Category: Worldwide

For the second time this year, the sports world saw at least one league abruptly shut down on Wednesday when the Milwaukee Bucks walked away from Game 5 of their playoff series against the Orlando Magic in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. That strike extended into Major League Baseball as well.

The Bucks’ strike caused the postponement of three NBA playoff games on Wednesday, and shortly after word of the Bucks’ strike spread, the Milwaukee Brewers decided they would not play, either. Kenosha sits about an hour away from Milwaukee, where the Bucks and Brewers call home. And while the Bucks are in the NBA’s Bubble in Orlando, the Brewers were slated to host a fan-less game at home on Wednesday night against the Cincinnati Reds.

According to other reports, the Brewers may not be alone in striking in Major League Baseball, either.

Baseball’s season was suspended during spring training amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a number of games have been postponed due to positive coronavirus cases amid several teams, but this kind of labor unrest in response to police brutality against a Black man is unprecedented in the sport’s modern era. The Brewers join the Bucks in deciding the situation in their home state is much more important than sports right now, and though it’s unclear what happens next in the NBA and MLB, what is certain is athletes are stressing to the league and fans that they will not provide entertainment that could distract from yet another episode of police brutality unfolding on a national stage this summer.

One of the common reasons homophobic people give for being against homosexuality is that it’s “unnatural.” However, they are totally wrong. Research shows that homosexuality doesn’t just occur among humans, but throughout the animal kingdom.

According to Yale University, homosexuality has been observed in approximately 10% of “prevailing species throughout the world.”

At first glance, the prevalence of homosexuality seems to work against Darwin’s theory of evolution. Animals that prefer same-sex relationships are likely to reproduce and pass their genetic traits to the next generation.

But according to Yale, same-sex partnerships can have a positive effect on a species’ survival because of their social benefits.

“Same-sex pairing in many species actually alleviates the likelihood of divorce and curtails the pressure on the opposite sex by allowing members to exhibit more flexibility to form partnerships, which in turn strengthens social bonds and reduces competition,” Arash Fereydooni writes.

Given the inherent naturalness of same-sex coupling, the Oceanogràfic València aquarium in Spain allowed a pair of female Gentoo penguins, Electra and Viola, to adopt another penguin’s egg after employees saw them displaying nesting behaviors.

Caregivers at the aquarium noticed the couple gathering stones in preparation for an egg so they knew they’d be perfect parents. After the couple received the egg, they took turns standing over the egg, incubating it until after a little over a month, it hatched a healthy chick.

Caregivers at the aquarium have called the two an “an exceptional pair.”

The penguins will work together to raise the baby bird for about 75 days until it becomes independent.

via faith / Twitter

The same-sex penguin adoption is a first for Oceanogràfic València, but the aquarium says it’s fairly common.

In 2018, a pair of gay male penguins at the Sydney Sea Life Aquarium caught the world’s attention by raising an egg together. After noticing that Sphen and Magic had built an intense relationship together, caregivers gave them a fake egg to incubate.

They knew the relationship was real when the penguins sang to each other.

“You would see Magic standing in his spot looking for Sphen, and he would call and Sphen would come running over and give Magic a little bow and sing as well,” Tish Hannan, head of penguin supervision at the aquarium, told The Independent. “They’ve chosen each other. That’s it. They’re bonded now.”

The pair did such a good job they were given a real egg to incubate and they raised it until it successfully.

The gay penguins’ relationship was even more important because it happened while Australia was having a heated political debate over gay human marriage. Eventually, same-sex couples won the right to marry Down Under.

In the end, love is love, and whether human or penguin, a portion of the population is going to be gay. So, if anyone ever tells you that same-sex relationships are unnatural, let ’em know that being gay is not only natural, but beneficial to the survival of the species.

A seismic moment occurred in the basketball world on Wednesday afternoon. The Milwaukee Bucks refused to come out of their locker room prior to their playoff game against the Orlando Magic in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man from Kenosha. That led to a chain reaction in which the Magic made their way into their locker room, the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder decided to follow suit in not playing, and the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers game was shelved as well.

By the time the NBA announced that the games were postponed, a full-blown player strike in the name of combatting social injustice was underway. As for what’s next, Shams Charania of The Athletic reported that players will convene for a meeting to map out a plan.

Adrian Wojnarowski confirmed this report, mentioning that every NBA player has been invited to join in on the call.

It is unclear what will happen, although some players, it had been mentioned, were considering leaving the Bubble altogether. In addition to the three games on Wednesday, it was reported that members of the Boston Celtics and the Toronto Raptors were considering not playing on Thursday night, when the two sides are slated to being an Eastern Conference Semifinal series.

The Milwaukee Bucks’ refusal to take the court on Wednesday afternoon against the Orlando Magic for Game 5 of their first round series led to the Thunder, Rockets, Lakers, and Blazers to reach the same conclusion that games cannot be played right now following a police shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wisconsin that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

As word was emerging that the other four teams were planning to sit out as well, the NBA decided to postpone all three games officially, saying in a release that they would be rescheduled for a later date. Those plans are not officially made yet. It should be made clear that while the league postponed games, it was reactionary to a player movement that forced them to make this decision, as games weren’t going to be played no matter what the league’s plans were.

What comes next for the NBA Playoffs is unknown, as players reportedly will meet on Wednesday night to discuss the next steps they want to take in what has become a seemingly league-wide player strike. They may not be fighting for workers demands, but are withholding their work in an effort to pressure the league and Board of Governors to use and wield its influence at a state and national level to enact change. The Bucks were trying to contact the Wisconsin attorney general in the locker room as they sat out their game to demand justice for Blake, and on Tuesday, Norman Powell had noted that a player strike would provide pressure on owners to do more than just donate some money, but to use their immense influence to actually create some change and demand action.

The full demands of players of what they need to see from the NBA and ownership will likely be revealed after their meeting tonight, but make no mistake, players have taken a massive step here in pushing for actionable change.

The Houston Rockets and the Oklahoma City Thunder will boycott their playoff game on Wednesday evening. The news comes via Shams Charania of The Athletic, and soon after, the NBA announced that all games on Wednesday will be postponed and rescheduled.

The two sides were slated to tip off their game after Game 5 between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Orlando Magic. However, prior to tip in that game, Bucks players refused to come out of their locker room, followed by the Magic players heading back into their locker room. It was soon announced that the game would be boycotted by the two sides.

There had been plenty of conversation over the last few days about how players viewed playing basketball following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blake was shot in the back multiple times as he was getting into his car, where his three children were sitting. According to a report, while the Bucks were in their locker room, they were attempting to contact the Wisconsin attorney general.

Multiple players mentioned how difficult it was to focus on basketball following the shooting, with players on the Boston Celtics and Toronto Raptors meeting to discuss a potential boycott ahead of Game 1 of their Eastern Conference Semifinal series that tips off on Thursday. There is no word on whether the teams previously scheduled to play on Wednesday consulted with one another ahead of their decisions.

Any time a police officer shoots someone and it’s captured on video, the people of the internet debate whether or not the shooting was justified. Some automatically give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt, citing the split second decisions they have to make in potentially dangerous situations. Others point out that it’s not a police officer’s job to serve as judge, jury, and hangman, citing the due process of law that forms the basis of our judicial system. The reality is that, according to the law, police are allowed to use deadly force under certain circumstances. The problem is, few of us have the background to intelligently weigh in on what actually constitutes a justifiable use of deadly force.

Monday morning quarterbacking is a problem…unless you’re actually a quarterback, of course. There are people who do have the background to comment on police shootings—people who have served as police officers themselves.

Former police officers are weighing in on the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man shot seven times in the back by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin this week.

Josh Hicks, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Kentucky and former police officer, kicked off a Twitter thread by stating, “As a former police officer I can tell you that shooting someone in the back seven times is not the right use of force for an unarmed man walking away from you. I can’t believe I have to say that.”

The tweet resulted in a flood of responses from other former law enforcement officers agreeing with his statement.

“As a former officer I agree,” wrote Paula Gaca, “and do not understand these officers who pull their weapons out because a subject did not immediately comply with the their order. I truly feel that many young police officers today have not experienced life in general and how to talk with people!”

Former Georgia Deputy Sheriff Dawn Johnson wrote that she has to tell people the same thing. “Deadly force has now become the response to someone walking away from police. Failing to comply isn’t the same as resisting.”

She and another former officer explained that shooting someone in the back just isn’t done, unless there is an immediate deadly threat the person is engaged in.

And another former officer described how they had worked in a high crime area arresting people who for sure were armed and committing felonies, and didn’t have to fire their weapon.

Rick Gibbs, a 40-year law enforcement veteran, asked if it was an issue of training. “I too am confused as to what is happening within our police agencies all across the nation. Has training become a joke? Is a militarized force, where citizens are considered enemies, more important than community policing of neighbors, family & friends?”

Others concurred.

Meanwhile, a current police officer shared the Kenosha police department’s own use-of-force guidelines, showing that the department’s own policy doesn’t allow deadly force for someone who is resisting. (It’s worth noting here that simply resisting arrest is a misdemeanor in most states, unless there is active violence coming from the subject which ups it to a felony. Non-compliance in and of itself never warrants a death sentence.)

“Brosephus” and another former officer pointed out that since Blake was outnumbered and unarmed, the officers should have physically taken him down if he really needed to be stopped.

Speaking of WWE, professional wrestler Mustafa Ali (Adeel Alam) who worked as a cop near Chicago for four years, weighed in.

Not only did former law enforcement share their thoughts, but so did military veterans. Aric Reddington pointed out that police officers have less stringent rules about engagement and use-of-force than soldiers in a war zone.

Retired Marine D.J. Lutz, added, “As a retired Marine, when I see someone shoot more than twice, or shoot at someone not posing a threat, I see someone who has rage and or fear along with a lack of trigger discipline. More training or better entrance screening needed!”

Undoubtedly, there are officers and former officers who will say Blake’s shooting was justified for various reasons. But even if he had a rap sheet a mile long, even if he was resisting arrest, even if the officer was afraid he was going for a gun in his car, until there was an actual deadly threat present, what was the justification for shooting him? Some people seem to think that cops are free to shoot people simply for disobeying their orders. (Yet many of these same folks purposefully disobey legal public health orders issued by the authority of the state and would consider it tyranny if agents of the state shot them for non-compliance.) Blake wasn’t even the subject in the original police call that brought the officers to the scene in the first place. And his children were just a few feet away in the car, watching the whole thing. If they needed to arrest him, there were ways to do that without resorting to deadly force.

My opinion doesn’t mean much, of course. But the opinions of experienced law enforcement officers certainly do.

Four Roses is one of the biggest names in the bourbon world for a reason. The distillery cranks out high-quality whiskey after high-quality whiskey. This September will be no different. The Lawrenceburg, Kentucky distillery is going to drop its 2020 Limited Edition Small Batch. The eagerly awaited 2020 version is 111.4 proof, non-chill filtered, and is made up of four different hand-picked bourbon batches. The youngest is 12-years-old and the oldest is 19-years-old, making this a highly nuanced, unique bourbon.

This barrel-strength bourbon is about to become one of the most sought-after bottles of the fall. This is mostly because of limited availability. On a yet-to-be-determined date in September, Four Roses will release only 14,040 hand-numbered bottles to retailers. On top of that, bourbon fans will be able to go to the Four Roses Visitor Center to get their hands on a bottle. But sadly (and smartly these days), you can’t just stroll in and grab a bottle. They’ll only be available in that location to those who sign up for a lottery before September 9 (you can do so on the brand’s website). If you win, you’ll be lucky enough to purchase a bottle for the expected retail price of $150. But, if don’t get one in the lottery or find one at your local liquor store, you’ll likely end up paying a lot more to get one. Last year’s offering is selling on aftermarket sites for upwards of $300.

We were lucky enough to snag our own bottle and this is what we thought.

Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon

ABV: 55.7%
Distillery: Four Roses Distillery, Lawrenceburg, KY
Price: $150

The Whiskey:

Every fall, master distiller Brent Elliot handpicks four barrels from the brand’s ten different bourbon recipes (yes, you read that right) to be married together to make that year’s Limited-Edition Small Batch. Each one is barrel strength and non-chill filtered. They are to be enjoyed as if you were lucky enough to walk through the barrel house with Elliot, enjoying whiskeys he plucked directly from barrels using a whiskey thief. But you’re not walking around with the master distiller, smelling the aromas that usually only the angels share. You’re doing the next best thing and sipping on this eagerly awaited expression.

Tasting Notes:

Like all well-made whiskeys, the experience begins with the nose. Scents of ripe cherries, sweet cream, butterscotch, toasted oak, and just a hint of cinnamon will immediately fill your nostrils. The first sip is full of caramel sweetness, rich vanilla, and Christmas spices. It’s followed by rich honey and sticky toffee pudding. The finish is long, dry, and very warm with a subtle kick of pleasing peppery spice right at the end. This is a highly complex whiskey that will require partaking in a few glasses before you open up all of the various flavors.

Bottom Line:

This bourbon is limited-edition. This means that once it’s released, it’s not going to stay on shelves for long. Get your hands on a bottle and sip on it slowly with a single ice cube. Make it last because soon you won’t be able to find it again.

Since video of police in Kenosha, Wisconsin shooting Jacob Blake in the back seven times emerged on Monday night, NBA players have spoken out, not just in continued calls for justice but in questioning whether they need to do more and go further with their actions after the latest shooting of an unarmed Black man.

George Hill of the Bucks wondered aloud if it was a mistake coming to the Bubble and playing basketball, allowing for a distraction from the continued focus on police violence against Black Americans. The Raptors and Celtics had a number of players speak on that same issue as well, floating the possibility of a boycott as their second round series is scheduled to begin on Thursday.

Then, on Wednesday, the Bucks made a major statement when they refused to emerge from their locker room for Game 5 of their first round series with the Magic, boycotting the game in protest. What that led to was a surreal scene, in which the Magic walked off the floor just before the horn sounded for warmups to end, and by the time tipoff was set to begin, it was only the four referees standing by the scorers table in an otherwise empty arena.

NBA TV handled it all tremendously, with Sam Mitchell and Jim Jackson in particular speaking powerfully about what this moment means and applauding the Bucks for taking this stand. On Twitter, NBA stars also voiced their support for what the Bucks did, and the Rockets and Thunder followed suit in choosing to boycott their Game 5 later in the day — the Lakers and Blazers are reportedly leaning towards doing the same.

LeBron James didn’t mince words with where his frustration level is with the state of police brutality and racism in American, and Jamal Murray and Donovan Mitchell, who have starred in a tremendous on-court duel in the Nuggets-Jazz series, echoing each other and standing together in support of justice.

Former Buck John Henson, who had the police called on him in an incident of racial profiling while he was at a jewelry store during his tenure in Milwaukee, was proud to see what his former team was doing, as were so many others in the league.

Bucks senior VP Alex Lasry also issued a statement supporting the team’s decision.

ASAP Rocky and Rihanna trade cute questions and responses in a new pair of videos from GQ and Vogue. The two stars have been rumored to be in a romantic relationship since early this year, but they’ve been friends even longer than that. Rocky opened for Rihanna during her Diamonds world tour, while she appeared in his music video for “Fashion Killa,” and the the two collaborated on a remix of Rihanna’s song “Cockiness.”

The videos may have poured some fuel to the rumors, as the two are clearly comfy and flirtatious as they answer questions about their respective skincare routines, their opinions on the beauty industry, their collaboration on Rihanna’s new skincare line, Fenty Skin, their favorite curse words, and their favorite looks from each other’s repertoire.

Definitely watch the Vogue video up top first, as Rocky allows Rihanna space to elaborate on her answers, then in the GQ video, Rihanna asks him about foods he wouldn’t eat under any circumstances (chit’lin’s — and he’s absolutely 100 percent correct about this. Stop eating them, my people. They’re not worth stinking up the house for two days). Then, Riri gets the upper hand, throwing in an extra three questions and inducing some ayptically bashful responses from the normally boastful rapper. The videos have a lot of overlap but each gets a chance to shine, so it’s worth watching both.

Watch Rihanna and ASAP Rocky interview each other above.

“Tom Cruise is the wildest guy I have ever met on planet Earth,” Jake Johnson of New Girl fame tells Justin Long on his podcast, Life is Short, segueing into a 10-minute conversation about the Mission: Impossible actor, which begins with Johnson expressing interest in doing The Mummy.

As Johnson tells it, when he got the offer, he read the script and saw that it’s 30-pages of scenes with him and Tom Cruise, who famously does all his own stunts. “I think, ‘Nah. I know what this is going to be,” Johnson says on the podcast. He realizes that Cruise not only does his own stunts, but he’s going to want Johnson to do his, too. That’s not how Johnson prefers it. “There’s one thing I love in this business, and that is when they say, ‘Bring in the stunt people.’”

Basically, what happens to Johnson is that he agrees to do The Mummy with Tom Cruise before he reads the script, and after reading it, Johnson has a change of heart and realizes he no longer wants to do it. “Too scary,” he says. “Am I a coward? You bet your ass I am.” If the offer had come along before New Girl, Johnson says, “blow my ass to Mars. Put a bottle rocket in my butt cheeks. I need to eat.” But at this point in his career, Johnson had a steady job, so he let the powers that be know, “I think I’m out.”

However, Tom Cruise had already gotten excited about having Jake Johnson on board, and he’d started planning the movie with Johnson in mind. So, they told Johnson that if he wanted to pass on the movie, he’d have to go meet Tom Cruise and tell him in person. In London.

So, Johnson takes a day off of New Girl and flies 12 hours out to London to tell Tom Cruise that he can’t do The Mummy. However, by the time he lands in London, he’s exhausted. “I’ve been watching a bunch of weird sh*t and I had so much to drink,” Johnson says. He says he was also suffering from allergies, and he refused to go to the bathroom on the plane, so he had to pee.

The car service picks him up, and instead of taking him to the hotel to shower and reset, the driver takes him straight to the stage, per Cruise’s request. “I’m in cargo shorts, flip flops, with the airplane socks,” Johnson says. “I have like three sweatshirts on for no reason, and we go straight to the soundstage and I meet Tom. We have a meeting that lasts, like, hours.”

During that conversation, Cruise basically teases Johnson about being scared to do his own stunts, but in a generous way. “He’s a super funny guy, and he starts doing a lot of bits, and he’s like, ‘Are you comfortable sitting on a couch. Or do you need a stunt person for that?’ Mind you, I still have to go to the bathroom pretty intensely.”

What happened, according to Johnson, is that he tried to be “respectful and cool,” but “about 45 minutes in, I realize that I really like him, and I turned myself into a fan” and started asking him about all of his movies. “And the funny thing about Tom Cruise is, he’s been Tom Cruise for so long, he understands that people sort of need to do this.”

Anyway, Johnson eventually warms up to the idea of doing The Mummy because of how much he likes Cruise, although he does say to him, “I heard about you strapping yourself to the side of a plane for Mission: Impossible. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want this to be a story of, like, ‘Tom Cruise and fellow actor fall off a building and their heads get smashed.’ Because in Sweden, there’s going to be a big photo of you. But there’s not going to be a big photo of the fat guy from New Girl next to you.”

“I gotta say, though,” Johnson continues. “I’m glad I did it, because he really was a joy to work with, and he’s a really wild guy. And part of the fun in our business is that you get to work with really wild people.” Johnson explains more about why Cruise is so “wild” on Long’s podcast, including some of the stunt work they did together on The Mummy.

Source: Life is Short with Justin Long