Thanks to the physical distance we’ve been asked to keep in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus, we’re all missing out on normal social interactions. We miss seeing our loved ones faces up close. We miss sitting at a dinner table with our extended family members. We miss hugging them.

Those of us who are huggers have been particularly put out by this major lifestyle change. Some people’s primary love language is physical touch and affection. The idea of not being able to express it adds an extra layer of stress over an already difficult situation.

So people are getting creative. However, in the age of coronavirus, creativity might not be the best idea.

A 10-year-old girl in California built a “hug curtain” so she could hug her grandparents and surprised them at their front door. Made from a plastic sheet, some paper plates cut into rings and plastic sleeves, the curtain seems to allow people to be physically close without exposing one another to the potential virus.

Another person shared a similar set up in a backyard, using a clothesline. The daughter’s joyful laughter while she hugs her mama just illustrates how wonderful being able to hug someone can be.

Others have created similar hugging barriers from shower curtains to PVC pipes placed in their yards.

However, one health expert is cautioning people against the “hug curtain” idea. Houston Health Authority and Medical Director, Dr. David Persse, told investigative reporters at KHOU-11:

“While I very much sympathize with the desire to embrace loved ones, especially during this challenging time, there is no adequate substitution for social distancing. A shower curtain hug, while creative, unfortunately, does not offer the level of protection needed to prevent the transmission of COVID-19. Although I understand the concept, a shower curtain is not personal protective equipment and using it as such includes the potential for exposure.”

Watch the investigative report here:

VERIFY: Hug curtains are a thing, but are they safe?

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There seems to be a short of virologists and public health officials sharing their thoughts on the hug curtain idea—they’re probably all a little busy right now. But at the very least, the idea should be approached with a healthy dose of caution.

We’re all being asked to sacrifice for the greater good right now and that’s difficult. Most of us are trying to heed the advice of public health experts to limit the spread of the virus by maintaining social distancing, even as some areas start to lift lockdown restrictions. While many of us could use a hug right now, we have to ask ourselves if it’s worth the risk.

None of this is easy, but we may need to hold out a little longer before we start hugging our friends and family again, curtain or no curtain.

Here’s everything we know so far.

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Social distancing continues this weekend amid the global pandemic, and several new TV seasons are here for the binging. If nothing here suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Snowpiercer (Sunday, TNT 9:00 p.m.) — The long-gestating TV reboot of Bong Joon Ho’s art-house-action/Noah’s Ark parable has arrived. Naturally, the series knew it could never match up to the movie masterpiece, and it sets itself apart so relentlessly that one must respect this train’s takeoff. Daveed Diggs (Hamilton) and Jennifer Connelly star in this imperfect but very entertaining series.

The Great (Hulu series, Friday) — Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult star in this period dramedy. He’s the Emperor of Russia, and she’s his bride-to-be, and let’s just say that The Favourite fans are going to love this absurd series.

Seberg (Amazon Prime movie, Friday) — Kristen Stewart plays French New Wave and Breathless star Jean Seberg, whose life and career were destroyed by FBI surveillance and harassment following her civil rights activism.

Defending Jacob (Apple TV episode, Friday) — Chris Evans’ dad/ex-prosecutor character attempts to pull off a few last-ditch efforts to prove the innocence of his son, who’s been charged with murder.

White Lines (Netflix series, Friday) — Following the disappearance and death of a legendary DJ, his sister returns to Ibiza to help investigate what really happened. This leads to dark discoveries about herself as the lies and cover-ups of the dance club circuit begin to surface.

Here’s the rest of this weekend’s notable programming:

Friday Night In with The Morgans (Friday, AMC 10:00 p.m.) — Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Hilarie Burton are back, hopefully with more insight into The Walking Dead.

Betty (Friday, HBO 11:00 p.m.) — This week, Honeybear’s coping with a crush while birthday plans are afoot for Janay, as Skate Kitchen director Crystal Moselle (The Wolfpack) brings back her O.G. crew for this funny and freewheeling series about a group of young women who are much cooler than all of us.

Batwoman (Sunday, CW 8:00 p.m.) — Alice digs into Batwoman’s witness, and Commander Kane refuses to back down while facing down with a former Gotham foes.

Billions (Sunday, Showtime 9:00 p.m.) — Chuck’s looking at his next huge opportunity while Axl gets sidelined by out-of-work matters, and Taylor’s making a risky play.

Killing Eve (Sunday, AMC 9:00 p.m.) — Following the pitchfork attack, Eve’s digging into who’s really responsible while Villanelle returns to London and enjoys a hockey game with Konstantin. Yes, of course she behaves inappropriately.

I Know This Much Is True (Sunday, HBO 9:00 p.m.) — Mark Ruffalo’s devastating portrayal of twins sees Dominick clash with his girlfriend while he confronts increasing scrutiny about Thomas’ act of violence.

Supergirl (Sunday, CW 9:00 p.m.) — Watch out, Girl of Steel. The penultimate fifth-season episode sees Lex Luthor and Leviathan come together in an attempt to destroy her.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (Sunday, Showtime 10:00 p.m.) — Josefina Vega deals with a harrowing encounter, and Lewis is seeking assistance from a gangster.

Insecure (Sunday, HBO 10:00 p.m.) — Issa decides to randomly do good in Los Angeles after the block party goes incredibly wrong, and she finds an unexpected source of comfort.

Run (Sunday, HBO 10:30 p.m.) — Ruby and Billy are full of arguments over whether to turn themselves in as the new show from Fleabag and Killing Eve dynamic duo Vicky Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge barrels toward a conclusion.

Harley Quinn (Sunday, Syfy 11:30 p.m.) — The Legion of Doom sends Harley a party invite, and it looks like she must spend time with… Joker? Uh-oh.

While musicians across the globe are using time in quarantine to look towards future releases, some members of Cloud Nothings have created something completely different. Cloud Nothings’ vocalist Dylan Baldi and drummer Jayson Gerycz have fused their talents and recorded a free jazz album, combining their last names to adopt the moniker Baldi/Gerycz.

Titled Blessed Repair, the 44-minute, five-song album breaks convention. Baldi rears a saxophone while Gerycz experiments with new techniques on his drum kit. Per the style of free jazz, the duo play with varying time signatures, tones, and chord progressions.

Before the jazz album, Baldi spoke with Uproxx about Cloud Nothing’s latest release, the 2018 record Last Building Burning. In the interview, Baldi said he finds enjoyment from reading reviews of their records, even if they’re negative:

Lately, I’ve really liked reviews of our records, because I don’t care what anybody thinks about it. I could care less. If I’m happy with it, then we made it. Reading other people’s thoughts about it is funny to me sometimes. Even just today, two reviews popped up, and I was like, ‘Oh,’ because people always tag me on Twitter, even if it’s a sh*tty review. ‘Yeah, Cloud Nothings, look at this terrible review I wrote of your record.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, I’ll check it out.’ […] It’s just so funny to me that people can have such intensely different experiences with a thing that I made. I like it, I’m proud of it, but it’s funny that someone can hear it and be like, ‘Ew, I hate this.’ So I guess that’s how it is. I always just want our records to come out when they’re done, so I can just be like, ‘What do you think?’”

Listen to “Street Mantra” from Blessed Repair above.

Blessed Repair is out now via Carpark Records. Get it here.

Today is a lovely day for Nicholas Hault.

It’s not only the five-year anniversary of Mad Max: Fury Road, a modern masterpiece, it’s also the premiere of his Hulu series The Great. We recently caught up with the actor (check it out!), as did GQ for the publication’s “Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters” video series. The whole thing is worth a watch, but the highlight is the story Hoult tells about auditioning for X-Men: First Class, in which he played the blue-furred Beast.

“[Director] Matthew Vaughn asked me to do a couple of takes in an American accent as you kind of saw the character. But then also do a take doing an impression of Stewie Griffin from Family Guy,” Hoult said. “I had watched a lot of Family Guy in my teen years growing up, so I was like, ‘OK, I think I’ve got a pretty good impression of Stewie Griffin lined up.’ And so I did a whole version of the take as Stewie Griffin and sent it off. So maybe that helped me get the part? I don’t know.” The same thing happened for Kelsey Grammer on The Last Stand, except he did Quagmire. It brings a whole new meaning to “Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs” when you add a “giggity” after “salads.”

Watch the video below.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

One of the most disappointing things about the COVID-19 pandemic is that it wiped out graduation ceremonies for the Class of 2020 whether its kindergarten, eighth grade, high school or college.

Envisioning oneself walking up on stage and grabbing a diploma in front of your peers, family and community is one of the prime motivators that gets people to class.

The Obama’s are doing their best to make sure the Class of 2020 has a commencement speaker with a message to help spur them to the next chapter in life. But for the Class of 2020, the end of the school year is more than anti-climactic.

Gabrielle Piece, a graduate from Xavier University in Louisiana, was devastated that she couldn’t walk across the stage to accept her diploma in biology, a focus in pre-medicine. “Initially I was upset. I was crying,” she told Fox 13 Memphis.

“It took me like a week to stop crying,” Gabrielle continued. “I really wanted to walk, I felt like I needed to walk.”

via Fox 13 Memphis

Gabrielle’s father, Torrence Burson, a man known for over-the-top gestures, was just as upset that she wouldn’t get the graduation day she deserved. So he decided to create a ceremony himself.”I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night and said, ‘That’s it. I’m just going to be the graduation here,'” Torrence said.

“After all those years, you’re going to walk across somebody’s stage if I have to build you one myself,” Torrence told his daughter. Torrence built a stage in the driveway of his home, complete with loudspeakers that barred the graduation march. The ceremony had and invocation, a welcome speech and they played Whitney Houston’s incredible version of the National Anthem.

Neighbors drove by honking in support of the graduate.

via Fox 13 Memphis

Torrence even printed up a program to celebrate the historic day:

Gabrielle graduated from Southwind High School in 2015 with the ambition to attend the Illustrious Xavier University of Louisana to achieve a degree in Biology Pre-Medicine.

During her junior year of college, she decided to go into another direction in medicine by deciding to go into Public health Science for Epidemiology. After all the trials and tribulations she went through, she completed college with 130 credit hours.

She now plans to join the Armed forces to accomplish her end goal of working for the CDC.

“We love our daughter this much. Regardless of the dollar figure, what it took to pull this off. If I had to do this over again, I’d probably do it even bigger,” Torrence said.

“It was just amazing,” Gabrielle said. “Better than the actual graduation, because it was more personal.”

Gabrielle plans to enter the Air National Guard before going back to school to become an Epidemiologist.

Father pulls out all the stops for ‘at-home’ graduation after university ceremony canceled

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With the NFL scheduled to have another league meeting next Tuesday, a major change could be on the docket. According to Jim Trotter of NFL.com, the league will consider adjustments that would dramatically reward franchises that hire minority head coaches and front office executives.

The report indicates that if the resolutions were to be voted in next week, as part of an improvement on the current Rooney Rule that mandates NFL teams interview minority candidates for these jobs, those that actually hire such candidates would move up as many as 16 spots in the third round of the NFL draft.

If an NFL team hires a racial minority head coach and keeps him for a second season, that franchise would jump six spots in the third round of the draft following that coach’s first season at the helm. The reward would be a 10-spot vault if a team hired a minority general manager.

“If a team were to fill both positions with diverse candidates in the same year, that club could jump 16 spots — six for the coach, 10 for the GM — and potentially move from the top of the third round to the middle of the second round,” Trotter wrote.

In addition, the benefits would extend past Year 2 for a coach under these circumstances, with the team jumping five spots in the fourth round should they keep the coach for a third season.

As Trotter notes, there are only two black general managers and four head coaches of color heading into the 2020 season, which is a 17-year low for the NFL. Many franchises have worked around the Rooney Rule by interviewing an in-house candidate for head coach who has no real shot at the job. Others have hired strong minority candidates such as Steve Wilks (Arizona) or Vance Joseph (Denver), only to dismiss them after one poor season.

If you thought air travel was a sh*t experience before we started living in a pandemic, then you’re about to long for the days of TSA frisks, delayed flights, and slow Uber drivers who you inevitably blame for you missing your flight because you didn’t have the good sense to leave five minutes early. Once you’re feeling brave enough and have a good reason to risk jumping on a plane again, be prepared to wait as much as four hours before you actually get to board your flight due to the additional screening procedures and security measures that are already in place at airports across the country in an effort to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Don’t expect to kill that extra time grabbing a drink at an airport bar either, those probably won’t be open. Instead, you’ll spend those extra four hours waiting around and trying to avoid getting close to other people until you’re on the plane. Not easily done at an airport.

According to airline marketing consulting firm, Simpliflying, travelers should expect a scenario where they arrive at least four hours in advance of their departure to give themselves an adequate amount of time to go through additional screening procedures, possibly being shuttled through disinfectant tunnels, and having to wait for routine cleanings of frequently touched surfaces. Passengers may also have to endure what is known as “bingo boarding,” a process where individuals are let onto an airplane by seat number rather than the section in an effort to avoid crowding and pileups. Considering people don’t even wait for their zone to be called to start boarding, this experience sounds like it may cause some frustrations.

Fox Business reports that the TSA has started implementing new rules to keep people the recommended six feet apart, and will relax rules on expired licenses until October 1st, and allow passengers to bring 12-ounce bottles of hand sanitizer on board, as well as provide additional PPE to those who request it. While those tweaks may add time to the experience, they absolutely sound like logical, common-sense initiatives, considering the information we currently have.

For international travel, the situation may be even more extreme. According to The Points Guy when Hong Kong-based journalist Laurel Chor documented her experience at the Hong Kong International Airport on May 14th, she was subjected to a lengthy screening process that took eight full hours. Detailing the experience on Twitter, Chor explained that she had to fill out a quarantine order and good-health declaration, download a tracking app, and receive a COVID-19 test, as well as report her method of transportation home.

Despite testing negative, Chor was still subject to a 14-day quarantine in her home before she’d be allowed to enter public life in Hong Kong. Breaking quarantine could result in a fine of $3,225 and six months in prison.

Forbes found that 9 out of 10 travel experts surveyed agreed that turnaround times between flights will increase due to thorough cabin cleanings and sanitary measures and expect the use of digital technologies and automated services to increase throughout the airport experience. Future air travel will likely include the use of facial recognition during the boarding process, which is already used in some US airports, as well as the use of immunity passports once a vaccine is available. Major airlines are also considering disinfection tunnels with the use of UV light or sanitary solutions, as well as on-the-spot blood tests, mandatory self-check-in, self bag-drop-off, and the end of lounges.

Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber recently joined forces for the heartwarming track “Stuck With U.” The song was released for charity, with proceeds going towards funding grants and scholarships for children of essential workers who have been impacted by the pandemic. Aptly titled, the collaboration was written and recorded all while in quarantine. The singers were able to create the song in isolation with the help of their home studios, and Grande used hers to produce the track. Now, Grande sheds a light on her process in a behind-the-scenes explanation.

Sharing a self-shot video to social media, Grande said that vocal production is one of her “favorite parts” of her job. “So I have no idea if this is going to be interesting to you or not. But I’m sitting at my little home setup, my little studio I have here,” Grande said, “and I wanted to share with you a little bit of the ‘Stuck With U’ session that I vocal produced, because this is one of my favorite parts of what I do.”

Recording her computer screen, Grande detailed how she cuts and pastes different vocal takes together to smoothly align. The singer explained her creative decision to add in snippets of her dogs as well as some laughs she shared while recording. “I really wanted to put that because it captures the vibe of being at home,” she said.

Watch Grande’s behind-the-scenes videos above.