Category: Viral

Rich The Kid has spent much of 2020 caught up in lawsuits. Back in February, the “New Freezer” rapper was hit with a lawsuit from his former management company, Blueprint Artist Management, who claimed he had not paid them for their services to him from the past three years. The company claimed they are owed $3.5 million in unpaid fees that accumulated following a deal both parties agreed to in 2017. Seven months later, a judge has made a decision in the case.

According to The Blast, Rich The Kid has been ordered to pay $1.1 million to Blueprint Artist Management after the rapper failed to respond to their lawsuit against him. The judge’s awarded price of $1.1 million is comprised of $960,614 in damages, $143,696.28 in interest, and $873 in costs, for a grand total of $1,105,183.28. The management company’s original lawsuit for $3.5 million included unpaid commission in the amount of $500,000 and a termination fee in the amount of $700,000 after Rich ended their contract in 2019. The lawsuit also states that Rich was waiting for a loan from his label in order to pay what he owed to Blueprint Artist Management.

At the end of May, a judge ordered Rich to pay over $300,000 to his landlord after the rapper was sued for skipping rent and damaging a Hollywood Hills mansion. The damages in the mansion included a broken saltwater pool system and entertainment system.

(via The Blast

There’s plenty of news out there these days, but murder hornets are doing their best to stay atop the list of terrifying things that can kill you. The invasive species, which originate in Asia, were spotted in the Western part of the United States earlier this year, and officials now say they’re still here.

According to a story in The New York Times, “slaughter season” is upon us, and people are ready to start chasing down giant hornets. The story details one such hunter, Philip Bovenkamp, who discovered a hornet on his property and tried to do his patriotic duty and kill it.

In Washington State, the search for the colony near Mr. Bovenkamp’s property, which is near the Canadian border and about 30 miles south of Vancouver, has taken on particular urgency because the hornets are about to enter their “slaughter phase,” Mr. Spichiger said. That’s when they attack beehives in force, removing and decapitating every bee inside and then harvesting the brood and pupae for food.

If that sounds terrifying, well, try killing one as a human being. The toxins in what are colloquially called “murder hornets” can kill humans, and all Bovenkamp had on him was a can of wasp spray.

“I was a little weak in the knees” after seeing the hornet up close in the shop, he said. “My heart was beating fast.”

After Mr. Bovenkamp reported the hornet to the state Agriculture Department, Chris Looney, a state entomologist who went to the property to investigate, managed to catch an Asian giant hornet in a net — the first one caught alive in the United States, according to the department.

The plan, apparently, is to kill these hornets but also capture and track them back to their nest before the “slaughter phase” can begin in earnest. We’re all counting on you, Washington. This year has been tough enough.

[via NY Times]

Things could be going a lot better for the Miami Heat right now. The team is in an unenviable 2-0 hole in the 2020 NBA Finals, losing each of the first two games in their series against LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the Los Angeles Lakers. They’re bruised and battered, with Bam Adebayo missing Game 2 due to a shoulder injury (he’s optimistic for a return on Sunday) and Goran Dragic an unknown because of a torn plantar fascia.

It’s not great! Their most recent loss, a 124-114 defeat on Friday night, saw them fix one major problem that existed during Game 1. Their offense was tremendous, with Jimmy Butler taking on the role of playmaker, Tyler Herro having a solid performance, and Kelly Olynyk giving them a major offensive punch off the bench. They got to the free throw line a ton and had plenty of success there, hitting 31 of their 34 attempts from the charity stripe, and connected on 40.7 percent of their threes, although they didn’t shoot quite as many as they needed (11-for-27).

Their offensive rating was 125.1, which is very, very good. Their issue, however, has been on the defensive end of the floor. In Game 1, the Lakers had an offensive rating of 120.3. In Game 2, that number kicked up to 136(!), which is so good that the Golden State Warriors never hit that in any of the nine full NBA Finals games they played with Kevin Durant in the lineup. (Funny enough, the Cleveland Cavaliers managed to do that against them one time in those nine games.)

The numbers, in general, are incredibly not kind to the Heat on the defensive end of the floor. The Lakers are carving up their defense, with an effective field goal percentage of 56.6 percent and a true shooting percentage of 59.9 percent. An incredible 44.2 percent of their shots during the Finals have been threes considered “open” or “wide open,” per NBA.com. Those shots made up 32.1 percent of their shots during the regular season and 32.7 percent of their shots in the playoffs before the Finals. And of course, while that’s happening, Davis and James are getting basically whatever they want.

Getting Adebayo back and healthy should help solidify Miami’s defense a little more, if only because it means Olynyk — a very good offensive player who competes on defense but isn’t exactly Rudy Gobert — will play less. But even then, the Heat have just had zero answer for so much of what the Lakers can do. Even their vaunted zone, which has flummoxed opponents for lengthy spells throughout this postseason, just hasn’t been able to put the clamps on L.A.

Things really can’t get all that much worse and, because of this, I would like to suggest a possible solution: The Heat, which pride themselves more than any other team in basketball on their ability to out-work their opponents, should play defense like one of those overactive mid-major teams that makes the NCAA Tournament, raises hell, and goes on a run.

Consider, for a moment, the kinds of things you have come to expect out of those sorts of squads, like, say, VCU under Shaka Smart when they went all-in on Havoc, or West Virginia in those years when they have their best teams due to a high-intensity brand of basketball. These squads defend 94 feet, trap like crazy, do everything they can to force turnovers, and just generally try to throw opposing teams out of their rhythm. Even if they can’t generate a ton of turnovers or anything like that, the main goal is to do that last thing: rattle the opponent and make them uncomfortable.

Does this mean playing man-to-man for 94 feet? Sure! What about a full-court zone, either a 2-2-1 or a 1-2-1-1 or something like that? Why not! Miami’s defense, right now, could not be struggling any more against the team that was 11th in offensive rating in the NBA during the regular season. While the Lakers have two absolutely brilliant offensive players in Davis and James, they are not the offensive juggernaut that we’ve seen through two Finals games — their ORtg during the regular season was 112, it was 115.6 through the first three rounds of the playoffs, and in the Finals thus far, it’s been 126.3.

It is entirely plausible that this is just the Lakers playing really, really well, and as the series continues, they come back to earth a little bit. Even if their two stars do not slow down, the Heat banking on stuff like “Alex Caruso, Markieff Morris, and Rajon Rondo won’t continue to combine to hit 48.3 percent of their threes” probably isn’t the worst idea in the world. If I may briefly counter: It’s the NBA Finals, they have to win four of the next six games, and if the Lakers win twice, it’s over. They need to throw the farm at L.A., and why not try to do something extremely weird, like “play defense like an overly caffeinated 12-seed that wins by double-digits?”

The funny thing is the Heat have players to be able to pull off this kind of chaotic style, even for stretches. Jimmy Butler, Jae Crowder, and Andre Iguodala are all very good, very versatile, and very competitive defenders. Adebayo coming back gives them an anchor to whatever they’d what to do, and would, in theory, give the guys in front of him the freedom to fly around and do whatever they want to hunt turnovers. A lot would be asked of, say, Tyler Herro or Duncan Robinson, who would need to stay on the floor so their offense does not completely crater, but while they are hardly stout defenders, “go stand there and trap the ball-handler in the backcourt” is something they can probably do.

There is a pretty obvious achilles heel here: rebounding. But the thing is the Heat are going to get absolutely shredded on the glass no matter what happens. The Lakers have absolutely owned the glass in this series, which is not particularly stunning, because they have more big and long and physical guys than the Heat do. It is impossible to punt on something when you can’t, and unless they decide to throw out a Butler-Olynyk-Adebayo-Udonis Haslem-Meyers Leonard lineup (please do this, Erik Spoelstra), they’re gonna continue getting hammered on the glass. It will be tough, but they can, instead, sell out on trying to turn the Lakers over a ton — L.A. was 23rd in the league in turnover percentage this year.

Listen, Miami’s in a tough spot right now, and even if they can get healthy between now and Game 3, they have a major, uphill battle ahead of them. It’s worth trying out everything to fix what has been an especially porous defense, which means it is worth trying to make games as weird as humanly possible by playing defense like a hyper-aggressive mid-major college basketball team.

After making fans wait more than a year for its arrival, 21 Savage and Metro Boomin delivered their Savage Mode II joint album on Friday. The reception of the album was been well so far with fans, including Morgan Freeman’s unexpected inclusion on Savage Mode II, where he appears as a narrator, as one of the album’s most enjoyable parts. Another point of conversation from the album is rooted in 21’s song, “Snitches And Rats.” The track has many of his fans concluding that it’s an indirect shot at Tekashi 69 following the colorful rapper’s trial, prison sentence, and now-completed house arrest. While the shoe may fit for Tekashi, 21 Savage isn’t willing to entertain the rumors.

Taking to Instagram to chat with fans, 21 Savage spoke about the song and revealed that intended as a message towards the “Trollz” rapper. “I see y’all talking about the ‘Snitches & Rats’ song [being] like a 6ix9ine diss song or something,” he said in the Instagram livestream. “6ix9ine ain’t the only rat in America. He’s not the only snitch in the world, man. F*ck wrong with y’all? Y’all need to listen to that sh*t though ’cause that sh*t is facts. A rat is a f*cking rat, period.”

As for Savage Mode II, the album arrived with fifteen tracks and features from Drake, Young Thug, and Young Nudy. The album quickly made headlines shortly after its release after Drake revealed he had a past relationship with SZA back in 2008 on the album’s song “Mr. Right Now.” You can watch 21 Savage’s respond to the “Snitches And Rats” rumors above.

A major college football upset occurred on Saturday afternoon. The TCU Horned Frogs, which entered as 10.5-point underdogs, went to Austin and knocked off the ninth-ranked Texas Longhorns, 33-31. It moved TCU to 7-2 against Texas since the Horned Frogs joined the Big 12, and was the second week in a row that a major upset occurred in the conference, as Kansas State took down Oklahoma last Saturday.

It also featured a moment that, had I wagered on the under, I would have been driven to pulling my hair out. The total closed at 62, but plenty of bettors were able to get it at anything from 60 to 63. Here is how that went for those who got it at, say, 62.5 or 63:

TCU opted to take the reasonable approach to a fourth down with barely any time left, instructing quarterback Max Duggan to just run backwards and milk the clock. For under bettors, this had to feel like a slow-motion car crash, as it was evident that Duggan was going to take as much time as he possibly could and just run out of the back of the end zone. With the ball starting on the 15, that meant he was going to scamper 22 yards behind the line of scrimmage and see to it that the over hit.

For those who were able to get the total at 62.5 or 63, this was a catastrophic sequence of events. Lo and behold, Duggan makes his way out of the end zone and runs out the clock in one of the more agonizing ways possible.

Fans in college football stadiums is a weird sight to behold right now. Amid a global pandemic that has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States and hospitalized the commander-in-chief, many college football teams have tried to find ways to make their stadiums look a little more full beyond the handful of fans they’re allowed in, per their state’s various health and safety guidelines.

One answer that Texas football tried to pursue on Saturday afternoon is a whole bunch of cardboard cutouts, a la what we’ve seen a number of baseball teams do with fans of their squads. The Longhorns decided to add a little twist to the whole thing, though, by making the cutouts pictures of various roles held by the program’s most famous fan, Matthew McConaughey.

McConaughey, a native of Texas, is a fixture at Longhorn football games, having shown up on the sidelines — both at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium and when the team has had road tilts — numerous times over the years. That opportunity will not be afforded to him again any time soon, and as a result, Texas tried to find a solution to that issue ahead of Saturday’s game against in-state rival TCU. Still, even if he’s not there physically, he is certainly there in spirit.

Donald Trump announced he had coronavirus early Friday morning and by that evening he was at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington seeking treatment, but the confusion over his health and just when he knew he had COVID-19 continued on Saturday.

Trump tweeted his diagnosis after midnight Friday morning, setting off a chaotic string of events in Washington. Several officials in the White House have tested positive, and many are scrambling to get results that were near Trump and his team over the last several days. Chris Christie, who helped Trump prepare for Tuesday’s debate and then appeared on network TV to analyze it, tweeted Saturday that he had contracted COVID-19 as well.

As the fallout of a White House super-spreader event continued to escalate, medical officials gave an update on Trump’s condition on Saturday morning as others around him reported they had also tested positive.

Trump had been quiet about his own status, only tweeting a handful of times in the hours since his COVID-19 testing results were made public. The president tweeted a brief video message on Friday after he was at Walter Reed, though it appeared to be shot in the White House before he left via Marine One.

The video drew plenty of reaction online, as did the subsequent news conference with medical officials on Saturday that put into question the timeline established by the White House about when Trump tested positive, how long he’s been receiving treatment and what exactly that treatment has been thus far. Doctors told reporters at the briefing on Saturday that the president was “doing very well,” but that was immediately contradicted by a pool report given to reporters that cast a much different light on his status and how important the next hours of his treatment are to his health.

That report, which was given directly to several reporters, was supposed to be off the record but reporters soon realized it came from Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Other reporters echoed the much more dire predicament that second report indicated, reporting that Trump was expressing fears about the virus and there was real concern about his health.

That’s jarringly different from the medial briefing, let alone the tweets sent from Trump’s account on Saturday afternoon. Perhaps more troubling, though, was the doctor’s statement during the press conference that Trump was 72 hours — or three full days — away from his initial diagnosis and 48 hours away from his first treatment of an experimental drug cocktail the White House had announced he started taking on Friday.

That disclosure would indicate that Trump tested positive well before Friday around 1 a.m. and he potentially went about business as usual while knowing his was COVID-19 positive.

The White House later attempted to clarify that timeline, saying the doctor that spoke was incorrect. But the release itself not only spelled “Regeneron” wrong, it incorrectly described the treatment the company says the president has received.

That, coupled with an AP report that the president did, indeed, get supplemental oxygen on Friday afternoon as well as the conflicting report given anonymously to the White House pool reporters immediately after the press conference has made for an extremely confusing situation in Washington as the health of the president continues to be uncertain. What is certain is that the public is very much in the dark about the status of the president as he fights COVID-19, and it seems many in the American government itself seem to be equally confused about it all as well.

Shortly after midnight on Friday, Donald Trump shocked the Twitter world by announcing that he tested positive for coronavirus. The announcement was just the latest event in what had been a tumultuous week for the president. It arrived just days after he participated in the first presidential debate with former vice president Joe Biden. Taking to Twitter to send prayers to the president whom he has a good relationship with, Kanye West wished Trump a “full recovery” in a recent tweet.

“There’s a crying need for civility across the board. We need to and will come together in the name of Jesus,” Kanye said to begin his message to Trump. “I’m praying for President Trump’s and Melania’s full recovery, just as I would for Joe and Jill Biden if they were stricken, as well as everyone else with COVID-19.”

The well wishes come after one of is closest associates, Kid Cudi, addressed Kanye’s support of Trump’s political agendas and his distaste with it.

I thought some people would be foolish about it and be like, ‘Oh, he must’ve talked to Kanye,’ or, ‘Kanye must’ve got to him,’ or some sh*t like that. I think he knows where I stand, and I think he doesn’t bring it up to me. We just don’t talk about it. I totally disagree with it; I think he knows that. And if he doesn’t know, he knows now.

You can view Kanye’s tweet above.

Adding another moment to what’s been an eventful 2020 for Travis Scott, the Houston rapper brought his talents to Jimmy Kimmel Live! to perform his new single, “Franchise.” Taking advantage of the social distancing the show requires for its performances, Travis debuted a trippy visual for his performance, one that features Young Thug and MIA beside him. Bringing the song’s line “in my white” to life, the visual finds the three artists performing the song inside Travis’ white tee.

It starts off with Travis sitting in a G-Wagon as he chows down on some fries on turns up to the song playing in the background. Next, the camera makes a smooth transition to the inner threading of his tee-shirt where we find Travis energetically performing the song. Traversing through the song, Young and MIA join him in the white tee universe to perform their verses as well.

The performance arrives after TMZ reported that the Houston rapper scored Michael Jordan’s million-dollar estate as the location for his “Franchise” video “without hesitation.” In other recent news, Travis also revealed a new action figure, which fans can obtain with a slight catch, and a third collection of merchandise, both as a result of his recent partnership with McDonald’s.

You can watch Travis, Young Thug, and MIA perform “Franchise” above.

Let’s just start by saying this post will absolutely spoil the seventh episode of Season 2 of The Boys, so if you haven’t gotten your weekly fill of superhero mayhem, maybe save this tab in your browser until you do. You’ve been warned.

The penultimate episode of the show’s second season had a lot of heads exploding once again, as the show continues to ramp up the brutality and shock in a variety of ways. But one of the more unexpected moments of the show was the death of a (former) member of The Seven. TV Line talked to showrunner Eric Kripke (careful: there’s also a spoiler in the story’s URL as well) about the episode and he detailed what the writer’s room was thinking when it decided that Lamplighter, who was introduced in the last episode, needed to go.

As Kripke noted, Lamplighter was removed from The Seven and was essentially on cleanup duty for Vought, killing off people who had been experimented on and reacted negatively. The role weighed heavily on him, though, and when we finally see Shawn Ashmore in action he’s not very positive about his lot in life.

“Our feeling was, in the writers’ room, that Lamplighter is suicidal,” showrunner Eric Kripke tells TVLine. “He pretty much straight up says it at the end of Episode 6. He says to Mallory, ‘Please kill me. I really want to be put out of my misery.’ So he’s pretty on record that he’s suicidal.”

Despite what Kripke had in mind for the character, the show’s creator admitted he had regrets about his ultimate demise, which came at Vought headquarters when he lit himself on fire after helping Hughie break in and create a diversion to rescue Starlight. Kripke credited Ashmore for his work with the character and how much depth he brought to a character viewers weren’t exactly expected to find sympathetic.

“We wrote all that before we cast Shawn, and once we cast Shawn and we saw how good he was and how soulful and weary and, in a weird way, sympathetic he made Lamplighter, I really regretted that we were killing him,” Kripke admits with a laugh. “If I could go back and do it again, knowing that I had Shawn and what he did with that character, I would have kept him alive for longer. But that was what that character was arced for from the beginning.”

It’s high praise for a character that was just introduced on camera in the previous episode, but Ashmore certainly did his best with the part. There’s a lot going on in any episode of The Boys, but he certainly did the most with what was just one of several deaths in another bloody episode.

[via TV Line]