Fast fashion was always a problem. Now, COVID-19 has deepened the inequity between garment workers and fashion labels rebranding themselves as saviors.

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In February this year, music fans were delighted and confused by the suddenly emergence of mysterious country trap singer RMR, who became an overnight star with the release of his viral single “Rascal” — a remake of Rascal Flatts’ “God Bless The Broken Road.” Incorporating trap rap elements into the backdrop of a country hit, RMR struck on the same vein of cross-cultural gold as Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” — and reaped the benefits.

Now, RMR — pronounced “Rumor” — is signed to Warner Records and has a recording budget capable of securing features from trap stars like Future and Lil Baby, who add their star power to RMR’s April follow-up single, “Dealer.” The remix retains the banjo-strumming loop of the original, adding verses from the two Atlantan frontrunners, both of whom will have released or will release highly successful albums this year.

Lil Baby’s My Turn helped secure him his first Billboard No. 1 after a steady stream of singles and a deluxe version with added tracks, while Future has been building up to the release of Life Is Good with a track of the same name and follow-up single “Tycoon.” As for RMR, stay tuned.

Listen to “Dealer” above.

RMR is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many people to adjust their lifestyles to keep themselves and others healthy. But physician Sanjeet Singh-Saluja and his brother Rajeet, a neurosurgeon, were forced to make a decision that affected them on a very deep, spiritual level.

The Singh-Saluja brothers are both members of the Sikh religion. One of the major pillars of their belief system is sewa. Sewa means “selfless service.” It involves acting selflessly and helping others in a variety of ways, without any reward or personal gain.

This commitment to sewa is the big reason why the brothers work as doctors.

Another major pillar in Sikhism is kesh. According to Sanjeet, kesh is the practice of allowing one’s hair to grow naturally out of respect for the perfection of God’s creation.

The COVID-19 pandemic put the brothers in a position that they had to choose between both pillars.

Sikh doctor shaves beard to help in COVID-19 fight

www.youtube.com

Because of the virus, the brothers both had to wear N95 masks, but they were unable to because of their beards. So they faced a dilemma, to either shave their beards or not be part of the fight against the disease. Both decisions would violate a pillar of their faith.

“We could choose not to work, but in a time when healthcare workers are falling sick, we would be adding stress to an already taxed system,” Sanjeet said in a video posted by the McGill University Health Centre.

“We could decide to simply refuse to see COVID-19 patients until viable protection is available to us, but that goes against our oath as physicians and against the principles of sewa,” he continued.

To come to a decision, the brothers consulted leaders of their faith, friends and family. In the end, they decided their commitment to selflessly serving others was more important than having their beards.

So they both shaved them off for the first time in their lives.

“It’s a decision that has left me with much sadness,” Sanjeet told the Montreal Gazette. “This was something that had been so much part of my identity. I look at myself in the mirror very differently now. Every morning when I see myself, it’s a bit of a shock.”

“But because COVID-19 has become so rampant in our community, it just wasn’t feasible anymore (not to wear an N95 mask). There are so many people coming in. I felt I just couldn’t sit on the sidelines. This was an exception to the rule, so we had to do what we had to do to help out,” he said.

It was clearly a difficult decision for the men to choose between honoring their commitment to give selflessly and to respect what they see as the perfection of God’s natural creation. However, in the Sikh religion, God created man, so by going out of their way to heal God’s children, they are providing the ultimate service to God’s creation.

Merci, Dr Saluja

www.youtube.com

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Netflix has dropped the first official teaser for The Old Guard, the streaming service’s upcoming film starring Charlize Theron as an immortal warrior whose name literally means “man-fighter” or “battler of men,” so you know ass-kicking is on the menu.

Based on the Greg Rucka graphic novel of the same name, The Old Guard is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and features Theron in the role of Andy, who’s been fighting for centuries and slowly losing her faith in humanity. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Theron expressed her love for the source material and her hopes that the action film would also force viewers to question the world around them. “Is what we’re doing enough? Is what we’re doing actually changing anything?” the actress pondered. “Are we making [things] better, or are we making the world worse?”

Despite the film’s fantastical elements, director Prince-Bythewood went for a grounded approach, which should hopefully achieve Theron’s goal of challenging the audience. “I never wanted any moment to take an audience out of the fact that these could be real people,” she said. “This is somebody that can get stabbed and walk away, but it’s going to hurt… This is a woman alive 6,000 years, and we come to her at the point where she wants it over.”

You can watch the film’s first teaser below:

Here’s the official synopsis:

Led by a warrior named Andy (Charlize Theron), a covert group of tight-knit mercenaries with a mysterious inability to die have fought to protect the mortal world for centuries. But when the team is recruited to take on an emergency mission and their extraordinary abilities are suddenly exposed, it’s up to Andy and Nile (Kiki Layne), the newest soldier to join their ranks, to help the group eliminate the threat of those who seek to replicate and monetize their power by any means necessary. Based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Greg Rucka and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (LOVE & BASKETBALL, BEYOND THE LIGHTS), THE OLD GUARD is a gritty, grounded, action-packed story that shows living forever is harder than it looks.

The Old Guard hits Netflix on July 10.

(Via Netflix)

The Bella Twins’ book Incomparable came out this week, and the revelations it contains are still finding their way to the wrestling internet. The memoir features separate sections alternating between Nikki and Brie telling the stories of their lives and careers, and the things they’ve learned along the way.

In one section that was featured on E Online, Nikki talks about their final return to WWE, which was in 2018 when Ronda Rousey also arrived in the company. As you may remember, Nikki, Brie, and Asuka were the final three in the Women’s Royal Rumble Match, with Asuka finally eliminating Nikki to win, but then Ronda Rousey immediately appeared after the match, becoming the only thing anyone could talk about.

As Nikki says in the book, she disliked WWE debuting Rousey in this way, because it overshadowed the first women’s Rumble and especially the many female stars who had come out of retirement just to appear in it:

It was nothing against Ronda — it is thrilling that she is at WWE — but it was a bit of a slap in the face to all the historic women wrestlers who had come out for the match, the main event, only to have the moment upstaged by the Ronda announcement. It just didn’t need to happen like that.

Nikki goes on to talk about facing Ronda in the main event of WWE Evolution, the first and to date only all-women WWE PPV, saying, “That night was career-justifying. That night was worth breaking my neck for.”

You can read more excerpts at the E website, or just buy the book, which is currently available everywhere that sells books.

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Just days before the world completely shut down, Val Kilmer sat down with the New York Times for a bizarre, yet profound profile that only Kilmer can deliver. At first, the interview serves to publicize his recent memoir and an animated film that mines his lifelong obsession with Mark Twain and Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy (it’s a whole thing), but Kilmer ends up baring his soul and reflecting on his strange Hollywood career.

One of those moments includes a look back at his short stint as Batman after both Michael Keaton and director Tim Burton refused to return for a third sequel. While Kilmer was well-received by audiences in Batman Forever, he notably didn’t return for Batman and Robin as rumors of his penchant for being “difficult” on set began to build. Kilmer tells the Times it was merely a “scheduling conflict” with his work on The Saint, but director Joel Schumacher still maintains that the actor is “psychotic.”

Nevertheless, Kilmer shared an anecdote from the set of the third Batman film, and how it caused him to have a profound realization about the character:

One day he was filming and about to take off the Batsuit when Warren Buffett and his grandkids came by. They wanted to see Batman, so Kilmer stuck around in the suit, but they didn’t want to talk to him. They wanted to try on the mask and ride in the Batmobile. He understood then that Batman isn’t meant to be a real guy. Batman is meant to be so anonymous that the person who is looking at him can see himself in him. “That’s why it’s so easy to have five or six Batmans,” he says now. “It’s not about Batman. There is no Batman.” And so what kind of thing is that to play, a person whose job is to be as nonspecific as possible. He looked good in the Batsuit, but wearing it was torture. When he took it off, he was finally free.

Is this Val Kilmer shading other Batman actors or merely exploring his unhappiness with a role? Who knows? On an even more surreal note, Kilmer keeps a Batman statue in his office, but he replaced the Caped Crusader’s head with Mark Twain, so make of that what you will.

(Via New York Times)

The 1.1 million people that follow Giannis Antetokounmpo on Twitter were rather shocked on Thursday afternoon when a string of bizarre tweets, beginning to links to random Instagram accounts and later including obscenities lobbed at the likes of LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and the deceased Kobe Bryant, indicated that the reigning MVP had been hacked.

Most of the tweets were extremely vulgar, including some using racial slurs, and we’re not going to link to them here (namely because they’re awful and also because they’ll surely be deleted once Giannis gets control of his accounts back). Shortly after the tweets made their way out, Giannis’ brother, Kostas, announced that Giannis had been hacked, and it was far worse than them just getting into his Twitter account.

The hackers apparently got access to his phone, email, and bank accounts as well, the last of those obviously being the most important and hopefully they’re able to resolve the issue quickly. It also served as a not so friendly reminder to superstar athletes to be very careful about cybersecurity — particularly those that game online and stream on Twitch publicly. As such, Patrick Beverley saw it as an opportunity to promote one of his ad partners with a not so subtle tweet about protecting yourself from hackers.

Again, hopefully Giannis is able to recover his accounts soon and his bank can resolve any issues or fraudulent activity that may have taken place, and you can be sure that he’ll be updating his passwords soon.

What a great week for Nicholas Cage news.

On Monday, it was announced that the actor will play the Tiger King himself, Joe Exotic, in his first-ever TV role. And today, we learned an exciting National Treasure update. Make that updates, actually, because not only is National Treasure 3 currently being written, but the ridiculously entertaining franchise is being turned into a Disney+ series.

“We’re certainly working on one [National Treasure] for streaming and we’re working on one for the big screen,” mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer told Collider. “Hopefully, they’ll both come together and we’ll bring you another National Treasure, but they’re both very active. The one for Disney+ is a much younger cast. It’s the same concept but a young cast. The one for theatrical would be the same cast.” No offense to The Young Benjamin Franklin Gates Chronicles, but I need National Treasure 3, and I need it now.

Bruckheimer added that the “film version is being written right now,” while the Disney+ series is “in process. We have a pilot script done and an outline of the future episodes.” If I could be in any TV writers room, it wouldn’t be Better Call Saul, or Lord of the Rings, or the Game of Thrones prequel — it would be National Treasure: The Show. The whiteboard for every episode would read, “[NOUN] heist.” It will run for 23 seasons.

Honestly, a dream job.

(Via Collider)