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Justin Bieber is currently in the process of ushering in a “new era” in his extremely successful career. Months after making his return with his Changes, the pop singer hinted at this new era with some help from his longtime manager Scooter Braun. It began with the release of his triumphant “Holy” single with Chance The Rapper and continued with the somber “Lonely” release from October. Taking a quick moment to entertain other things, Justin Bieber lends his voice for a hearty remix of 24kGoldn and Iann Dior’s “Mood” remix, one that also features J Balvin.

The remix arrives just a couple of weeks after 24kGoldn and Iann Dior saw “Mood” take the No. 1 spot on the singles chart, becoming the first chart-topping effort of their young careers. After receiving word of the achievement, 24kGoldn took to social media to celebrate, saying “ain’t no higher than this. thank you to everyone who ever listened, this is just the start,” on Twitter. In an Instagram video, the rapper would also say, “I’m only 19 years old, I’m not even 20 years old and we’re on top of the world, No. 1 on the Billboard charts. I did not think this sh*t was gonna happen this fast, if I’m being 100 percent honest with y’all. But I’m grateful as f*ck. I knew we could do it, and it was just a matter of time, yo.”

Bieber recently brought his talents to Saturday Night Live to perform his “Holy” and “Lonely” singles while J Balvin recently revealed new partnerships with McDonald’s and Fortnite. While the Latin star had some more highlight moments this year that included a performance at the MTV VMAs and teh announcement of an upcoming documentary with Amazon, the singer unfortunately also came down with a “bad” case of coronavirus, one that pushed him to remind fans that the “virus is real and it’s dangerous.”

Check out the “Mood” remix in the video above.

The halfway point of the 2020 NFL season (to the extent there is one in a 17-week schedule) is here. Through eight weeks, the league has been relatively kind in this space, including a winning performance in Week 8. Still, there is no time to rest, and the Week 9 slate is an intriguing one, with a few marquee matchups on the agenda.

Before we dive into the slate with five selections, let’s take a moment and reflect on the season-long progress.

• Week 8: 3-2
• 2020 Season: 22-17-1

Come get these winners.

Carolina Panthers (+10.5) over Kansas City Chiefs

This is a principle play in a lot of ways. The Panthers have been frisky this season and, even on the road, giving Carolina double-digits seems to be a bit aggressive. Part of that is the tax paid to the Chiefs for, well, being the Chiefs, but the public will coming rolling in on Kansas City. In fact, that sharp side is (quite) clearly going to be the double-digit underdog and, for good measure, Teddy Bridgewater is an obscene 31-11 against the spread (and even better than that as an underdog) as a starter in his career. Just take the candy.

New York Giants and Washington Football Team UNDER 43 points

I know 43 seems low, especially when viewed through the favorable offensive lens of 2020. With that said, these are two defense-first teams with offenses that I simply don’t trust. The fear, more than anything, would be some unfortunate turnovers that lead the way to short fields but, aside from that, there should be many, many punts. Washington is a top-five team in both total defense (on a yardage basis) and defensive DVOA, and the Giants were legitimately good on defense against Tampa Bay. Hold your nose and take the fundamental side.

Chicago Bears and Tennessee Titans UNDER 47.5 points

The Bears are breathtakingly bad on offense. Truly, they are. On the bright side (for us), Chicago is pretty stout on defense, and the Titans haven’t been quite as explosive on offense in recent weeks. We’re potentially in trouble if the Bears get to 21, but I don’t think they will. Even if they do, there’s a chance Chicago can slow Tennessee just enough to get us to the window.

Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings UNDER 52.5 points

Minnesota took the air out of the ball last week against Green Bay, and we’re betting they can do it again. The Lions do have a talented offense, but with availability questions, Detroit certainly isn’t a lock to light up the Vikings, even when they have the ball. Dalvin Cook probably won’t dominate the proceedings as much as he did against the Packers, but Minnesota is content to churn clock and this number is a touch high.

Arizona Cardinals (-4.5) over Miami Dolphins

We benefitted from Miami’s win last week, so this certainly isn’t a complaint. However, the Dolphins/Rams box score was comically one-sided in favor of Los Angeles, and it took quite a confluence of events (er, turnovers) to get Miami the outright win. In general, I do think the Dolphins have been undervalued this season, and we’ve been on them a lot as a result. Still, the Cardinals should probably be favored by 6-7 points, so we’ll lay the 4.5 on the home team.

Earlier this week, all signs began pointing to Dec. 22 as, quite easily, the most likely start date for the 2020-21 NBA season. Still, there was a proposal targeting Jan. 18 as an alternative, with members of the NBPA set to vote on the next step some time this week. On Thursday evening, that vote reportedly took place and, in the end, the players voted to move ahead with the Dec. 22 proposal that includes a 72-game season.

The NBPA confirmed the tentative agreement shortly after the initial reports emerged.

It is crucial to note that nothing is official at this juncture, as the NBA and the NBPA still must agree on financial terms for next season and beyond. In addition, COVID-19 protocols will be of great importance, both for scheduling and general operations for a season that is now set to begin in fewer than two months.

Per Shams Charania of The Athletic, the salary cap for 2020-21 is expected to land at $109 million, with ongoing discussions on the potential for a two percent minimum when it comes to the annual growth of that figure. Teams desperately need salary cap details in preparation for the NBA Draft, scheduled for Nov. 18, and at the moment, a moratorium remains in place for transactions, in part due to financial uncertainty. Free agency, meanwhile, will begin “as soon as possible” as teams need to set rosters and have players in cities for camp on Dec. 1.

Earlier in the week, it was reported that the NBA had proposed a new offer that would reduce the amount players were asked to put in escrow to 18 percent for just two years — previous reports suggested over 20 percent and three years could be asked for — as it seemed owners wanted to really make a big push for the December start date and the players apparently felt that was as good of a deal as they could ask for.

Though this result was widely expected for quite some time, reality now sets in across basketball circles. The endless draft cycle will conclude in the coming days but, from there, the league transitions to warp speed, with free agency, training camp, a (shortened) preseason slate and regular season games, all before Christmas arrives. Still, the schedule was a looming topic across the basketball landscape and, barring a drastic change, Dec. 22 is the date to circle.

Nearly a year ago, Kanye West took over the Hollywood Bowl to hold his Nebuchadnezzar opera show. It was held shortly after he delivered his Jesus Is King project, a release that kicked off his dive into the world of gospel music. The opera show was disappointing to fans who attended, as it started two hours behind schedule and lasted only 50 minutes. Now, less than three weeks from the one-year anniversary of the show, West is facing a lawsuit from the opera staffers for unpaid wages.

According to legal documents obtained by Complex, the opera staffers claimed that they were not adequately compensated for their contribution to their Nebuchadnezzar show. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include background actors and a hairstylist who claims she was supposed to receive $550 for two days of work. The hairstylist said after four months they received a $530 check and allegedly she was charged a $20 wire fee to get the payment. Other workers on the opera set said they were also charged the $20 fee, which apparently is a violation of California’s labor code.

“The defendants oversaw, controlled and ran the production, and the aggrieved employees worked many hours on the production and were not timely paid for their work, or paid at all,” a document from the lawsuit reads. “In addition, Defendants misclassified Plaintiffs and Aggrieved Employees as independent contractors as no deductions were made for payroll taxes.”

The plaintiffs are hoping to receive “unpaid wages, continuing wages, damages, civil penalties, statutory penalties and attorney’s fees and costs.”

(via Complex)

Joining the likes of Austin City Limits, Rolling Loud, Appleville, Save Our Stages, and more, Gucci has announced a virtual film and fashion festival, entitled Guccifest, to take place later this month. Among the many high-profile names they invited to appear at the festival, Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, and Florence The Machine are among the highlight names that viewers can expect to see at Guccifest. The festival announcement did not reveal whether Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, Florence The Machine, and other acts would perform or appear as models during the festival.

According to the Guccifest announcement, the festival will feature a collection of short films that will celebrate 15 independent young designers and their creations. The event will also be used to reveal Alessandro Michele’s latest Gucci “Ouverture of Something that Never Ended” collection.

In addition to the Guccifest appearance, Billie Eilish also revealed that she would release new music in November, a track that will hopefully be played at the festival if the pop singer gives a performance. Harry Styles is coming off a new video for his Fine Line introduction track, “Golden,” as well as his first No. 1 single with “Watermelon Sugar.” Florence The Machine’s addition to the Guccifest will hopefully lead to new releases from the band as they have not released an album since 2018’s High Hopes.

You can check out the announcement above and additional info here.

Hello, college football fans. If you were unaware, former Ole Miss, Auburn, Texas Tech, and Cincinnati coach Tommy Tuberville is headed to the United States Senate. As a Senator, not as a tourist or anything. No, seriously!

Tuberville, a Republican, entered the political arena in 2018 when he moved to Alabama with the intention of running for Senate. That race occurred on Tuesday, and based on current projections, Tuberville is going to beat Democratic incumbent Doug Jones, and while there is speculation that Jones may have a role in a potential Joe Biden administration in his future, Tuberville, a vocal Donald Trump supporter, believes that Biden should not make it into the White House.

Tuberville sent out a tweet on Thursday evening that inaccurately described what is occurring as legally cast mail-in votes are counted and show Biden eating into Trump’s lead in two crucial swing states, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

CNN’s Daniel Dale, who is known for his fact checks, called this “the single worst football analogy I’ve ever seen.” One of Dale’s colleagues, Jake Tapper, decided to go a different direction, reminding Tuberville of his final year as the head coach at Auburn — and just to hammer it home, followed with another tweet about an Auburn loss to LSU where they blew an 11-point halftime lead.

The Alabama game in question saw the Tigers lose, 36-0, and saw Auburn gain 170 yards of total offense. Tuberville resigned a little more than a week after the loss.

On the field, the 2020 NFL season has been reasonably kind to Jon Gruden and the Las Vegas Raiders. In the team’s first season in their new home city, the Raiders have a 4-3 record that includes victories over Super Bowl contenders like the Kansas City Chiefs and New Orleans Saints. However, the Raiders have run into controversy off the field, including an early-season incident in which 10 players were fined for violating COVID-19 protocols and another instance in which Gruden was fined for not wearing a mask on the sideline.

On Thursday, things reportedly escalated for the Raiders, as Charles Robinson of Yahoo reports Las Vegas will be fined and docked a draft pick for further violations.

As Robinson notes, the punishment increases in severity due to the franchise’s situation as a repeat offender. Quite honestly, that makes sense through the prism of the NFL needing to maintain order surrounding the virus and, in advance of Week 9, more than one-third of the league’s franchises faced some sort of COVID-19 roster fallout.

It remains to be seen as to what the impact of these sanctions might be for the Raiders. Still, losing a draft pick is another level from simply taking money out of the pockets of (very) rich individuals, and Las Vegas might also be on increasingly thin ice should additional issues arise.

The longest year on record got longer this week as election day in America did not see a clear winner determined between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the days following the end of voting. Trump’s initial leads in some states seems to be slipping away as mail-in ballots are being counted, and misinformation from the president about the legitimacy of the election has complicated things considerably.

One of the surprise swing states still uncounted as of Thursday evening was Nevada, a state won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and that initially looked good for Joe Biden on election night. But as Georgia, Pennsylvania Arizona and even Alaska also worked through their ballot backlogs and remained uncalled among most news organizations, people grew increasingly frustrated with the slow progress Nevada made in the hours following election day.

While some counties in Georgia and Pennsylvania worked through the night to count ballots, things seemed to be developing slowly out west. An afternoon press conference revealed things may not be wrapped up in Nevada anytime soon to give anyone clarity on the matter. And with not much else to do other than wait for results and worry, many people took to creating memes poking fun at how slowly Nevada counted its outstanding ballots.

Even The Bachelorette took some heat on Thursday because of Nevada.

Counting ballots in any election is a complicated and deliberate process, especially in a year where a pandemic has made voting increasingly more complicated and potentially dangerous. But the memes certainly came a lot faster than the results on Thursday. At least it was a welcome distraction from refreshing websites and watching TV for the actual results.

Donald Trump finally spoke to the American people on Thursday as his voting leads dwindled in several states and the 2002 presidential election hung in the balance. But what he said was so dishonest and flatly wrong that most television networks either cut in to correct misinformation about the election or stopped airing his statement outright.

Trump addressed the media shortly after 6:30 eastern time on Thursday, the first time he spoke since an early Wednesday morning rally at the White House where he falsely claimed victory in both several states and the election itself well before the result was certain. As of Thursday, it still wasn’t, though as mail-in votes were counted things were trending toward a Joe Biden victory in several states.

Which perhaps is why Trump claimed a vast conspiracy against him and baselessly accused voting fraud in several states like Pennsylvania, while still insisting votes be counted in places like Arizona where he appears to be gaining on Biden’s lead. The press conference was either interrupted or stopped altogether, though notably CNN aired it uninterrupted and in its entirety.

CNN’s Daniel Dale called the press conference the “most dishonest” one Trump had ever given since he announced he was running for president.

And afterward, Jake Tapper called Trump “pathetic” twice and called it a sad day for America, as his White House press conference was deemed a direct attack on democracy and the election process that’s still incomplete and with a winner undetermined.

“What a sad night for the United States of America to hear their president falsely accuse people of trying to steal the election. To try to attack democracy like that with his feast of falsehoods. Lie after lie after lie about the election being stolen. No evidence of what he had to say, just smears of vote counting in state after state,” Tapper said. “When he wins a state, it’s legitimate. When he loses a state, it’s that it’s being stolen from him. It’s not true, it’s ugly. It’s, frankly, pathetic.”

The CNN host continued, but perhaps it was Anderson Cooper who had the most biting line about Trump in the immediate aftermath of his speech.

“I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this from a president of the United States,” Cooper said afterward, noting that Trump had zero evidence of the fraud and offered a misleading and outright incorrect assessment of how elections work.

While he spoke disparagingly about the assembled media and claimed a vast conspiracy against him, this photograph perhaps best captured the mood of the press conference.

As of Thursday night, the election’s results remained unclear. But Trump’s statement sounded like that of a frustrated man unable to come to terms with the reality of the results to come, leaving America in an uncertain place in what’s been an increasingly long year.

Imgur user SunofAbyss is getting a lot of love online for a text exchange he had with his daughter. The exchange proved he’s the king of dad jokes, has excellent taste in cookies, and knows the importance of being in healthy relationships.

Oh yeah, he handled his daughter coming out of the closet perfectly.

Dad began the conversation by bringing up a topic that would be difficult for some fathers — his daughter joined GSA.

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Gay–Straight Alliance or Gender-Sexuality Alliance is a student-led or community-based organization found in schools that provides a safe and supportive environment for LGBT children, teenagers, and youth as well as their allies

But instead of having a heavy conversation about sexuality, this dad had fun with the big revelation by confusing it with another organization a younger girl may join.

via SunofAbyss / Imgur

via SunofAbyss / Imgur

Dad has the perfect response to his daughter being uncomfortable coming out to him.

via SunofAbyss / Imgur

Then, he brings up a simple, but important point about relationships.

via SunofAbyss / Imgur

Finally, the topic returns to what’s really important: cookies.

via SunofAbyss / Imgur

via SunofAbyss / Imgur

via SunofAbyss / Imgur

The post received some funny responses, although most people just wanted to talk about their favorite Girl Scout cookies.

“This is absolutely disgusting and these people should both be ashamed of themselves! The peanut butter sandwiches are the best cookies,” — seiken82.

“Honestly, this is my stance as well. Don’t give a damn who you bring home, just don’t date jackasses and jerkwards,” — GCRust.

“If you don’t bring cookies you’re not allowed to lesbian. Got it,” — thedownvotefairyisahorriblespecies.

Now, some people may see the dad’s flippant response as a missed opportunity for an important conversation about sexuality. However, according to Psychology Today, he did a great job at giving both of them space to think about the big revelation and return to it at a later time.

“Ask for time to take the news in before you express anything but love,” Kathy McCoy Ph.D. writes. “If you find yourself grief-stricken and shocked, try to express love for your adult child while asking for time to pull your thoughts together. It’s better to ask for time than to blurt out comments or questions that are hurtful.”

It seems as though this dad wasn’t shocked by the revelation but he gave his daughter, who was clearly uncomfortable, the time to get her head and heart around the news.

The dad also made a great point about relationships by saying he doesn’t mind the gender of who she dates, he just wants to be sure that they aren’t a “jerk.” Because that’s when dads have to step in and do their jobs.