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After staying out of the public eye for more than a year, Lorde is making her way back to the spotlight. The singer spent much of 2020 to herself as she continues work on her upcoming third album. With that being said, she recently joined Marlon Williams onstage during a concert in Auckland, New Zealand. The performance came during Williams’ during run of New Zealand shows as a part of his current tour. Together him and Lorde delivered a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Tougher Than the Rest,” which can be found on The Boss’ 1987 album, Tunnel Of Love. The cover comes after Bruce Springsteen covered Lorde’s breakout hit, “Royals,” during a 2014 concert in New Zealand.

At the end of 2020, Lorde spoke about the upcoming project in a recent interview and revealed how a past trip to Antartica influenced the album’s yet-to-be-revealed title. “I actually decided on the album name right around that trip,” she said. “Just coming back from that trip I thought ‘this is what it is,’ which is not something that’s even close to being announced, and that in itself is a weird announcement. There is something so inspiring about it.” Lorde has also written a book about her trip called Going South.

You can watch the duo cover “Tougher Than the Rest” in the video above.

The Lakers have had absolutely rotten injury luck this season, with both Anthony Davis and LeBron James shut down for the foreseeable future with an Achilles issue and a high ankle sprain, respectively. Other key contributors like Marc Gasol and Dennis Schröder have missed time during the season, and the goal right now for the team is to simply avoid a freefall in the West without their stars.

On Wednesday, they finally seemed to be getting a lift as their new buyout acquisition, Andre Drummond, was set to make his Lakers debut against the Bucks. Drummond looked rusty in his 14 minutes of action, with four points, two assists, and one rebound, but that was somewhat expected after he hadn’t played in nearly a month as Cleveland had shut him down. However, what was far more concerning was his departure in the third quarter with an apparent toe injury, as he had his big toe wrapped and made a shoe change at halftime, dealing with discomfort. He would eventually remove his right shoe and walk to the locker room with the trainer.

The Lakers announced late in the third quarter that Drummond’s night was over with a right toe contusion.

It’s an unfortunate end to his debut and hopefully won’t be something that keeps him out for any kind of extended time, but for a Laker team that can’t seem to get healthy, it’s another injury to add to their list.

On Wednesday night, the Jazz beat the Grizzlies in Memphis in a hard fought game that Utah was able to gut out despite the absence of their star guard Donovan Mitchell. However, getting to Memphis proved more difficult than any game, as their plane struck a flock of birds shortly after takeoff, causing an engine failure that forced the plane to return to Salt Lake City for an emergency landing.

No one on board was injured as the plane was, happily, able to make it back safely and with no issues, but the situation certainly shook those on board. Mitchell’s absence was listed as “personal reasons” and was announced after the plane incident, and after the game on Wednesday Jordan Clarkson noted that he was more than understanding of why Mitchell didn’t want to make the trip after such a scare.

Clarkson also went into more detail of what he saw from inside the plane, saying he heard a loud bang and people in the back saw flames coming out of the engine, with many thinking they were going to die in a plane crash — and also shouting out the pilot for getting them down safe and keeping calm under such a situation.

Mike Conley offered similar thoughts on what he saw, and it’s clear the situation is one no one on that plane will forget.

Thankfully, nothing awful happened and they were able to land, and hopefully all involved will be able to shake off what was clearly a harrowing experience, given the amount of plane travel NBA players have to deal with.

The New York Mets and new owner Steve Cohen were determined to make a splash this offseason and did so by trading for Cleveland shortstop Francisco Lindor, who is among baseball’s absolute best players.

A four-time All-Star, two-time Silver Slugger, and two-time Gold Glove award winner in just six seasons in the bigs, the 27-year-old Puerto Rican star was set to cash in on a new contract next year and so Cleveland moved off of him to gather up more prospects. The Mets landed one of the league’s top stars, but it came with the expectation that they would pay him. With Opening Day mere hours away, the two sides appeared at a stalemate on Wednesday evening, with reports neither would budge from their respective offers — the Mets offering 10 years, $325 million and Lindor wanting 12 years for closer to $380 million.

However, with under an hour until Opening Day arrived on the East Coast, the two sides struck a compromise and got the deal done, with Lindor inking a deal with New York for 10 years at $341 million, as was reported by, well, every major baseball reporter.

It’s a huge deal for Lindor, who leaps $1 million over Fernando Tatis Jr.’s full contract amount (14 years, $340 million) and falls just behind Mike Trout’s 10 year, $360 million deal in terms of average annual value over the lifetime of the deal, which begins in 2022. The Mets make sure to lock down their star shortstop of the present and future, and make good on their promise to make a major move this offseason to vault themselves closer to contender status.

People thought that Westside Gunn would retire from rapping at the end of last year and focus on the other interests. This was due to a tweet he posted in September, in which he tweeted, “Only 3 more months left and I’m still at peace with my decision but this will be a dope 3 months I promise u that #FLYGOD.” But the rapper changed his mind at the beginning of the new year, saying there’s “more work to do” in his rap career. He even went ahead and announced his next album, which is entitled Hitler Wears Hermes 8: Sincerely Adolf.

With the full-length effort very much en route, Westside shares his latest singles, “Julia Lang” and “TV Boy.” The former is named after the founder of the genderless lifestyle label VEERT. They also appear beside Westside in the track’s accompanying video, which sees the rapper, his crew, and Lang kicking it at a studio as the Griselda rapper lets off a string of sharp raps. As for “TV Boy,” the song boasts production from frequent collaborators Daringer and Beat Butcha, who help create a grimy track for Westside to strut his stuff.

You can listen to both tracks in the videos above.

On Thursday, Major League Baseball will have Opening Day as the 2021 season gets underway, and it will be the first regular season MLB games with fans in the stands since 2019, as stadiums around the country are open to a limited capacity of fans based on local guidelines. The one exception is in Texas, where the Rangers will open the season and have a full capacity of fans after Texas’ governor lifted all COVID-19 restrictions in the state.

Only the Rangers are opening the stadium all the way up, as the Astros will continue to operate at a limited capacity, and while they will require masks it is far from the suggestion of the CDC for how to handle events under current guidelines as the vaccine rollout continues across the country. On Wednesday night, ESPN aired an interview with president Joe Biden in which Sage Steele asked him about the Rangers allowing a full stadium of fans, and he didn’t mince words about his feelings on the matter.

“That’s a decision they’ve made, I think it’s a mistake,” Biden said. “They should listen to Dr. Fauci and the scientists and the experts, but I think it’s not responsible.”

Other topics broached in the interview were the vaccine rollout, Biden encouraging people who have concerns to get the vaccine, and him offering his support should Major League Baseball decide to pull its All-Star Game out of Atlanta due to the new voter restriction laws that were passed in Georgia, which Biden called “Jim Crow on steroids.” Eventually, Biden hopes to get back to full capacity stadiums, as he was asked about the NFL’s plan which he mentions is months out and offers at least more time for the vast majority of the population to get vaccinated, but urges teams to follow the science and the recommendations of experts until we get to that point with limited capacities to limit another surge of the virus.

Atlanta’s Deante Hitchcock has been one of the most active hip-hop acts in 2021. The bulk of his work has came from his revived series New Atlanta Tuesdays, which sees him freestyling over new and old rap songs. He continued it today with a bars over Spillage Village’s “Baptize.” Just like the other songs in the series, Deante shares the new freestyle with an accompanying video. In the latest, the rapper can be found in hotel where talks to himself in the mirror before sitting fully-clothed in a tub full of water, once again impressing with his lyrical skills.

The freestyle is the fifth track Deante has dropped in 2021 as part of the new series. He began with bars over Lil Wayne’s “Let The Beat Build” and continued with a wild take on SpotemGottem’s “Beat Box.” Then he took on Drake’s No. 1 song, “What Next,” and his most recent saw him rapping over Outkast’s classic track “Roses,” off their 2004 album Speakerboxx/The Love Below.

Along with the string of freestyles, Deante has also teased a new album to be released in the near future. Until then, you can revisit his debut album, Better, which he released in 2020 and updated this year with a live version that came with videos of the performances.

You can listen to the freestyle in the video above.

There are moments as a parent that stand out, and there are moments as a human that stand out, and when those two realities converge, it makes for pure magic.

One such magical moment was captured and shared on TikTok and has been viewed by millions in just one day.

Master Sergeant Michael Fisher is an instructor with the Marine Corps Junior ROTC program. He has spent the past nine months sharing sweet videos on Tik Tok of himself and his adorable 1-year-old granddaughter, Abby, but yesterday he shared something completely different. In his official role as Master Sergeant, Fisher gave his son his first salute as a Second Lieutenant.

And as he explained the pride he felt, the emotion in his voice took us straight to his heart.

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“I’ve watched you grow and mature and become the man that you are today,” he said. “You have always been respectful, by saying ‘Yes sir.’ ‘No sir.’ ‘Yes, ma’am.’ And ‘No, ma’am.’ A salute is a sign of respect. It is a privilege to render you your first salute.”

He raised his hand in salute, then added, his voice cracking, “But it is a greater honor to say ‘Congratulations, sir, on your commissioning.'”

The moment was clearly significant for this father and son for personal reasons, but it was also significant that it took place between two Black officers.

Though racial diversity is fairly representative of the general population in lower officer ranks of the military, the upper ranks are lacking in such diversity. In fact, the higher in pay grade you go, the more white the demographics become.

As this chart from the Defense Department shows, at the top of the pay grade for active enlistment officers, 92% are white and 5% are Black.

defense.gov

For the reserves, the trend is similar, with white officers making up 100% of the top pay grade.

defense.gov

As Master Sergeant, Michael Fisher is an upper-ranked non-commissioned officer. His son’s rank of Second Lieutenant is the first commissioned officer ranking. (This site has a breakdown of how the rankings work, and what the letters below the bars on the chart mean.)

The Defense Department’s own report acknowledges that racial minorities are underrepresented in both senior non-commissioned officer ranks and as well as higher commissioned officer ranks. The report also explains why that’s a problem:

“Appropriate representation of minorities in military leadership positions is increasingly important in the context of the nation’s demographic trends. The non-Hispanic White population is expected to decline from 199 million in 2020 to 179 million in 2060, while the rest of the U.S. population continues to grow. The population of people who are two or more races is projected to be the single fastest-growing racial or ethnic group, followed by Asian and Hispanic Americans. Thus, if military leaders are to mirror the racial and ethnic composition of the Service members they lead and the American public they serve, DoD must ensure that all Service members have access to opportunities to succeed and advance into leadership positions.”

Here’s hoping this new Second Lieutenant will have every opportunity to rise in the officer ranks, if he so chooses.

Meanwhile, we’ll watch this video a few more times and just for the feels. There’s something about someone in uniform in a formal situation trying to hold it together that just tugs at the heartstrings every time. And seeing this career military man honoring his son with his first salute as an officer—and hearing his voice break as he does so—it’s just so touching.

Thank you, Master Sergeant Fisher and Second Lieutenant son, for your dutiful service.

The Philadelphia 76ers have spent much of the month post All-Star playing without the services of Joel Embiid. Embiid missed their first game after All Star due to contact tracing after he and Ben Simmons’ barber tested positive, and in his first game after that he suffered a knee injury that, happily, wasn’t as severe as it appeared.

Still, the Sixers have been cautious in making sure he isn’t rushing back and he has missed the last three weeks of action. On Wednesday there was some good news on the Embiid front as Shams Charania reported that, barring a setback, Embiid will make his return to the court on Saturday night against the Timberwolves.

We will have to await official word from Doc Rivers and the Sixers to confirm, and it will likely be deemed a “gametime decision” in the lead up. But it’s great news that one of the MVP frontrunners prior to the injury is on his way back, and not a moment too soon for a Sixers team that just dropped back-to-back games to contenders in the Clippers and Nuggets. Still, Ben Simmons and company managed to keep Philly in a tie atop the East by going 6-3 in their star big man’s absence — with one more game they should win against the Cavs to come before his return against Minnesota.

March 31 is a day that will forever remembered in hip-hop history: On that date in 2019, Nipsey Hussle was tragically shot and killed at his Marathon Clothing store in Los Angeles. His death shook the music world, leaving many to grieve a loss that came at the height of his career. On the two-year anniversary, his longtime girlfriend, Lauren London, took to Instagram to honor him.

“The Day Of Ermias’ transition changed the course of my life forever,” she wrote in the post. “2 years, and it feels like yesterday and eternity all at the same time. Grief and Healing have been constant companions on this journey.” She added, “In Honor of His life and demonstration… May all of Heaven exalt Your name for all You did on Earth and beyond. Brave and Beloved Soul, Ermias. You are missed deeply. You are loved immensely. You will forever be. I love you eternally,” before signing off on the message with “Your Boogie (blue heart emoji).”

A few weeks ago London shared the special contribution she made to Nipsey’s debut album, Victory Lap. “Fun fact: the voice that says ‘victory lap’ on the album is me,” she said in a post to her Instagram story. London can also be heard on another of the album’s tracks, “Real Big.”

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