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James Harden’s tenure as a member of the Houston Rockets has come to an end. According to Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania, Harden, who has wanted out of Houston in recent months, is headed to the Brooklyn Nets.

Earlier in the day, a report had emerged that the Nets were willing to offer as many as seven first round picks for Harden, which, given Houston’s general lack of future first rounders from their own trades made it a very enticing package. In the end, the two teams brought in the Cleveland Cavaliers to bolster the deal with an additional first round pick, making it four picks and four swaps going to Houston, with Taurean Prince and Jarrett Allen going to Cleveland, while Caris LeVert headlines the package going to Houston, per ESPN’s Wojnarowski.

However, LeVert won’t be long for Houston as the Rockets and Pacers will swap LeVert for Victor Oladipo, per The Athletic’s Charania, as Houston gains some star power and the Pacers swap out their disgruntled star for the up-and-coming LeVert.

The full deal looks as such:

For Harden, he joins what now has to be considered the frontrunner in the Eastern Conference, re-teaming with former OKC teammate Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving (whenever he returns from his personal leave) to form a trio that is unmatched in the East and really in the NBA. He also reunites with his old coach Mike D’Antoni, who will know as well as anyone how to deploy the superstar on the offensive end.

Harden joined the Rockets ahead of the 2012-13 season in a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder. While he served as the team’s sixth man in his old digs, Harden was immediately given the keys in Houston and turned them into a hyper-efficient offensive juggernaut. He made the All-Star Game in every year that he played for the franchise and made top-2 MVP finishes the norm, taking home the league’s Most Valuable Player award in 2018.

While he is perhaps the most efficient offensive player to ever live, the Rockets have never been able to get over the hump with Harden at the helm. The team came close a number of times, but also had a number of high-profile meltdowns — they famously were up, 3-2, on the Golden State Warriors in the 2018 Western Conference Finals before a Chris Paul hamstring injury (and an historically bad shooting night in Game 7) led to their demise, and the following year, they could not topple the Dubs in the conference semis despite Kevin Durant going down with a calf injury when the series was tied at two games each.

The inability to get over that hump reportedly played a major role with him wanting out, with a report surfacing on Wednesday that part of the reason Harden wanted to leave town was that he could not envision the Rockets toppling the Los Angeles Lakers. But this past offseason, turmoil in Houston proceeded his wanting out — Mike D’Antoni and Daryl Morey both left the franchise, while the Rockets opted to trade Russell Westbrook for John Wall. The first two men, in particular, advocated for creating a Harden-centric culture, building a franchise around his gifts as an offensive player.

That, ultimately, may be the biggest question facing Harden in his new digs. Houston’s decision to make Harden the sun, the body around which its entire franchise orbited, rubbed some (like Westbrook) the wrong way, and he is now headed to a place where the culture likely will not be as Harden-centric as his now-former franchise.

The Nets send out a significant amount of talent and draft capital, but certainly have to feel like the East favorites at this moment with the firepower they can deploy come playoff time. Losing Allen is a significant blow to their frontcourt rotation and one would expect they might need to tinker with their roster further on the buyout market or at the trade deadline, but their core is unbelievable.

The Rockets, one would think, will be looking to lock Oladipo up on an extension given that they made him the centerpiece of the trade along with the draft picks, and with Oladipo, Christian Wood, John Wall, and the rest there’s some reason for optimism that they’ll continue to be competitive this year.

The Pacers get a terrific young player in LeVert who fits a lot of what they could use offensively in replacing Oladipo, who went from having little to no trade market this offseason to netting them a player some believe could be an All-Star. And the Cavaliers step in to provide an additional (late) first round pick for next year courtesy of the Bucks as well as salary filler in Exum and in exchange bring in a terrific young big in Allen and a solid wing in Prince who very well could be flipped at the deadline to a contender in need of 3-and-D assistance.

Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert hasn’t been in Congress very long, and she’s already made a name for herself. The freshman representative burst onto the scene by vowing to carry her Glock every time she’s on the floor of Congress, which quickly put her on the radar of the Capitol police. She followed that up by live-tweeting Nancy Pelosi’s exact location during last week’s violent insurrection. When that very same insurrection led to metal detectors being installed in the Capitol building, Boebert, once again, drew national attention by refusing to comply with the officers working the security gate and throwing a tantrum when they attempted to search her purse.

Less than 24 hours later, Boebert is at again. This time she made Sarah Palin trend after Twitter users couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the two while Boebert issued a rambling defense of Donald Trump during Wednesday’s impeachment hearing. Boebert took particular aim at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was a direct target of last week’s violent coup attempt. Via New York Post:

“What about the gentlewoman from New York who defended the looting by saying looters just wanted loaves of bread? Well, the last I checked, Best Buy and Teslas and stores of the like do not produce baked goods. Where’s the accountability for the left after encouraging and normalizing violence?” she said.

Boebert’s odd rant brought back memories of Palin’s numerous word salads, and it wasn’t long before tweets started firing off equating the Republican politicians:

Speaking of Twitter, Boebert took to Instagram to reveal that her account was locked this week with no explanation given as to why. However, within hours of Boebert sharing news of her Twitter suspension, the lock was reversed with Twitter saying the suspension was a “mistake.” Her account is currently active. For now.

Post Malone has essentially been the public face of Crocs for the past few years, and now he and the company have teamed up for a good cause. They partnered with Musicians On Call, a nonprofit that “brings live and recorded music to the bedsides of patients in healthcare facilities” (per their website), to give Crocs to hospital staffs in hospitals across the country.

They’re not handing out just any Crocs either, but the sold-out Post Malone x Crocs Duet Max Clog II, the same ones Posty recently gave away to people at the chicken restaurant where he used to work and to staff and students at his high school.

In a statement, Musicians On Call President and CEO Pete Griffin says of the donation, “The stress of the pandemic on staff in all areas of the hospital has been unrelenting and we have been doing what we can to continue bringing them the joy of live music. We are so grateful to Post Malone and Crocs for joining us in providing even more relief when they need it the most through this generous donation. Thanks to them, caregivers at 70 hospitals nationwide will have the added support of their Crocs to help them through their day.”

Susan Hernandez — DNP, MBA, RN, and chief nurse executive at UT Southwestern Medical Center — added, “We are grateful for this donation of footwear from Musicians On Call for our frontline health care workers and appreciate the recognition and caring it represents.”

Revisit our recent interview with Malone here.

While most streaming services boast finely-tuned music discovery algorithms, Sonos Radio lets fans discover music directly through their favorite artists. With their new high-fidelity subscription service Sonos Radio HD, Sonos is aiming to expand their reach. That’s why they’ve added even more artist-curated stations to their new HD platform.

Teasing the new stations Wednesday, Sonos announced they will be hosting curated stations by FKA Twigs, D’Angelo, The Chemical Brothers, Björk, and more.

With her station titled Main Squeeze, FKA Twigs describes the kind of music that can be heard when it launches February 10. “As an artist I’ve always been inspired by music that creates a world,” she said in a statement. “360° visionaries like Prince, André 3000 and Grace Jones have always made me fall in love with music over and over again. I’m excited to share my station, main squeeze, on Sonos Radio HD because it includes all the amazing artists that have helped shape my world – music I like to get ready to with my friends, songs that have got me through heartbreaks, backstage nerves, and nights out. It’s great to have all this music that has touched me all in one place, I hope you like it.”

D’Angelo’s station, Feverish Fantazmagoria, is available for Sonos listeners to tune in on January 13. “This is a curation of sorts — a collection of musical expressions that I call Feverish Fantazmagoria,” he said. “It includes some crate digging; a lot of psych rock and funk rock in there, even some gospel and soul. Just a lot of incredible music that’s fun and inspires me.”

About her station, which is available February 24, Björk says she’s excited to finally share decades of music discovery. “I am quite thrilled to have had a reason to go through 21 years of music-file collecting,” she said. “Since my first laptop I have been cd shopping, awkward cassette finding, vinyl searching in secret stores on my travels and gathered them all into a library of gorgeous wave-files. It was only a question of time before I would share them and then in yet another form: them clouds and streams.”

Listen to Sonos Radio here.

Shake Shack just delivered one of the best fast-food chicken sandwiches currently on the market. Trust me on this, I don’t throw around chicken-based praise lightly and I’ve been at this game for a long time (in internet years). I was there in the trenches during the insanity that was the Popeyes Chicken Sandwich rollout. I’ve tested and ranked the spiciest sandwiches to ever grace a fast-food menu board. And I’ve even started crafting my own chicken sandwiches at home.

What I’m saying is, I’m a (self-certified) chicken sandwich expert. So when I tell you that this thing is good, you can trust that I mean it.

But it’s also complicated — the centerpiece of Shack Shack’s “Korean-Style” menu, the launch of which surfaced some very legitimate concerns about cultural appropriation in food (especially during this independent-restaurant-obliterating pandemic). And as good as the sandwich is, those concerns deserve to be reckoned with. (Why oh why must chicken sandwiches be so problematic!?)

A little primer:

When Shake Shack rolled out the Korean-style chicken sandwich and its accompanying menu items, the company was criticized across the internet for what seemed like a shameless attempt to gentrify and appropriate Korean flavors. This comes on the heels of the chain accepting $10 million in COVID paycheck protection relief, despite being a billion-dollar nationwide food corporation. So the use of Korean ingredients (and co-opting of its sauces, etc.) by a national chain while mom and pop Korean restaurants struggle was impossible to ignore.

The conversation surrounding the menu also surfaced annoyance in the online food community about what makes a food “Korean-inspired” in the first place. In Shake Shack’s case, it seems to mostly mean Gochujang sauce and kimchi — which, many noted, felt lazy when you consider that we’re talking about a complex foodway with wide-ranging influences.

Shake Shack’s inability to read a room will, unfortunately, hang over this menu like a storm cloud. This partially (and rightfully) obscures the fact that, as far as fast-food chicken sandwiches go, this thing is easily top tier. So while we don’t begrudge anyone eating this, we’d certainly encourage them to balance that out with more culturally authentic Korean fare from local, independently-owned restaurants.

Availability:

The “Korean-style” Fried Chick’n sandwich — which should just be called the Kimchi Chicken Sandwich — was released alongside other “Korean-inspired” menu items, including a gochujang and mayo-based dipping sauce for Shake Shack’s fries and chicken nuggets, and a black sugar vanilla shake.

The whole line is available at every Shake Shack location from now until April 5th.

Least Essential Item — Korean-style Gochujang Dipping Sauce

It might be a little strange to kick off this ranking with a condiment, but considering Shake Shack’s Gochujang fries and chicken nuggets are just the Shack’s usual fries and chicken nuggets served with a side of dipping sauce — see what people mean about this menu feeling lazy? — the only new thing here is the sauce. So it’s really all there is to review.

From what I can tell, this stuff is a 50-50 blend of Korean gochujang and mayo. If you’re unfamiliar with gochujang — or just don’t know it by name — it’s a simple sauce consisting of a blend of fermented chili and soybeans, red chili peppers, and salt, with a distinctive bright red color and a potent umami flavor. It typically has a medium-to-severe level of heat, depending on the brand. Shake Shack adding mayo to it is perhaps the aptest metaphor one could imagine for this whole messy controversy.

As you’d expect, the gochujang spice is drastically mellowed by the mayo. But to its credit, it does retain that savory rich flavor that is so characteristic of the condiment. I wish they would’ve given us straight Gochujang, but flavor-wise this makes a great addition to the Shack’s roster of sauces and a great accompaniment to both fries and Shake Shack’s chicken nuggets.

Bottom Line: Ultimately uninspired, but pretty tasty when compared to fast food sauces.

A Twist On A Classic — Black Sugar Vanilla Milkshake

I don’t have a decent photo of Shake Shack’s Black Sugar Vanilla milkshake because being a food writer during a global pandemic means experiencing every meal in your car, and I live in Southern California, where a car parked in the sun gets hot enough to cook food, even in winter. By the time I got around to my milkshake — at the end of my meal, like a dessert — the shake’s thick custard topping drenched in black sugar syrup looked gross.

Why didn’t you just eat your food outside like a normal person?

Because, dummy, I live in Southern California, where 62 degrees is too cold to be eating food outside. Reminder to non-Californians: This is a Goldilocks state where no one is ever happy.

Anyway back to the shake. Despite its inability to retain its presentation in a hot Mazda Protege, it is good and offers some nice variety to Shake Shack’s usual shake roster. At Shake Shack, you can order vanilla, chocolate, mixed, strawberry or cookies and cream milkshakes. While my preferred flavor will always be chocolate, Black Sugar Vanilla would be my clear second choice.

This rich and luxurious handspun milkshake has all the properties of creamy and aromatic vanilla with a nice twist of buttery and deep caramel-like tones, courtesy of the black sugar syrup and additional black sugar mixed in (black sugar is just raw cane sugar without the molasses stripped out, FYI). It makes vanilla — a beloved but boring flavor — seem fun! I recommend skipping the custard, for what it’s worth.

Bottom Line: How exactly is this one “Korean-inspired?” Well, aside from Black Sugar syrup being popular in South Korean coffee houses… we. Have. No. Idea. But it is tasty as hell.

Could’ve Been A Contender — Korean-style Fried Chick’n

And now we come to the main event. From the moment I first heard the news of Shake Shack’s new Korean-style fried chicken sandwich to the moment I first unwrapped the thing, I never thought this had a chance of becoming fast food’s best chicken sandwich. All controversy aside, I’ve had Shake Shack’s “Chick’n” sandwich before and… it’s fine. Certainly not my first choice. I’ve definitely never opted for it over the burger when visiting the chain.

Between my previous experiences and the appropriation controversy, I bit into this thing full of skepticism. But that quickly melted away (with help from my hot-ass car) as my taste buds were awakened by an umami bomb of rich and complex flavors. (Disclaimer: Complex for a fast food joint, etc., etc.)

I feel that almost every chicken sandwich needs modification of some sort, but the…*sigh* “Korean-style” Fried Chick’n is superb exactly as is. It features a hearty piece of white meat chicken hand-breaded in the Shack’s sauce-absorbing batter, submerged completely in a subtly spicy and sweet gochujang sauce, atop a brioche bun covered in white kimchi slaw, and finished with a modest dusting of toasted sesame seeds.

The sesame seeds on the bun add a nice aromatic quality that tames some of the more pungent qualities of the kimchi slaw, which is made using Choi’s kimchi — highlighting a spicy mix of Napa cabbage, daikon radish, carrots, garlic, Asian pear, green onions, and sea salt. The slaw really pulls the flavors of this sandwich together and elevates the experience.

(See that Shake Shack? Choi’s Kimchi, A Portland-based company that grew organically out of the local farmer’s market scene, based on a family recipe that was founded and operated by actual Korean people, made your sandwich a winner. Cultural authenticity helps!)

Bottom Line: In October of last year, Shake Shack’s Seoul location dropped an iteration of this sandwich that we suspect has a stronger spice kick to it, as this recipe was a “slight variation,” according to Shake Shack’s press release. I want that sandwich.

Until then though, this is my top fried chicken sandwich in the whole game, warts and all.

So should you go out and buy it?

Maybe.

We don’t begrudge anyone for looking at this whole project sideways. And this is fast food — if you feel a certain way about it, definitely don’t bother with it. You’re not missing something life-changing.

If you’re don’t agree with the critique, live in a food desert, find yourself visiting Shake Shack anyway, or just want to taste the dang thing, well… divorced from context, this sandwich is delicious. We can’t deny that.

That said, I hope we can all agree that the pandemic is a crucial time for supporting local, independent restaurants. Post-pandemic will be a crucial time for that, too, come to think of it!

James Harden’s tenure with the Rockets seems to have all but come to an end, as the former MVP was not at practice on Wednesday for what coach Stephen Silas cited as being what was “best for the group” if he wasn’t in attendance. This came after Harden effectively burned all bridges in his postgame press conference on Tuesday night following a loss to the Lakers, ripping the organization and making it clear he needed to be moved ASAP.

That message was apparently heard, and reports indicated that Harden likely won’t ever be back at the Rockets facility and a trade, either to Philadelphia or Brooklyn, is expected to be done either later today or in the very, very near future. Those comments last night by Harden were quickly pushed back on by John Wall in his postgame presser, as the point guard noted that Harden, without saying his name, wasn’t buying in.

On Wednesday, DeMarcus Cousins was even less subtle when asked about the Harden situation, calling out the disrespect Harden has shown the Rockets not just in his postgame presser last night, but in his actions since the beginning of the season.

Cousins is certainly not wrong here, as Harden’s disinterest in being on the Rockets has been evident since his club tour of America during training camp. Still, the way he vocalized things last night was especially disrespectful in the eyes of Cousins, who noted that it felt inevitable that a nasty breakup was coming, and doesn’t seem interested in seeing harden come back.

It honestly feels rather incredible that it took a month for all of this to spill out publicly, and the good news for Cousins, Wall, and the rest of the team is that they can now move on. Harden also will be getting his wish in the form of a new team, and as long as the Rockets get a strong return back, one has to believe everyone will just be relieved that this saga has come to a close.

Hiss Golden Messenger took things slowly in 2020 after firing off a string of consistently productive years: Between 2016 and 2019, the M.C. Taylor group released five albums. 2019’s Terms Of Surrender, the group’s most recent album, earned the band some Grammy consideration this year, as the record is up for the Best Americana Album award. Now they’ve returned with their first new music since that album, a single called “Sanctuary.”

The track is a breezy and thoroughly pleasant slice of ’70s-inspired folk-rock on which Taylor reflects on how things have been lately, singing, “Feeling bad, feeling blue / Can’t get out of my own mind / but I know how to sing about it.” The song’s video features Taylor singing the track in front of a large American flag, as well as other people getting in front of the camera to lip-sync along.

Taylor says of the track:

“Over the past year, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we care for ourselves and each other, and how hard it is to live truthfully in a world that is so tangled. ‘We sell the world to buy fire, our way lighted by burning men,’ says the poet Wendell Berry. The song ‘Sanctuary’ is one small piece of my own personal reckoning with what it feels like to search for some kind of shelter in the storm. Fare thee well, John Prine, AKA Handsome Johnny, a speaker of truth if ever there was one.”

Watch the “Sanctuary” video above.

Both G Flip and Mxmtoon garnered much attention last year after they released their respective anticipated projects. G Flip shared her debut LP About Us while Mxmtoon unveiled the pair of EPs Dawn and Dusk. After sharing mutual admiration for each other’s music, the two singers decided to join together for a breezy collaboration. Tapping producer Rostam, G Flip and Mxmtoon debut the single “Queen” alongside a powerful video.

Directed by Adam Kiers, the “Queen” video is dedicated to strong women everywhere. Explaining her inspiration behind the track, G Flip said:

“‘Queen’ was written about the strong women around me, the queens that raised me and the queens I’ve met through my years. My idea of a queen is not necessarily linked to gender; queens come in all forms and walks of life. To me a queen embodies power and strength; they embrace all they are fiercely yet gracefully. The song was written one sunny day in LA, I was chillin’ on Rostam’s lovely white couch and he turned around to me and said ‘how about we write a song about Queens’ and I replied with ‘f*ck yeah!’”

Echoing G Flip’s excitement about their collaboration Mxmtoon added, “So happy to be a part of ‘Queen’ with G! She and Rostam were such a joy to work with and so so much fun to collaborate with on creative as well. I’m so glad that it’s still possible to make art and music with someone even when they’re on the other side of the world, and I’m lucky that I got the opportunity to feature on G’s song. ‘Queen’ is a power anthem for any person, and I’m so excited for people to love it as much as we do!”

Watch Mxmtoon and G Flip’s “Queen” video above.

Incoming Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush is fresh off calling out GOP lawmakers for throwing tantrums over metal detectors at the U.S. Capitol in the wake of the failed MAGA coup. She then headed into House proceedings where she proceeded to light up those of her Republican colleagues who are steadfastly refusing to support impeaching Donald Trump for the second time. As one Twitter user noted, she didn’t even need a full 30 seconds to let her speech fly, fast and furious.

“Madam Speaker, St. Louis and I rise in support of the article of impeachment against Donald J. Trump,” Bush proclaimed. “If we fail to remove a white supremacist president who incited a white supremacist insurrection, it’s communities like Missouri’s 1st District that suffer the most… The 117th Congress must understand that we have a mandate to legislate in defense of Black lives. The first step in that process is to root out white supremacy, starting with impeaching the White-Supremacist-In-Chief.”

Cori Bush’s address was followed by “boos” from some Republicans.

Bush was joined in her sentiments by fellow Democrat Cedric Richmond (from New Orleans), who’s headed into the Biden administration as a senior advisor. He dropped a fiery speech with a special flourish at the end.

“Some of my colleagues, some of which may be co-conspirators,” Richmond declared. “Let me suggest to them; stand up Man up. Woman up. And defend this constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic including Donald J. Trump. In the first impeachment, Republicans said we didn’t need to impeach him because he learned his lesson. Well, we said if we didn’t remove him, he’d do it again. Simply put, we told you so… Richmond out.”

That’s quite a mic drop.

Trump’s been bleeding allies left and right since he incited a violent uprising on Capitol Hill last week, but he’s now starting to lose the support of his favorite news network.

The talking heads on Fox & Friends — Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Ainsley Earhardt — gathered to break down the Democrat’s push to impeach Trump after he welcomed his MAGA mob to D.C. and told them to march on the Capitol. Currently, the House is voting on impeachment articles — a vote expected to pass — and there are rumors that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell might also be open to the idea of voting Trump out of office. While Kilmeade crowed over the optics of impeaching the president with just a week left in his term, fellow host Doocy held nothing back in condemning the network’s beloved presidential cash cow for his actions in recent days.

“If a Democratic president did what happened last week, would the Republicans in the House and Senate vote to impeach him if they could? The answer is yes,” Doocy said.

An exasperated Kilmeade still seemed confused as to why Congress would be hung up on the idea of impeachment, even with Trump walking out the door, to which Doocy responded, “I think the members of Congress just want some accountability.”

Doocy’s distancing from Trump is indicative of a bigger push from pro-establishment Republicans to separate their political agendas from the disgraced outgoing president ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration. Considering Trump is at least indirectly responsible for instigating a coup and stirring up a violent mob to attack members of the House and Senate and impede the democratic process, it seems right that members of his party should want to condemn him — even if it’s just for the optics.

Doocy alluded to that fact, reiterating how damaging the riots and the looting on Capitol Hill was for the morale of the nation, prompting Kilmeade to compare what happened last week to the Black Lives Matter protests happening in places like Portland, Washington last year. Doocy was not having it.

“Brian, I don’t think what they were trying to do in Portland was overthrow democracy,” Doocy clapped back. It’s possibly the only clear condemnation we’ll see from Fox when it comes to the domestic terrorists still supporting Trump so soak it in, folks.