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

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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

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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)

There might be a global pandemic going on, but Microsoft isn’t letting that stop them from continuing full steam ahead with their next gen console the Xbox Series X. On Thursday they hosted an event meant to show off the gameplay capabilities of the Xbox Series X. A flurry of games was shown ranging all kinds of genres. Xbox has traditionally been a console of first person shooters, racing games, and sports games, but the Series X showcase featured a surprising variety beyond those staples.

The intention of the showcase was to reveal some games, show off the power of the console, and get a lot of fans who are stuck at home a chance to get excited. For the most part, it succeeded. It’s also worth noting that at the end of the showcase they teased a similar event in July that figures to fall around the time typically reserved for E3 since this year’s E3 was canceled.

The event was fun and there were some potentially awesome looking games. There were also some moments that felt like they could have been improved. Here’s what we learned from Thursday’s event.

Graphics and Performance

Obviously, this was an event meant to show the power of the Xbox Series X console and it’s safe to say that it delivered in showing that power in a big way. Every trailer shown featured some gorgeous graphics and when extensive gameplay was shown it looked like it ran very smoothly. A huge issue with the current generation of consoles has been inconsistent frames and the load times. This new generation of consoles is supposed to put an end to a lot of those issues.

While there’s optimism about this next generation delivering on that promise, everything seen in the showcase should be taken with a grain of salt. Demo tape almost always looks better than the eventual release. The reason for this being is that the majority of these games aren’t even close to finished yet. As games develop they sometimes need to be scaled to make everything work. While I would love it if every game looked like it had the potential of Bright Memory, I am also a realist. That said, give the trailers of Bright Memory and Dirt 5 a watch, as these showcase the potential of the console and that’s enough to be excited about.

Xbox goes to Japan

One area of the world the Xbox has traditionally struggled in is Japan. Which makes sense. It’s hard to go into Sony and Nintendo’s backyard and win, but it also hasn’t helped that traditionally it’s not easy to find Japanese developed games on the Xbox console or games that give an anime style feeling. As consoles further blend the lines of exclusivity however that appears to be changing in the near future. Yakuza: Like a Dragon and the new Scarlet Nexus were both revealed to be coming to the Series X.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon is the latest in the long running and extremely popular Japanese crime series from Sega. Lately, Microsoft has been doing more with the franchise by putting some of their games on Game Pass and PC, but traditionally they’ve been Playstation exclusives making this a huge get for Xbox. Scarlet Nexus on the other hand is a new IP from Bandai Namco and has an absolutely gorgeous look with a style that just screams anime. There’s no way to tell if the Series X can finally find a way to help Xbox succeed in Japan, but these two games sure look like a great start.

Call of the Sea

My personal favorite game that was shown was Call of the Sea. It was a quick trailer, but it immediately enraptured me with its cell shaded art style and whimsical voice over laying out the mystery before me. I wanted to pick it up right then and play it. On top of that, while Bright Memory was soft of a blatant example of a tech demo this felt more like a game that really will look like its trailer come release day. The cell shade looks incredible with next gen graphics and I can count every single raindrop. Call me a hipster, but that game sold me more than anything else on the power of the Xbox Series X.

Where was the gameplay?

For an event that was meant to show us the gameplay and power of the Xbox Series X it felt like there was a severe lack of gameplay actually being shown. The large majority of trailers shown were just glimpses of gameplay mixed in with smash cut editing into other pieces of gameplay and cutscenes. Assassins Creed Valhalla, in particular, left so much to be desired in terms of gameplay. The brief gameplay glimpses we got were fun, but it would have been nice to see more. Hopefully this is remedied in the July event, once these games are further developed.

A lot of these games could still be great. They might even be all-time classics. However, while the Series X obviously wants to showcase how powerful it can be, it led to a show where most of the trailers were obviously designed to show how great everything looks. These games are likely not finished yet so creating a good trailer is going to be hard, but the event was advertised as a gameplay event. If you’re going to promise gameplay, then trailers like these are going to leave me asking for more. Tech demos are fun, but a lot of these games won’t look the same at launch.

In the end this was a fun event and welcome to see in the middle of May. That said I can’t wait to see more in July when Microsoft comes in with some more heavy hitters.

Blink-182 have been chugging along since the early ’90s, but of course, there have been some notable lineup changes: Singer Tom DeLonge left the group in 2005, rejoined in 2009, and left again in 2015. However, fans who never got a chance to see DeLonge-era Blink perform live may eventually get the chance to, DeLonge believes.

In a new Rolling Stone interview, DeLonge was asked about the band. He said that while “of course” he and the group will eventually perform together again, he has a lot of other obligations to work around in order to make that happen:

“You know, I talk to Mark and Travis every so often. I just talked to Mark the other day, and I talk to Travis about every week or two. […] Everyone wants to know, ‘Are you guys gonna play again?’ Yeah, of course we are. We just gotta figure out the timing, how it works for everybody. Right now Angels and Airwaves is on a roll. We’re getting ready to put out the best record we’ve ever made. So I’m really busy with that. I’ve got multiple film projects. As you know To The Stars Academy is just booming, so I have all these priorities I’m responsible for, and I can’t just stop and go do a Blink-182 tour because it sounds fun. It’s a big thing. I gotta make time for it. So it’s kind of like, ‘How do we plan it a year or two in advance?’”

Check out the full interview here, in which DeLonge also discusses the apparent UFO videos recently released by the Pentagon, videos made by DeLonge’s UFO research organization, To The Stars Academy Of Arts & Science.