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Jeopardy!‘s primetime spinoff series Celebrity Jeopardy! is facing criticism for an unfortunate clue involving Brian Laundrie, who confessed to killing his fiancé, Gabby Petito, while they were traveling across the United States in a van together.

“In 2021, fugitive Brian Laundrie ended his days in Fla.’s Myakkahatchee Creek area, home to these long and toothy critters,” the clue read. There are plenty of ways that Celebrity Jeopardy! could have come to the correct answer — “What are alligators?” — without bringing up a real-life murder case. Like, “This long and toothy critter ate Chubbs’ hand in Happy Gilmore.” You’re pretty sick, Celebrity Jeopardy!

In the summer of 2021, Petito and Laundrie went on a cross-country trip together in a repurposed van, but on Sept. 11, Petito was reported missing by her family, who had not heard from her.

It was later revealed that Laundrie had returned home to his parents’ house with the van 10 days before Petito was reported missing. The case made national and international headlines and by Sept. 17, Laundrie also was missing.

Petito died from strangulation, while Laundrie’s remains were found in the Florida park; the cause of death was ruled a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A notebook was discovered alongside his body, which “revealed written statements by Laundrie that took responsibility for Petito’s death,” according to People. It’s a sad story, and no one can understand why Celebrity Jeopardy! brought it up for a clue about gators — including Laundrie’s family. “The entire Laundrie family is appalled and concurs with all of the comments on social media on how distasteful this was. I believe an apology is due,” the family’s attorney wrote in a statement. Others on social media were also bewildered.

For what it’s worth, contestant Joel Kim Booster got the right answer right.

(Via TMZ)

During an October concert, Harry Styles got hit in the crotch by a flying object. Now, fans are continuing to hurl things on stage: At his Los Angeles show on November 14, Styles got hit right in the eye by a Skittles candy.

Video of the between-songs incident shows Styles gesturing to the crowd before recoiling pretty drastically at the apparent impact, then wincing and rubbing his eye as he continued to acknowledge his fans.

As The Independent notes, Styles frequently touched or rubbed his eye and was often squinting for the remainder of the show. The publication also reports that Pauli Lovejoy, a member of Styles’ band, confirmed on Instagram Live that it was a Skittles candy that struck Styles. She said Styles is fine but noted, “Do me a favor: don’t throw no more Skittles on stage.”

Fans were pretty upset with the Skittle thrower, like one who tweeted, “don’t throw sh*t onstage that’s going to hurt him what the actual f*ck is the point of throwing skittles bro harry styles is not going to eat your random f*cking dirty skittles stop it.”

Meanwhile, Styles is one of the most-nominated artists at the 2023 Grammys, as it was revealed yesterday he had picked up seven nominations.

Yesterday (November 15) was a big day for many artists, as the nominations for the 2023 Grammy Awards were announced. Taylor Swift picked up a nomination in one of the “big four” categories, as “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)” is up for Song Of The Year, and she’s absolutely thrilled about it.

In an Instagram Story shared last night, Swift wrote, “So many reasons to lose my damn mind today but… All Too Well 10 is the song I’m the most proud of, out of anything I’ve written. The fact that it’s nominated for Song of the Year at the Grammys, an award I’ve never won, that honors the songwriting… it’s momentous and surreal. Just got off the phone with @lizrosemusic, my co writer on ATW, and reminisced about how we started writing together when I was 14. She believed in me then and we are nominated together now. It’s just so cute I can’t cope. I want to ramble about the magic and mystery of time and fate and reclaiming my art but instead I think I’ll go scream for ten minutes straight. And think about how this wouldn’t have happened without you.”

Previously, nominated for Song Of The Year were Swift’s “Cardigan,” “Lover,” “Blank Space,” “Shake It Off,” and “You Belong With Me,” but none of them managed to take home the award. Swift has done well at the Grammys overall, though: Not counting the 2023 show, Swift has been nominated for 42 Grammys and won 11 of them.

For 2023, Swift is also nominated for Best Song Written For Visual Media (“Carolina” from Where The Crawdads Sing), Best Music Video (All Too Well: The Short Film), and Best Country Song (“I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”).

Find the full list of 65th Annual Grammy Awards nominees here.

Taylor Swift is no stranger to breaking records. With Midnights, she earned her 11th Billboard No. 1 album and the biggest first week for an album in 7 years. With that same LP, she also broke Spotify’s record for most streamed album in a single day.

Now, with the Grammy nominations announced, she’s making more history. According to Billboard, she is tied for the all-time record for most Song Of The Year nods after her 10-minute version of “All Too Well” was nominated today. She’s tied with Paul McCartney and Lionel Richie. Of course, that also means she has the most for a female artist.

Last month on Jimmy Fallon, she explained her immense productivity. “I love writing songs, poems, stories, scripts,” she said. “I love writing those things because there’s a part of it I don’t quite understand how it comes to fruition. There’s something so mysterious about writing but I’ve found that the more I write the more I keep writing. I don’t know what’s been going on but in the last six or seven years, I’ve just been constantly making things and the more things I make the happier I am. So I just continue to do it. I’m just happy you guys like that.”

Last week, one billionaire told Elon Musk to hold his beer. Sam Bankman-Fried, the young head of the Larry David- and Tom Brady-promoted cryptocurrency exchange FTX, took at least some of the press away from Twitter’s new, chaotic king. What did he do? Help tank his company overnight, losing billions in investors’ money, which was suddenly nowhere to be found. Details are still rolling in, many of them so outlandish and strange that the inevitable Hulu limited series all but writes itself. Late last week, Gawker reported that not only did some of the twenty-something higher-ups share the same home in the Bahamas, they also shared the same therapist. Now he’s talking to the press.

In new interviews with Vice and The New York Times, Dr. George K. Lerner opened up about his unusual role in the company that’s since gone under. He told Vice that was less an psychoanalyst and more of an “in-residence coach,” talking to 100 employees, including 20 to 40 on a “semi-regular basis.” These conversations were, he said, “focused on employee happiness and retention and organizational structure.” In a sense, it’s not that unusual; some have compared it to the therapist character on Billions (which Lerner says he hasn’t seen).

Bankman-Fried — who’s been mostly chilling since his company imploded, prompting multiple investigations — was simply one of his patients, and Dr. Lerner suggested he didn’t know him that well. But he thinks he knows him enough to think he’s no criminal mastermind who would fleece millions out of billions.

“I just can’t see him doing that, honestly,” Dr. Lerner told NYT. “I mean, I guess maybe I would have to sit down with him and understand why. But I have difficulties making that jump.”

Dr. Lerner shot down or minimized some of the stranger claims about the twentysomething FTX highers-up, some of whom have said they were in “polycules” with each other. Still, it was no den of vice, Lerner claimed.

“It’s a pretty tame place,” he said. “The higher-ups, they mostly played chess and board games. There was no partying. They were undersexed, if anything.” Mostly they just worked. In his chat with Vice, he even said he tried to help them find partners in a place without much nightlife.

Dr. Lerner also shot down the idea that they were powering through work high on Adderall. He prescribed them medication, but mostly for A.D.H.D. He also claims he gave Bankman-Fried, who has nervous habits, the fidget spinner that became his trademark (along with his shorts).

They also weren’t burning through money. Dr. Lerner described Bankman-Fried as frugal. “You’ve seen how he dresses,” he told NYT. “They really didn’t spend much money.”

So where does the truth lie? Were they a band of drugged-up hedonists working one of the priciest scams in history? Were they inexperienced screw-ups in way over their head? Only time will tell, but even Dr. Lerner thought he was part of a strong group of folks.

“You know, those people really felt like it was a family,” he said to NYT. “I think that’s why it’s so devastating for all of us for this to be over.”

(Via Gawker, Vice, and NYT)

On Tuesday night, Trump ignored pleas from his own party — and a plane carrying a banner calling him a loser — and did what he’s been threatening to do for months: He announced his third campaign for president of the United States. Even considering the GOP’s failed “red wave” during last week’s midterms (which many blamed on him), this wasn’t surprising. What was a little shocking was one of the tacks he took: He’s claiming America was doing really hot in the fall of 2020.

“Two years ago when I left office, the United States stood ready for its Golden Age,” a low-energy Trump told a not terribly enthusiastic crowd as he offered an alternate history of one of the nation’s worst periods:

“It was at the pinnacle of power, prosperity, and prestige, towering above all rivals, vanquishing all enemies, and striding into the future, confident and so strong. In four short years, men, women, African-Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, everybody was thriving like never before.”

All together now: What? A should-be-pointless recap: In the fall of 2020, there was an out-of-control pandemic that was poorly handled by the president in power (Donald Trump). Unemployment had skyrocketed. (It’s since gone down, thanks in part to Trump’s predecessor.) There was a massive pushback against institutionalized racism in the form of protests, but that effort was aggressively opposed by Trump and his party. The nation was a laughing stock, admired only by places like Russia and North Korea, whose autocratic leaders were Trump’s good buds. Everyone was miserable, happy only when he got the boot.

In the past, Trump has claimed the country was doing great until the pandemic began. Now he appears to be moving the goal posts way too forward, making the absurd claim that the country was doing great when it was decidedly not. He’s half-right about one thing: The nation was on the cusp not of greatness, but of something at least better: It was about to get Joe Biden.

Trump’s announcement went on for over an hour — so long most news networks, even Fox News, bailed on him prematurely. Maybe the bleakest part found him prophesizing that things in the nation are only going to get worse over the last two years, and then, and only then, will American voters want him back.

Or maybe they won’t, and he’ll be up s*it’s creek. By then he may already be in the clink. Then again, he’s already not doing all that well:

Last year, the music world was shaken up by the tragic passing of Young Dolph. The rapper was only 36 years old. People are still finding ways to hold onto his legacy: The IdaMae Foundation shared today that Dolph will be getting his own day, November 17, officially recognized by the states of Tennessee and Georgia. It’s referred to as Adolph “Young Dolph” Thornton Jr. Day of Service.

The foundation will be serving lunch, giving free haircuts, and providing free winter kits in Dolph’s hometown of Memphis. They’re encouraging everyone to perform an act of service and tag it with #DolphDay and #DolphServiceDay.

The anniversary of his death is coming up later this month, and his longtime partner Mia Jaye shared a painful, vulnerable tribute to him on social media a few days ago. “Today is a week from the anniversary of me losing Adolph, and this almost year has been the most challenging year I’ve ever had to face in my life,” Jaye said in a video. “And it’s like the closer I get to this earmark … it’s like trying to be positive about something so messed up, it comes to a breaking point to where it’s like it’s really just unfair, man.”

The Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Clippers have had some pretty fantastic battles in recent years. The two teams met in the first round of the postseason in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 campaigns, and while the Clippers came out on top both times, the Mavericks gave them everything they could handle, with Luka Doncic using those series to establish himself as one of the NBA’s most lethal playoff performers.

But you know what neither of those series featured? That’s right: paper airplanes. The two teams squared off on Tuesday night in Dallas, and at one point in the first half, Mavs wing Dorian Finney-Smith tried to check Clippers forward Marcus Morris on the perimeter.

Morris was able to blow right past Finney-Smith, in part because Finney-Smith stopped playing defense altogether. The reason why was because someone, from somewhere in the building, threw a paper airplane onto the floor, which led to the veteran wing wondering what in the heck just happened.

As you can see, the paper airplane getting thrown onto the floor and hitting a player led to things getting stopped for a second and the Clippers getting the ball out of bounds. We will close this blog with a reminder: If you go to an NBA game, please do not throw a paper airplane at anyone.

Ja Morant is known for his absurd athleticism and entertaining playing style. In fact, Morant has one of the best highlight reels of any NBA player, and he is essentially must-see television for both casual observers and die-hard fans. On Tuesday, the 23-year-old added to his already explosive list of highlights with a one-of-a-kind play against the New Orleans Pelicans.

Late in the third quarter and with the Memphis Grizzlies trailing by a 77-75 margin, Morant drove to his right and found some extra space against the New Orleans Pelicans. That allowed him to really load up and, well, CJ McCollum’s efforts to stop him at the rim proved to be fruitless.

Morant changing hands in the air, only to be able to still dunk the ball, is preposterous on its face. McCollum is not exactly an elite rim protector, but this is the kind of play that would’ve been deeply impressive even on a layup, much less a powerful dunk from Morant.

It would be interesting to compile a list of players that would even dare to try this, and Morant would easily be the most likely of all NBA players. Still, actually doing it in a competitive game against a quality opponent is a different animal, and Morant’s dunk also came in the midst of a nationally televised contest that was hopefully seen by many, many people.

In the wake of the tragic death of Takeoff earlier this month, many musicians have been sharing tributes for the iconic rapper. His funeral was only four days ago and it included performances from Justin Bieber, Chloe Bailey, Yolanda Adams, and Byron Cage.

Gucci Mane shared a tribute to Takeoff today with his new song “Letter To Takeoff.” It starts with him rapping, “Just left another funeral, I shed a tear / I’m still in disbelief, I can’t believe it’s real. He name-drops the rapper later on, saying: “How the f*ck we lose Takeoff? Damn, he didn’t deserve it / We don’t supposed to question God but damn, Takeoff was perfect.”

After Takeoff’s funeral, one friend to share a tribute was Cardi B. “Takeoff your untimely passing has brought a great deal of pain and sorrow to so many lives,” she wrote on Instagram. “The impact you had in this world was so considerable and we have struggled to grasp this tragedy. I am heartbroken but I am grateful for all the precious memories we got to share while you were here with us. This has truly been a nightmare and the pain is incomparable.”

Watch the video for “Letter To Takeoff” above.