Oral Roberts, the champions of the Summit League, took down the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes in an overtime thriller, 75-72. The win marks the second time in program history that the Golden Eagles advanced past the first round of the Tournament.

Oral Roberts, which had not made it to the Big Dance since 2008 and entered Friday afternoon as 16.5-point underdogs, won this game by demolishing the Buckeyes from behind the three-point line and protecting the basketball. They made 11 of their 35(!) attempts from three — Ohio State only made five — and forced the Buckeyes into 15 turnovers while only giving the ball away six times.

The stars of the show were big man Kevin Obamor and fearless guard Max Abmas, who combined to score 59 of the team’s 75 points. The former battled admirably against the Buckeye frontcourt, going 9-for-21 from the field and 5-for-12 from three while hauling in 11 rebounds. The latter, the nation’s top scorer, was likewise dynamic, going 10-for-24 from the field and 5-for-10 from three. They both hit big shots and battled all game, taking it to the Ohio State defense.

On the other side of the floor, the usually efficient Buckeye offense couldn’t get into any sort of a rhythm against the Golden Eagle defense. Ohio State shot 29-for-67 (43.3 percent) from the field, 5-for-23 (21.7 percent) from three, and 9-for-18 at the charity stripe. Despite the fact that they mauled a smaller Oral Roberts team on the glass, outrebounding them by 15, their propensity to turn the ball over and inability to hit shots when it mattered was ultimately their undoing.

With the win, the Golden Eagles will go on to play seventh-seeded Florida on Sunday.

For years, people have been noticing how certain predictions of the future in The Simpsons end up actually coming true, like Trump’s presidential campaign and Kamala Harris’ Inauguration Day outfit. But now, people have noticed that Donald Glover’s Emmy-nominated series Atlanta may have coincidentally made an accurate pop culture prediction about Justin Bieber. The singer released his album Justice on Friday, a title that Atlanta forecast in their first season’s episode “Nobody Beats The Biebs.”

The episode originally aired back on September 27 2016. Earn’s cousin and client, Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles, participated in a celebrity basketball game benefiting the community’s youth. The celebrity in question ended up being Justin Bieber. Instead of tapping Bieber to act in the episode, the show cast Black actor Austin Crute.

During the episode, Bieber held a press conference at the charity basketball game where he announced his next album would be titled — you guessed it — Justice. “I’m not a bad guy. I actually love Christ,” Bieber says in a scene from the episode. “I guess I’ve just been hanging out with the wrong people. Which is why I want to sing this new single from my upcoming album, Justice.”

Watch a clip from Atlanta‘s “Nobody Beats The Biebs” episode above.

Justice is out now via Def Jam. Get it here.

The co-creator of the COVID-19 vaccine that’s provided a pathway to normalcy after a year of devastation says that the same technology will soon be used to fight cancer.

In January 2020, Ozlem Tureci, co-founder of the German company BioNTech with her husband, Ugur Sahin, were working on a way to use the body’s immune system to tackle cancerous tumors when they heard about a mysterious virus that originated in China.

The couple quickly decided to switch the focus of their project to confronting the COVID-19 virus which quickly spread worldwide.

In just 11 months, BioNTech, in partnership with U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, had the vaccine approved for use in Britain, with the U.S. following shortly after.

“It pays off to make bold decisions and to trust that if you have an extraordinary team, you will be able to solve any problem and obstacle which comes your way in real time,” Tureci told The Associated Press in an interview.

The vaccines made by BioNTech as well as its U.S.-rival, Moderna, use messenger RNA, or mRNA, to carry instructions into the body to make proteins that prime it to attack a specific virus. The company has been using the same technology to create a vaccine that fights tumors.

“We have several different cancer vaccines based on mRNA,” said Tureci

via BioNTech

The cancer treatment works a bit differently than the COVID-19 vaccine. The COVID-19 vaccine is made to prevent people from catching the virus, the cancer vaccines are targeted to both the individual and their tumor.

For cancer, the mRNA is used to deliver protein codes designed to attack a specific tumor in the body. The cells then produce proteins that train the system to guard off any occurrences of the cancer.

Asked when a breakthrough treatment for cancer may be available for the general public, Tureci predicts sometime in the near future. She says it’s “very difficult to predict in innovative development. But we expect that within only a couple of years, we will also have our vaccines (against) cancer at a place where we can offer them to people.”

In 2017, the company reported that an immunotherapy it created to fight melanoma was successful in the 13 people that were treated with its vaccine. After going through the therapy all participants showed elevated immunity against the mutated bits of their tumors.

On Friday, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded the couple the Order of Merit, one of the country’s highest decorations. The ceremony was also attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“You began with a drug to treat cancer in a single individual,” Steinmeier told the couple. “And today we have a vaccine for all of humanity.”

Tureci says that receiving the award is “indeed an honor” but it never would have been possible without the work of many.

“It’s about the effort of many: our team at BioNTech, all the partners who were involved, also governments, regulatory authorities, which worked together with a sense of urgency,” Tureci said. “The way we see it, this is an acknowledgment of this effort and also a celebration of science.”

In a statement that perfectly encapsulates the stark contrast between the current administration and its predecessor, Dr. Jill Biden tweeted that “hugs are coming” as she celebrated “100 million shots in arms” on Friday. During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden promised 100 million Americans would be vaccinated within his first 100 days in office, but that goal has already been achieved after just 58 days. Instead of resting on their laurels, the administration is already making plans to shoot for an even more aggressive target. Via the Associated Press:

With the nation now administering about 2.5 million shots per day, Biden, who promised to set a new goal for vaccinations next week, teased the possibility of setting a 200 million dose goal by his 100th day in office.

“We may be able to double it,” he told reporters before leaving the White House for Atlanta.

Clearly, the First Lady is pleased with the progress, and people are loving the vibes from her “hugs are coming” tweet as Americans finally can see a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.

One person who’s probably not enjoying Dr. Biden’s tweet is Melania Trump. The former First Lady was reportedly salty over how quickly the country embraced the new First Lady and the positive publicity she’s received right out of the gate. According to CNN, Melania has been “bitter” about her public perception, which used to be the highest of her husband’s administration, but suffered following the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol because that’s definitely the main concern following an attack on the nation’s capital. Super weird why people like Dr. Biden more.

(Via Jill Biden on Twitter)

Ever since digital artist Beeple raked in $69 million from selling an original artwork as an NFT, people everywhere are joining the craze. Already, musicians like Grimes and Diplo have made a sizeable sum off of NFTs and now, viral stars are looking to capitalize off the movement. Nathan Apodaca, the man behind last summer’s viral skateboarding TikTok that includes Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” is looking to sell the original video as an NFT, but it won’t be exactly the same as the original.

As previously reported, Apodaca’s NFT won’t include “Dreams,” and the Ocean Spray cranberry juice bottle that he’s holding will be blurred out. It was originally reported that the changes were made because Apodaca did not hold the rights to either. TMZ now reports that Apodaca was pushing for “Dreams” to be included in the sale, but Stevie Nicks was the one who shot down the possibility.

According to the report, Apodaca offered Nicks a 50 percent cut of the NFT’s final sale in exchange for giving him the rights to the song. But Nicks said no. Apodaca’s team says he was a little hurt, since Nicks was one of the only Fleetwood Mac members to not reach out to him after his TikTok put “Dreams” back on people’s radar.

Even still, Apodaca plans to go ahead with the sale of the NFT, which has a starting bid of $500,000. Apodaca doesn’t plan on keeping all the money for himself, however. Instead, he aims to use the funds to buy his parents a house and open an event center in his hometown of Idaho Falls.

There is no shortage of memes to be had when a team named Colgate participates in the NCAA Tournament, but Arkansas Razorbacks head coach Eric Musselman took the wordplay to a new level today when he rallied his team for their game against the Raiders by proudly squeezing a full tube of toothpaste all over the carpet of the locker room.

“We gotta squeeze Colgate,” Musselman told his players, according to a video put out by the program’s social media team.

While Musselman’s motivation tactics are questionable here, it is admittedly a nice dunk on Colgate. The school brought up old memories by tweeting at Bucknell, which eliminated Arkansas in 2019. What’s one person’s trash is another’s treasure, as they say, and Musselman’s bizarre pregame speech became a viral clip.

Fortunately, it’s all good for a laugh now that Arkansas beat Colgate, but it also would have been fascinating to see how players responded to that toothpaste stain on the floor of their locker room postgame if they had indeed lost. Picture walking in after being upset big time, and you see the remains of your coach’s performance art in the middle of the room while the pain of the loss is still settling in. Could have gone either way.

Practically every mom I know occasionally daydreams about quitting-doing-all-the-things. Sometimes the impulse is born of exhaustion. Sometimes it’s the relentless daily tedium of cleaning, cooking, reminding, over and over and over without end. And sometimes it’s the desire for someone else to notice that these things actually need to be done and someone has to actually do it.

Even moms who share chores with spouses and kids often find themselves carrying the mental load of figuring out what needs to be done, monitoring whether it’s getting done, and organizing who’s doing what, and reminding/nagging/harassing her family members until it gets done. Sometimes moms just want to let all of that go and see what happens.

That’s what a mom who goes by Miss Potkin on Twitter did this week. Channeling the fed-upness of mothers everywhere, she just up and stopped doing household chores to see what would happen. Two days later, she began sharing the saga in a Twitter thread that’s as entertaining as it is satsifying.

Letting go and letting your family sit in their own filth until they can’t take it anymore takes patience and discipline. There’s a reason moms generally do-all-the-things regardless of how cooperative the family is. We don’t want to live in a mess. But she stuck to her guns.

For a minute, things were looking promising with the garbage being taken out.

However, the dishes still remained mysteriously undone. As did the laundry.

“There is a pan on the cooker with a single sausage in it,” she wrote. “It’s been there for two days. I can’t look at it because it’s turned the colour of the man that washes up in Cast Away.”

Oh, and the downstairs bathroom is out of toilet paper.

Those who might feel judgy at this point likely live with people who are naturally neat, or just can’t fathom themselves how someone could let a sausage sit for two days. But take it from a mom who let go of policing her kids’ bedrooms to see how long it would take them to decide to clean on their own—some human beings are willing to overlook all manner of mess and filth before it becomes too much.

And sometimes they have to learn firsthand the amount of extra work such obliviousness leads to.

Hilariously, even though the dishwasher finally did get loaded, that’s basically all that happened. Miss Potkin shared a video tour of the kitchen with the extraneous things that didn’t get done or got half-done.

Of course, the negative Nancies showed up to voice their judgmental opinions about her experiment, her home, her family, her choice of husband, and everything else because moms literally can’t catch a break. It’s a silly, fun exercise to make a point that millions of moms can relate to. If it doesn’t apply to you, move along, Nance.

“We do not ‘live like this,'” she wrote. “This is a lesson in wanting to be heard and respected and not having to repeat yourself when things slip. We’re navigating the day-to-day in extraordinary times and for me, the past two days have been funnier than anything else. I think we’re all entitled to run our own experiments, be amused, push a situation to its limit if we so choose. No one needs to be lectured by those that have failed to see the silly joy in what’s happening here.”

And the experiment slowly started paying off as someone replaced the toilet paper.

But the dishwasher…

“We keep our homes tidy because love,” Miss Potkin wrote. “We cook food and set tables and fill the air with scents of roses and fresh laundry because love. Love is patient but love is also fucking tired because she works 14 hour days.”

“I know we are ALL tired,” she added, “but I am most tired. Me. I AM ALL THE TIRED.”

All the moms are all the tired.

Miraculously, it only took three days of being completely hands-off for her family to take note and clean the house.

Lesson learned. Mission accomplished. Let’s hope it sticks.

Moms are not always the ones who pick up most of the slack in a household, but they usually are. And when that work is taken for granted, it sucks. When everyone in the house pays more attention and takes the initiative to tidy, neaten, clean, replace, launder, put away, etc., moms are less stressed and tired and everyone benefits. If it take up and quitting for a while to help the family see it, so be it.