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The rise of COVID-19 infections due to the rampant spread of the Delta variant has cast a shadow over a summer many thought would be a return to normalcy. Last Friday, the U.S. hit 100,000 daily infections, a number we haven’t seen since vaccines became readily available.

The good news is that the surge in cases has inspired a lot of vaccine-hesitant people to change their minds.

“This may be a tipping point for those who have been hesitant to say, ‘OK, it’s time,'” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told CNN. “I hope that’s what’s happening. That’s what desperately needs to happen if we’re going to get this Delta variant put back in its place.”

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More than 816,000 shots were administered Saturday, making it the third consecutive day that the seven-day average of people getting the shots topped 400,000. The country hasn’t hit that metric since the Fourth of July weekend. The country hit its vaccination peak in April when it was averaging 2 million shots a day.

💉VACCINE TREND UPDATE 📈
In some of the places hit hardest by the new Covid wave (including many vaccine-lagging pla… https://t.co/9C6dNzl0QX

— Drew Armstrong (@ArmstrongDrew)
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The increases are happening in Southern states that have some of the lowest percentages of vaccinated residents and the highest number of infections.

Louisiana currently has the highest positivity rate per capita and has seen a 114% increase in shots. Arkansas had a 96% increase, Alabama 65%, and Missouri 49%.

Although there have been numerous news stories about the increase in breakthrough infections throughout the country, science shows that it’s truly a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

“The media’s coverage doesn’t match the moment,” a senior Biden administration official told The Guardian. “It has been hyperbolic and frankly irresponsible in a way that hardens vaccine hesitancy. The biggest problem we have is unvaccinated people getting and spreading the virus.”

“It is really a pandemic among the unvaccinated, which is the reason why we’re out there, practically pleading with the unvaccinated people to go out and get vaccinated,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN.

“…it is really a pandemic among the unvaccinated” | @CNN: Fauci: ‘We’re going in the wrong direction’ on Covid-19… https://t.co/9heyDN9N0t

— Víctor Manuel Ramos (@vmramos)
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According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 99.999% of people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 have not had a breakthrough case resulting in hospitalization or death.

Less than 0.004% of fully vaccinated people have had a breakthrough infection requiring hospitalization.

Seventy-four percent of breakthrough infections have occurred among adults 65 and older.

Given the vaccine’s incredible success, it’s great to see that more people are changing their minds and deciding to get the jab, but we still have a long way to go before we reach herd immunity.

On Sunday, the CDC said that 49.6% of the U.S. population are fully vaccinated and 58.1% of the vaccine-eligible are fully vaccinated.

At the onset of the virus, medical experts believed that the country would have to hit a 60 to 70% vaccination rate to achieve herd immunity. However, Yale Medicine says that given the increase in variants, the county may have to have a vaccination rate of up to 85% before it will reach herd immunity.

When Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi both landed their high jumps at 2.37 meters, they were in the battle for Olympic gold. But when both jumpers missed the next mark—the Olympic record of 2.39 meters—three times each, they were officially tied for first place.

In such a tie, the athletes would usually do a “jump-off” to determine who wins gold and who wins silver. But as the official began to explain the options to Barshim and Tamberi, Barshim asked, “Can we have two golds?”

“It’s possible,” the official responded. “It depends, if you both decide…” And before he’d even told them how sharing the gold would work, the two jumpers looked at each other, nodded, and then launched into a wholesome and joyful celebration guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

Just watch:

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NO ONE celebrates like the Italians do. 🥳🇮🇹 #TokyoOlympics https://t.co/DcUcBFEZjE

— Peacock (@peacockTV)
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(If you are unable to view the video above, check it out on NBC’s YouTube channel here.)

The two jumpers have been competing against one another for more than a decade and are friends on and off the field, so getting to share the gold is a win-win—literally—for both of them. It’s also a historic choice. According to the BBC, the last time competing track and field Olympians shared the gold medal podium was in 1912.

The friendship and camaraderie between the two athletes are palpable and their immediate decision to share the gold truly embodies the Olympic spirit.

“I look at him, he looks at me, and we know it,” Barshim said, according to the CBC. “We just look at each other and we know, that is it, it is done. There is no need.”

“He is one of my best friends,” he added, “not only on the track, but outside the track. We work together. This is a dream come true. It is the true spirit, the sportsman spirit, and we are here delivering this message.”

Barshim was the silver medalist in the event in the Rio 2016 Olympics, and Tamberi suffered a career-threatening injury prior to those games, which took him out of medal contention.

“After my injuries, I just wanted to come back,” Tamberi told CNN. “But now I have this gold, it’s incredible. I dreamed of this so many times. I was told in 2016 just before Rio, there was a risk I wouldn’t be able to compete anymore. It’s been a long journey.”

What a beautiful display of sportsmanship, excellence, and genuine human connection. This is what the Olympics are all about. Love to see it.

This article originally appeared on 03.27.17

Freddie Teer is a normal boy. He loves Legos, skateboarding, and horsing around with his older brother Ollie. But in March 2017, his mother faced every parent’s worst nightmare.

Photo via iStock.

Freddie was doing tricks down the stairs of his front porch when he fell off his bike — and his bike fell on him.

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“[He was] just crying, wouldn’t let us touch his leg, couldn’t put any weight on his leg. We knew,” mom Ashley says.

Ashley rushed Freddie to the emergency room, where an X-ray confirmed the bones in his left shin were broken in half. He needed to be sedated, his bones set and put in a cast. It was an agonizing day for the Teers. But it’s what happened next that was truly inspiring.

We’ve all seen heartwarming stories of communities coming together to raise money online to help people cover medical care for themselves and loved ones.

There was the Kentucky mom with stage 4 cancer whose family collected over $1 million. The New Orleans police officer whose unit banked thousands for her chemotherapy. The Colorado man who lost his legs and whose friends crowdfunded his recovery.

While Freddie’s injury required major treatment, none of Ashley’s friends raised any money for him.

No one from their town took up a collection or held a bake sale.

No GoFundMe page was started to help cover his bills.

Instead, Ashley and Freddie walked out of the hospital owing nothing. Because they live in Canada.

“You just leave,” Ashley says. “You don’t pay anything.”

Incredible.

Canada. Photo by Monam/Pixabay.

Under Canada’s health care system, people like the Teers can see their doctors and go to the hospital when they’re hurt or sick, and they don’t get charged.

So heartwarming.

It almost wasn’t this way.

Ashley was born and raised in St. Louis in the U.S. where health care is expensive and complicated. Twelve years ago, she fell in love with a Canadian man and moved with him to Abbotsford, British Columbia, where they and their five children will enjoy heavily subsidized, affordable health care coverage at a low premium for the remainder of their natural lives.

“We’re able to go when we need help and we get help,” Ashley says.

Just amazing.

As Freddie recovered, no one showed up at the Teer home with a large check or collection plate full of cash.

Instead, Ashley and her family were “supported through meals and just that kind of care” — meals they were able to enjoy without having to decide between enduring the shame of hitting up their friends for money or facing the prospect of sliding into bankruptcy.

Freddie (right) and his brother Ollie. Photo by Ashley Teer.

The most uplifting part? Middle-income Canadians like the Teers pay taxes at roughly the same rates as Americans and still get their bones fixed for free at hospitals.

Not everything about Freddie’s recovery process was smooth.

The first night, Freddie tossed and turned in severe pain, unable to sleep. Ashley, however, was able to call her family doctor — who she never has to pay since he is compensated by a public system that continues to have overwhelming public support to this day — to get her son a codeine prescription. Miraculous!

Canada’s public health care plan doesn’t cover drugs. But, inspiringly, because of price controls, medicine is way cheaper there.

The Teers did lean on their friends and family for help while Freddie got better.

“We were kind of just asking people to pray,” she explains — primarily to lift her son’s spirits, and not, thankfully, to ask God to provide sufficient funds to cover basic medical care that every human living in a fair and prosperous society should have access to.

Even though he wasn’t able to move around, friends and relatives eagerly invited Freddie to hang out during his recovery instead avoiding him out of guilt for not pledging enough to his GoFundMe campaign.

Freddie shucks corn in his cast. Photo by Ashley Teer.

Just. Wow.

With support from his community — support that didn’t include a single dollar — Freddie’s cast came off six weeks later, right on schedule.

Healthy once more, Freddie went right back to enjoying extreme sports like BMX biking, skateboarding, and snowboarding, and Ashley is free to let him enjoy them without worrying about one fall wiping out their entire life savings and leaving her family destitute.

“Where we live, we’re not stressful when things happen to our kids,” Ashley says. “It’s not a stressful time financially, so the whole family is not anxious.”

It’s peace of mind that she — and the residents of virtually every other rational, wealthy, industrialized country in the world — share.

“I feel safe, and I feel like my voice is heard,” she says. “I can’t imagine living in a place that I didn’t feel that way.”

Inspiring.

This article originally appeared on 06.21.16

When I was 7, my dad told me a riddle.

“A man and his son are driving in their car when they are hit by a tractor-trailer.

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(We were driving at the time, so of course this was the riddle he decided to tell.) Photo via iStock.

The father dies instantly.

The son is badly injured. Paramedics rush him to the hospital.

Photo via iStock.

As he is being wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon takes one look the boy and says:

‘I can’t operate on him. He’s my son.’

How is that possible?!”

Without missing a beat, I answered:

“The doctor is his mom!”

Photo via iStock.

My dad first heard the riddle when he was a child in the ’60s.

Back then, most women didn’t work outside of the home.

Few of those who did had college degrees, much less professional degrees.

Female doctors were few and far between.

Back then, it was a hard riddle. A very hard riddle.

By 1993, when I first heard it, the notion that women could be highly skilled, highly trained professionals wasn’t so absurd.

To me, it was normal.

I knew women who were lawyers. Bankers. Politicians. My own doctor was a woman.

To be sure, women still faced challenges and discrimination in the workplace. And even 20 years later, they still do.

But at its core, the riddle is about how a family can work. And that had changed. Long-overdue progress had rendered the big, sexist assumption that underpinned the whole thing moot.

A very hard riddle was suddenly not a riddle at all.

I never forgot it.

Now, I’m 30 — almost as old as my dad was he first told me that riddle.

My dad at 30 (left) and me at 30. Photos by Eric March/Upworthy and Mary March, used with permission.

I don’t have kids, but I mentor a child through a volunteer program.

Once a week, we get together and hang out for an hour. We play ping pong, do science experiments, and write songs. Neither of us like to go outside.

It’s a good match.

One day, we decided to try to stump each other with riddles.

He rattled off about five or six.

I could only remember one: The one about the man, his son, and the surgeon.

Photo via iStock.

I thought it would be silly to tell it.

I was sure that, if it was easy in 1993, it would be even easier in 2014. Kind of ridiculous, even.

But a part of me was curious.

It had been 21 years — almost as long as it had been between when my dad first heard the riddle and when he shared it with me.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so easy.

Maybe I was missing something obvious, making my own flawed assumptions about how a family could work.

Maybe the world had changed in ways that would be second nature to a 13-year-old but not to me.

So I began:

“A man and his son are driving in their car, when they are hit by a tractor-trailer. The father dies instantly. The son is badly injured and is rushed to the hospital by paramedics. As he is being wheeled into the operating room, the surgeon takes one look at the boy and says:

‘I can’t operate on him. He’s my son.’

How is that possible?!”

Without missing a beat, he answered:

“It’s his other dad.”

Photo via iStock.

Times change. Progress isn’t perfect. But no matter what shape a family takes, at the end of the day, #LoveWins.

Lizzo’s most recent single was 2020’s “Cuz I Love You,” which comes from her 2019 album of the same name. So, it’s been a couple years since we’ve gotten some new music from Lizzo. She’s gearing up for a new era now, as her new single, “Rumors,” is set to drop on August 13.

She shared a promotional image for the song, which features her in a flash gold dress and equally shiny gold jewelry, giving a “shh” sign with her hand. She captioned the post, “NEW ERA B*TCH. ‘RUMORS’. 8/13.” Her post doesn’t indicate that “Rumors” is a song, but Lizzo’s website and pre-order pages do.

She more-than-suggested a few days ago that Mark Ronson is working on her album, saying in a TikTok video in response to a fan question, “A album? Absolutely not, I’m not making no f*ckin’ album! I’m not in a studio. This isn’t Mark Ronson. This isn’t a whole board. I’m not hanging out with songwriters like [Philip Lawrence of Bruno Mars songwriting/production team The Smeezingtons]. [laughs] I’m not making a f*ckin’ album! Where you get that from?”

This comes ahead of a busy stretch, as she’s set to perform at festivals like Bonnaroo, Firefly, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Four, long years after Amazon announced they had begun work on an original Lord of the Rings spinoff series, we now have our first look at it and, naturally, it’s gorgeous. Through perhaps even more impressive than this glimpse at the upcoming show (and just how much a billion dollars can buy) is just how soon we’ll get the chance to start watching it. According to Amazon, the currently untitled Lord of the Rings series is scheduled to hit Amazon Prime Video on September 2, 2022.

While Vanity Fair has confirmed the new still is from the show’s first episode, not much else is known about what this image depicts or what exactly is in store for Middle-earth in the show’s first season. While some speculate it could be showing Gondor’s former capital of capital city of Osgiliath, with a younger version of Galadriel overlooking it, only time will tell what’s really going on. In the meantime, we personally are huge fans of this interpretation:

Lots of secrets and Easter eggs hidden in that first #LordOfTheRings image, so I tried to annotate them all: pic.twitter.com/0DyrSXRKR4

— Alex Zalben (@azalben) August 2, 2021

Okay okay, if you’re someone who was hoping for something a bit more “official,” below is the synopsis that leaked on popular Lord of the Rings fansite TheOneRing.net earlier this year. While it hasn’t been confirmed as true, it does perhaps offer us the best look at what the series could offer:

“Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.”

Blxst is getting pretty well-known in his hometown of Los Angeles and now, he’s giving fans an opportunity to get to know his city as well as his city knows him. Partnering with Apple Maps, Blxst presents his own “Guide To Los Angeles” in the app, sharing his favorite places through photos shot by Travis Shinn and landmarks in the app pointing the way to a one-of-a-kind experience in the city.

Among the locations highlighted by the Guide are Crenshaw-based Earle’s Restaurant, a local landmark that has operated for over three decades, Simply Wholesome in Windsor Hills, Fairfax’s CoolkicksLA, where the city’s coolest kids go-to cop the latest streetwear and sneakers, and the Fox Hills Mall in Culver City — which will always be Fox Hills to locals, even though it’s officially named Westfield Culver City now.

In a press release, Blxst said, “Excited to give my fans a closer look at my favorite spots in LA with this new Guide in Apple Maps. These businesses, restaurants, and shops are a great way to see and enjoy the city from my perspective.” You can check out the Guide here.

For the perfect soundtrack to cruising the city on Blxst’s guided tour, you can check out his debut EP, No Love Lost, and his new joint project with fellow Angeleno Bino Rideaux, Sixtape 2. Catch him on his No Love Lost tour this summer.

The Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters for Final Fantasy I, II, and III on Steam are finally available and reviews are starting to roll in. The majority of reviews say that they’re extremely well done remasters, but there are some complaints about the font choice. The font is an easy fix, but what’s odd is that while official reviews have been mainly positive the fan reviews have so far been extremely negative on sites like Metacritic. While fans and media don’t always agree on a game it’s rare to see Final Fantasy games score this low on reviews.

Turns out there’s a reason for that. The majority of fans that are posting reviews on Metacritic are likely doing so because they can’t play the remakes on a console. Right now, the Pixel Remasters are exclusive to Steam and mobile devices, while this isn’t the first time they’ve been ported to those devices there were a lot of fans complaining about it when the remakes were announced over the summer.

Word must have gotten out about the remasters receiving a low Metacritic score because it’s been slowly rising as actual positive reviews are starting to make their way over. These new reviews also include text associated with the score, unlike the negative ones. Originally, a since-deleted comment complaining about the remaster not being available on consoles was the only negative review that had actual text attached to it.

This appears to be a Metacritic only problem because the Steam reviews are overwhelmingly positive with over 800 positive user reviews and less than 100 negative ones. However, the negative reviews on Steam are unrelated to it being unavailable on console and are actual critiques such as the removal of content, a few complaints of stuttering, and one mentioning screen tearing.

This should go without saying, but review bombing a game on Metacritic is not going to get the game ported to consoles. If anything it’s more likely to encourage developers to not port the game at all because of low scores.

Free agency isn’t expected to see many superstars go on the move this summer, but the start of the new league year does present the opportunity for some teams to lock their own stars up long-term.

Chief among those are the Warriors, who can hand Stephen Curry a deal worth more than $50 million per season to, effectively, ensure he stays in the Bay for life. The 4-year, $215 million deal is expected to be a done deal once the extension window opens later on Monday night on the West Coast, where Curry will put pen to paper and lock himself in for five more years (including the last on his current deal) in San Francisco, per Marc Stein.

Golden State’s Stephen Curry, I’m told, will soon be agreeing to a four-year, $215 million extension with the Warriors.

This should put a halt to any concern Curry might grow frustrated with the organization that seems stuck between two timelines at the moment and move on next summer, but Golden State still needs to work to put a winner around the greatest star in the franchise’s history. With three first or second-year lottery picks on the roster, the Warriors have two different trios in hand at the moment, one a possible core for the future and their established core from championships past. Inking Curry to a massive new contract seems to indicate they’ll continue looking to build a winner now, which means those three young, intriguing players of the future might need to be prepared for trade rumors to surround them for some time.

The backlash to DaBaby’s controversial HIV/AIDS comments at Rolling Loud a couple weekends ago (for which he only just apologized today) has been severe, as he’s been dropped from multiple festival lineups and dragged by many of his peers in music. Dua Lipa, who recruited DaBaby to join her on the “Levitating” remix, said she was “surprised and horrified” by the things DaBaby said on stage.

Since the controversy, music curators have started phasing the DaBaby version of “Levitating” off of playlists and radio airplay, but in spite of that, the song is still doing quite well on the charts. On the new Hot 100 dated August 7, the “Levitating” remix is at No. 5, a slight drop from its spot at No. 3 last week. The Rolling Loud incident happened on July 25, which was a few days into the tracking week reflected on the latest chart, July 23 to 29.

Billboard reports that remix saw a 12-percent drop in plays compared to the solo version of the song last week, noting, “On July 25, 71% of its plays was via the remix; on July 29, the last day of the tracking week, the share dropped to 59%.”

If the solo version of “Levitating” ends up becoming the most prominent version of the song in terms of charting activity, it is possible for DaBaby’s credit to be removed from “Levitating” as it appears on the Hot 100 and other charts. A similar thing happened last year when Nicki Minaj was removed from the Hot 100 listing for Doja Cat’s “Say So.” Billboard explained at the time, “After two weeks of Minaj showing as a featured artist on ‘Say So’ on the Hot 100 and other charts that utilize the same methodology, only Doja Cat is now listed, as the original version, without Minaj, is now driving the majority of overall activity for the song; the change does not affect any of Minaj’s achievements on those charts the past two weeks, and she continues not to be credited on the song on any airplay charts, as the vast majority of the song’s airplay is still for the original version.”

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