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The Los Angeles Clippers will enter next season without Patrick Beverley. It was reported earlier this week that the team’s ultra-passionate point guard would face a suspension to start the 2021-22 campaign, and on Saturday afternoon, the NBA announced that would end up being the case. The good news for L.A., though, is that Beverley won’t miss an extended period of time.

The league announced that Beverley’s shove on Chris Paul during Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals, which the Clippers lost to end their year altogether, will cost him the first game of next season that he’s eligible to play in — i.e., if Beverley is out with an injury to start the year, those games will not count. The infraction was officially referred to as “an unsportsmanlike act for forcefully pushing … Paul from behind and knocking him to the court during a stoppage in play.”

A day after the incident, Beverley took to Twitter to apologize to Paul and wished him and the Suns good luck as they play for a championship.

There’s no word on whether or not Beverley would attempt to appeal the ruling, but it would make sense if he decided it ultimately wasn’t worth the headache and just started his regular season 48 minutes later than everyone else.

Earlier this year, Taylor Swift earned her third No. 1 album in less than 12 months with the release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version), making her the first woman in music history to achieve this. It’s part of her latest project, which involves re-recording her older albums following a dispute with her former label, which resulted in her losing the masters of her first six albums. This fall, the singer will share her next one, which takes on her 2013 album Red. She also promised previously unheard music, and it may include a collaboration that will surely be one for the books.

As rumor has it, the album may include Taylor collaborating with Adele on “Broken Hearts,” which was registered online with both artists appearing as writers on the song. It reportedly appeared on the SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors and Composers) registry, one of the oldest performance rights organizations in the United States.

After the registry appeared on social media, fans of both singers began to share their theories about when the song would arrive and which album it would appear on. Most believed the song will land on Red (Taylor’s Version), which is due on November 19.

You can read some thoughts about the rumored collaboration from fans below.

Jen Psaki has been a remarkably different White House press secretary than any of her four predecessors. Where they were contemptuous and snippy — not to mention sometimes allergic to the truth — the Biden team’s first person on the job is, well, not. Except with Peter Doocy. Psaki and the Fox News journalist quickly established a frenemy repartee, with him asking questionable questions and her replying with snappy retorts. That schtick got a good workout on Friday, when Psaki quoted his own network back to him.

Doocy tried to take the Biden administration to task for the Defund the Police movement, in which people demand that police budgets be slashed and reallocated in ways that may be more productive, not to mention safer for some communities. Biden and team have never embraced it, but Doocy singled out U.S. Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who last year was quoted saying it was “critical” for police budgets to be decreased.

But Psaki was ready for him. She immediately turned to a report from Fox News in February, which stated that Gupta’s nomination was supported by “current and former police chiefs in more than 53 cities across the country, as well as the National Fraternal Order of Police.” In addition to praising her leadership, they urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to “quickly confirm her.” (Gupta assumed office on April 22.)

After reading Doocy a piece from his own employers, Psaki said, “I don’t know if that was your report or not.” (It wasn’t.) “But it was certainly one from your network.”

When Doocy pressed that Gupta said she wanted police budgets decreased, Psaki replied, “She also made it clear in her confirmation process that she opposes defunding the police. And the president, most importantly, did not run on defunding the police. He’s always opposed defunding the police.”

The two’s latest exchange comes after a number of Democrats, as well as Fox News host Chris Wallace, have pointed out that, technically speaking, it’s Republicans who have tried to take money from the nation’s police forces, after they opposed a bill that would have made their budgets bigger.

The Philadelphia 76ers are trying to figure out what to do with Ben Simmons. Despite the fact that he’s an All-Star, Simmons’ flaws as a player were on full display during the team’s Eastern Conference Semifinals loss to the Atlanta Hawks, and now, Philly has to figure out if it’s worth moving forward with him or trying to trade him elsewhere.

While he has some questions about Simmons, Sixers coach Doc Rivers told TMZ that he’d like to have him suit up for the team when next season rolls around.

“Ben’s great,” Rivers said. “I want him back. He’s terrific. He’ll be great.

“I think he doesn’t need a lot of fixing,” he continued. “He’s gonna be great for us. He’ll be great.”

Rivers turned some heads by proclaiming after the team’s Game 7 loss to the Hawks that he’s unsure if Simmons can be a championship-level point guard. In the aftermath of those comments, Sixers executive Daryl Morey did some damage control by telling the press that the team is committed to this group of players going forward, although reports indicate that Simmons’ agent, Rich Paul, met with the team’s front office while at the NBA Draft Combine to discuss the future, although he did not request a trade.

Simmons is about to enter year two of a five-year contract extension, and over the next four seasons, he’s slated to earn more than $145 million.

Since November, Geraldo Rivera has become an unlikely hero, of sorts. Since the election the longtime Republican has consistently and energetically shut down untold wacko conspiracy theories. He’s pleased for sanity from his good friend Donald Trump and he’s squared off against the likes of Charlie Kirk and Don Bongino. But he’s still Geraldo Rivera, and people got a rude reminder of that when he cheered the prison release of Bill Cosby.

On an appearance on Fox News Wednesday, Rivera declared that Cosby’s conviction, awarded over three counts of aggravated indecent assault, “never should have happened.” After the conviction was overturned, sending him back out into the world as a free man, Rivera lamented that he spent any time in prison at all. “How is he going to get back the two years that he has lost now?”

America Reports host John Roberts asked Rivera about the 58 women who have accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, but Rivera claimed they should have reported him sooner.

“Our hearts go out to these victims — they should have gone to the prosecutor when their cases were ripe for justice,” he replied. “I am sorry they are not getting a sense of moral fulfillment now, or rehabilitation or repair, for the damage that this man probably did to them. But that’s not the way the criminal justice system works.”

Rivera also claimed Harvey Weinstein was “unjustly convicted.”

And so the tide turned back against Rivera. Some questioned his logic.

Others pointed out this isn’t the first time he’s sided with people who’ve been similarly accused.

Some were disappointed but not shocked.

There were also Al Capone vault jokes.

The next time Rivera decides to stand up against his party, people may remember who they’re dealing with.

(Via Yahoo!)

Britney Spears has been actively seeking to alter her conservatorship, a court-ordered arrangement that began 13 years ago. There have been multiple hearings about the matter, and on June 23 she finally got the chance to address the matter, calling the arrangement as “abusive” and describing the many ways it restricted her desired lifestyle. “I’ve been in denial,” she admitted. “I’ve been in shock. I am traumatized. I just want my life back.”

Nearly two weeks we learned more details in an article by The New Yorker. In it, the singer’s ex-manager, Sam Lufti, shared an example of the increased surveillance the singer allegedly endures under the conservatorship.

“I’ll go years without contact, and then I’ll get a call every once in a while from her in a closet,” Lufti said. He also suggested that the singer’s phone is monitored by her lawyers and that she calls and texts only when she gets another phone. “Last time she called me, she was at Ralphs, in Calabasas[…] After she hung up, I got a call from the same number — it’s an Asian doctor, who says, ‘Wow, this is surreal, Britney just borrowed my phone.’ Five years ago, she borrowed a phone at the gym and just made off with it.”

Lufti added that his last in-person meeting with Britney, which occurred back in 2015, left him concerned for the singer’s well-being. “My opinion is that this conservatorship has drastically affected her mind-set,” he said.

You can read the full piece on The New Yorker here.

It was one of the most talked-about shows of last year — a blend of horror and history and satire and racial commentary, and all based around the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Alas, it was too good to be true: As Deadline reported, HBO has made the surprising decision to not bring back Lovecraft Country for a second season.

The show — which starred Jurnee Smollett and Jonathan Majors as Black people traveling through the 1950s South, happening upon many dark secrets — premiered last summer, when the nation was gripped by protests over the murder of George Floyd. There were plans for what sounded like an even more ambitious second season. But it was not to be. HBO did not go into specifics behind their decision.

However, creator and showrunner Misha Green did tease what could have been. She dropped an image from the Season 2 “Bible,” revealing that it would begin “in a new world, and that new world sits precisely where The United States used to sit.” It shows a map of the “Sovereign States of America,” which is divided into four sections, including one called “New Negro Republic,” in the Southeast, and one called “Whitelands,” running just north of it, from North Texas into southern Jersey. One can only imagine…

(Via Deadline)

There has been no better show in MLB in 2021 than Shohei Ohtani — who after years of injuries is finally at his peak — and the AL MVP frontrunner kept the show going on Friday night when he hit two home runs early against Baltimore to become MLB’s first player to 30 dingers.

The lefty Ohtani pulled the first one deep past the right field wall off Orioles starter Keegan Akin. The homer, his 29th of the year, broke Anaheim’s franchise record for home runs before the All-Star break.

As a follow-up, Ohtani upped the level of difficulty. There’s nothing like the pop of an Ohtani dinger, but even more impressive with No. 30 was how far it went despite being launched to the opposite field.

The smash lifted Ohtani to the hallowed ground of 30 home runs before the All-Star break, which puts him on pace for about 61 on the season. With 30 homers, a .360 on-base percentage and a 173 OPS+, Ohtani has a good claim to be being the best hitter in baseball right now. Oh, and of course he pitches, too. The 26-year-old has thrown 60 innings across 12 starts and has a respectable 3.74 FIP.

But it’s moonshots like these that make him potentially the best show in baseball right now, and a player who should come out of the All-Star break with a chance at the AL MVP trophy.

Something went down in Hollywood today between Lil Uzi Vert and Saint Jhn.

According to a frequently updated report by TMZ, Saint Jhn and Lil Uzi Vert were involved in an altercation today at Dialog Cafe in West Hollywood. Uzi apparently came to the cafe because Saint Jhn was meeting with his ex-girlfriend Brittany Byrd. TMZ’s sources claim that Uzi and Jhn got into a physical altercation, and Uzi’s gun fell out onto the table when Uzi tried to land a punch and missed. Other reports claim that Uzi flashed the handle of his gun, causing everyone to flee the scene out of fear of a shooting.

According to Byrd, she was meeting with Jhn strictly for business purposes, but something about the two of them together set Uzi off. vByrd filed a police report later in the day at the West Hollywood Sheriff’s substation alleging that Uzi put a gun to her stomach and struck her during the altercation. Uzi and Saint Jhn have both yet to comment on the fight, though the artists never seemed to have beef before this and Uzi even featured on a song with Jhn, “High School Reunion, Prom” in 2020. You can hear that collab below.

A broken nose forced Devin Booker to don a mask and likely had a role in some of his cold shooting performances during the Western Conference Finals, but it also freed him up during a key Game Two to take in some advice from his point guard.

During an interview on Sirius XM NBA Radio this week, Suns managing partner Robert Sarver described being back in the locker room while Booker was getting stitches to stop from “gushing” blood, and watching as during this intense medical procedure, Booker has a phone to his face. The call came courtesy of Chris Paul’s personal security guard, and the face on the screen was Paul himself.

“Chris is on FaceTime telling Devin what to do,” Sarver said, “explaining to him which elbow he wants him to get to and how to get this person there and that person here, (saying) ‘don’t lose your temper, be calm, don’t try to strike back, you’re going to get this.’”

Of course, Paul is not the only maniacally competitive player in the Suns’ backcourt. According to Sarver, Booker himself nervously anticipated the end of the stitching procedure and the end of the Point God’s call so that he could get back out onto the court in time for a two-for-one opportunity on offense.