Category: Worldwide

Hockey fan Nadia Popovici had been watching the Vancouver Canucks play the Seattle Kraken when she noticed something off putting from the stands that set off alarms from her training as a medical student.

As Canucks assistant equipment manager Brian Hamilton approached the bench, Popovici noticed a small mole on the back of his neck. The marking might have seemed innocent enough, but thanks to her experience volunteering for oncology wards, Popovici recognized the potential danger lurking. So, she quickly took action.

“The mole on the back of your neck is cancer,” read Popovici’s message in big boldly colored letters on her phone screen. It took a few attempts to get her message across during the hustle and bustle of the game, but she eventually got Hamiliton’s attention through the plexiglass.

And sure enough, her on-the-spot prognosis was right.

Hamilton received a biopsy which confirmed that the mole had been cancerous. And if it had gone unaddressed, it would have been life threatening.

“It was only on the outer layer of my skin,” Hamilton recalled at a news conference. “It hadn’t penetrated to the second layer of my skin and that’s because we caught it so early…And the words out of the doctor’s mouth were if I ignored that for four to five years, I wouldn’t be here.”

“She extended my life. I’ve got a wonderful family. I’ve got a wonderful daughter. She saved my life.”

🗣 Part 1 of Brian “Red” Hamilton’s interview with the media after finding the woman who he calls his hero pic.twitter.com/t5sS8RCZPW

— Vancouver #Canucks (@Canucks) January 1, 2022

Moved by this stranger’s act of kindness, Hamilton wrote a heartfelt letter on social media in an attempt to reunite with the woman who saved his life.

His letter read:

“To this woman I am trying to find, you changed my life, and now I want to find you to say THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! Problem is, I don’t know who you are or where you are from…we are looking for this incredible person…help us find a real life hero, so I can express my sincerest gratitude.“

#HockeyTwitter, we need your help!

Please RT to spread the word and help us connect Red with the woman he considers his hero. pic.twitter.com/HlZybgOnjf

— Vancouver #Canucks (@Canucks) January 1, 2022

It didn’t take long before the message found its way to Popovici’s mother, who commented:

“She hasn’t even seen this message yet as she worked graveyard shift at the suicide crisis center in Seattle so she’s still asleep. She’ll be shocked to see this message! She will be at the game tonight in the same seats. She’ll be so happy and excited to know he got it checked! What wonderful news!!!! She just got accepted into multiple medical schools!“

Talk about the power of the internet.

And so, the pair had an incredibly sweet reunion at the start of the game that night.

The internet community helped us find Brian’s hero, Nadia, and tonight they met in person where he got to express his sincerest thank you to her for saving his life.

A story of human compassion at its finest. pic.twitter.com/66ogo5hB1a

— Vancouver #Canucks (@Canucks) January 2, 2022

Displaying a truly amazing amount of empathy, Popovic shared with Sportsnet:

“The fact that I got to look him in the eye and hear what happened from his perspective. Imagine how jarring that is to for you to be at work and someone just kind of looks at you and says, `Hey, maybe you go see a doctor.’ That’s not what you want to hear. So the fact that I got to see him and talk to his family members that have been really impacted by him dodging a big bullet that’s so special.’‘

Popovici is well on her way to saving countless more lives, since both the Canucks and Kraken teamed up to provide a $10,000 scholarship for medical school expenses.

Together with the @SeattleKraken, we awarded Nadia Popovici a $10,000 scholarship for medical school as a show of our appreciation 👏 pic.twitter.com/VgK8aMgJTA

— Vancouver #Canucks (@Canucks) January 2, 2022

Popovici’s reaction to receiving the reward for her selfless act (in the tweet above) is as heartwarming as the giant kraken beanie she sports.

The biggest win tonight 💙 pic.twitter.com/6w0LGTcg9E

— Vancouver #Canucks (@Canucks) January 2, 2022

Though the Canucks won that night, they tweeted that Hamilton and Popovici being able to meet was their “biggest win.”

Popovici told Sportsnet that Hamiton’s mole was a “picture perfect example of what melanoma looks like.”

If you’re wondering what that picture perfect example is, one person left a very helpful tweet so that you might be able to tell the difference between a marking that’s benign and one that’s malignant. (Of course, this doesn’t replace getting the help of a trained professional.)

Thank you so much for asking!!! We use ABCDE (and F for Family: higher risk if a close family member has had melanoma) pic.twitter.com/EhpFv5CzGy

— Ms Dale 🇨🇦😷💉💉💉 (@DaleRM) January 2, 2022

And to Nadia Popovici, who continues to be of service, thank you. More than ever, efforts to show compassion don’t go unnoticed.

A month and a half ago Young Dolph was tragically shot and killed outside of Makeda’s Cookies in his hometown of Memphis. Now there’s an update in his murder investigation. The Tennessee Bureau Of Investigation (TBI), U.S. Marshals, and the Memphis Police Department have announced that a suspect in the shooting has been identified and a warrant for his arrest has been issued. “We need your help to find Justin Johnson, wanted by @MEM_PoliceDept and TBI for 1st Degree Murder, Criminal Attempt-1st Degree Murder & Theft of Property $10,000-$60,000,” TBI wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. “He should be considered armed and dangerous. See him? Call 901-378-3132 or 1-800-TBI-FIND.”

TBI described Johnson as 5’8″ and 190 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. He also has a tattoo that reads “Jaiya” on his right arm. According to Fox13 Memphis, a reward of $15,000 is being offered by law enforcement agencies. Johnson has reportedly been able to evade investigators since the shooting. He’s also been added to the TBI’s “Most Wanted” list and law enforcement officials say he has ties to criminal activity.

The news comes a month after a street was renamed in honor of Young Dolph in the rapper’s native neighborhood of Castelia Heights.

It’s always great to see artists show each other love on social media. A recent example came on Wednesday when Chloe Bailey shared some striking photos of herself. The singer was dressed in thigh-high boots, elbow-length gloves, and a revealing top and bottom. The photos received great reactions from those on social media. That included Cardi B, who shared quite the response on Twitter.

“My p*ssy got hard,” Cardi wrote in a quote retweet of Chloe’s pictures. It makes for one of the better reactions to the photos, and Chloe was a fan of the love Cardi showed her. “This for you,” Chloe replied with a group of emojis.

It’s not the first time in recent months that Cardi has openly shown support for Chloe. Last May, Cardi sent a heartwarming message to Chloe after viewing the singer’s cover of “Be Careful,” from her 2018 album Invasion Of Privacy. “This is soo beautiful got me smiling from ear to ear and blushing maa hard,” Cardi wrote in a tweet. “You see this how I thought I sounded on the track.”

You can view Chloe’s photos and Cardi’s response above.

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

An incredible story from Croatia shows just how far dogs will go to take care of their human companions and how in-tune they can be to our needs.

Grga Brkić was climbing the highest peak of the Velebit mountain range about 5,800 feet above Croatia’s Adriatic coastline on Sunday when he fell nearly 500 feet down a snowy slope. The fall resulted in Brkić severely fracturing his leg, rendering him completely immobile. He had to be frightened knowing there was nothing he could do to prevent himself from dying of hypothermia.

Two nearby hikers spotted Brkić and his companion North, an eight-month-old Alaskan malamute, at the bottom of the embankment but were unable to safely get to them. So they sent for rescuers.

Brkić lay in the snow shivering, so his canine companion laid on top of him to keep him warm until help arrived. Alaskan malamutes do particularly well in cold weather and can withstand temperatures as low as -20°F. They have thick, waterproof double coats that can keep them warm even in the frozen Arctic.

An 8-month-old Alaskan malamute, North, was the hero during a rescue effort in the mountains of Croatia. He rescued an injured mountaineer by lying on him for 13 hours. North kept Grga Brkic warm after he fell and was injured and his friends could not reach him.pic.twitter.com/MSSuARkn4n

— Kosmos 94.1 (@Kosmos 94.1)
1641371618

The two waited for 13 hours in the freezing cold until more than a dozen first responders arrived at the scene. When they got to the pair they were amazed to find the dog had “curled around [Brkić] and warmed him.”

Brkić later told Croatian media that “The minutes and seconds before they arrived were so slow” but “this little dog is a real miracle.”

The Croation emergency mountaineers, the Hrvatska Gorska Služba Spašavanja, got to work trying to save the hiker and his dog in what they later called “one of the most difficult rescue operations” they had ever attempted.

Throughout the entire ordeal, the dog refused to detach from his friend.

“The dog was curled up next to the owner in the pit the entire time; he warmed his owner with his body, thus preventing the mountaineer’s significant hypothermia who suffered a severe fracture of the lower leg and ankle when he fell,” Josip Brozičević, head of the Croatian mountain rescue services, said.

The rescuers were finally able to save the hiker and his brave dog and they were airlifted by helicopter to a nearby hospital. At the hospital, the hiker went through an emergency operation. The dog was unharmed in the incident.

After Sunday’s rescue, the Brkić family shared an update on Grga and North, letting everyone know they were doing just fine.

“North is home, saying hello and relaxing,” wrote Antonija Sjauš Brkić. “Grga is going to be fine. HGSS … we have no words … thank you!!!”

The rescuers say the dog’s bravery and compassion are a lesson that we can all learn from. “Friendship and love between man and dog have no boundaries,” rescuers wrote on Sunday. “His loyalty did not stop even from the arrival of the savior … From this example, we can all learn about caring for one another.”

Look on any app store and you’ll see thousands upon thousands of options for games. We’ve seen waves of popular game obsessions roll through society, from Tetris to Angry Birds to Candy Crush, but there’s a new option taking the brain game world by storm.

You won’t find it in the app store. You won’t see advertisements for it, either. It doesn’t even have its own dedicated domain.

It’s called Wordle and the premise is simple. Every day, there’s a secret 5-letter word to guess and you have six tries to guess it. With each attempt, the game tells you if each letter you typed is a correct letter in the right place (green), a letter that’s in the word but in the wrong place (yellow) or a letter that’s not in the word at all (gray). You can only play the game once per day. Super simple and satisfyingly challenging.

But its origin story is where Wordle truly shines.

It was created by artist and engineer Josh Wardle (“Wordle” is a play on his last name) and he made it not for cash or clout or commerce, but for love.

Wardle’s partner, Palak Shah, enjoys word games, so he decided to make one for her. According to The New York Times, Wordle was a side project for Wardle during the pandemic, and the intent of releasing it publicly is not—nor will it be, according to Wardle—to make money. He just wants people to enjoy it.

“I think people kind of appreciate that there’s this thing online that’s just fun,” Wardle told the Times. “It’s not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs. It’s just a game that’s fun.”

The fact that you can only play it once per day is a refreshing change from games and media that do everything they can to keep your attention and engage for as long as possible.

“I am a bit suspicious of mobile apps that demand your attention and send you push notifications to get more of your attention,” Wardle told BBC Radio 4. “I like the idea of doing the opposite of that—what about a game that deliberately doesn’t want much of your attention? Wordle is very simple and you can play it in three minutes, and that is all you get.”

No ads? No data collection? No algorithms trying to read your mind or push you toward something? Nope, nope and nope.

“I don’t understand why something can’t just be fun,” he told the BBC. “I don’t have to charge people money for this and ideally would like to keep it that way.”

When you play the game, which you can find here, you get an option at the end to share your results. This is what the share looks like—with no spoilers about the word or any of the letters:

Wordle 200 3/6

Wordle 200 3/6

— Annie Reneau (@Annie Reneau)
1641407266

The grey boxes are letters I typed that aren’t in the word, yellow boxes were letters that are in the word but not in the right place, and green letters are correct letters in the correct place. (This was my second day playing, and I was quite thrilled with getting the word in three tries. It took me all six tries yesterday to get the word “SIEGE.”)

As someone who loves word games, I find Wordle delightful to play. It’s quick and simple, but not easy. The difficulty depends on the word and what you initially guess, of course, but as it’s different every day it will never get old. Wardle told the Times that he started with 12,000 words, but narrowed it down to about 2,500 to keep most obscure words that most people wouldn’t be able to guess out. The key to a good game is to be challenging enough without feeling impossible, and Wordle fits that bill.

In a time when it feels like everything is complicated and/or profit-driven, having this pure little word game that wants nothing from us but a few minutes of fun is refreshing.

Thank you, Josh Wardle, for offering your sweet gift to us all, especially when we need wholesome simplicity more than ever.

Like Mare of Easttown, The White Lotus was only supposed to be a one-off. But in the case of both HBO shows, there were a lot of fans, and they wanted more. A second season of Mare and its plethora of Philadelphia-isms is still up in the air, but another round of The White Lotus was announced shortly after the first season wrapped, even if it meant ditching most (but probably not all) of its cast. A new group of vacationers (and put-upon resort staffers) will be put through the ringer, and now we know that one of them will be a major Sopranos alum.

As per Deadline, Michael Imperioli — Christopher Moltisanti, yes, though also Spider, the ill-fated mob bartender from Goodfellas — is the first announced name in White Lotus’ Season 2 cast. He’ll play Dominic Di Grasso, described as “a man traveling with his elderly father and recent college-graduate son.”

No word yet on who will be joining him on another, different Hawaiian resort in the White Lotus chain, but he may wind up knocking back fruity cocktails with Jennifer Coolidge, who earned the best reviews of her career as a grieving woman who may have found love in middle age (while also screwing over a kindly White Lotus employee she promised to help).

Imperioli was last seen, or at least heard from, in The Many Saints of Newark, the prequel movie to The Sopranos, in which he narrated as Christopher from beyond the grave, allowing his Hollywood aspiring mobster to finally find his way into the movies.

(Via Deadline)

It’s been a while since we heard from Mike Lindell, which is to say about a week. Late 2020 was a busy time for the MyPillow Guy. He staged a (sparsely attended) Fox News boycott for some reason, held a (barely watched) Thanksgiving “marathon,” all while trying — and failing — to bombard the Supreme Court with more voter fraud nonsense. But he’s been quiet since 2022 began, probably because Verizon banned him from sending text messages about kooky conspiracy theories.

Speaking of Verizon, Lindell says they recently alerted him to an interesting message: The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol siege subpoenaed them for his phone records. That’s what he told a CNBC reporter over text message. He added that in retaliation he had filed a complaint against both the committee and Verizon to halt the “corrupt subpoena.”

Lindell is not the first, and certainly not the last, Trump ally to try to keep documents away from the Jan. 6 committee. Trump has been doing that himself, even erroneously citing “executive privilege,” despite him no longer being president because he lost re-election by over seven million votes.

Since that loss in November of 2020, Lindell has spent, according to CNBC, a reported $25 million on false claims of election fraud. He’s also being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for a whopping $1.3 billion. When you throw in the legal headache around his lawsuit involving the also false claim that he was dating Jane Krakowski, let’s hope a lot of people are buying his expensive pillows.

(Via CNBC)

I’ve only had bourbon chicken in New Orleans once or twice. The NOLA staple is a Chinese-American centerpiece dish if you’re wandering around the French Quarter, but isn’t as widespread as one would expect throughout the rest of the country. Not yet, at least.

The dish is pretty simple — a very dark, sweet and sour sauce, chicken morsels, white rice, happiness. The origins go back to Bourbon Street and the Chinese migrant community that makes food along the heavily touristed lane. It seems the name was actually derived from simply being invented on Bourbon Street and bourbon whiskey wasn’t involved at all. Today, people have adapted the recipe and use bourbon whiskey in the base sauce. I, for one, think that’s a good addition as I love cooking with booze.

So while this recipe isn’t the old-school Bourbon Street version, it’s a hybrid of what I remember and from reading dozens of “bourbon chicken” recipes on the internet. I adjusted this slightly to my palate (and amped up the bourbon component). Otherwise, this is pretty damn easy and fast to make. You’ll have enough for four servings in under 20 minutes. And it has bourbon in it. That’s a win-win, folks!

Let’s dive in.

Bourbon Chicken

Ingredients:

Serves 4

• 1-lb. chicken (white and dark meat)
• 1 tsp. MSG (or sea salt)
• 1 tsp. white pepper
• 2 tbsp. corn starch (separated)
• 1/2 cup peanut oil
• 1 thumb finely grated ginger
• 2 diced green onions (whites and greens separated)
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/4 cup bourbon
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/8 cup tap water
• 1/2 cup cooked rice (per serving)

A few quick asides. I ended up getting a small roaster and just deboning it. This wasn’t on purpose — my grocery store only had whole chickens for some reason when I went this morning. You don’t have to debone a whole chicken. Two small breasts and four small thighs (skinless and deboned) should be about one pound of chicken. By all means, use that instead of butchering your own chicken.

The rest is pretty straightforward items you can find in any grocery store. As for the bourbon, I’m using Evan Williams Black Label. I’ve been cooking with it all through the holidays and it really makes for a nice sauce base. It’s also affordable and easy-to-find enough to always have on hand for cooking, deglazing, etc.

Lastly, you can check out how I make rice on the stovetop here. Otherwise, follow the instructions on the packet of whichever rice you choose.

What You’ll Need:

• Wok or large frying pan
• Wooden spoon
• Box grater
• Measuring spoons and cups
• Kitchen knife
• Bowls

Method:

• Start by cutting the chicken into one-inch chunks. Add to a bowl with MSG (or salt), white pepper, and one tablespoon of corn starch. Mix well so that all the chicken is evenly coated.
• Finely mince the garlic, dice the green onion, and finely grate the ginger. Measure out the wet ingredients and sugar for easy cooking later. Set aside.
• Heat the peanut oil in a wok on high heat until it’s just starting to smoke. Add all of the chicken in one layer. Leave alone until the chicken browns on the bottom and then flip it over to brown on the other side (about two to three minutes per side).
• Once the chicken is browned and cooked through (maybe four to five minutes tops), remove from the wok into a waiting (clean) bowl.
• Pour off excess peanut oil but make sure to leave a thin layer in the wok.
• Add the ginger, garlic, and whites of the green onion to the wok (still on high heat) and stir for about 30 seconds or until very fragrant. Immediately add in the soy sauce, bourbon, vinegar, water, and sugar. Stir as the sauce starts to boil up.
• Reduce the heat to medium and allow the sauce to briskly simmer.
• Mix one tablespoon of corn starch with one tablespoon of water in a small cup, creating a slurry. Add to the simmering bourbon sauce while stirring to thicken.
• Once the sauce takes on the thickness of real maple syrup (on the thin side), add the chicken back in.
• Simmer for another two minutes to let the sauce thicken more and really bind to the chicken.
• Serve over about 1/2 cup of rice and garnish with diced green tops from the green onion and a glass of bourbon.

Bottom Line:

This is just lovely. It’s bright thanks to that vinegar and bourbon yet deeply umami filled. The ginger, garlic, and green onion soften while still holding onto their spice and sweetness while adding a nice textural element to the sauce.

The chicken is soft and juicy and has a nice little crunch to it from time to time. Thanks to the cornstarch coating, it truly feels like it’s coated with sauce and not just boiled in the sauce. There’s great textural depth is what I’m getting at, and it feels like good take out more than “homemade.”

Overall, if you’re making yourself some lunch for the week, this is a great option. Load this into reheatable trays with the rice and reheat throughout the week in the microwave. It’ll slap, trust me. Alternately, whip this up on Friday night for your partner and pour a big ol’ glass of bourbon to wash away the first week back to the grind in 2022.

Wrestling has evolved over the last handful of years, which is to say it’s no longer just for flyover country. People from all over, even those in smarty-pants cities, have gotten into everyone’s favorite semi-fake sport, too. Some wrestlers even became big time movie and TV stars, which Hulk Hogan couldn’t do back in the day. It’s still surprising when we learn some big-time name is a fan. Case in point: Did you know Macaulay Culkin, former child star, was really into wrestling? That’s what he said on the wrestling podcast run by Freddie Prinze Jr. Oh, and by the way, you may not have known Freddie Prinze Jr. has a wrestling podcast. Because he’s also into wrestling.

The podcast is called Wrestling with Freddie, and, as per The AV Club, the former star of two Home Alones told the guy from She’s All That that he almost took his fandom next level, revealing that he came close to writing for the WWE.

“Oh man, there were times when I wanted to, like kind of just find six months of my life at the very least just to kinda go in there and stuf,” he told Prinze. Alas, it was not to be. “I will say I kind of regret not [writing for WWE]—now that I’m a dad I barely have time to pee at this point, you know what I mean? I just never got around to it, there was always something.”

What Culkin has done is occasionally dabble in the wrestling industry, including doing some consultant work. He’s also turned into something of a critic, especially of what WWE has turned into of late. For instance, Culkin is sick of watching Brock Lesnar duke it out with Roman Reigns on pay-per-view, saying, “How many times can we watch the same match?”

Culkin is a little worried about the sport’s biggest company. “I think the WWE has lost focus on all this. I think there is some kind of master plan – they’re bringing in all these new people,” Culkin told Prinze. “I mean, personally, I think they’re gonna sell, regardless of what they say. I think Vince [McMahon] doesn’t think anyone in his family can do this.”

So there you have it: One of the kids from The Good Son has definite opinions about wrestling, of which, like one of the guys from I Know What You Did Last Summer, he’s a big fan.

(Via The AV Club)

The Los Angeles Lakers are approaching the midpoint of the season in a place they didn’t expect, sitting at 20-19 which is only good for seventh in the West, meaning they would find themselves in the play-in if they don’t improve their standing over the next 43 games.

The good news of course, is they have half of the season to turn things around, but to do so it has become pretty clear that there need to be changes made to the roster. Making major changes is going to be difficult simply because they don’t have a lot of players that make more than the minimum since they have three max contracts, two of which are untouchable in LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and the other is the recently acquired Russell Westbrook who, despite the Lakers seemingly having interest in potentially moving on quickly from the former MVP, is incredibly difficult to trade because of his contract.

That leaves a lot of smaller moves as the only real chance to shuffle the roster, both in trying to swap in new role players via trades and also clearing roster spots to be players on the buyout market. They already dumped Rajon Rondo in a three-team deal that sent Rondo to the Cavs and Denzel Valentine to the Knicks, who waived him with some cash the Lakers sent them to save them some luxury tax money. Two more veterans appear to be next on the Lakers trade list, as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst reports hearing from other teams that the Lakers are actively shopping DeAndre Jordan in an effort to create another roster spot and are willing to part with Kent Bazemore as well.

Jordan has not been effective despite opening the season in the starting lineup, and as the Lakers have moved away from playing as many big lineups, they seem ready to swap Jordan out for a buyout market spot (or the ability to add two players for one, or three for two, in a trade). Bazemore likewise was a starter early in the season, but has struggled mightily to produce in L.A. and the Lakers would apparently be willing to move him out of town to get someone else in to try and find a consistent contributor.

These all seem like the kinds of moves that would be appetizers for something else, as Talen Horton-Tucker is, by far, the biggest asset on the Lakers who, when paired with Kendrick Nunn’s deal, makes up the only real opportunity to acquire something more than a vet minimum talent. We’ll see if they’re able to make something happen with those two, but if nothing else, Lakers fans can expect to see some more vets shuttled out of town as the Lakers will look to take a spin around the buyout market in February.