LeBron James and the Lakers are looking for answers after dropping Game 1 of their opening round playoff series against the Blazers on Tuesday, which raised all sorts of questions about their depth and whether they have enough offensive firepower to make a real run at a title this season.
But just as promised since before the NBA restart in Orlando, he remains dedicated to using his platform and his influence to raise awareness and mobilize citizens to spark meaningful social justice reform amid the Black Lives Matter movement that has taken a stronghold in cities around the country.
In a recent interview with Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, LeBron talked about the voting rights initiative that he’s spearheading with other professional athletes, and in the wake of the Democratic National Convention that’s taking place virtually this week, Haynes asked him whether he was officially endorsing one candidate over the other, the answer being obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention to his track record in recent years.
LeBron James says urging people – particularly African Americans – to go to the polls is not about swaying them to a candidate. I asked who he’s endorsing for President of the United States in the upcoming election. @NBAonTNTpic.twitter.com/I4WLihehjU
James is obviously speaking of his outspokenness against Donald Trump and that his support will be behind Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. On Monday, the “More Than a Vote” coalition ran an open letter in The Undefeated urging fans to join the ongoing fight against widespread voter suppression tactics that target predominately black and minority citizens across the country. The letter outlined a number of things citizens can do, including volunteering at polling stations, helping people register to vote, sharing information, and donating money.
These efforts will be vital to ensure that as many votes as possible are counted in November, when issues of corruption and interference threaten to undermine the democratic process in what will be the most important election of our lifetime.
Over the past four years, I’ve covered new ice cream releases in early June. That way, you can enjoy them all summer long. But this year… when did summer even start? Is it defined by weather or ease-of-living? Because life hasn’t felt easy since March. Also, do we even want more summer? Don’t we just need it over with?
All the existential angst of 2020 slowed down our ice cream rankings, to be sure. But with August past its midway point and the season coming to an end, we suddenly feel like… well… not extending summer exactly, but definitely maximizing it in whatever ways we can. And eating ice cream certainly has that effect. Plus all the national brands (and many local ones) ship anywhere in the country these days. Meaning that you can get these flavors right to your doorstep — via delivery or a shopping service — without breaking quarantine.
Here are the best new ice cream flavors for the Summer of 2020 to help you finish the season strong.
Pro Tip: As a maker of ice cream, a lover of ice cream, and a man who weighs a solid 20 pounds too many because of ice cream, I take my home-eating experience very seriously. This year, I discovered that if you buy storebought waffle cones and toast them in the oven for a few minutes, even previously stale cones will crisp up enough to taste homemade.
They’ll also lose their shape though, so be prepared to reshape them when you take them out of the oven.
McConnell’s S’Mores
Last year, McConnell’s won “flavor of the summer” with their “Honey Cornbread Biscuit.” It’s still on their site, in limited quantities, so you probably don’t want to miss that one, if you haven’t tried it yet. But the S’mores entry from this year — which actually isn’t on their site right now, likely because it’s temporarily sold out — is also a winner.
The secret here is that the marshmallow bit — the ice cream base — isn’t saccharine sweet. It’s more like a modified-vanilla bean, with new flavor notes but no overwhelming sugary-gooeyness. The graham cracker swirl gives a nice textural balance, while the fudgy chocolate is gooey, which works nicely.
Bottom line: A pint that conjures s’mores without the mess. And this isn’t even McConnell’s best flavor of the year.
Häagen-Dazs has really been leaning into the whole booze things over the past few years — their Spirits line caught our eye in 2019, too. This year’s entry is four things all at once:
Boozy but not overpowering.
Tart in a way that ice cream rarely is (that white grape/ vinous tartness).
Incredibly creamy.
The first time I’ve really found myself wanting more of anything Rosé flavored, including the wine itself.
The alcohol infusion is legit without being overpowering here and the “peaches and cream” concept with wine really seems to work.
Bottom line: The best thing to happen to rosé since the memes.
Serendipity is new, but the ice creamery behind it, Serendipity 3, is a New York institution. Especially amongst celebrities, a point the property is very eager to make on their website. Well, what can we say? The famous people are right this time. Serendipity is making quality pints with thoroughly thought out flavor combinations.
Earlier in the summer, Dane Rivera said that the tartness of cheesecake wasn’t really working as ice cream in many of The Cheesecake Factory’s flavors. But it shines here — with literal bits of cheesecake and graham cracker crust embedded in an ice cream base that would best be described as “light on the strawberry.”
Bottom line: This is a more balanced, brighter strawberry ice cream. And definitely the best strawberry flavor I’ve had in a long time.
Thre are a few flavors this year that are just really, really good riffs on a classic ice cream iterations. This is the perfect example. The Three Queens Coffee Blend, from Allegro Coffee, is produced in East Africa by three different collectives of female coffee farmers and entrepreneurs across Malawi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The result? Really, really good coffee ice cream.
How much better could a coffee ice cream be than the classic Häagen-Dazs coffee pint? Well, a fair bit. Whereas other coffee flavors are just that, this is actually definable as a light roast, with layered notes of chocolate and tropical fruit and a fantastic aroma.
Bottom line: It’s literally the best coffee ice cream I’ve ever tried and a great reminder that classics are classics for a reason.
Ripple is less of an ice creamery and more of a plant-based dairy — selling a variety of vegan milks and powders. But that might be for the better, because they clearly know how to make a vegan flavor taste like the real thing. I’m calling out the cookies and cream, but really any part of this four-pack would hit this list before vegan offerings from most full-blown ice creameries (including many of the other brands on this list).
All that said, don’t be fooled into thinking that we’re talking about healthy ice cream here. Whereas low cal ice creams were definitely a thing (which I campaigned vehemently against) for a while, this year saw releases that were every bit as fatty and sugary as their dairy-filled counterparts. That’s fine with me. I know what I’m getting into when I have a bowl of ice cream, I embrace it. If your approach is similar, you’ll love these flavors.
Bottom line: This is the Impossible Meat of ice creams — you won’t know it’s not vegan.
The pie crust in this flavor, made with rye flour, is the heartiest crust you’ll find in any ice cream and 99.99% of actual pies. It ends up making the perfect flavor combo (in a perfect ratio) — balancing out the boysenberry ice cream base and adding nice texture and flavor notes. I think perhaps the best thing to say about this tart-savory combo is that with 50 pints for testing in the freezer, it was the only one I found almost empty when I got around to trying it.
Bottom line: Another great example of McConnell’s distinct ability to produce flavors that feel bright, un-muddled, and natural — while also coming up with creative plays on classic flavors.
THROWBACK PICK: Salt & Straw Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons
Salt & Straw
Unless I’m mistaken, Salt & Straw — the dominant food-truck-turned-multi-city-scoop-shop that really defined the hipster ice cream boom in LA and Portland (in San Francisco it was Bi-Rite Creamery; NYC had multiple entries that could lay claim) — didn’t have any new, non-vegan pints come out this year.
Which, technically, means they’re not on our list. But it’s a quarantine year, so exceptions can be made.
Time to shout out the flavor that made Salt & Straw famous: Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons. This pint is the flavor that brought salted ice cream to the masses. Sure, “salted caramel” was around — but it was still overly sweet. This is a legit sea salt ice cream with caramel running throughout (and not too much of it, either). It’s so salty that it’ll remind you of making vanilla ice cream with rock salt as a kid and accidentally getting some of the rock salt in your batter. But by the end of the pint, you won’t mind if the caramel is gone — the salt is powerful-yet-balanced, the texture is pure silk, and the sweetness ratio is spot-on.
Bottom line: The best pint of ice cream I’ve ever had and a lock as the dessert during my death row meal.
Chance The Rapper lends a verse to up and coming rapper and fellow Chicagoan Baha Banks’ new song, “Shake That Ass,” which Labeled as a track “FOR CHICAGOOOO.” A track that would do well in a strip club, it finds the Chicago natives showing their support for the ladies who want to shake their assets while encouraging those in the audience to “blow that bag” and “spend that cash.” On his verse, Chance The Rapper is in a very energetic mood as he prompts the ladies to “throw that left cheek on the beat.”
The track arrives in a fairly quiet year for Chance. Earlier this year he debuted a new song with Lil Wayne and Young Thug and appeared alongside Peter CottonTale’s “Pray For Real” and G Herbo’s “PTSD.” He’s still been in the spotlight: Last month, Chance was criticized for his stance on Kanye West, particularly his run for president. This came after the rapper criticized J. Cole for his own criticisms of Noname on his “Snow On Tha Bluff” track.
As for Baha Banks, the Chicago native has been on her grind recently, with her last release arriving at the top of the year with “Need Dat.”
You can listen to “Shake That Ass” in the video above.
It was the biggest moment in franchise history. The Toronto Raptors had just beaten the Golden State Warriors in Game 6 of the NBA Finals to win their first-ever championship, and team president Masai Ujiri was making his way down to the court to celebrate with his team.
What happened next is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit filed by Alan Strickland, the Alameda County Sheriffs deputy involved in the incident, and a counter-suit by Ujiri. Strickland’s suit alleges that he was the victim of assault and, as a result, has suffered physical and emotional anguish related to the incident. But new body cam footage introduced as evidence this week clearly shows he was the aggressor.
Strickland’s suit claims that Ujiri pushed him first, but two separate camera angles show that Strickland forcefully shoved Ujiri twice as he was showing him his credentials.
New video footage appears to show Raptors president Masai Ujiri didn’t instigate the altercation he was sued over after Toronto won the NBA title in June 2019 pic.twitter.com/mMsD6PuIto
Normal Powell, Fred VanVleet, and head coach Nick Nurse all weighed on the development, particularly in light of the Black Lives Matter movement that has spotlighted just this type of police aggression against minorities without cause and sought justice and reform.
Norm Powell on the Masai video: “We saw it as a team… I’m just really glad that the video came out and Masai is able to clear his name… It’s exactly what we’ve been fighting for and we’re gonna continue that fight and take out the bad apples in the police force.”
The altercation cast a dark shadow over what was supposed to be the most joyous occasion in team history, and the ongoing legal battle has sought to defame Ujiri, but this new evidence should put any lingering doubt to rest and turn the wheels of justice back squarely in Strickland’s direction.
The L.A. Clippers will be looking to take a 2-0 series lead over the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday night after outlasting the Mavs in Game 1.
However, the task of slowing down Dallas’ offense will get tougher for the Clippers as they will be without Patrick Beverley for Game 2. Doc Rivers announced prior to the game that Beverley is dealing with a calf strain that has him moving poorly at the moment.
Doc Rivers says Patrick Beverley is out with a left calf strain. Said the point guard wasn’t moving well and they scratched him.
Doncic already gave the veteran guard fits in the opener, as he went off for 42 points in his posteason debut and seemed rather unbothered by Beverley’s point of attack defense. Still, the Clippers would like to be able to throw various looks at Doncic and Beverley’s antagonistic attack is one that they hope can wear down the young superstar. If Beverley isn’t moving well, though, he’d become a liability on that end and as such Rivers and the Clippers have scratched him and will move forward with, likely, more minutes for Reggie Jackson and Landry Shamet, who played a combined 24 minutes of relatively low-impact ball in Game 1.
If there is a weakness on the Clippers it is their point guard rotation, and with Beverley out those issues are further exacerbated. How Rivers shifts his rotations and how the L.A. reserves respond to increased roles will be important if they are to take a 2-0 series lead.
According to a new report from TMZ,Tory Lanez may receive an additional charge for the July shooting incident that left Megan Thee Stallion with gunshot wounds in her both of her feet. The Los Angeles district attorney is reportedly now also considering a felony assault on top of the previous charge. Following the incident, Tory was only charged with possession of a firearm, but in the weeks following the shooting, signs have pointed to Tory being the aggressor and the one who shot Megan twice in her foot.
The new report arrives hours after the Houston rapper took to Instagram with pictures of her injuries from the shooting in response to internet rumors that doubted the true extent of her injuries. The rumors most likely arose after fans saw videos of her enjoying herself on different occasions, including out on a boat with Maliibu Miitch. In the photo she posted to Instagram, stitches can be seen on her foot as a doctor works to either remove or insert stitches on her other foot. Megan’s frustration with the internet rumors was palpable in the Instagram caption to the photo. “Why would I lie about getting shot? Why are y’all so upset that I don’t wanna be in the bed sad?” she questioned. “Why y’all upset that I can walk? I got my stitches out my feet like 2 weeks ago and I was ready to go celebrate ‘WAP’ going No.1.”
After a heartbreaking overtime loss to the Nuggets in Game 1 in which Donovan Mitchell had 57 points — the third highest scoring playoff performance in NBA history — the Utah Jazz bounced back to dominate Denver in Game 2 in a 122-96 win.
It was an impressive effort given that it could’ve been easily demoralizing to drop a game in which your star player has a career night, but instead, the rest of the team stepped up around Mitchell and provided him with the support needed to rout the Nuggets in Game 2. With the series now all knotted up at 1-1, we’re going to look at a few key takeaways from Game 2 and what both teams will look to do going forward in this series.
Donovan Mitchell Has Taken Another Step
Mitchell was superb again with 30 points and eight assists on a preposterous 10-for-14 shooting, including hitting six of his seven attempts from beyond the arc. Even factoring in Denver’s defensive woes, his 87 points two games into this series demands some reevaluation of his status in the hierarchy of the league’s stars. Mitchell has long been asked to do a lot for the Utah offense, but in the first two games of this series he’s looked more in control of his game and this Jazz offense than ever before. He’s become a masterful pick-and-roll ball-handler, where he’s not just hunting for his own shots but has seemingly taken a step forward as a passer, as he made a couple of absurd dishes to teammates in the corner on Wednesday.
That attribute is particularly important right now with Mike Conley Jr. out, although he seems on track to return by Game 3, but even with Conley in the lineup, Mitchell setting the table for his teammates is so critical to the Utah offense succeeding. We know he can get buckets — and on Wednesday he was lights out off the dribble pulling up over late contests from bigs hedging on the pick-and-roll — but that added dynamic as both an efficient scorer and facilitator gives this Jazz offense some serious life.
Denver Remains Lost On Defense
Denver got absolutely blitzed in this one, and a chunk of that was simply lights out shooting from Utah’s others. The Jazz were 20-for-44 from three on the day, with Royce O’Neale, Joe Ingles, and Jordan Clarkson all lacing it up for a combined 11 threes. That’s likely not sustainable, but Denver’s defense simply looks lost in the sauce right now. They’ve tried both drop coverage and hard hedging on Mitchell in pick-and-roll to almost no success over the first two games, continuing a worrying trend from the seeding round where they were posted a league worst defensive rating.
Being without Gary Harris and Will Barton, the latter of whom has left the Bubble, has created serious problems on the defensive end and they can’t seem to figure out what scheme is best for the personnel they have, maybe in part because they simply don’t have the personnel right now to execute much of anything on that end. Utah is, typically, not an offensive marvel without Bogdanovic in the lineup, but through two games they’ve excelled.
The worst part of this for Denver is it’s hard to see what the answers are with the roster they have available. Torrey Craig is about the only reliable on-ball defender they have on the perimeter, and their hedging approach kept Mitchell out of the paint and off the free throw line. Maybe you just have to live with him hoisting off the dribble threes and hope those stop falling, and continue trying to pressure him into passing the ball and hoping that three-point shooting the Jazz posted in Game 2 goes away. Otherwise, you risk opening up the paint for Mitchell to attack downhill on drop coverage, where he cooked Denver in Game 1. We’ll see what Mike Malone cooks up for Game 3, but it has to be exhausting trying to come up with a defensive game plan this group can execute without Harris and Barton.
It’s Jordan Clarkson Time
With Conley returning, Clarkson won’t have as big a role to play for the Jazz, but he’s still going to be asked to carry a significant load as a ball-handler and scorer for the second unit going forward. On Wednesday, Clarkson had a career night with 26 points, four rebounds, and three assists off the bench, hitting on nine of his 18 attempts from the field and four of his nine threes. Clarkson has never been a marvel of efficiency, but he’s a bucket-getter and provides a much needed dynamic off the bench for Utah. With Denver down two of their three best wing defenders, there’s ample opportunity for Clarkson to eat and he’s never one to pass up a chance to fire away.
What Utah can’t have is Clarkson go cold and continue firing at the expense of looks for the likes of Mitchell and a returning Conley. When Jordan Clarkson Time is good, it’s a whole lot of fun, but when it goes bad, he isn’t one to suddenly stop shooting and he can send the offense into a spiral by forcing it.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Marvel Cinematic Universe mostly focused on white men in movies directed by white men. That’s changed. Since Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, Marvel movies have diversified, casting men and women of color as the superheroes and putting men and women of color in the director’s chair. Only two weeks after it was announced that the Captain Marvel sequel would be helmed by Candyman director Nia DaCosta, making her the franchise’s first directed by a black woman, Deadline reports that Olivia Wilde has signed on to helm an as-yet-specified Marvel movie that will definitely have a female lead.
Mind you, Wilde’s contract is with the Sony wing of Marvel, which controls Spider-Man and Venom, the former of which is on loan to the Disney-led MCU — a deal that last summer infamously almost unraveled completely. While, again, it’s not yet known which character Wilde will nab, it’s believed it will be Spider-Woman, the alias used by multiple women and who first appeared in comics circa 1977.
Last year, Wilde, the actress best known for House, Tron: Legacy, and Drinking Buddies, added feature film director to her CV with the much-loved high school comedy Booksmart. Not only will she follow the path of many indie filmmakers who’ve graduated to big-budget comic book movies, but she’ll also join a growing number of female filmmakers who’ve worked in the genre, among them Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984), Anna Boden (co-director of Captain Marvel), Cathy Yan (Birds of Prey), Cate Shortland (Black Widow), Chloé Zhao (The Eternals), as well as the aforementioned DaCosta. May there be many more.
The Brooklyn Nets are staring at a 2-0 hole in their series against the Toronto Raptors. Following Wednesday afternoon’s game, a 104-99 loss in which Brooklyn fought valiantly but couldn’t quite see out a win, the team announced a bit of news that would make the already daunting task of coming back against the defending champions a little more difficult.
The Nets announced that ultra-reliable sharpshooter Joe Harris had to leave the Bubble. It is not clear exactly why he had to depart, but as the team described it, Harris needed to go tend to a non-medical personal matter.
Joe Harris has left the NBA Campus in Orlando due to a non-medical personal matter. The status of his return will be updated as information becomes available.
Obviously the No. 1 priority is that everything is ok with Harris and whatever he needs to go addressed is resolved quickly. Losing him is a tough blow for an already-shorthanded Nets squad that only used eight players in their loss on Wednesday. Harris was particularly good against the champions, scoring 14 points and pulling in a career-high 15 rebounds.
As the team mentioned in its statement, it is unclear what Harris’ availability will be moving forward this postseason. This season, he averaged career-highs in scoring and rebounding, as he went for 14.5 points and 4.3 rebounds a night. Game 3 between the Raptors and the Nets will take place on Friday afternoon, with the festivities tipping off at 1:30 p.m. EST on NBA TV.
It’s one of the less painful headaches of the modern era, especially during the quarantine era: You switch on Netflix, hoping to kill an evening, and you spend most of that time flipping through their seemingly endless wares, despite all the “50 Best [Whatever] On Netflix” lists out there. If this problem — Springsteen’s old “57 channels and nothing on” multiplied several times over — happens to you, then here’s some good news: Netflix has been testing out a shuffle feature that will do the deciding for you.
This comes from Tech Crunch (as caught by Entertainment Weekly), which reports that, back in July, the world’s first major streaming service began testing out a shuffle button on a select number of viewers. By August they’d expanded the testing pool, though it’s not how many subscribers will have the option of throwing up their hands and just watching, say, a few episodes of Highway to Heaven or the John Travolta cyber-thriller, Swordfish.
For those on the lookout for the shuffle button, be warned that it doesn’t appear in the same place on everyone’s screen, if it appears at all. It can pop up below the profile icon or in the side menu or in the “billboard” area where they show trailers and new releases. And it’s not a pure shuffle option, offering you a title purely by random. Instead, it’s tailor-made for you, based on what you’ve already watched and guesstimating what you might not turn off. (It’s also worth noting Netflix did a version of this last year, where they let users pick a random episode of a specific TV show, but that was limited to one show per shuffle.)
Mind you, Netflix’s shuffle feature is still in the testing phase. But who knows? Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones and suddenly find yourself watching the Larry the Cable Guy-Bill Engvall-DJ Qualls comedy Delta Farce.
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