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Trump Demanded McDonald’s Be Brought To Him In The Hospital As He Was Being Treated For COVID

Remember when Donald Trump tested positive for the highly transmissible virus whose spread he barely tried to combat? Last week, it was reported the former president caught COVID a bit earlier than expected — just in time to do a public debate with the also immunocompromised Joe Biden. But there’s another detail about this spell that has only now been made public: While being treated in the hospital, he demanded he brought deeply unhealthy fast food.

As per Raw Story, The Chief’s Chief, the new book by former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, includes some insider factoids that hadn’t seen the light of day. (There’s also, of course, baseless nonsense about how the 2020 election was stolen.) One of them is that, while he was being a cocktail of fed life-saving drugs at Walter Reed, hanging on death’s door, Trump was still brought his favorite food: McDonald’s.

The tidbit was caught by The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, who also pointed out that Trump and company “had to eat with face shields on at the doctor’s orders, which didn’t thrill any of them.” (Yes, the president-turned-failed blogger was mad at the people who were saving his life.)

But it all worked out in the end. Trump emerged from the hospital, still sick with COVID but adamant that he look strong, even as he almost certainly got a number of staffers sick.

Trump’s love of McDonald’s is well-documented. He infamously fed it to football champs, scarfed it down after he clinched the Republican nomination in 2016, and even paid a bodyguard with a McD’s gift certificate. He even blamed it for his weird hair.

His own former staff has noted his should-be-ruinous eating habits. Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said that on his airplane, “there were four major food groups: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza, and Diet Coke.” He didn’t go light either. A typical McDonald’s order, Lewandowski said, was “two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted.” The Atlantic noted that that meal is a whopping 2,400 calories, with twice the average daily recommendation of sodium.

Obesity can triple the risk of hospitalization for COVID-related symptoms, but perhaps Trump is the lone exception to that one.

(Via Raw Story)

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The Hornets Put Four Players, Including LaMelo Ball, Into The Health And Safety Protocols`

The Charlotte Hornets are the latest team to deal with a handful of players getting placed into the NBA’s health and safety protocols. According to multiple reports, the team was forced to put its starting backcourt of LaMelo Ball and Terry Rozier into the protocols, meaning they will be sidelined for at least the next 10 days unless they present a pair of negative COVID tests.

That last tweet from Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN ended up being prescient, as the Hornets would go on to announce that another starter, Mason Plumlee, and reserve forward Jalen McDaniels will both enter the protocols, too.

The Hornets currently sit in seventh place in the Eastern Conference with a 13-11 record. While that would put them in the play-in tournament, that puts them a half game behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for the 6-seed and one game up on the New York Knicks for the 11-seed in the East. Unfortunately for Charlotte, this is hitting at quite the inopportune time, as their next three games are a road trip to play the Atlanta Hawks before a back-to-back at home against the Philadelphia 76ers, both of whom are also in the play-in tournament as of right now. Should these four players be out for 10 days, they’d also miss games against the Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks.

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Jeff Van Gundy Begged Adam Silver To Pull A Thunder Game Off Of National TV

The Oklahoma City Thunder got an historical butt whooping on Thursday night at the hands of the Memphis Grizzlies. Despite the fact that the Grizzlies did not have Ja Morant, who is still out nursing a knee injury, the team picked up an eye-popping 73-point victory by beating Oklahoma City 152-79.

Now, Oklahoma City is in the midst of a gigantic rebuild, and while the league doesn’t like the word “tanking” all that much, it’s hard to say the team is doing anything other than tank. There are plenty of reasons for optimism — a war chest of draft picks that is quite vast, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander just signed an extension, Josh Giddey is a promising rookie — but things are quite rough around the edges right now.

The team is scheduled to play on Monday night against the Detroit Pistons in a game that will air on NBATV. Upon learning this during ESPN’s broadcast of a Sixers-Hawks game, Jeff Van Gundy, as he is wont to do, lost his mind.

“We can’t put Oklahoma City on national TV,” Van Gundy said. “That’s where the commissioner has to come in and take that off of TV. That’s a horrible game, and Oklahoma City just lost by 73 points.”

It remains to be seen if Van Gundy will get his wish.

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Klay Thompson Could Apparently Play 25-30 Minutes Right Now But Wants ‘To Be Conditioned At A Very High Level’

Klay Thompson is apparently on track to make his return to action sometime soon. Thompson suffered a torn ACL during the 2019 NBA Finals, which cost him the entirety of the 2019-20 season, and as he was preparing to return in time for the start of 2020-21, the Golden State Warriors’ standout tore his achilles.

As such, it’s been a minute since we’ve seen one of the greatest shooters in league history suit up for the Dubs. According to a new report by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, we could actually see Thompson take the floor right now if he felt like it. However, Thompson has a pretty interesting reason for not taking the floor right now.

“The timeline for Klay Thompson remains largely the same,” Wojnarowski said. “Either December 20, 23, ahead of Christmas, or perhaps just after Christmas. But in talking to his agent, Greg Lawrence with Wasserman Media today, he brought up a great point about how Klay Thompson is handling his rehab. And that is, listen, right now, as Lawrence said to me, he could play 25, 30 minutes in an NBA game. He’s ready to do that.

“But what Klay wants to be able to do when he comes back is to be conditioned at a very high level, and jump into a Warrior team that he doesn’t want to have to work himself back into great condition,” Wojnarowski continued. “He wants to be in great condition knowing, listen, there’s gonna be 50+ regular season games for him, and perhaps as many as 20+ postseason games with the championship aspirations of these Warriors.”

Wojnarowski went on to say that people around the Warriors believe Thompson’s rehab work has made him ready for “the NBA grind of a four night a week schedule.” The good news for Golden State is that it can afford to let Thompson take all the time he needs — the team sits 18-3, the second-best record in the league behind only the Phoenix Suns.

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Ed Sheeran and Elton John’s viral Christmas song has some epic merry vibes

The world must have been—mostly—good this year. Because Elton John and Ed Sheeran have teamed up to gift us all with a brand new Christmas single.

The song, aptly named “Merry Christmas,” is a perfect blend of silly and sweet that’s cheery, bright and just a touch bizarre.

Created with the holiday spirit in every way, it has whimsical snowball fights, snow angels (basically all the snow things), festive sweaters, iconic throwbacks and twinkling lights galore. Plus all profits from the tune are dedicated to two charities: the Ed Sheeran Suffolk Music Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

I personally don’t know which is more of a highlight: Ed Sheeran channeling his inner-Mariah, performing a faux sexy dance in a leg revealing Santa outfit, or him flying through the air with a giant Frosty the Snowman … who seems to be sporting glasses similar to Elton’s. Are we meant to believe that Elton is the Snowman? This music video even has mystery.


Sheeran and John’s holiday duet has already racked up more than 2 million views, and going by the comments, it’s making people’s hearts grow three times in size.

“Okay now this is a perfect cheesy Christmas song, and I’m totally in love with it.”

“The best Christmas song to be released in years! I love it and it’s now going to be the theme tune to Christmas 2021 in our house!”

“Love it. Already learned it on piano. Catchy tune. Bit of Christmas spirit and for good causes.”

One person even gave us a little music history lesson, saying that “many don’t realize Elton John helped get Ed Sheeran first signed.” That certainly explains the chemistry.

If you’re looking for a way to un-Scrooge, or simply wanting a laugh, this music video might be just the thing you need today.

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People share the 18 things that are a ‘subtle sign’ someone is really smart

One of the strangest things about being human is that people of lesser intelligence tend to overestimate how smart they are and people who are highly intelligent tend to underestimate how smart they are.

This is called the Dunning-Kruger effect and it’s proven every time you log onto Facebook and see someone from high school who thinks they know more about vaccines than a doctor.

The interesting thing is that even though people are poor judges of their own smarts, we’ve evolved to be pretty good at judging the intelligence of others.

“Such findings imply that, in order to be adaptive, first impressions of personality or social characteristics should be accurate,” a study published in the journal Intelligence says. “There is accumulating evidence that this is indeed the case—at least to some extent—for traits such as intelligence extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, and narcissism, and even for characteristics such as sexual orientation, political ideology, or antigay prejudice.”


Reddit user Gisgiii posed a question to the AskReddit subforum “What is a subtle sign that someone is really intelligent?” and the answers painted a clear picture of how smart people behave. They tend to be great communicators who understand their audience and are more concerned with getting things right than being right.

Here are 18 of the best answers.

1. They draw wisdom from multiple sources.

“They draw wisdom from multiple sources. Wait but that might be more wise than intelligent… But I guess those two tend to be seen together a lot,” — Puzzlehead-Engineer

2. They know their audience.

“They can switch up the way they talk to match the person they’re talking to without sounding condescending. They listen to how others learn and explain it in that person’s language of understanding,” — Wynonna99

3. They develop a keen sense for their job.

“I used to work with a doctor – Tom Howard – and the day I realized he was a genius was the time he guessed every single condition a patient of mine had based on minute pieces of information about him,” — Yodei_Mon

4. Curiosity.

“They are curious about everything. To be intelligent you need to be knowledgeable and you can’t be knowledgeable if you are never curious,” — soup54461

5. They’re great at conveying ideas.

“When they explain something they make you feel intelligent,” — gwoshmi

6. Considerate questions.

“They spend time thinking before asking a question,” — ParkMan73

7. They make hard ideas simple.

“They effortlessly communicate complex concepts in a simple way,” — joculator

8. They know what they don’t know.

“They know when their knowledge ends and say something to the extent of ‘i don’t know and anything else i say on this topic is ignorant speculation,'” — blutoboy

9. They ask great questions.

“They can ask really good questions.”

“Edit: to anyone not understanding what mean, I’m talking about people who ask “really good questions”, not just any questions, really good ones. I don’t know how one would achieve this skill(I know I haven’t),” — milkmanbran

10. They don’t pretend to know everything.

“They aren’t afraid to say they don’t know the answer to a question,” — xchernx

11. They change their minds with new information.

“They admit to changing their mind about something,” — FarAwayAdventure

12. They pivot well.

“They apply knowledge from one realm into a new and relevant situation,” — soubestitch

13. They are open-minded.

“They can genuinely consider an idea which opposes their worldview without necessarily accepting it,” — paidshill29

14. They use analogies.

“People who use analogies to explain concepts to others. It’s a form of code-switching and integrating concepts on the fly and is a clear indicator someone is both socially and conceptually intelligent,” — SwimmerAutomatic2488

15. They don’t argue.

“I think intelligent people are more willing to calmly debate/discuss, rather than argue. Like, you explain to them why you disagree, and they listen to you and ask further questions about your viewpoint before offering a different perspective; as opposed to an unintelligent person, who would just resort to insults when other people disagree with them,” — AngelicCinnamonBun

16. They learn from mistakes.

“Admitting when they’re wrong and being willing to learn from mistakes,” — siyl1979

17. A sense of humor.

“Humor. I think that truly funny people are often very smart and cognizant of the different ways an idea can be humorous on several levels. They also know their audience. I think the difference between say a Jeff Foxworthy and a Dave Chappelle and a Bo Burnham is their audience and their interests,” — biscuitboi967

18. A love of learning.

“They say they love learning and they learn something new every day. Then they listen more than talk,” — throwingplaydough

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10 things that made us smile this week

It’s December! How did that happen? As the days get shorter and we head full-speed into the busiest holiday season of the year—yet again in the middle of a still-raging pandemic (weeeee!)—we could all use some glimmers of hope and snippets of joy to perk us up.

From laughing babies to dancing grandpas to creative Christmas carol commas (you’ll see), here are 10 things that made us smile this week. We hope they’ll do the same for you.

Watch a bunch of good doggos plunging in to play in the pool.

Living their best life at doggy day care. Look at all that joy.

Little girl dances like a pro to a street marching band. 

Seriously, that little one can move, and in her little puffer jacket no less! That is called feelin’ it.

Guy creates the most hilariously creative rendition of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” ever.

Absolutely incredible. It makes nerdy wordsmith hearts everywhere so happy. (I’d put the comma after “ye,” but I’m not in charge.)

Watch a cat trying to catch snowflakes with its bare paws.

Cats are gonna cat, and you can’t put a bunch of little things flying through the air in front of a cat and not expect them to pounce. Cuteness.

Speaking of cuteness in the snow, this older couple frolicking like children in the snow is just so wholesome.

They’re not that old, but seeing them skipping and jumping like little kids is just adorable. Simple love, simple joy—it’s really all we want.

Broadway actors sing a gorgeously moving tribute to Stephen Sondheim.

Broadway musical composer extraordinaire Stephen Sondheim passed away at age 91 this week, leaving a wealth of creative beauty behind. A group of Broadway actors and singers gathered in New York to sing a tribute to him with the opening song of his musical “Sunday in the Park with George.” So beautiful. Read the full story here.

Baby gets the giggles because apparently coughing is downright hilarious.

The only thing better than the sound of baby laughter is the sound of that laughter when they find something random side-splittingly funny.

Old man dances along with a street musician and he’s got serious moves.

He may use a cane to get around, but he certainly doesn’t need it to get down. How joyful.

We get to watch the birth of iconic Beatles songs right before our eyes

The Peter Jackson documentary series “Get Back,” consisting of candid footage of the Beatles that had been locked in a vault for five decades, came out last weekend on Disney+. Holy moly, does it contain some gems. If you ever wanted to see Paul McCartney literally pull a song out of thin air, here you go. Read the full story here.

A son heading back to college had the sweetest exchange with his baby brother.

@iammarilynmm

My oldest is headed back to college and his younger brother had to let him know how much he loves him. Volume up ⬆️ #brothers #myboys #momof4 #momsoft

If this doesn’t warm your heart, are you sure you even have one? “I LUB YOU!!!!” And that “Mmmmm” at the end. Too dang cute. (Go ahead and watch this one a dozen more times for good measure. Indulge in that delight.)

Hope that brought some joy to your heart and a smile to your face! Come back again next week for another round-up of happiness.

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Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ And ‘Aladdin’ Filmmakers Announce They’re Working On An Animated Adaptation Of DC Comic’s ‘Metal Men’

Animation legends Ron Clements and John Musker are about to journey to a “whole new world.” After building a legacy at Disney through their work on award-winning films such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and The Princess and the Frog, Clements and Busker are off to the world of caped-crusaders to work on Warner Bros. Animation’s next DC Comics film: Metal Men.

Based on the 1962 comics series created by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru, Metal Men follows a brilliant scientist, William Magnus, who creates six, all-powerful robots all given names and attributed associated with six metals — gold, iron, lead, tin, mercury, and platinum. While a decidedly more niche group in DC Comics, Metal Men was still considered a bit of a cult classic, making the upcoming adaptation a pretty big deal for more hardcore DC fans. As the stories of the Metal Men have ranged from dark and somber to comedic, there’s no telling just what the tone or intended audience is for the upcoming movie. However, the currently announced crew members do allude to it being more family-friendly.

In addition to Clements and Musker, Space Jam: A New Legacy writer Celeste Ballard is also joining the project as its writer. Last but certainly not least, Alison Abbate (The Iron Giant, The Corpse Bride) will be helming the project for the studio, making it a real dream team of children’s filmmakers. So far, no cast announcements have been made.

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Just Blaze And Katty Customs Announce A Brand New Sneaker Customization Show With Uproxx

Sneaker-customizer-to-the-stars Katty Customs is joining forces with the legendary, 2021 Grammy-nominated rap producer Just Blaze for a new show on Uproxx that combines celebrity interviews with the eye-catching, conversation-starting world of sneaker customization. Fresh Pair — coming to Uproxx and YouTube.com/UproxxVideo in early 2022 — will see Katty and Just combining their tastemaking talents to create bespoke kicks for some of the biggest names in hip-hop and entertainment, elevating the sneaker to its true status as a modern-day luxury design item.

“With the custom work that she’s doing, it’s art in itself,” Just Blaze told EDITION magazine, Jay-Z’s newest venture, in an interview about the new show. “It’s not just about sneakers. It’s also about the art that goes into it.”

When it comes down to it, Fresh Pair is all about the art of great sneaker design. By collaborating with Just and diving deep into the careers of the stars she’s customing for, Katty will attempt to create designs that resonate on a deeper level with some of the biggest tastemakers in the world.

“Music artists have exclusive sneakers,” Katty told Edition‘s Gabrielle Pharms. “They can go to Nike and get it in a different colorway, but this is different. Me and Just can bring something different as far as getting a little bit more about their background and putting it on a shoe. It’ll be really special.”

To find out more about Katty and Just’s new show Fresh Pair head over to Edition to read the full interview and stay tuned for the first episode’s launch, here on Uproxx, in early 2022.

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Nintendo Switch Is Getting A Timeless Classic In ‘Paper Mario’

Paper Mario is a genuine classic. A perfect entry-level RPG, this turn-based adventure features Mario in a unique art style and setting where the entire world is made out of paper. Princess Peach has been kidnapped by Bowser once again, but he has also trapped the Star Spirits using the power of the Star Rod. It’s up to Mario to rescue the Princess and the Star Spirits and save the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario will travel all over the world meeting quirky characters, unique bosses, and exploring interesting lands with a variety of partners at his side.

Paper Mario was first released on the Nintendo 64, but now Nintendo is re-releasing it for their Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service. Paper Mario is the latest Nintendo 64 game added to this service and Nintendo is hoping that with releases like Paper Mario it will be able to make a stronger case for fans to buy the expansion. The expansion is currently the only way to access Nintendo 64 games on the Switch.

Platform: Nintendo Switch
Price: $50 (Yearly subscription)
Release Date: December 10 (12/10)
Genre: RPG
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Rating: E
Where can I buy this: Only playable through Nintendo’s Online service
Single Player: Yes
Multiplayer: No
Early Access: No
Microtransactions: No