Category: Worldwide

As Canada’s women’s soccer team prepares for its gold medal match against Sweden this week in Tokyo, it also prepares to make history as the first Olympic team to have an openly transgender, non-binary athlete win a medal at the games.

Quinn, the 25-year-old midfielder, announced their non-binary identity on social media last September, adopting they/them pronouns and a singular name. Quinn said they’d been living openly as a transgender person with their loved ones, but this was their first time coming out publicly.

“I want to be visible to queer folks who don’t see people like them on their feed. I know it saved my life years ago,” they wrote. “I want to challenge cis folks ( if you don’t know what cis means, that’s probably you!!!) to be better allies.”

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Quinn is originally from Toronto and is playing for Canada’s national team at the Olympics, though they play soccer professionally in the U.S.

According to the CBC, Quinn was the highest-drafted Canadian in National Women’s Soccer League history when they were chosen by the Washington Spirit in 2018. They now play for the OL Reign based in Tacoma, Washington.

Some people have made transgender people participating in competitive athletics a hot-button political issue, prompting controversial legislation banning transgender students from school sports in many states. While Quinn’s medal win will be historic, the handful of openly transgender athletes in the Olympics are not dominating their sports—which is the fear many people cite as their reasoning for creating or supporting such laws.

The International Olympic Committee established regulations for transgender athletes and it will be releasing an updated set of guidelines in the coming months, according to the CBC. While questions remain about how qualification rules will account for various gender identities and expressions, seeing trans people like Quinn succeed in sports provides visibility and representation that’s long been missing.

As Quinn told CBC Sports on Monday, “Athletics is the most exciting part of my life and it brings me the most joy. If I can allow kids to play the sports they love, that’s my legacy and that’s what I’m here for.”

Canada’s soccer team narrowly beat out the favored U.S. women’s team 0-1, taking the reigning champions out of gold medal contention. Now Canada and Sweden will battle it out for gold and silver as the U.S. hopes to bring home the bronze.

As the NBA’s free agent pool becomes thinner and thinner, one of the most intriguing names still on the market is DeMar DeRozan, who should theoretically help teams that need veteran savvy and the kind of wing scorer who can change games when he’s really cooking. Add in that DeRozan’s coming off of his best year as a playmaker and it’s not hard to see why he’d bring value to teams that want to compete.

On Tuesday, one team reportedly began pushing hard to acquire his services via a sign-and-trade, while another is bringing him in for a meeting to see if they can convince him to put pen to paper on a contract. According to Marc Stein, the Chicago Bulls want to try and figure out a sign-and-trade with DeRozan’s ostensibly soon-to-be former team, the San Antonio Spurs, with Lauri Markkanen a potential name that could be moved.

Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports reports that the Los Angeles Clippers are likewise interested in figuring out a way to bring DeRozan on board with Kawhi Leonard sidelined following ACL surgery, although that might be a little tricky.

The Clippers do not have the cap space to sign the four-time All-Star to a deal near his true value. It would take some major cap contorting to clear the necessary cap space.

All the team has at its disposal is the $5.3 million taxpayer midlevel exception. A sign-and-trade with the San Antonio Spurs — DeRozan’s previous team — could also be an option, but it’s unclear if the Clippers have the assets the Spurs would want.

Both of these teams are in slightly different places — the Bulls made a ton of moves to make themselves a playoff team when free agency began, while the Clippers have had championship aspirations for several years — but DeRozan appears to have some options as to what he’s going to do next.

Lil Nas X’s performance at the BET Awards was one of the year’s most notable music moments, mainly because of his on-stage kiss with one of his male dancers. In a new interview with Out, he spoke about the moment, admitting that he was hesitant about doing it at first.

He said:

“Going to this place with all these overly masculine rappers and you’re finna be in there throwing a little ass every now and then, touching on dudes and hugging them and kissing them… at some points I was like, ‘Should I even do this? I don’t feel like they’re going to love me like that.’ […]

Mentally, it’s really draining and straining sometimes; The pressure of living your entire life knowing the identity of what a rapper is supposed to be, what rappers [are supposed to] do, and going out there in front of all these people, it’s terrifying. [The BET performance] was like jumping in a lake full of sharks and piranhas — and I’ve had to do that so many times within these last three years. Even coming out, that was terrifying. When I put on the costume of Nicki [Minaj, for Halloween]: terrifying.”

He also spoke about his experience with homosexuality as a kid, saying, “Growing up in the Atlanta area, I [saw] a lot of microaggressions towards homosexuality. Little things like going into an IHOP and hearing one of your family members say, ‘Look at those f****ts’ to two people eating, or even just a small [statement like], ‘Boys don’t cry.’ Little sh*t like living in the hood, not being super into sports, and then having to go outside and pretend that I was.”

Read the full feature here.

After appearing in hit (The Mummy trilogy) after hit (George of the Jungle) after hit (Bedazzled) after weirdo cult hit (Monkeybone) in the 1990s and 2000s, Brendan Fraser’s career slowed down. He was in the occasional box office success, like Journey to the Center of the Earth and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but he largely vanished from the public eye due to numerous factors, including, he believes, being backlisted from the industry after speaking out about an alleged sexual assault by producer Philip Berk.

Fraser went five years, from 2014 to 2019, without appearing in a film, but like Matthew McConaughey before him, the renaissance is on.

It began with Showtime’s The Affair. Then came FX’s The Trust (he wore a cowboy hat) and a lead role on the DC Universe-turned-HBO Max series Doom Patrol. He has since been cast in three movies from Oscar-nominated filmmakers: Steven Soderbergh’s No Sudden Move, where he gives a scene-stealing performance; Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, along with Hong Chau; and as Deadline reported on Tuesday, Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. (Maybe Marty doesn’t like Marvel movies because he’s a DC stan.)

[Killers of the Flower Moon] from Apple TV + and Paramount Pictures is a crime drama, based on the bestselling book of the same name by David Grann. It’s set in 1920s Oklahoma and will examine the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror. Fraser will appear alongside Oscar winners Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, Emmy nominated Jesse Plemons, and more. We hear that he will play lawyer WS Hamilton.

This is like Quentin Tarantino putting John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, hopefully minus everything that came after for Travolta. Anyway, Fraser being in Scorsese’s $200-plus million film was celebrated by everyone who’s watched The Mummy on cable a million times, which, honestly, should be everybody.

After the pandemic disrupted their in-house performances, NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series pivoted to at-home sets. Instead of bringing musicians to their Washington, DC office, bands were asked to recorded music from the comfort and safety of their own homes. The at-home tiny desk concerts allow for artistic freedom with just one requirement: A tiny desk needs to be somewhere in sight.

Dinosaur Jr. is the latest band to bring their music to the at-home concert series, and they were creative when it came to the required tiny desk. Recording the performance at the Shea Theater in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, Dinosaur Jr. placed a child-size desk and chair at center stage. They filled the remainder of the area with various props from past album cycles like dinosaur balloons, action figures, stuffed animals, and fake plastic food.

The 20-minute on-stage set went off without a hitch and brief pauses between each track allowed for playful on-stage banter. Bassist Lou Barlow noted after delivering their performance-opening track “I Ain’t” that the song’s backup vocals were courtesy of Kurt Vile, who produced their recent Sweep It Into Space LP. The band then moved into a rendition of their song “Garden” before throwing it back with their hit 1994 song “Feel The Pain.”

Watch Dinosaur Jr.’s Tiny Desk concert above.

Sweep It Into Space is out now via Jagjaguwar. Get it here.

After getting hit with its second COVID shutdown while filming in the UK, the hit Netflix series Bridgerton is back up and running (for now), and in a bit of good news, the production has taken the delays in stride. So far, there’s been no talk of pushing back the show’s season two release date, which is set for some time in 2022. Showrunner Chris Van Dusen has confirmed that things are still moving smoothly on the next Bridgerton chapter despite two COVID cases, which were handled quickly as the affected parties went into isolation. Via Variety:

“We are back under way. We had to delay because of COVID, but we’re back in it,” said the showrunner, who is currently shuttling back and forth between Los Angeles and the London-based set. “Right now I’m in post, editing our first couple episodes, which are looking great.”

Bridgerton became a massive hit for Netflix, and don’t even think of crediting the pandemic. The show premiered in January 2021 before COVID had become a global health criss. No, Bridgerton was buoyed by fans of the romance novel series, and the fan-favorite portrayal of The Duke by Regé-Jean Page. Of course, Bridgerton fans intensely pining over Page proved to be a double-edged sword when it was revealed that the actor would not be returning for season two.

Despite the fact that Page’s departure makes sense as the novels switched focus to new characters, and The Duke’s story ended in the first season, fans of the series were outraged that the actor was leaving. However, true Bridgerton readers know there’s a lot more story left to come, but it’ll be interesting to see if Netflix can still pull in the same numbers without the smoldering good looks of Page to lure them in.

(Via Variety)

After years of rumors that the two would join forces at some point, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony are going to be teammates. Two of the last men standing from the legendary 2003 NBA Draft will look to win a championship together in Los Angeles, as Melo will leave Portland to sign a 1-year deal (one would expect to be a minimum) with the Lakers.

The deal was first reported by Woj, with Melo quickly confirming with a clever Twitter post.

Beyond the obvious connection between Anthony and James, the Lakers needed to fill out their wing rotation and Melo has become a very good off-ball wing in Portland, where he shot 40.9 percent from three a year ago. Adding shooters is the name of the game for the Lakers, and Anthony fits the bill in his current state.

Joining Anthony in L.A. will also be Malik Monk on a minimum deal as he looks to prove his value to winning organizations and show that his shooting uptick last year in Charlotte was for real.

The Lakers have been very busy filling out the roster since free agency started and have now added Wayne Ellington, Trevor Ariza, Dwight Howard, Kent Bazemore, Monk, and Anthony to their group. Many have gotten a laugh out of the Lakers getting the band back together with former Lakers and how old this team will be, but a lot of the signings make sense and when you have so many minimums needed to fill, older veterans who have ties to L.A. is a pretty sure way to get guys on board.

Like the Hatfields and McCoys, the Montagues and Capulets, and the Elton Johns and Madonnas, the Trumps and the McCains just cannot get along. While the family feuding seems to have begun with Donald “I Like People Who Weren’t Captured” Trump and John McCain, it’s now found its way into extended branches of the family tree.

On Monday, Mary Trump—a psychologist, author, and estranged niece of Donald—was a guest on The View, where she talked about the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol and how her uncle left the Republican party in shambles. While Ms. Trump had clearly hoped that Meghan McCain, who is in her final week of residency as one of the talk show’s co-hosts, would partake in the discussion, she turned out to be a no-show. Which Trump noticed, and remarked on, when she told McCain’s colleague Sunny Hostin that, “This is an incredibly powerful platform and I think the more we talk openly about these things — it’s a shame that your colleague didn’t have the courage to come on and have this conversation with me — but I appreciate that you were all willing to take up these very difficult subjects because racism in my view is at the heart of everything that’s wrong in 21st century America.”

Meghan got the message… and she didn’t like it.

Later that day, she had a message of her own for Mary, which she decided to share with the world via Twitter:

There is no “good” Trump family member to me.

Continue to wish they would all just leave me and my entire family the f*ck alone.

The back-and-forth didn’t end there though, as Mary had her own response for Meghan:

I have plenty of respect for Meghan’s parents. It’s too bad she can’t take responsibility for her own actions. That’s the problem with entitlement—it’s dangerous. And so is our failure to hold powerful people accountable.

Something tells us Meghan won’t let it end there.

Parenting is the most important job that most people will ever have in life. Your decisions as a parent will be some of the most important determining factors in whether your child becomes a happy and productive adult or not. It’s a huge responsibility.

Parenting is a difficult and important undertaking, but many parents simply repeat the same strategies used by their parents. How often do we hear people rationalize their decisions by saying, “That’s what my parents did and I came out ok.”

This approach to raising children negates the fact that with every generation there are countless studies done on child development, many of which run counter to popular parenting wisdom from the past.

Dr. Kristyn Sommer, who has a PhD in child development, has received a lot of attention on social media because of her dedication to teaching “evidence-based parenting.” This expertise has made her an advocate for strategies that run counter to conventional parenting wisdom and have stirred up a bit of controversy.

Here are five TikTok videos where Sommer shares some of her evidence-based parenting strategies.

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Three Things I Do Differently as a Mum with a PhD in Child Development

In Dr. Sommer’s first video where she references her degree she admits she refuses to sleep train, co-sleeps with her daughter, and never calls her “naughty” or “bad.” She delves deeper into her thoughts on discipline in the next video.

How To Discipline Your Child So They Actually Learn

Dr. Sommer uses positive reinforcement to discipline her child and as she said in the previous video, avoids the use of terms such as “naughty” or “bad.” If her daughter is doing something wrong she asks her to contemplate whether she’s making a good or a bad decision.

How to Handle Tantrums

Most people tend to think of a tantrum as naughty behavior. However, they are actually a combination of a bunch of little stresses that the child has experienced throughout the day that eventually overwhelm them. Once they hit the tipping point, all of their big feelings bubble up to the surface, resulting in a healthy expression of emotion.

Should You Spank Your Child?

Dr. Sommer is passionately against “spanking, corporal punishment, physical punishment, what ever you want to call it.” She says it needs to stop because it has little effect on behavior and can lead to antisocial tendencies in the future.

She Doesn’t Teach ABCs and 1,2,3s

Dr. Sommer isn’t worried about teaching her child her toddler alphabet or how to count. She says that it “doesn’t really help them with anything” but they should spend that time playing because that’s where they learn best.

While there are still a few significant NBA free agents still deciding on their futures, most of the moves that will come out over the next week are smaller deals as teams look to add depth and fill out rotations.

Few role players had more teams vying for them this summer than Patty Mills, as the sharpshooting Australian guard was departing San Antonio for a role on a contender, and just about every top team was linked to him in recent days. The Lakers, Warriors, and Nets interest were all well known, with others surely checking in on whether they could make a run at the former NBA champion who is a career 38.8 percent three-point shooter.

In the end, Mills chose to go East and join the Nets on a 2-year, $12 million deal that will take up the taxpayer mid-level in Brooklyn and provide them with the backup scoring guard they were about to lose with Spencer Dinwiddie on his way out.

It’s a really good get for the Nets as it all but rounds out a very good guard rotation and gives them a significant upgrade over what they had a year ago taking up significant minutes when Kyrie Irving and James Harden were injured. The hope, of course, is that Mills is playing a smaller reserve role, but he is terrific insurance that can take on a much bigger minutes load should one of their stars be out.

For the other teams that were in the Mills hunt, they have to shift gears and figure out someone else to spend their $5.9 million taxpayer mid-level on, with no one on the market quite as appealing for teams wanting shooting and secondary ball-handling as Mills.