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There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a pint of Guinness or two on St. Patrick’s Day. In fact, we assume you’ll be partaking in this Irish staple while you drape yourself in the Irish flag and drink one too many. But, after you’ve had a few pints of “the black stuff”, we implore you to give another dry Irish stout a try.

For those unaware, a dry Irish stout is known for its darkly roasted barley. This is what gives it its dry, roasty, chocolate, coffee, and lightly bitty flavor and differentiates it from other stout styles. On top of that, a traditional Irish dry stout is also brewed with specific hops such as Challenger, Fuggle, and East Kent Goldings.

A popular beer in Ireland, there are also myriad great examples in the U.S. beer world. This is why we selected eight great dry Irish stouts that aren’t Guinness and ranked them. Some are from Ireland, and some are from the U.S. All are dry, roasty, and well-suited for St. Patrick’s Day.

8) Breckenridge Nitro Irish Stout

ABV: 4.8%

Average Price: $10 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans

The Beer:

One of the most popular dry Irish stouts in the American beer landscape, Breckenridge Nitro Irish Stout is a year-round beer brewed with traditional Irish malts. Crafted in the “old-world” style, it’s known for its roasted barley, chocolate, and malt flavor.

Tasting Notes:

The aroma is fairly light with a mix of roasted malts and chocolate. You really have to concentrate to really find anything notable. The palate continues this trend. There are some lightly roasted malts, coffee, dark chocolate, and caramel malts. The finish is dry and lightly bitter. But overall, it’s surprisingly watery.

Bottom Line:

While this beer has all the traditional dry Irish stout aromas and flavors. Still, it’s all fairly muted and watery.

7) O’Hara’s Irish Stout

ABV: 4.3%

Average Price: $9 for a four-pack

The Beer:

O’Hara’s award-winning flagship beer is its dry Irish Stout. Brewed since 1999, it’s brewed with roasted malts and Fuggle hops. The result is a traditional dark, coffee, chocolate, and roast malt-filled beer with light hop bitterness.

Tasting Notes:

On the nose, you’ll find aromas of bitter chocolate, roasted malts, and light caramel. It’s fairly muted though. The palate is slightly better with more roasted malts, vanilla beans, dried fruits, coffee, and dry, bitter hops.

Bottom Line:

Another beer that hits on all the flavors, but is just a little light and water for our liking. This dry Irish stout is just okay. It’s decent, but not overly memorable.

6) Left Hand Dry Irish Stout Nitro

ABV: 4.3%

Average Price: $15 for a six-pack of 16-ounce cans

The Beer:

A great example of an Americanized version of the traditional dry Irish stout, Left Hand Dry Irish Stout is brewed with 2-row barley, Black barley, Chocolate barley, Munich malt, and rolled oats. It gets its bitter, floral flavor from the addition of Apollo hops.

Tasting Notes:

A nose of coffee beans, roasted malts, chocolate, and vanilla beans draws you in. The mouthfeel is surprisingly creamy and rich with notes of coffee, roasted barley, vanilla, chocolate, and a light nutty sweetness. The finish is dry and pleasantly bitter.

Bottom Line:

Another beer that loses points because it’s a little thinner than you’d hope, Left Hand Dry Irish Stout is still a pretty good take on the style.

5) Murphy’s Irish Stout

ABV: 4%

Average Price: $8 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans

The Beer:

While Guinness is undoubtedly the most popular dry Irish stout, Murphy’s is arguably the second most popular. Brewed with simple, traditional ingredients like water, malted barley, barley, and hop extract. This dry, bitter, chocolate-filled beer gets added creaminess from the addition of nitrogen.

Tasting Notes:

Bitter chocolate, freshly brewed coffee, roasted malts, vanilla beans, and bready malts start the nose off right. Drinking it reveals more chocolate, roasted malts, brown sugar, yeasty bread, and a dry, bitter finish. It’s flavorful, but not all that exciting.

Bottom Line:

This is a great replacement for Guinness as it’s a classic dry Irish stout. It’s no frills and loaded with classic flavors.

4) North Coast Old No. 38

ABV: 5.4%

Average Price: $12 for a six-pack

The Beer:

This dry Irish stout comes from the brewers at Fort Bragg, California’s North Coast Brewing. It gets its name from a now-retired California Western Railroad steam engine. This award-winning beer is known for its toasted malts, coffee, caramel, and roasted barley flavors.

Tasting Notes:

Bold aromas of freshly brewed coffee, dark chocolate, toasted malts, vanilla, and light floral hops greet you before your first sip. Drinking it brings forth more bitter chocolate, roasted barley, brown bread, caramel, vanilla, and a dry, pleasantly bitter chocolate finish.

Bottom Line:

This beer has everything an Irish dry stout fan could want. It’s dry, smooth, and loaded with dark, bold flavors.

3) Societe The Pugilist

ABV: 4.5%

Average Price: $13 for a six-pack

The Beer:

You don’t have to be a boxer to enjoy this award-winning dry Irish stout. Made to taste like the traditional stouts of Ireland, it’s known for its mix of roasted malts, chocolate, smoky, coffee, and dry, bitter hop flavors. Simple, elegant, and well-made.

Tasting Notes:

An intriguing nose of dark chocolate, coffee, oats, vanilla, and gentle smoke greets you before taking your first sip. On the palate, you’ll find hints of roasted barley, toasted malts, caramel, and coffee. Dry, lightly smoky, and highly drinkable.

Bottom Line:

Societe The Pugilist is a nice take on the dry Irish stout. It’s dry, lightly bitter, and filled with coffee and chocolate flavors. The addition of gentle smoke only adds to the overall flavor profile.

2) Pure Project Milagro

ABV: 5.3%

Average Price: $6 for a 16-ounce can

The Beer:

San Diego is home to so many great breweries, it’s difficult to stand out. Pure Project is one of those breweries that’s definitely standing out. This is especially true with its Pure Project Milagro, a dry Irish stout brewed with Costa Rican organic coffee and Tahitian vanilla beans.

Tasting Notes:

A complex nose of toasted vanilla beans, dark chocolate, roasted malts, toffee, and freshly brewed coffee meets your nose prior to your first taste. Sipping it reveals notes of sweet, floral vanilla, toasted barley, butterscotch, bitter chocolate, and bolder, coffee beans.

Bottom Line:

This definitely isn’t your traditional dry Irish stout and that’s okay. This vanilla and coffee bomb is a great change of pace from the usual Guinness.

1) Zero Gravity Extra Stout

ABV: 5.9%

Average Price: $12 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans

The Beer:

This highly complex, pitch black, 5.9% ABV dry Irish stout was brewed with Maris Otter, roasted barley, Pale Chocolate, Chocolate, Black barley, Carafa III, Pale Crystal, Crystal, and flaked barley. It’s also brewed with house ale yeast and gets its classic stout bitterness from the addition of East Kent Goldings hops.

Tasting Notes:

Notes of roasted malts, toasted barley, cocoa powder, coffee beans, vanilla, and light, floral hops are prevalent on the nose. The palate is butterscotch, bitter chocolate, vanilla beans, toasted barley, and espresso beans. Dry, sweet, subtly bitter, and highly memorable.

Bottom Line:

When it comes to US-made dry Irish stouts, you’ll have a hard time finding a better, more complex example than Zero Gravity Extra Stout.

The Sacramento Kings have clinched a winning record in the regular season for the first time since 2006.They’re 9-2 since the All-Star break. They’re 22-12 since the start of 2023, tied with the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics for the fourth-most wins in the calendar year. They’re jostling for the 2-seed in the Western Conference with the Memphis Grizzlies (0.5 games up currently) and are 4.5 games up on the fourth-seeded Phoenix Suns with 14 games remaining, it’s becoming increasingly likely that the Kings will hold homecourt advantage in at least one playoff series, if not two.

Point blank, Sacramento is a very good basketball team. And yet, because the Kings are the new kids on the block, conversations around Sacramento’s playoff chances overwhelmingly focus on why they might fail instead of why they can succeed.

On one hand, it’s understandable, because the only way to prove you’re ready for playoff basketball is to do it in the postseason. On the other, this team rocks! While the Kings undoubtedly have flaws, so does every single team in the West. While there are no guarantees everything translates to the postseason, the Kings do a lot of things you want from a playoff team.

The biggest separator for the Kings this season has been their play in clutch situations, where De’Aaron Fox has become an absolute killer and is running away with the inaugural Jerry West Clutch Player of the Year award. That ability to excel and execute offensively when the pressure is highest should bode well for Sacramento once the playoffs roll around.

The Kings are already a good team, leading the league in offensive rating on the year and plugging away with a solid +2.7 net rating. They operate a great deal in transition, playing with the fourth-highest transition frequency (17.1 percent of plays) in the league, where they’re incredibly efficient.

Oftentimes, when looking at a high frequency transition team, you expect a stark fall-off in how effective that team is in the halfcourt. Teams that run a ton typically sell out to play fast and avoid set defenses due to limitations they have at creating advantages without being buoyed by pace. That’s not a problem for the Kings, boasting the second-most efficient halfcourt offense in the league per Cleaning the Glass. They play with continuous movement and intuitive principles to keep defenses in motion even when it should be most difficult. That is the part that translates at the end of games, and is also why I’m bullish on their ability to remain a dominant offense come playoff time.

It starts with their star guard, as Fox isn’t just leading the league in clutch scoring (defined by NBA tracking as a game within five points and five minutes or fewer remaining), he’s lapping the field. Fox is averaging 5.2 clutch points per game shooting 54.2% from the field. The next closest player is Stephen Curry with 4.4, and only five players total are averaging more than 4 per game on the season amongst qualifiers (at least 10 games played).

Every shot he’s taken in the waning minutes of a close game has felt good this season. There’s an air of “yeah, he has IT.”

In rewatching Sacramento’s clutch minutes, clutch games, and trying to parse through what’s different and what clicks for the Kings, composure is the answer that I keep coming back to. It sounds cliche, but it stands out in a way that’s uncommon for a team without a significant history of winning.

They don’t run different sets. They don’t operate with different personnel. They just do what they do, but better.

The Kings lead the league with their 118.7 offensive rating, which would be the best in league history as it stands. In clutch time, that jumps up to an astonishing 129.3 offensive rating; the next closest clutch time offense is the Lakers with a 116.9 ORtg.

Their turnover rate dips to 8.3 percent, making for the NBA’s 2nd lowest in clutch time and is 4.2 percent lower than their regular turnover rate. The Kings play with a similar pace, but with a different purpose: It’s Fox time.

For a team that prides itself on ball and player movement, they are dominant when they allow Fox to isolate late in games. Just 49.5 percent of Sacramento’s 2-point baskets are unassisted per game, near exactly league average, but 72.4 percent of their clutch twos are unassisted, the highest mark in the league.

They toe the line of heavy isolation, while also operating with their east-west movement. It’s essential. Every player remains a threat and keeps the floor spread for this year’s King of the Fourth. It rarely becomes a straight up isolation without an initial action or off of a switch hunt, but instead possessions begin out of a DHO or early pistol action, as the Kings get Fox to his best spots to cook off movement. It’s an important distinction when understanding why things work and how the Kings get to their bread and butter.

That lack of stagnancy matters greatly in producing great offensive looks. The Kings and Fox are like a great distance runner, sticking to the game plan, abiding by their truth, remaining calm, and then hitting the burst for the closing mile. The Kings’ defense isn’t good, and is oft the most nitpicked aspect of them. Understandably, as they sit bottom five in the league in defensive rating and have much of the year.

However, I tend to look at their defense in a different light. They do their job. They stay the course and rarely sway from their base. While their personnel are undoubtedly limited, they sell out to do what they do best; contest shots and rebound the heck out of the basketball. They limit opponent second chance points to enhance their own ability to get the ball out in transition. Again, it’s not good defense, but it is self-aware in that regard and just tries to limit the damage as much as possible.

They play a continual war of attrition, gaming the margins, trust-falling into their strengths. Every shot you miss is another opportunity for the Kings to put you on the back foot.

It’s reasonable to not believe in the Kings. They haven’t been in the playoffs before and they do have notable questions, namely their defense. Yet, I keep coming back to this pivotal quote in Watchmen (it happens in the novel, but differently) from Rorschach/Walter Kovacs.

“None of you seem to understand. I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me.”

Every time I watch the Kings pull it together in the fourth quarter and establish their clutch dominance, it’s hard to not envision that scene. There are plenty of questions to be answered by Sacramento come playoff time, but De’Aaron Fox and the Kings deserve the opportunity to make that statement. Based on their play throughout the course of the season, we should be in for one heck of a first round series, whoever they play.

Actor and producer Donald Glover tried his best to walk away from his music persona Childish Gambino, but there’s still work to be done. The triple threat hinted that a new project was on the way during his appearance on Kimmel, but fans were in for a treat that new music was just the tip of the creative iceberg. In addition to the new music, Gambino released a new Amazon Prime Video series, Swarm, starring Chlöe and Dominique Fishback.

As with any great film or series, an original soundtrack is necessary, and Gambino released a full EP to accompany Swarm.

Childish Gambino and KIRBY lend their voices to singer Ni’Jah’s track “Sticky,” which serves as the lead single from the soundtrack. Heard in the series trailer, “Sticky” immaculately lays out the plot of a woman sick obsession with a pop star. Co-produced by Dylan Wiggins and Michael Uzowuru, the song is eerie in all of the same ways the series is.

The second verse of the song drives home the level of discomfort Cambino wants you to feel as you dive into this piece, as he and KIRBY sings, “I got a gun, I got the strap, I got the door locked / I gotta run, they in the back, “Hello” and the door knock / Lock on the car ‘Beep, beep’ / Blood on the bar, leak, leak / Cops finna come, sweet, sweet / Hoe, I look good, tweet, tweet / Hope I don’t get no blood on top of my weave / Ain’t got no beatin’, they ain’t no apostrophes /And I got my mask on (Hey) / Still twerk *ss to sad songs / Gotta keep the joy alive.”

Listen to the full track above and the full EP below. Swarm premieres today (March 17) on Prime Video.

All hail Keanu Reeves, the leader of the puppies who rules over his kingdom with a fuzzy paw. On Thursday, the actor dropped by The Tonight Show to discuss John Wick: Chapter 4 and sing “Hey Jude” by the Beatles, but we’ll get to that. First, if you watch the video above, you’ll be treated to Reeves being covered in adorable dogs during a game of Pup Quiz. “I am the puppy king,” he says at one point. Hopefully no one told the puppies about… y’know.

Earlier in the episode, Fallon and Reeves discussed a recent encounter they had. They were dining at the same restaurant in Los Angeles when Reeves “had the whole restaurant come over and sing me happy birthday,” the Tonight Show host said. “And it was not my birthday. It was not my birthday at all.” That wasn’t Fallon’s favorite part of the evening, though.

“Here’s the best move. You were leaving. There was a great guy who plays music, guitar at the restaurant. And so he starts singing ‘Hey Jude,’ and so I jumped up to sing with him. I thought you were gone,” Fallon told Reeves, who described his performance as “you just kept going.”

You can watch that video below.

It’s back! Michter’s Single Barrel 10-Year Bourbon Whiskey is starting to hit shelves around the country right now after a one-year hiatus in 2022. Master Distiller Dan McKee and Master of Maturation Andrea Wilson held the release back last year as the barrels just weren’t quite there yet. This year, the whiskey was ready and after a bottling run, Michter’s 10-Year Bourbon is back on (some) shelves.

To celebrate the single-barrel 10-year-old bourbon release, I’m going to break down what’s in the bottle below. Spoiler alert — this is a great whiskey. It’s one of the most classic and quintessential bourbons on the shelf in the United States.

There’s a reason for that (though it’s a tad esoteric) — the care that both McKee and Wilson put into these expressions is apparent in the actual whiskey in the bottle. There’s a depth that goes beyond a well-built flavor profile into a ~ sense of something better and deeper ~ that just sings more on the senses and elicits a deep sense of feeling. From the first nose to the echo of the finish, you sense that there’s just more to this whiskey than your average one. And that’s what makes whiskeys like this so much more sought-after and, well, expensive.

Okay, that’s enough preamble. Let’s get to what’s actually in this new bottle of Michter’s.

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Michter’s Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 10 Years Old

ABV: 47.2%

Average Price: $185 (MSRP)

The Whiskey:

The whiskey barrels sourced for these single-barrel expressions tend to be at least 10 years old with some rumored to be closer to 15 years old (depending on the barrel’s quality, naturally). Either way, the whiskey goes through Michter’s bespoke filtration process before a touch of Kentucky’s iconic soft limestone water is added, bringing the bourbon down to a very crushable 94.4 proof.

The Bottle:

Michter’s large-format bottle for their 10, 20, and 25-year releases is hefty and iconic for the brand. They stand out on shelves and feel like bottles that you keep around after all the liquid is gone as a decanter or rose vase. Moreover, they are waxed dipped — adding some serious class.*

*Thankfully, the team at Michter’s has the good sense to add a useable pull tab in the wax for easy opening. This is not a universal truth in whiskey bottle wax dipping. As someone who has to open bottles constantly, I really appreciate this small touch.

Tasting Notes:

Nose: There’s a peppery sense of cedar bark and burnt orange next to salted caramel and tart red berries with a moist and spicy sticky toffee pudding with some brandy butter dancing on the nose.

Palate: The palate blends vanilla tobacco with salted dark chocolate-covered marzipan while espresso cream leads to new porch wicker and black peppercorns.

Finish: The end has a pecan waffle vibe with chocolate chips, maple syrup, blackberry jam, and minced meat pies next to old tobacco and cedar with a sweet yet toasted marshmallow on the very end.

Bottom Line:

Yup, delicious. This is a stellar sipper neat, blooms nicely with a little water (it takes on a creamy sense of dark chocolate and marshmallow with almonds almost like a scoop of really well-made rocky road ice cream filtered through spicy bourbon), and absolutely kills in an old fashioned.

How To Buy:

This is an allocated bottle. That means that high-end bars and restaurants are going to be the best bet to drink this in the real world. Nottles will be on shelves at liquor stores behind glass or behind the cash register but very fleetingly so. It won’t be impossible to find, but you’ll have to put in the legwork in your region to find it.

There is a pretty big aftermarket for this online and at high-end whiskey shops. Expect to pay three to four times the MSRP though.

Ranking:

91/100 — This is excellent bourbon. It’s versatile and deep. That all said, it’s obviously not Michter’s 20-Year Bourbon — that bottle offers pure whiskey transcendence. Still, this is much more approachable as a stone-cold classic bourbon that’s just essential.

It was confirmed yesterday (March 16) that the rumors are true about Billie Eilish appearing in Donald Glover‘s Prime Video series Swarm. Now, actor Jason Sudeikis brought her up on Late Night With Seth Meyers to discuss how she’s influenced his kids.

Seth Meyers asked him about his children making music together. “As I’m coming up the stairs, I can usually hear a keyboard, and I bought two karaoke setups for me and [Will] Forte. But they’ve now figured out how to turn them on. And they’ll just be making up songs. And I truly believe it’s because I had the wherewithal to watch the Billie Eilish documentary. So when we see Billie and her older brother Finneas making music together and making each other laugh, it’s kind of similar to when I would visit my Uncle George on the Cheers set and be like, ‘This is a job? You guys all joking around?’”

“I was just curious because Daisy and I were gonna go to the concert and I wanted her to have a little more context because you gotta understand why she’s a bad guy.” He continued: “The beat is great, the lyrics are interesting, but why is she a bad guy?”

Watch the interview above.

Warning: spoilers for Swarm are below.

After it premiered at midnight last night (March 17), Swarm has taken over the internet. The new Amazon Prime Video series from Donald Glover and Janine Nabers is notable for a number of reasons, including a recently revealed appearance from Billie Eilish. She’s not the only music star in the show, as Chlöe also has a role, and there’s one scene in particular that is making waves online: the sex scene.

We won’t share it here (it’s easy enough to find, though, either via clips on Twitter or in the actual show), but for about 30 seconds in the first episode’s opening minutes, Chlöe and Damson Idris’ characters (Marissa Jackson and Khalid) have sex with each other as they talk dirty and make sexual noises. Partway through, Khalid notices Dominique Fishback’s character (Andrea “Dre” Greene) watching them from the doorway, but he continues and even flashes her a smile before Dre walks away.

Naturally, the explicit scene has drawn so many reactions on Twitter.

In a recent Deadline interview, Chlöe spoke about filming the scene, saying, “I remember when I first read the script, I was like, ‘Oh, this is insane, this is incredible,’ and I cried, and then I realized, ‘You gotta do that sex scene, girl.’ And as open and liberal as I am with my body, I was very scared because I haven’t had that many partners, I’m not like that… that sexual and open. […] Damson made it really comfortable. You know, there were limited people on set, it was a closed set. We were laughing in between. We literally had a bouncy ball in between us. […] I have to give a lot of kudos to him as a man for making me as a woman feel comfortable being literally raw and naked.”

Find some more reactions below.

The demand for Drake and 21 Savage’s It’s All A Blur Tour tickets is so high, they’ve added a slew of extra dates. After fans trying to get in on the presale complained of high ticket prices, the two rappers announced 12 new shows on the tour to alleviate the pressure as the general sale opens up.

Dates in Dallas, DC, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, Montreal, Philly, San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver were doubled, while Brooklyn, Manhattan, and LA all received third shows. Meanwhile, the dates for Drake’s hometown, Toronto, will be announced in the future.

The general sale for It’s All A Blur tickets begins today, Friday, March 17 at noon local time. You can get more info here and see the full list of tour dates below. New dates are in bold.

6/16 – New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center
6/19 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
6/21 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
6/22 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
6/24 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
6/25 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
6/28 – Miami, FL @ Miami-Dade Arena
6/29 – Miami, FL @ Miami-Dade Arena
7/01 – Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
7/02 – Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
7/05 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
7/06 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
7/08 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
7/09 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
7/11 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden
7/12 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden
7/14 – Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre
7/17 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
7/18 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
7/20 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
7/23 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
7/25 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
7/26 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
7/28 – Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
7/29 – Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
7/31 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
8/1 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
8/12 – Inglewood, CA @ Kia Forum
8/13 – Inglewood, CA @ Kia Forum
8/15 – Inglewood, CA @ Kia Forum
8/18 – San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
8/19 – San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
8/21 – Los Angeles, CA @ Crypto.com Arena
8/22 – Los Angeles, CA @ Crypto.com Arena
8/25 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
8/26 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
8/28 – Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
8/29 – Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
9/01 – Las Vegas, NV @– T-Mobile Arena
9/02 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
9/05 – Glendale, AZ @ Desert Diamond Arena

Hollywood producer Steven DeKnight has significantly back tracked after calling Jenna Ortega “toxic” and “entitled.” DeKnight, who worked on the Netflix series Daredevil and Jupiter’s Legacy and directed Pacific Rim: Uprising, blasted Ortega for her remarks about changing her lines on Wednesday and criticizing the writers in public.

Via Twitter:

“I love talking with actors about their lines/stories. But by the nature of the beast, they don’t have the full picture (in TV) of where the story is going and why some lines are needed for the whole to make sense. She’s young, so maybe she doesn’t know any better (but she should). She should also ask herself how she would feel if the showrunners gave an interview and talked about how difficult she was and refused to perform the material.”

“This kind of statement is beyond entitled and toxic,” DeKnight concluded. “I love her work, but life’s too short to deal with people like this in the business.”

However, DeKnight later changed his tune as his remarks about Ortega spread.

“My comments were about breaking the trust that we all have on set and during the production process that our creative differences will stay in the family,” DeKnight wrote in response to a tweet calling him out for “s**tting” on Ortega. “It was never about her creative concerns, which were valid. Or about her performance, which was fantastic. I sincerely hope that clears it up.”

In response to a now-hidden tweet, DeKnight continued to massage his remarks and blamed the pending writer’s strike for heightening tensions.

“Again, I can’t stress this enough: She’s an amazing talent,” DeKnight tweeted. “It was just an unfortunate situation to expose creative differences publicly, and also I’ll admit that writers are on edge because of the impending strike, myself included. A perfect storm.”

The producer wrapped up his apology tour by encouraging everyone, including himself, to be better.

“Back to work. Try, as always, to be kind to each other even when we vehemently disagree,” DeKnight said. “And yes, there are times that I need to heed my own advice. We are all emotional works-in-progress. Love to all of you.”

(Via The Wrap)

Vladimir Putin is taking his shots where he can get them these days while Russia essentially disintegrates in the aftermath of his Ukraine invasion. He’s recently attempted to guilt-trip Russian billionaires into propping up the economy with no takers yet. His private army is recruiting on Pornhub, and eyebrows are finally starting to raise regarding how his critics and detracting associates tend to fall out of high-story windows, totaling in the dozens.

How is the Russian president blowing off steam? He decided to fine a politician for essentially pulling a Marjorie Taylor Greene, which is ironic, given that she seems to favor Putin if that’s the cost of slamming Biden. Yet Putin showed no patience for a (silent) heckler when Mikhail Abdalkin decided to take a stand by placing spaghetti on his ears while virtually spectating a Putin speech. Well, Putin heard about the resulting viral video and tossed over a $2,000 fine. Via Reuters, Vlad as steamed that Abdalkin was “discrediting the armed forces.”

The noodles were apparently a statement that Abdalkin believes that Putin’s speeches are filled with lies.

Putin didn’t take kindly to this move, obviously, yet as NPR reports, he seems to be much happier about the statement recently made by two Russian fighter pilots who took down an unmanned U.S. drone. Accordingly, the Russian Defense Ministry has honored the pilots while deeming the American aircraft to be an “intruder.” Further and as NPR relates, Russia claims, “The Russian aircraft did not use onboard weapons, did not come into contact with the unmanned aerial vehicle and returned safely to their home airfield.” The no-contact claim appears to be completely false, as shown by Pentagon footage (via CNN) that shows the jets pouring fuel upon the drone. It’s not exactly a Lex Luthor move, but it’s not playing fair by any stretch.

(Via Reuters, NPR & CNN)