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Karl-Anthony Towns made his return to the Timberwolves lineup earlier this week after missing 13 games as he battled COVID. Towns’ diagnoses came after his mother and six other family members died because of the disease in the past year, making his situation all the more terrifying for him and those closest to him.

Towns discussed what his scary ordeal was like as he suffered through difficult nights and how being in a high-risk category took its toll on his recovery. It made it all the more impressive that he was able to return to action and log 18 points and 10 rebounds on Wednesday.

He was back in the lineup Friday night as the Timberwolves traveled to Charlotte to play the Hornets, but after news emerged that three of their opponents players — P.J. Washington and Caleb and Cody Martin — were ruled out because of COVID protocols, Towns admitted that his mind was elsewhere as the stark reality of the ongoing pandemic was once again front and center.

KAT says he was “mentally not there” in first half and was “spooked” by COVID situation in Charlotte

— Jon Krawczynski (@JonKrawczynski) February 13, 2021

Context: Wolves were warming up when they found out Charlotte had a late scratch with PJ Washington because of COVID. Towns said he was worried for his teammates. Didn’t want them to go through what he went through.

— Jon Krawczynski (@JonKrawczynski) February 13, 2021

KAT says he talked to his father at halftime. Big Karl “calmed me down and gave me some advice.” He felt better in the second half.

— Jon Krawczynski (@JonKrawczynski) February 13, 2021

It’s a perfectly understandable reaction, given what he’s been through. Towns ended up finding his footing in the second half, finishing the game with 25 points, eight rebounds, and five three-pointers, albeit in a loss, as Charlotte ended up winning the game, 120-114.

Steady Holiday has been teasing her third studio album, Taking The Corners Gently, with a handful of breezy singles. Most recently, the singer shared the poignant ballad “Love Me When I Go To Sleep” with a video of her serenading her 92-year-old grandpa through the phone. She now celebrates the release of the record with a playful video alongside her track “Sunny In The Making.”

Directed by Isaac Ravishankara, the video is a spoof on a TikTok dance video. Steady Holiday tries her best moves, but she can’t seem to keep up the steadfast enthusiasm that’s oftentimes seen in viral videos on the app.

Speaking about the album in a statement, Steady Holiday said it’s her way of “embracing uncertainty:”

“Take The Corners Gently was written during a recent period of turmoil in my life. The details aren’t mine alone to share, but the experience was an opportunity to examine how deeply I pay attention to the people and world around me. To notice where I put my energy, and what I might be missing. It’s an album about embracing uncertainty, relinquishing what can’t be controlled, appreciating moments as they happen. And if we don’t get that far, it’s also about celebrating the attempt to.”

Watch Steady Holiday’s “Sunny In The Making” video above.

Taking The Corners Gently is out now. Get it here.

Much of Friday’s impeachment trial in Washington dealt with what Donald Trump knew about the MAGA riot he incited at the US Capitol last month and what he did to try to prevent it. But regardless of whether senators vote to convict Trump on his second impeachment charge, we know much more about what happened on January 6. And that apparently includes a massive shouting match between Republican leadership and Trump while rioters were inside the Capitol during the deadly attack.

According to CNN, Trump and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy got into an expletive-filled shouting match while rioters were inside the building, with McCarthy clearly labeling the people staging the attack as Trump supporters and pleading with Trump to publicly tell them to stop the insurrection which was an attempt to stop the certification of Electoral College votes that correctly said Joe Biden won the 2020 election.

According to the report, Trump refused, stating instead that rioters simply cared more about the election than McCarthy did.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.

McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off.

Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told the President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, “Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.

It’s a shocking report that illustrated just how little Trump seemed to care about what happened at the Capitol at the hands of his armed supporters, even while Republican lawmakers were trapped inside as Capitol Police failed to contain the mob. The report included other quotes from Republican lawmakers that contrasted a lot of the claims of Trump’s defense throughout the week, which tried to distance Trump from the mob of his supporters who hours before the coup attempt he directed toward the Capitol.

“He is not a blameless observer, he was rooting for them,” a Republican member of Congress said. “On January 13, Kevin McCarthy said on the floor of the House that the President bears responsibility and he does.”

The report isn’t official testimony, of course, and it may not do much to change the direction of the Senate trial and whether Trump is held responsible by Congress. But it continues to show the reality of what Trump did (and didn’t do) on January 6, even when lawmakers on his side of the aisle were in the crosshairs of a mob that had already proved deadly.

After years of service as a military nurse in the naval Marine Corps, Los Angeles, California-resident Rhonda Jackson became one of the 37,000 retired veterans in the U.S. who are currently experiencing homelessness — roughly eight percent of the entire homeless population.

“I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with no heat for two years,” Jackson said. “The Department of Veterans Affairs was doing everything they could to help but I was not in a good situation.”

One day in 2019, Jackson felt a sudden sense of hope for a better living arrangement when she caught wind of the ongoing construction of Veteran’s Village in Carson, California — a 51-unit affordable housing development with one, two and three-bedroom apartments and supportive services to residents through a partnership with U.S.VETS.

Her feelings of hope quickly blossomed into a vision for her future when she learned that Veteran’s Village was taking applications for residents to move in later that year after construction was complete.

“I was entered into a lottery and I just said to myself, ‘Okay, this is going to work out,'” Jackson said. “The next thing I knew, I had won the lottery — in more ways than one.”

Communities like Veteran’s Village are contributing to the national decline in homeless veterans. According to The Department of Housing and Urban Development, 793 fewer veterans experienced homelessness between 2018 and 2019.

That drop continued a steady decline over the past decade, as the number of veterans experiencing homelessness has fallen nearly 50 percent since 2009.

National Equity Fund (NEF), a nonprofit LIHTC syndicator and partner to Capital One, brought Veteran’s Village to the bank, which responded by providing a $14.3 million construction loan and $15.6 million long-term equity investment through the purchase of low-income housing tax credits.

Courtesy of Thomas Safran & Associates

“Everyone deserves safe, secure, stable housing — especially the heroes that protect our rights and freedoms,” says David Musial, a Capital One Senior Director of the Bank’s Community Finance team, which specializes in financing affordable housing. “We are honored to be able to support communities like Veteran’s Village as stable affordable housing is fundamental to physical and financial health and access to opportunity.”

Veteran’s Village strives to be more than just an affordable housing development. Its staff functions as a support system to help residents navigate their individual situations to ensure that each resident is equipped with the tools they need to thrive.

“Through the support of Capital One, we were able to provide much-needed housing for U.S. Veterans,” said Amy Hyde of Thomas Safran & Associates, an affordable housing development and management organization whose properties include Veteran’s Village. “Our goal is to enrich the lives of the people who reside in our buildings and Capital One’s funding is helping us do just that,” Hyde said.

For Jackson, that goal is realized through the sense of community throughout Veteran’s Village.

“It’s home for people who served their country and want to serve each other,” Jackson said. “We take care of each other and we look out for each other. We’re a family here.”

In addition to supporting housing for veterans, Capital One supports affordable housing for residents throughout the Los Angeles area, including Vista Grande Court, an affordable development that supports people over 60 years of age and Palo Verde Apartments, which includes 49 affordable units with 25 reserved for formerly homeless veterans and their families.

Capital One’s support to affordable housing communities in Los Angeles comes as part of its larger Capital One Impact Initiative, an initial $200 million, multi-year commitment to advancing socioeconomic mobility through advocating for an inclusive society, building thriving communities and creating financial tools that enrich lives.

Jackson said that while she is grateful for her living arrangement at Veteran’s Village, there is a long road ahead in ensuring that every veteran has access to stable housing.

“I pray that there will be more communities like this built because there are so many of my veteran brothers and sisters on the streets that don’t even realize their living situation doesn’t have to be the way it currently is,” Jackson said.

As if the GOAT debate in basketball wasn’t enough, Tom Brady and his seven Super Bowl titles has reignited the conversation about which athletes have a claim to the throne regardless of the sport. Names like Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, Serena Williams, Michael Phelps, etc. all join the likes of Brady and Michael Jordan when we talk about the most transcendent sports figures in history.

Inevitably, there are names that get overlooked in these discussions. Once you start cutting a wide enough swath, the criteria gets murkier and murkier, and before you know it, the conversation has been knocked completely off its axis and sent spiraling into the cosmos.

Thankfully, Bill Russell has come to bring us all back down to Earth with a simple yet profound photo. After a fan tweeted a pic of Brady and Jordan showing off their rings — along with the caption that only the two of them belong at the table — Russell responded with the iconic photo of himself wearing all 11 of the championships rings he won with the Celtics.

Your getting closer @nba @nfl @BleacherReport @SLAMonline @espn https://t.co/cVAwvSt0y7 pic.twitter.com/Oll2mvW1vg

— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) February 12, 2021

It’s quite the mic-drop, and just another reason to love Bill Russell, regardless of how you feel about the GOAT debate. Critics are quick to point out that Russell played in an era when the level of skill and athleticism couldn’t even begin to match what we see today and a league that was much smaller and less competitive. Still, none of that should diminish his incredible accomplishments during his career, and Russell himself certainly isn’t about to let us forget.

Fans were overjoyed with Rita Ora returned in 2020 to share the bouyant track “How To Be Lonely.” But rather than ushering in a new era of music, the song ended up being a stand alone single. Now, Ora is back once again, this time dropping the four-track collaborative EP Bang. To celebrate the project’s release, the singer shared a short film visualizing a snippet from each track.

Bang is a joint effort between Ora and Kazakhstani producer Imanbek. But it also boasts features from Gunna, David Guetta, and Brazilian Argentinian singer Khea, who has established himself as a leading voice in the country’s trap scene. About the collaborative EP, Ora described it as a “global project” in a statement to Apple Music.

“It was like finding pen pals,” she said. “You had me in London, Imanbek in Kazakhstan, Gunna in Los Angeles, KHEA in Argentina and David Guetta, well, who knows where David is at any one time. It’s a global project that went beyond language and geographical boundaries but somehow stayed lovely and intimate.”

The singer may have recorded the EP in lockdown, but she didn’t exactly adhere to the restrictions put in place during quarantine. The UK singer was reprimanded by fans after she threw a 30-person birthday party at a restaurant in London, which she ended up reportedly being fined about $12,000 for.

Watch Rita Ora’s Bang short film above. Bang is out now via Atlantic. Get it here.

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

Young MA had a prolific year in 2020 despite the circumstances. The rapper followed up her 2019 debut album Herstory In The Making with the quarantine EP Red Flu. Now, the rapper is returning to tease even more music with her first track of the year, “Off The Yak.”

The rapper shared an opulent video alongside her “Off The Yak” single. The visual sees her flexing the finer things in life while spitting verses about making it big without being signed to a label. “I just stay loyal to money and music and all the guys that I be with / But back to the real, just bought me a ‘vette and still ain’t signed to a deal,” she raps.

Young MA may be unsigned, but that hasn’t stopped her from forming friendships with some iconic rappers. Most recently, Young MA earned a cosign from Eminem after she featured on his Music To Be Murdered By track “Unaccommodating.” But it took Eminem a few listens to catch some of the clever wordplay she used in a verse.

“I’m still catching [bars],” he said, gushing about Young MA’s talent. “When you get your punchlines or however your writing process is, you can always tell somebody who has studied the game and who is a student of it… Your punchlines don’t sound like setups, they sound like punchline after punchline after punchline. That requires a lot of skill and a lot of thought.”

Watch Young MA’s “Off The Yak” video above.

Donald Glover doesn’t have any posts currently visible on Instagram, but he used the social media to break some news of his own anyway on Friday night. The Atlanta star and musician revealed in a four-part Instagram story that he’s bringing a show to Amazon with Fleabag and Killing Eve creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

Waller-Bridge, who isn’t on any social media platforms that she’ll reveal publicly, let Glover do the promotional work on his also-defunct Childish Gambino Instagrm page, posting a pair of videos and two text messages that revealed the pair have a show coming to Amazon Prime in 2022. The video starts with Glover close to the screen, then backing away to begin what appears to be flossing.

The video then cuts to a bespeckled Waller-Bridge, who takes off her glasses as Paul Anka’s Put Your Head On My Shoulder starts to play. She then gets up, moves to the doorway behind her and leans against it as the song slowly starts to change.

From there is an abrupt cut to two text screens, one that reveals it was, indeed, Waller-Bridge in the video, and that she and Glover are working on an Amazon show together.

The head of Amazon Studios later put the entire video up in a post on her own Instagram page.

It’s unclear what the show will be about, as the story didn’t contain any actual words. But the title Mr. + Mrs Smith is the same as the 2005 action comedy Mr & Mrs. Smith, which starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Variety on Friday described the project as a “new spin” on the film. Judging by the work Glover and Waller-Bridge have done in the past and the clues from the video — Glover nearly flossing and Waller-Bridge leaning against a doorframe — well, your guess is really as good as any right now.

An aerial camera caught a delightful sight off the coast of St. Petersburg, Florida last week, as a small pod of dolphins swam through a huge aggregation of manatees. As the dolphins make their way through the shallow waters, we see around 170 manatees just chilling, as manatees do. Then we get to see the dolphins show off their playfulness, as dolphins do.

The marine mammal mingling is particularly meaningful knowing how the manatee has struggled for survival.

170 Manatees and Some Jumping Dolphins in St Petersburg, FL

www.youtube.com

Florida manatees became protected under the Endangered Species Act in 1973, when their numbers were estimated to be between 800 and 1,000. By 1991, their population was still less than 1,300. But dedicated conservation and rehabilitation efforts in recent decades have increased that number to around 6,300. Manatees in Florida currently make up around half of the world’s total manatee population.

The increase in numbers does come with a couple of caveats, however. Manatee populations are notoriously difficult to count accurately, so estimates are just that. The manatee was downgraded from “endangered” to “threatened” in 2017, but some advocates said that designation is misleading because the threats to its survival are still just as much of a problem.

The biggest threats manatees face are collisions with watercraft, habitat loss and degradation, fishing gear entanglement, human harassment, exposure to red tide, and climate change. The loss of the manatee’s warm-water habitat is a vital long-term threat to the species, as it can’t tolerate cold waters. Traditionally, they rely on natural springs to stay warm during cold weather, but urban and agricultural development has impacted many of Florida’s natural artesian springs.

However, as far as conservation and rehabilitation goes, Florida manatees are a success story. Many groups, both within the government and non-profit sectors, work diligently to advocate for the protection of Florida manatees and educate people on how they can help. Seeing this large aggregation of manatees from above is a heartening reminder of how important that work has been.

The footage was captured by See Through Canoe, a company that sells transparent canoes and that shares videos of animal encounters off the Florida coast. They say that dolphins and manatees often swim in the same waters, but rarely interact directly. This summer, they shared a video of a small pod of dolphins actually seeming to play together—a phenomenon they say they’ve not seen in 30 years of observing these animals.

The Odd Pod. Dolphins and a Manatee Swimming and Playing Together

youtu.be

As human activity continues to impact the well-being and survival of creatures like the manatee, we can use videos like this as inspiration and incentive to implement more environmentally responsible habits. Seeing what we’re saving by pushing for ecologically sound policies and practices can go a long way toward keeping the momentum going.

As if spending all week getting dragged for his tweets wasn’t enough, Ted Cruz showed up to Donald Trump’s impeachment trail today with a brand new haircut that opened up a whole other avenue of comedy for dunking on the Florida senator. Social media had a field day with Cruz’s new look as folks tried to figure out what exactly Ted is shooting for with his new… mullet? We’re going with mullet.

This isn’t the first time Cruz has stumbled into a hair disaster. While joining his fellow Republicans in mocking COVID-19 restrictions during the start of the pandemic, Cruz visited a Dallas hair salon after the owner was imprisoned for contempt of court and violating a state-mandated restraining order by refusing to close her business. Cruz supported her defiance and stopped in for a not-so-stellar haircut, which also got him roundly mocked.

You can see the reactions to Cruz’s latest hair disaster below:

Cruz’s new haircut is just the latest in a long series of embarrassing moments. Cruz has been ruthlessly dragged on Twitter for mocking the NBA’s choice of Black Americans to salute during Black History Month, badmouthing Princess Leia to defend Gina Carano, trying to look smart by incorrectly citing Shakespeare, and tweeting about breast milk. And that’s just from this week! Cruz also suffered a humiliating moment when Cary Elwes tore into the senator by letting him know that the entire cast and crew of The Princess Bride have “nothing but rabid contempt” for him. As for why that message would be particularly stinging, The Princess Bride is Cruz’s all-time favorite movie. That’s gotta hurt.