GoneTrending

Peacock’s The Amber Ruffin Show is up for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards. The other shows nominated in the category: A Black Lady Sketch Show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Saturday Night Live. That’s some stiff competition, but the award should go to The Amber Ruffin Show because lord knows Saturday Night Live has enough Emmys.

Also, I love bits.

“I swear to you, if you vote for The Amber Ruffin Show for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing For A Variety Series, and we win, I will do a bit for the speech,” Ruffin tweeted. She later added, “Wait. I feel bad. You should vote for us because the writers deserve the Emmy, not because you wanna see me do something silly. Having said that, a vote for us will get you 100K dollars, cash.” Hm, that’s a good start, but $100,000 isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Not making a The Social Network reference. Also, $200,000.

“Just heard this has been bumped up to $200K and a VERY silly bit!” Demi Adejuyigbe, a writer for the late-night show, tweeted. “Wow! Vote the Amber Ruffin Show for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series!!” A vote for The Amber Ruffin Show is a vote for silly bits. The Emmys could use more silly bits. Vote Ruffin!

Images of thousands of Afghans desperately trying to flee their country following a hasty U.S. withdrawal have provoked an international outcry.

As of Aug. 22, 2021, some 6,000 U.S. troops were working to evacuate U.S. military, American citizens and Afghans who are approved for Special Immigrant Visas. SIVs are a special program to protect Afghans who risked their lives working for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Germany, France, Italy and the U.K. are conducting smaller evacuation efforts for their nationals and some Afghans.

The pace of these poorly planned evacuations has been slow. They are taking place amid chaos in Kabul, where crowds are being confronted by violence from members of the now-ruling Taliban and U.S. forces and facing checkpoints that are near-impossible to pass.

Shaharzad Akbar, who leads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, called the situation “failure upon failure.”

As a scholar specializing in forcible displacement and refugees, I see this harrowing scene unfolding within a broader context of Afghanistan’s long-standing displacement crisis. This includes an unequal sharing of refugees between the developed world and economically disadvantaged countries.

Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-ND Source: UNHCR

A muted US role

The U.S. Refugee Act of 1980 standardized the procedures for admitting refugees – people who have fled war, violence, conflict or persecution – and put in place a rigorous vetting process. But over the past 40 years, U.S. acceptance rates for refugees worldwide have fallen significantly – from 200,000 admitted in 1980 to less than 50,000 in 2019.

Over the past 20 years, the U.S. admitted more than 20,000 Afghan refugees – an average of roughly 1,000 per year. But during the 2020-2021 fiscal year, just 11,800 refugees from around the world settled in the U.S. – among them were only 495 Afghan Special Immigrant Visa recipients. That number seems tiny compared to the approximately 20,000 Afghans who are currently in the pipeline waiting for a SIV and the additional 70,000 Afghans — including applicants and their immediate family members — who are eligible to apply.

Europe hosts few Afghan refugees

For decades, Afghans have also migrated or fled to Europe. Between 2015-2016, 300,000 of them arrived on the continent. They were the second-largest group of refugees and asylum-seekers after Syrians. Asylum seekers are people seeking refugee status, but whose claim has yet to be evaluated.

The Afghan population across the European continent remains small and unevenly distributed. Up until the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021, many Afghans were facing deportations. Germany is the largest European host, followed by Austria, France and Sweden.

For the first three months of 2021 about 7,000 Afghans were granted permanent or temporary legal status in the European Union. They are distributed between Greece, France, Germany and Italy, with smaller Afghan contingents in other EU states.

Australia – based on its 2016 census – has approximately 47,000 Afghans who are permanent residents, some of whom began arriving as early as 1979. Approximately another 4,200 Afghans have received temporary protected status.

Displaced within Afghanistan

This still leaves an enormous number of Afghans who are displaced without a permanent home. More than half a million have already been displaced by the violence so far in 2021 according to the U.N. refugee agency. Some 80% of nearly a quarter of a million Afghans forced to flee since the end of May are women and children.

As of 2021 and prior to the current crisis, at least 3.5 million Afghans remained uprooted within Afghanistan because of violence, political unrest, poverty, climate crisis and lack of economic opportunity.

Afghan refugees enter into Pakistan through a border crossing point in Chaman while a Pakistani army soldier stands guard.AP Photo/uncredited photographer

Afghan refugees in Pakistan

The vast majority of Afghan refugees do not settle in the West.

Pakistan, which shares a 1,640-mile land border with Afghanistan, has long absorbed the largest number of Afghan refugees even though it is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol. Within two years of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, following the conflict ignited by the rise of the Mujahideen, 1.5 million Afghans had become refugees. By 1986, nearly five million Afghans had fled to Pakistan and Iran.

Since March 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, had repatriated nearly 3.2 million Afghans, but in April 2021, the United Nations reported that more than 1.4 million Afghan refugees remained in Pakistan due to ongoing violence, unemployment and political turbulence in Afghanistan.

Iran also remains a significant host for Afghans, with nearly 800,000 registered refugees and at least two million more who are unregistered. Smaller numbers of Afghan refugees and asylum-seekers are in India (15,689), Indonesia (7,692) and Malaysia (2,478).

Turkey – the world’s largest refugee host, with over 3.8 million registered Syrian refugees – has 980 registered Afghan refugees and 116,000 Afghan asylum-seekers.

Despite the presence of the Taliban, a group of protesters march with Afghan flags during the country’s Independence Day rally in Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug. 19, 2021Haroon Sabawoon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

As it stands today

The latest figures from the AP show that more than 47,000 Afghan civilians and at least 66,000 Afghan military and police forces have died in the 20-year-old Afghanistan war

The security situation in the country had been deteriorating in recent years. According to Brown University’s Cost of War Project, an increasing numbers of Afghans have been killed as a result of crossfire, improvised explosive devices, assassinations by militant groups including the Taliban, night raids by U.S. and NATO forces and U.S.-led airstrikes.

Even prior to the Taliban takeover of Kabul, civilian casualties had risen by 29% in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the same period in 2020. A U.N. report from July 26, 2021 found a 37% increase in the number of women killed and injured, and a 23% increase in child casualties compared with the first quarter of 2020.

With the Taliban takeover of Kabul, there is a growing concern for the safety of Afghanistan’s women and girls, ethnic minorities, journalists, government workers, educators and human rights activists. Many Afghans desperate to leave remain outside Kabul and far from any airport.

U.S. evacuations will likely end once all Americans are out of Afghanistan. A few other western countries have committed to taking in small numbers of refugees, including Canada (20,000) and the U.K. (20,000 over 5 years).

Still, adoption of hard-line policies and anti-refugee sentiments across much of Europe means that relatively few Afghans will find sanctuary on the continent. Austria and Switzerland have already refused to take in large numbers of Afghans. Turkey, already straining with refugees, said it does not want to become “Europe’s refugee warehouse.”

Other countries committing to take in Afghans temporarily in small numbers include Albania, Qatar, Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia. Uganda, which already hosts 1.5 million refugees, mainly from South Sudan, has also agreed to take in 2,000 Afghans temporarily.

Ultimately, most Afghans able to leave the country will do so not in an aircraft, but on foot into Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan, already strained by its own economic and political struggles, will once again likely be the largest host for the most recently displaced Afghans.

But given that border crossings in the region are difficult and dangerous, the vast majority of uprooted Afghans will remain within Afghanistan’s borders. Their considerable humanitarian needs, economic and political challenges, security concerns and resistance to the Taliban will shape the next chapter of the country’s history.

Tazreena Sajjad is a Senior Professorial Lecturer of Global Governance, Politics and Security at the American University School of International Service as well as a pro-bono advisor for Refugee Solidarity Network (RSN).

This article first appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

Indie music has grown to include so much. It’s not just music that is released on independent labels, but speaks to an aesthetic that deviates from the norm and follows its own weirdo heart. It can come in the form of rock music, pop, or folk. In a sense, it says as much about the people that are drawn to it as it does about the people that make it.

Every week, Uproxx is rounding up the best new indie music from the past seven days. This week we got the the epic sonic departure from Deafheaven, the announcement of a new Bedouine album, and a pair of lo-fi hits from Hovvdy. Check out the rest of the best new indie music below.

While we’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to get the best new indie music delivered directly to your inbox, every Monday.

Deafheaven – Infinite Granite

The new record from San Francisco black metal heavyweights Deafheaven doesn’t sound very much like black metal at all. Instead, Infinite Granite is a genuine departure, a straight-up shoegaze record that starts the band on a completely new path. Where singer George Clark previously leveled up the intensity with his harsh vocals on past records, Infinite Granite has him trying on a more melodic vocal, while the rest of the band is keen on shimmering expansive, reverb-soaked instrumentals.

The Joy Formidable – Into The Blue

Veteran Welsh rockers The Joy Formidable have been more or less prolific since the 2011 release of their breakthrough album The Big Roar. The band has just released their sixth LP in ten years, Into The Blue, which certainly doesn’t lack in the group’s penchant for big guitars and pummeling percussion, all buoyed by Ritzy Bryan’s entrancing, ethereal vocals.

Alien Boy – Don’t Know What I Am

If you, like me, have been yearning for more distortion-infused alternative rock like peak Smashing Pumpkins, Portland quartet Alien Boy are here to scratch that itch. With a pedal board comparable to that one Bloc Party had at Riot Fest a few years ago, the group’s latest album Don’t Know What I Am cranks the amps up to 11 and delivers the sludgy alt rock goods.

Angel Olsen – Aisles EP

While we wait patiently for the follow-up to 2019’s All Mirrors, Angel Olsen has shared a short-form release to tide us over. The Aisles EP is a collection of five relatively faithful covers of ’80s tracks, including “Forever Young” and “The Safety Dance.” That being said, Olsen does offer up some of her stylistic brooding interpolation to truly make the songs her own.

James Blake – “Life Is Not The Same”

A few weeks after announcing his forthcoming album Friends That Break Your Heart, James Blake has shared another new single. The yearning and eerie “Life Is Not The Same” is about “finding peace with who you are and where you’re at regardless of how well other people seem to be doing,” Blake explained in a recent statement.

Bedouine – “The Wave”

It’s only been four years since Bedouine’s stunning self-titled debut forced its way into the rotation. After following it up with the equally wonderful Bird Songs Of A Killjoy in 2019, Azniv Korkejian is now prepping her third full-length. The announcement of Waysides arrived with “The Wave,” a tranquil, grief-fueled new single that welcomes us back into Korkejian’s world.

Hovvdy – “Junior Day Lease”

Austin lo-fi heroes Hovvdy are preparing to drop their fourth full-length album True Love later this year. We’ve already heard the album’s driving, beautiful title track, and now the duo is back with more tunes. “Junior Day Lease” is what Rachel Brodsky described for Uproxx as a “mellow, late-summer jam,” a track that Will Taylor explained is about “being in a daze on a fast day in a new town. Falling enamored with the people you’re with and the setting you’re in. Letting things move around you, rather than trying to control them.”

Teddy Grossman – “Power In Pain”

With his debut album Soon Come later this year, Teddy Grossman has shared another fresh new track. “Power In Pain” combines sonic elements of both Americana and R&B, evoking some of the best American songwriters. The track was written more than three years ago, ruminating on the transformative power of community in the face of human struggle.

Yellow Shoots – “Body Bag”

Just a few weeks after releasing their latest effort The Green Album, Yellow Shoots are back with a new bonus track. “Body Bag” is a haunting and complex response to personal loss, utilizing a soft, pulsing beat and a mixture of acoustic and electric guitars to create a unique sonic environment. Featuring contributions from Ryan Mitchell Grey, “Body Bag” serves as a tribute to Yellow Shoots’ uncle, who passed away from Covid.

Political correctness has never been one of comedian John Cleese’s strong suits, and his willingness to confront taboo topics head-on is part of what makes his work with Monty Python and on Fawlty Towers so groundbreaking. But as comedy is in the midst of a cultural reckoning, humor that was once considered cutting-edge is being reevaluated and, at times, censored, as Cleese has found out the hard way. So, as The Guardian reports, the 81-year-old comedian is about to embark on a quest to better understand the current climate with a new docuseries titled John Cleese: Cancel Me.

According to The Guardian:

The new documentary will reportedly explore “why a new ‘woke’ generation is trying to rewrite the rules on what can and can’t be said.”

John Cleese: Cancel Me will see the British comedian and actor meet various subjects who claim to have been “cancelled” for their actions or statements, and activists who have led opposition to various public figures.

Cleese is no stranger to controversy. In June 2020, the BBC-owned streaming service UKTV removed an episode of Fawlty Towers titled “The Germans,” in which a character named the Major used the N-word. In an interview with The Age, Cleese claimed that censoring the episode was missing the point entirely, noting: “The Major was an old fossil left over from decades before. We were not supporting his views, we were making fun of them. If they can’t see that, if people are too stupid to see that, what can one say?” (The episode was made available again shortly thereafter.)

As for this latest project, Cleese issued a statement noting:

“I’m delighted to have a chance to find out, on camera, about all the aspects of so-called political correctness. There’s so much I really don’t understand, like: how the impeccable idea of ‘Let’s all be kind to people’ has been developed in some cases ad absurdum.

I want to bring the various reasonings right out in the open so that people can be clearer in their minds what they agree with, what they don’t agree with, and what they still can’t make their mind up about.”

Just last week, according to Variety, a fan tweeted Cleese asking whether they needed to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to attend a show on his upcoming U.S. comedy tour. Cleese’s reply? “No, you just need a certificate promising that you have not attended specifically to be offended.”

(Via The Guardian)

Bless me father, for I have sinned. I have had impure thoughts about the idea of Christian Bale playing a naughty preacher. As Deadline reports, Charles Randolph, the Oscar-winning co-writer of The Big Short, is re-teaming with Bale for a new project: The Church of Living Dangerously, which the Oscar-winning former Batman will produce and star in.

The story, which is adapted from a Vanity Fair article by David Kushner, tells the story of John Lee Bishop, a charismatic pastor-turned-drugged smuggler who started taking meth and heroin as a way to help him help his son overcome a severe drug addiction. It’s just the kind of multilayered character that Bale knows how to play to perfection, as he has proven time and again (with four Oscar nominations and one win to show for it). And as far as complicated characters go, this one’s a doozy. As Mike Fleming Jr. writes for Deadline:

John Lee Bishop emerged from a rough and tumble childhood to become pastor of The Living Hope Church, which became so big at his peak that it filled an 8500 square foot former K-Mart superstore in Portland Oregon. A natural showman who would bring exotic animals for a sermon on Noah’s Ark, and once almost got mauled by a Bengal tiger he brought to the pulpit, Bishop became wealthy as the star performer. While the church catered to lost souls with the theory anyone could be forgiven, Bishop didn’t handle the affluence well and his parishioners would not forgive him when the married preacher was caught in an affair with a church employee, and for a raging painkiller and drinking problem. Bishop’s son, David, who developed a meth and heroin habit, and the preacher found a perplexing method of intervention. Bishop had a terrible childhood, subjected to bare knuckle fight club matches with other kids organized by his uncles for their amusement. Determined not to fail his son, Bishop insisted on taking the drugs with the youth, to understand their power over him. That led to Bishop’s road to smuggling drugs for a Mexican cartel. Caught at the Mexican border after 20 runs, Bishop was convicted and sentence to five years behind bars.

Ultimately, it was Bishop’s son who helped turn his dad’s life around—which is just the kind of ending that makes the story so ripe for adaptation. Kushner and Randolph will executive produce the film for New Regency.

(Via Deadline)

In discussions about her conservatorship, one topic that comes up regularly is Britney Spears’ plans to tour. The singer often said she refused to perform until her father, Jamie Spears, was removed as her co-conservator. But seeing as Jamie has made his plans to step down from his role clear, the question of whether or not Spears will ever return to the stage remains.

The last time Spears performed for an audience was on December 31, 2017, the final day of her lengthy Britney: Piece Of Me Las Vegas residency. The slew of shows spanned from 2013 to 2017 and included nearly 250 performances. In a recent post on Instagram, Spears recalls how hard she worked during that era, saying she only went out two times during the entire four-year stint:

“I’ve been thinking about life and what my version of success is … to me it’s knowing I’ve used my heart over my head and it’s hard sometimes because of ego … but sometimes ego is protection !!!! I gotta get the hell out of here … ok … I’m talking nonsense. Either way … me in my white dress !!! I was thinking about when I did shows in Vegas … the four years I was there I went out only two times !!!! Unfortunately I’m not lying but that’s not why I’m sharing this with you guys … it was the only one time I wore a white costume.”

The singer added that no one her her backup crew wore colorful outfits throughout her lengthy residency. “it may be uncool but let’s start wearing bright colors,” she wrote.

My Morning Jacket have announced plans to release their ninth studio album, following last year’s The Waterfall II. The new album is self-titled, drops October 22 via ATO, and features an expansive lead single, “Regularly Scheduled Programming.” Check out the music video, directed by Jim James and George Mays, above.

“This song really hits home for me after what we’ve gone through with the pandemic,” James said about “Regularly Scheduled Programming” in a release. “But even before then, it felt like so many of us were trading real life for social media, trading our own stories for the storylines on TV, trading our consciousness for drugs. We need to help each other wake up to real love before it’s too late.”

James continued, “I hope this album brings people a lot of joy and relief, especially since we’ve all been cooped up for so long. I know that feeling you get from driving around blasting music you love, or even lying in bed and crying to the music you love. The fact that we’re able to be a part of people’s lives in that way is so magical to us, and it feels really good that we’re still around to keep doing that.”

Find the My Morning Jacket art and tracklist below.

1. “Regularly Scheduled Programming”
2. “Love Love Love”
3. “In Color”
4. “Least Expected”
5. “Never In The Real World”
6. “The Devil’s In The Details”
7. “Lucky To Be Alive”
8. “Complex”
9. “Out Of Range, Pt. 2”
10. “Penny For Your Thoughts”
11. “I Never Could Get Enough”

My Morning Jacket is out 10/22 via ATO Records. Pre-order it here.

While Noname does her best to live up to her moniker, she’s not quite as adept at it as she’d like; while far from a household name, she’s made enough waves on social media to garner both fervent supporters of her book club and salty detractors for her online persona. Much of the Chicago rapper’s notoriety over the past year has come from critiquing her peers in entertainment like Beyonce and J. Cole, leading to bouts of backlash from fans of both and the songs “Snow On Tha Bluff” and “Song 33.”

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Noname explains why she so fervently avoids becoming what she calls a “real celebrity” in keeping with her radical philosophies and staunch anti-capitalist beliefs. “I don’t do brand deals, I don’t take advances, and I’m very much a hired, outside contractor,” she says. “A venue hires me to come and play a show, and then I go. I don’t really do photoshoots. They had to convince me to do this. I don’t like doing things that I know are going to build on my celebrity because that’s not ethical to me when I’m trying to be anti-capitalist and also trying to present myself in a specific way. It’s hard to do that, and then be like, ‘Let me do this photoshoot, let me be in Rolling Stone.’”

She also applies this view to her tiff with J. Cole. “The celebrity was bigger than the point I tried to make,” she laments. ‘The celebrity is always the biggest thing.” The problem with this, she thinks, is that it distracts from the civic work she does with the majority of her time. ” “Someone who doesn’t follow Noname, who randomly hears about it, it’s always something messy,” she says. “It’s always like, ‘She came for Beyoncé, she’s in a fight with whoever.’ So their opinion of me is formed around what goes viral, not this shit that I’m doing.”

However, this attention may soon pay off for her, as much of the interview is given to detailing the recording process for Factory Baby, her upcoming third album and first since 2018, as well as her progress on formalizing a space for her book club. Both are currently in the works and she expects them to be ready soon. She says that she could complete the album within two months, while she expects to make many more “revolutionary bops” like “Rainforest.”

You can read the full interview here.

Earlier this month, Charlie Watts, drummer for The Rolling Stones, had to pull out of the band’s upcoming tour following a medical procedure. At the time, a statement from the band representative indicated that Watts’ break was about getting “proper rest and recuperation,” but between then and now, it seems thing took a turn: It was announced today that Watts is dead at 80 years old.

Following the news, folks in the music world shared their thoughts about Watts. Elton John pointed out Watts’ sense of style, writing, “A very sad day. Charlie Watts was the ultimate drummer. The most stylish of men, and such brilliant company. My deepest condolences to Shirley, Seraphina and Charlotte. And of course, The Rolling Stones.”

Paul McCartney shared a video of himself briefly speaking about Watts, complimenting his drumming abilities and giving his condolences.

Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine also tweeted, “Rock n roll would not be rock n roll without the rhythm, the style, the VIBE of this incredible musician. Rest In Peace #CharlieWatts, one of the greatest and most important architects of the music we love.” Questlove also shared, “The heartbeat of Rock & Roll. The Great Charlie Watts. all due respect.”

Ringo Starr posted a photo of himself with Watts and wrote, “#God bless Charlie Watts we’re going to miss you man peace and love to the family Ringo.”

Check out some more reactions below.

Fresh off the announcement of her second Tony Bennett collaborative album Love For Sale, Lady Gaga is leaning further into her love of jazz music. The singer has officially announced the return of her popular Las Vegas Jazz & Piano residency, which is slated to kick off later this year.

Lady Gaga’s new Vegas residency is set to take place at the 5,300-seat Park Theater located at the Park MGM. It’s the same venue where she previously staged a residency back in 2018 that was so popular, it was extended to 2020. The new set of Jazz & Piano shows kick off on October 14 and run through October 31.

Along with announcing her her Jazz & Piano shows, Gaga has a few other exciting projects in the works. Not only is she gearing up for her Bennett album, but she’s also starring in the upcoming House Of Gucci film alongside Adam Driver. Flexing her best Italian accent, Gaga portrays the infamous woman Partrizia Reggiani, who was accused of plotting the murder of her husband Maurizio Gucci. The film hits theaters on November 24, just a month after Gaga wraps up her Vegas shows.

Tickets to Gaga’s Jazz & Piano Vegas residency go on sale 8/28 at 10 am PST. Get them here.