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Since Ja Morant became sidelined with a sprained left knee, the Memphis Grizzlies have won six of their last seven games and sit fourth in the Western Conference at 15-11. A significant portion of that run has been the play of fourth-year big man Jaren Jackson Jr., who’s averaged 21 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.9 blocks, and one steal while shooting 41.3 percent beyond the arc over that span.

He’s playing the best basketball of his young career and attributes his improvement to one very important thing: water.

“If you drink water when you’re dead tired, that’s just ’cause you needed it really badly,” Jackson said following the Grizzlies’ win against the Los Angeles Lakers Thursday night. “You just gotta keep drinking water, and then when you go home, you get a good meal, drink some water. It’s just, it tastes good.”

When someone off the screen interjected with an inquiry about the topic at hand, Jackson made clear what he was discussing and why he was discussing it.

“I’m drinking water, man, that’s what I’m talking about,” he said. “My questions are all about water right now, for real. Big, huge water guy, I’m telling you. Drink water.”

From there, Jackson went on to explain how he is getting more water into his day-to-day life. It involves a canteen.

Jackson is not the first rising star to give water a shout out during a post-game media session as of late. LaMelo Ball did the same a few weeks back after a win over the Indiana Pacers. Both of these players are enjoying delightful seasons and water, in some capacity, seems to playing a prominent role for them.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued one of the most scathing dissents we’ve heard so far in response to the Supreme Court’s latest ruling on the controversial Texas abortion ban.

Just to recap: Texas enacted a law that made it possible for everyday citizens to sue not only abortion providers, but anyone involved in the “abortion process” if a procedure happened after the six-week gestational mark — a truly ridiculous benchmark seeing as most women don’t even know they’re pregnant by that time. The law means that everyone, from a receptionist at an abortion clinic to a friend who books an Uber driver, to the actual driver who offers transportation to and from the clinic, could also be sued for punitive damages. It’s the first and harshest abortion ban of its kind, and it made its way to the Supreme Court earlier this year.

But now, in a decision that’s obviously angered Sotomayor and a few of her fellow justices, the Supreme Court has kicked the case back to the states, leaving the law intact but allowing abortion providers to sue state officials in retaliation for enacting such a harsh abortion law. In her dissent, Sotomayor dragged her fellow Supreme Court justices, writing (via Raw Story), “The Court should have put an end to this madness months ago before S. B. 8 first went into effect. It failed to do so then, and it fails again today.”

Sotomayor continued, writing that the Supreme Court’s decision to basically refuse to make a definitive ruling on the case invites other states to refine the Texas abortion ban to curb the individual rights of women, saying “The Court thus betrays not only the citizens of Texas but also our constitutional system of government.”

And then, in the most scathing section of her dissent, Sotomayor referenced slavery laws, comparing the Texas abortion ban to other measures put in place to rob citizens of their basic human rights.

Sotomayor said the state’s challenge to federal abortion laws “echoes the philosophy of John C. Calhoun, a virulent defender of the slaveholding South who insisted that States had the right to ‘veto’ or ‘nullif[y]’ any federal law with which they disagreed.”

“The Nation fought a Civil War over that proposition,” she concluded. “But Calhoun’s theories were not extinguished.”

(Via RawStory)

Fourteen-hundred Kellogg’s workers in Battle Creek, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee went on strike on October 5 for a wage increase and improved working conditions.

Kellogg replaced many of the striking workers with temporary replacements to keep the factories productive.

Kellogg’s union workers claim they worked an unbelievable average of 72 to 84 hours a week—but the company claims its employees only work 52 to 56 hours a week and that 90% of overtime is voluntary.

“The worst is when you work a seven-to-seven and they tell you to come back at 3 am on a short turnaround,” Omaha Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union president Daniel Osborn, a mechanic at the plant, told Rolling Stone. “You work 20, 30 days in a row and you don’t know where work and your life ends and begins.”

On December 5, the union rejected a 3% pay increase that was well below the current rate of inflation.

Workers rejected several contracts before this one, blocking Kelloggu2019s attempt to cut off newer and future employees from attaining full-time pay and benefits.nnVeteran workers told us they wouldnu2019t u201csell our soulsu201d and abandon their younger colleagues.pic.twitter.com/3XJpR1sIIU

— More Perfect Union (@More Perfect Union)
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On Tuesday, Kellogg announced that the majority of its U.S. workers voted against a new five-year contract and the company would hire replacement workers.

“After 19 negotiation sessions in 2021, and still no deal reached, we will continue to focus on moving forward to operate our business,” Kellogg North America President Chris Hood said in a statement.

The company recently announced more than $4 billion in profits and its CEO Steve Cahillane makes $11 million a year.

Kellogg’s decision to fire its striking union workers has many on social media calling for a boycott.

Please boycott Kelloggs products until they negotiate a fair deal with their workers. @BCTGM just rejected the company’s latest contract in a powerful act of solidarity and commitment to ensuring all Kelloggs workers get the fair pay and dignified working conditions they deserve.https://twitter.com/ninaturner/status/1464411951715565579u00a0u2026

— Robert Reich (@Robert Reich)
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Kelloggu2019s products to boycott:pic.twitter.com/JWJNPnbYGe

— Washbelly (@Washbelly)
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Reddit user BloominFunions came up with a brilliant way to stamp out Kellogg’s attempt to hire new workers by asking followers of the antiwork forum to clog up the company’s jobs portal by inundating it with fake applications.

“The workers at Kellogg’s cereal plants have been striking for fair pay. Kellogg just announced they will hire 1400 permanent replacement scabs to break the strike. And they are accepting applications online!” BloominFunions wrote. “This is your chance to apply for your dream job.”

This is the single image that has stuck with me from the Kelloggu2019s strike. What a twisted, backwards system this is where the people who feed us canu2019t feed their own.pic.twitter.com/8quzltyzog

— Read Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire (@Read Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire)
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“Using the job posting links above, submit an application for one or more sites. When you apply, pretend you’re a resident of one of the cities with a Kellogg strike (Omaha, Battle Creek, Lancaster or Memphis),” the Reddit user instructed.

“I’m going to be moving if hired for the position,” Reddit user WrangWei responded to the post. “I was just curious if I would need to live on the street or if I can sleep in my car in the employee parking lot. I won’t be able to get a place for about a year once I move there due to the poverty wages.”

A few hours after the post, Kellogg’s jobs site was reported to be down, although it appears to have come back later in the day.

Just as technology has changed the way people work, it has also empowered the public to fight back against companies it feels are unjust. It’ll be interesting to see whether calls for a boycott and digital sabotage have any effect on Kellogg’s strategy moving forward.

Activists for social justice have effectively used social media to push major corporations to make big changes over the past few years. But will Kellogg bow to public pressure if it means having to fairly compensate its employees?

The latest Netflix movie, the Jennifer Lawrence- and Leonardi DiCaprio-starring Don’t Look Up, is out today, and music fans have surely heard by now that Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi have roles, playing music power couple Riley Bina and DJ Chello, respectively. They shared “Just Look Up,” the song they made for the film, last week, and now that the movie is out, they’ve shared the scene from the film in which they perform it live.

The scene shows Grande’s character performing the song with a grand stage set-up that doesn’t look dissimilar to something she’d present on one of her tours. Grande wears a white outfit with feather-like protrusions sticking out of her torso, and Cudi’s character later joins her on stage with a complementary white jacket. All the while, Lawrence and DiCaprio’s characters are watching from the side of the stage, as one brief shot shows.

Of all modern music stars, Grande and Cudi are among the ones with the most acting experience. Before music, Grande was best known for playing the character Cat Valentine in two Nickelodeon series, Victorious and Sam & Cat. Meanwhile, Cudi has been in the main cast of shows like How To Make It In America, Comedy Bang! Bang!, and We Are Who We Are.

Watch Cudi and Grande perform “Just Look Up” above.

Tom Holland stopped by Late Night with Seth Meyers on Thursday evening, and the Spider-Man actor came bearing gifts. The big one, of course, was the opening scene to Spider-Man: No Way Home. Picking up immediately where Far From Home left off, Holland’s Spider-Man finds his secret identity being revealed by J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), who has apparently been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe this whole time? But there’s no time for that as city bystanders begin to recognize Zendaya‘s M.J. as Peter Parker’s girlfriend, prompting our hero to quickly swoop in and pull off her the streets. Unfortunately, he leaves her standing precariously on the top of a bridge, which might not have been the safest choice, and she definitely lets Peter know about it.

Following the clip, Holland chatted it up with Meyers and revealed that the set has to keep a bottle of lube at the ready because, sometimes, getting out of his super-tight Spidey suit doesn’t go as planned. According to Holland, they just squirt some lube on the “zips,” and that gets things moving.

However, Holland also revealed that No Way Home shot during the age of Covid, so the bottle of lube caused some hilarious moments when people mistook it for hand sanitizer. Holland swears it only happened to two people, Marvel producer Mitch Bell and a boom operator, but the Spidey star doesn’t deny that the slip-up was “golden.”

Spider-Man: No Way Home squeezes into theaters on December 17.

(Via Late Night with Seth Meyers)

There’s a lot of fun to be had when you get people out of their comfort zones for in-depth interviews — just check out Hot Ones, where Sean Evans’ invincible tongue allows him to get meme-worthy responses out of guests as they attempt to down the spiciest wings while answering even spicier questions (sorry, it’s such a good tagline). A new show coming out next week will attempt to do something similar. Chillin Island, which will air on HBO on December 17, will see rappers and other musicians leaving behind the hustle and bustle of their urban origins for the peace and quiet of nature.

Of course, the other key to getting good responses is making folks feel comfortable while they’re way out of their comfort zones, so to that end, Chillin Island is pairing these rappers with members of their own fraternity: New York rappers Despot, Lakutis, and former Das Racist member Dap (aka Dapwell). They’ll trek to deserts, swamps, and other havens to commune with nature and get in touch with human nature.

Their guests will include a truly fascinating array of artists including Coi Leray, Gunna, Killer Mike, Lil Tecca, Lil Yachty, Rosalía, Ski Mask the Slump God, Young Thug, and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koening.

You can watch Chillin Island on HBO on 12/17 at 10:30 pm and stream on HBO Max. Check out the trailer above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Utah Jazz demolished the Minnesota Timberwolves earlier this week, picking up a 136-104 road win. In the aftermath, a pair of Timberwolves players — Anthony Edwards and Patrick Beverley — talked about three-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert, only they did not strike a reverential tone. Beverley called him out for not guarding the other team’s best player, while Edwards said Gobert doesn’t scare him, instead naming Dallas Mavericks big man Kristaps Porzingis the best rim protector in the NBA.

The quotes were eyebrow-raising, in large part because they came after the Timberwolves lost at home by 32 points. Unsurprisingly, they caught the attention of the Jazz, and after the team picked up a 118-96 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Thursday night, players and coaches had Gobert’s back. This included Joe Ingles saying that he thinks Edwards, Beverley, and co. do not watch enough basketball.

Gobert was also asked about the comments, saying, “I wouldn’t say it impacted me. It’s not the first time. People take shots at me for no reason. I come here every single night to help my team win and be the best Rudy I can be.”

“I never take shots at anyone. I receive a lot of shots, I don’t take any shots,” he went on to say, according to Ryan Miller of KSL.com. “I just focus on myself. When you’re the best in the world at something, people become insecure and try to discredit what you do; it’s gonna happen. It’s not the first time, it’s not the last time. I just keep being Rudy, keep being myself and keep getting better every single night.”

The Jazz have won their last six games in a row and will take on the Washington Wizards on Saturday evening. Their next game against the Timberwolves is on Dec. 23.

This week brought a chilling reminder that Trump’s election fraud claims weren’t just hot air — they had serious, harmful effects on real people. 62-year-old Georgia poll worker Ruby Freeman reportedly had to move out of her home of 20 years when an online conspiracy theory brought threatening calls and letters and vigilantes menacing her neighbors. As it turns out, one of those who traveled to her home to harass her over the fake voter fraud was on the staff of rapper Kanye West, who himself had just ended an ill-fated, slapdash Presidential campaign, which some believed was a ploy to siphon Black voters away from Joe Biden.

Reuters reports that Trevian Kutti, a publicist for Kanye, went to Freeman’s home, telling Ruby that she worked for an unidentified “high-profile individual” and telling her that she had 48 hours to confess to voter fraud or she would be arrested and sent to jail. Freeman says she called 911, requesting a police officer to come and keep an eye on things. By this time, she’d been harassed for weeks after Trump accused her publicly of what amounted to ballot stuffing, although authorities quickly refuted his unfounded claims.

Kutti and her companion, a male who called himself a “crisis manager,” told Freeman she was “in danger,” prompting them to move the conversation to the police station. On an officer’s body cam video, Kutti could reportedly be heard telling Freeman, “You are a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up.” After Kutti called an unknown person she said had “authoritative powers to get you protection,” Freeman said the two tried to get her to implicate herself.

Eventually, Freeman turned Kutti away and later looked her up, finding out that she was a Trump supporter. Prior to working with Kanye, which was confirmed by media reports and Kutti’s own website, she’d worked for R. Kelly. The next day after the visit, Freeman was advised by the FBI to vacate her home. On January 6, Freeman says, a mob of Trump supporters surrounded the home, shouting through bullhorns.

Kanye hadn’t responded to Reuters’ request for comment as of press time.

No one enjoyed with Marlon Brando on the set of 1978’s Superman. Director Richard Donner was “really upset” by how much the Jor-El actor earned for only 13 days of work (he was paid $3.7 million and 11.75 percent of the picture’s backend, totaling $19 million), while star Christopher Reeves admitted, “I don’t say this to be vicious, but I don’t worship at the altar of Marlon Brando. Because I feel he’s copped out in a certain way.” He added, “I had a wonderful time but the man didn’t care, I’m sorry.”

The only thing Brando did care about was getting paid — and fed.

In an interview with the Telegraph, actor Cary Elwes revealed that he had a pre-The Princess Bride gig on the superhero film. “My job was to get Marlon out of his trailer,” he said. “Marlon had no incentive to be on time, because his agent had struck the most amazing deal for him. Every day that the picture went over, he got another million dollars. So he drove poor [Richard] Donner up the wall, because he just strolled in whenever he felt like it. Sometimes before lunch, sometimes… not before lunch.”

Elwes said that once Brando was fed, “he was in a much better mood. So I tried to find delicacies that appealed to him… He mainly wanted desserts,” which, same.

Brando would become even more insufferable on 1996’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, where he would only open his trailer door “when the pizza man came,” according to screenwriter Ron Hutchinson. “This was the best news that the pizza-makers of Cairns, this small town, had ever had because Brando was consuming industrial quantities of pizza while ruminating on what the hell he was going to do when he had to face the cameras. I think there might have been an existential terror there.”

Elwes and Dr. Moreau star Val Kilmer should exchange numbers and share Brando stories. That would be more entertaining than any Godfather film.

(Via the Telegraph)

Since Alex Trebek passed away in 2020, Jeopardy! has gone through an unprecedented period of messiness. Executive producer Mike Richards essentially anointed himself as host of the long-running game show before fall-out over resurfaced comments led to his dismissal; there’s still no single permanent host, although Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik have done a capable job of filling in. It hasn’t all been bad — Matt Amodio went on a historic run, and transgender champion Amy Schneider is using her platform for good — but the post-Trebek era has been rocky, to say the least.

Michael Davies wants to change that.

The new Jeopardy! executive producer published a letter to viewers this week, saying he hopes to put the show back on track. “I have been so fortunate to have developed and produced several long-running and successful shows during my 30-plus-year career. But I have experienced nothing like Jeopardy!. It is built on the shoulders of giants like Merv and Julann Griffin, Alex Trebek, Harry Friedman, and Johnny Gilbert. They are our Time Lords. And what they created and built will outlast all of us,” he wrote.

The key passage comes at the end of the note, when Davies asks for feedback from fans (you can do so here). “This is the first of many initiatives to bring you more access to the show we all love,” he said. “And as with everything else on Jeopardy!, we want to get it right. And in time, with your help, I know we will.” Replacing one Michael with another Michael as Jeopardy! executive producer maybe wasn’t the best optics, but this is a good start.

You can read the entire letter here.

(Via Jeopardy!)