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Donald Trump announced he had coronavirus early Friday morning and by that evening he was at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington seeking treatment, but the confusion over his health and just when he knew he had COVID-19 continued on Saturday.

Trump tweeted his diagnosis after midnight Friday morning, setting off a chaotic string of events in Washington. Several officials in the White House have tested positive, and many are scrambling to get results that were near Trump and his team over the last several days. Chris Christie, who helped Trump prepare for Tuesday’s debate and then appeared on network TV to analyze it, tweeted Saturday that he had contracted COVID-19 as well.

As the fallout of a White House super-spreader event continued to escalate, medical officials gave an update on Trump’s condition on Saturday morning as others around him reported they had also tested positive.

Trump had been quiet about his own status, only tweeting a handful of times in the hours since his COVID-19 testing results were made public. The president tweeted a brief video message on Friday after he was at Walter Reed, though it appeared to be shot in the White House before he left via Marine One.

The video drew plenty of reaction online, as did the subsequent news conference with medical officials on Saturday that put into question the timeline established by the White House about when Trump tested positive, how long he’s been receiving treatment and what exactly that treatment has been thus far. Doctors told reporters at the briefing on Saturday that the president was “doing very well,” but that was immediately contradicted by a pool report given to reporters that cast a much different light on his status and how important the next hours of his treatment are to his health.

That report, which was given directly to several reporters, was supposed to be off the record but reporters soon realized it came from Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Other reporters echoed the much more dire predicament that second report indicated, reporting that Trump was expressing fears about the virus and there was real concern about his health.

That’s jarringly different from the medial briefing, let alone the tweets sent from Trump’s account on Saturday afternoon. Perhaps more troubling, though, was the doctor’s statement during the press conference that Trump was 72 hours — or three full days — away from his initial diagnosis and 48 hours away from his first treatment of an experimental drug cocktail the White House had announced he started taking on Friday.

That disclosure would indicate that Trump tested positive well before Friday around 1 a.m. and he potentially went about business as usual while knowing his was COVID-19 positive.

The White House later attempted to clarify that timeline, saying the doctor that spoke was incorrect. But the release itself not only spelled “Regeneron” wrong, it incorrectly described the treatment the company says the president has received.

That, coupled with an AP report that the president did, indeed, get supplemental oxygen on Friday afternoon as well as the conflicting report given anonymously to the White House pool reporters immediately after the press conference has made for an extremely confusing situation in Washington as the health of the president continues to be uncertain. What is certain is that the public is very much in the dark about the status of the president as he fights COVID-19, and it seems many in the American government itself seem to be equally confused about it all as well.

Shortly after midnight on Friday, Donald Trump shocked the Twitter world by announcing that he tested positive for coronavirus. The announcement was just the latest event in what had been a tumultuous week for the president. It arrived just days after he participated in the first presidential debate with former vice president Joe Biden. Taking to Twitter to send prayers to the president whom he has a good relationship with, Kanye West wished Trump a “full recovery” in a recent tweet.

“There’s a crying need for civility across the board. We need to and will come together in the name of Jesus,” Kanye said to begin his message to Trump. “I’m praying for President Trump’s and Melania’s full recovery, just as I would for Joe and Jill Biden if they were stricken, as well as everyone else with COVID-19.”

The well wishes come after one of is closest associates, Kid Cudi, addressed Kanye’s support of Trump’s political agendas and his distaste with it.

I thought some people would be foolish about it and be like, ‘Oh, he must’ve talked to Kanye,’ or, ‘Kanye must’ve got to him,’ or some sh*t like that. I think he knows where I stand, and I think he doesn’t bring it up to me. We just don’t talk about it. I totally disagree with it; I think he knows that. And if he doesn’t know, he knows now.

You can view Kanye’s tweet above.

Adding another moment to what’s been an eventful 2020 for Travis Scott, the Houston rapper brought his talents to Jimmy Kimmel Live! to perform his new single, “Franchise.” Taking advantage of the social distancing the show requires for its performances, Travis debuted a trippy visual for his performance, one that features Young Thug and MIA beside him. Bringing the song’s line “in my white” to life, the visual finds the three artists performing the song inside Travis’ white tee.

It starts off with Travis sitting in a G-Wagon as he chows down on some fries on turns up to the song playing in the background. Next, the camera makes a smooth transition to the inner threading of his tee-shirt where we find Travis energetically performing the song. Traversing through the song, Young and MIA join him in the white tee universe to perform their verses as well.

The performance arrives after TMZ reported that the Houston rapper scored Michael Jordan’s million-dollar estate as the location for his “Franchise” video “without hesitation.” In other recent news, Travis also revealed a new action figure, which fans can obtain with a slight catch, and a third collection of merchandise, both as a result of his recent partnership with McDonald’s.

You can watch Travis, Young Thug, and MIA perform “Franchise” above.

Let’s just start by saying this post will absolutely spoil the seventh episode of Season 2 of The Boys, so if you haven’t gotten your weekly fill of superhero mayhem, maybe save this tab in your browser until you do. You’ve been warned.

The penultimate episode of the show’s second season had a lot of heads exploding once again, as the show continues to ramp up the brutality and shock in a variety of ways. But one of the more unexpected moments of the show was the death of a (former) member of The Seven. TV Line talked to showrunner Eric Kripke (careful: there’s also a spoiler in the story’s URL as well) about the episode and he detailed what the writer’s room was thinking when it decided that Lamplighter, who was introduced in the last episode, needed to go.

As Kripke noted, Lamplighter was removed from The Seven and was essentially on cleanup duty for Vought, killing off people who had been experimented on and reacted negatively. The role weighed heavily on him, though, and when we finally see Shawn Ashmore in action he’s not very positive about his lot in life.

“Our feeling was, in the writers’ room, that Lamplighter is suicidal,” showrunner Eric Kripke tells TVLine. “He pretty much straight up says it at the end of Episode 6. He says to Mallory, ‘Please kill me. I really want to be put out of my misery.’ So he’s pretty on record that he’s suicidal.”

Despite what Kripke had in mind for the character, the show’s creator admitted he had regrets about his ultimate demise, which came at Vought headquarters when he lit himself on fire after helping Hughie break in and create a diversion to rescue Starlight. Kripke credited Ashmore for his work with the character and how much depth he brought to a character viewers weren’t exactly expected to find sympathetic.

“We wrote all that before we cast Shawn, and once we cast Shawn and we saw how good he was and how soulful and weary and, in a weird way, sympathetic he made Lamplighter, I really regretted that we were killing him,” Kripke admits with a laugh. “If I could go back and do it again, knowing that I had Shawn and what he did with that character, I would have kept him alive for longer. But that was what that character was arced for from the beginning.”

It’s high praise for a character that was just introduced on camera in the previous episode, but Ashmore certainly did his best with the part. There’s a lot going on in any episode of The Boys, but he certainly did the most with what was just one of several deaths in another bloody episode.

[via TV Line]

Lana Del Rey celebrated the physical release of her Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass poetry book earlier this week. She previously released its audiobook version through Simon & Schuster at the end of July. Giving fans an opportunity to meet her and get the poetry book autographed, she held a book signing event in Los Angeles on Friday night. But while the event may have been a big moment for Del Rey, it was not the poetry book itself that brought her the most attention. Instead, it was the very questionable mask she wore as she greeted fans and took pictures with them.

Rather than wearing a N95 or surgical mask, which have been the two recommended masks to wear in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Lana Del Rey opted to wear a mesh mask at her book signing event. Her mask was filled with holes and provided no protection from potentially spreading COVID-19, leaving fans to hop on social media to respond and question her decision to wear the mask.

One fan posted a picture of Lana with her mesh mask and said, “lana del rey has reached her full karen form HELP.” In other posts, a pair of fans used her mesh mask to make a reference to her 2012 album Born To Die with one saying, “Lana Del Rey wearing a net mask during the Covid-19 pandemic because according to her: We were born to die.”

You can find more reactions to Lana’s mesh mask below.

On this week’s episode of People’s Party, Jasmin Leigh and Talib Kweli chopped it up with comedian, writer, and all-around renaissance man Orlando Jones. In this clip, Jones details how he wore multiple hats on American Gods — acting, writing, and creating the “show bible” for the character of Anansi (Mr. Nancy) before being fired from the series. He attributes his departure to new American Gods season three showrunner Charles Eglee.

According to Jones, Eglee didn’t like the radical politics of Mr. Nancy, whose speeches had gone viral multiple times. Two of these iconic speeches were by Jones himself.

“Dude thinks he’s the blackest dude in the game, hats, style, the way he carries himself, he’s from Boston, this is a Boston white dude… what was really crazy to me was that there was a studio, a network, and a cast full of black people and people of color who were not willing to stand up and call this dude out for being a culture vulture, particularly on a show that is so multicultural.”

It wasn’t just Eglee’s treatment of Mr. Nancy that got under Jones’ skin, it was his disregard for the universe that had already been established by the previous American Gods team.

“We established these characters before you got here, at least be respectful enough of human beings to have a conversation with them and allow them to be in the discourse, whether you keep the character or not keep the character is not the point, but it was coming in like ‘oh you’re going to tell me what black is, and he’s gonna tell all ya’ll what it is and you’re just going to go along with it?’ Then let me do a pushback from this show altogether because there is simply no way that this white dude from Boston can possibly write these two Muslim gay characters. He knows nothing about what it means to be disenfranchised… nor does he care!”

‘People’s Party with Talib Kweli’ featuring Orlando Jones airs Monday, October 5th, at 9am ET at YouTube.com/UproxxVideo.

Titans-Steelers is now just the first NFL game that won’t be played this weekend as Cam Netwon’s positive coronavirus test has led to a second postponement. According to reports, the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs won’t play Sunday following Newton’s test results as well as other reports that at least one member of the Chiefs had tested positive.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who broke the story that Newton had tested positive, reported Saturday that Chiefs-Patriots, scheduled for Sunday afternoon, will not be played.

It’s unclear if the Monday or Tuesday timeline is even possible, both regarding safety concerns for players as well as keeping the schedule for the rest of the season intact. The Chiefs are scheduled to play a Thursday night game in a few weeks, and compressing the NFL schedule isn’t as easy as other sports like, say, baseball can manage.

Sunday’s scheduled Steelers-Titans game will not be played due to several positive coronavirus cases in Tennessee of both Titans players and staff. Days after their first cases closed the team’s practice facilities, cases continue to pile up and delay when the team will be able to return to prepare for games. It’s unclear how serious the situation is in both New England and Kansas City, but it’s a concerning health situation that continues to complicate the NFL’s attempt to play during a pandemic.

The United States government is currently reeling from a wide swath of coronavirus cases in the White House, starting with president Donald Trump. But the NFL is currently dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak of its own, and Saturday morning brought word that it had hit the New England Patriots as well.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Saturday that Patriots quarterback Cam Newton had tested positive, presumably for COVID-19 though he did not initially report it specifically. According to the tweet, Newton would not play against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.

It’s unclear if there is a true outbreak in New England like the Tennessee Titans are experiencing, which has forced the team to postpone its game against the Pittsburgh Steelers from Sunday to later in the season. The Patriots soon put out a statement about the reported positive case, saying that player — presumably Newton — was in quarantine.

As Schefter reported Saturday, the Patriots were scheduled to fly to Kansas City on Saturday but delayed the trip due to more testing.

Word soon came that Newton wasn’t the only Patriot who had tested positive.

It’s unclear the status of Sunday’s game: despite some NFL reporters insisting initially that the case was “isolated,” that’s simply not how coronavirus works and starting with that assumption can be dangerous as community spread of the virus may not create new, detectable cases until several days after exposure. That’s exactly the situation that appears to be playing out in the White House as well as with the Titans, who saw their rash of cases postpone a game earlier in the week. On Saturday, more cases on the Titans team and staff were reported, further putting into doubt their next scheduled game against the Buffalo Bills next Sunday.

The Miami Heat are in trouble. Despite a valiant effort in Game 2 on Friday night, the Lakers were able to get the 124-114 win and go up 2-0 in their NBA Finals series. Jimmy Butler did his best to put the team on shoulders as they went in to the contest undermanned after a slew of injuries, but ultimately, it wasn’t enough.

Butler powered through his own ankle strain in Game 1, but it was Goran Dragic and Bam Adebayo who got the worst of it, each of whom were forced to sit out on Friday. Adebayo suffered a neck strain, which initially was thought to affect the same shoulder he injured in the conference finals, and that prognosis was certainly more optimistic than Dragic, who was diagnosed with a plantar fascia tear and whose time table for return remains unclear.

But the Heat got some good news late on Friday night when Adebayo announced that he plans to suit up when Miami takes the court in Game 3 on Sunday.

Via Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports:

Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo, who suffered a neck strain in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, told Yahoo Sports on Friday night that he plans to return for Game 3.

“Yes, I believe I’ll be in the lineup,” Adebayo told Yahoo Sports after missing the Los Angeles Lakers’ 124-114 victory that gave them a 2-0 series lead. “I’m feeling better. I believe I’ll play.”

Adebayo exited the first game of the series with eight points and four rebounds in 21 minutes.

Adebayo has been one of the key reasons the Heat have advanced this far in the postseason, averaging better than 17 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists during his time in Orlando. Miami was able to keep the game close on Friday, despite being shorthanded, and Adebayo’s return should give them the confidence they need to be competitive going forward.

(Yahoo Sports)

The LeBron James and Anthony Davis pairing has been every bit as good as advertised. They’ve steamrolled their way through the postseason so far, and after another dominant performance in Game 2 on Friday night, they find themselves just two wins away from an NBA title.

It would be a first for Davis and a fourth for LeBron, but a historic 17th championship for a Lakers franchise that has returned from a 10-year Finals absence with a bang and is looking to add yet another banner to its already-crowded rafters at Staples Center when all is said and done.

Of course, the LeBron-AD partnership has been drawing inevitable comparisons to another Lakers duo from the past, as they continue a long tradition that dates all the way back to Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, to Magic and Kareem, and culminates in arguably the most dominant one-two punch of them all in Shaq and Kobe.

Asked about those comparison on Friday night after Game 2, LeBron couldn’t help but feel flattered.

“To be in the conversation with those two guys… is very humbling.”@KingJames on the comparisons he and @AntDavis23 have gotten to the Shaq & Kobe duo. pic.twitter.com/Hx9DvJCwft

— NBA TV (@NBATV) October 3, 2020

LeBron, for his part, has been part of a few other fairly dominant and successful duos during his previous NBA stops, including ones featuring Kyrie Irving in Cleveland and Dwyane Wade in Miami, the latter of whom even had to admit on Friday that his buddy’s pairing with Davis might complement him even more than the one he won two championships with during the Heatles days.

Naturally, this whole exercise is unavoidable, even if a little premature given the sustained success Kobe and Shaq enjoyed during their time together. But for now, LeBron is clearly happy to take it for what it is and stay focused on the task at hand.