The Toronto Raptors shifted their focus towards the future last season, trading away Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby to pave the way for Scottie Barnes to take a central role. In return, they brought in Bruce Brown, RJ Barrett, and Immanuel Quickley, along with draft capital, and the latter of those entered this summer as a restricted free agent. Quickley was a bright spot for Toronto after arriving from New York in the Anunoby deal, averaging 18.6 points and 6.8 assists per game, while hitting 39.5 percent of his threes, in 38 games with the Raptors.
Re-signing Quickley, who brings some needed pace, spacing, and shot creation to this Toronto roster, had to be a priority for the Raptors after they got a max deal with Scottie Barnes done. The question was how much would Quickley get, and we got that answer on Friday when word broke he was signing a 5-year, $175 million deal with the Raptors.
ESPN Sources: Guard Immanuel Quickley intends to sign a five-year, $175 million contract to stay with the Toronto Raptors. Quickley arrived in trade with Knicks and established himself as a cornerstone player for Toronto. pic.twitter.com/7jtWabVxmr
That is a handsome contract for a guy that was in a sixth man role a year ago, and it’s clear the Raptors view him as their long-term starting point guard. If he can continue growing into that role and maintain the kind of three-point percentage he shot a year ago, the Raptors might end up with some great value out of this deal. With Quickley and Barnes agreeing to new 5-year deals, Barrett and Jakob Poeltl under contract for three more years, and Gradey Dick entering the second year of his rookie deal, the Raptors hope they have the beginnings of a new core and that they’ll be able to skip the bottoming out process of rebuilding and get back to competing for a Play-In spot fairly soon.
Doechii has rapidly been developing a reputation for swapping genres like outfits in a music video. After making her mark with hip-house hits like “Persuasive” and straightforward Southern rap street bangers like “Universal Swamp Anthem,” she takes on Afroswing with her new single “Rocket.”
Part of Sprite’s Limelight series, which invites artists to give unique takes on a single “core hook” created by Take A Daytrip, the song is meant to highlight a moment from each artist’s life in which they’ve “prevailed over a moment of heat.” In Doechii’s case, she details a situationship that is going nowhere fast — hence the “Rocket” of the title, which she says she is debarking posthaste — and the video is set in the primary incubator for confusing, hormonal relationships: High school.
Decked out in a variety of Y2K mall ensembles and gymnastics gear, Doechii’s “Rocket” video depicts the camaraderie between girls and women that gets them through such situations. In the song’s press release, she says, “Music is so many things to me, to artists, to fans. It soothes you; it heals you; it can uplift you and drive you on when you need it most. That’s what compels me to be part of this project with Sprite Limelight – creating new music with different producers, different artists, for people to connect to and feel a part of. It’s special.”
Apple TV+ is home to a wealth of stellar TV shows including crowd favorites like Severance and Slow Horses. However, do not sleep on the tech giant’s film offerings, including Oscar fare like Killers of the Flower Moon but also comedy flicks starring A-listers. Such is the case for The Instigators, which brings back Matt Damon with a Boston accent, and what more do you need?
Much more is on tap for the film, as it turns out. For starters, this is Road House remake director Doug Liman’s followup movie, so you can count on snappy one-liners and a barrel full of wit amid the laughs and action pieces. Do not forget also, that Liman previously directed Damon in The Bourne Identity, so Damon and Affleck weren’t the only parties coming home with this project. What else can we expect from the movie?
Plot
Matt Damon portrays Rory, a father looking to improve most facets of his life and who begrudgingly teams up with Casey Affleck’s ex-con, Cobby. Together, they’re going to steal the ill-gotten gains from a corrupt politician. Naturally, the situation goes sideways, and the pursuers end up being pursued. Where do they turn for help? Rory’s therapist (Hong Chau), of course, as one does. Surely, nothing else will go wrong with that kind of backup.
Of Damon’s character, Liman previously told the Associated Press, “You’ve never seen a character like this in a heist movie.” How so? “This is a guy who doesn’t speed. He’s done everything in his life sort of by the books and this is the first time he’s going to break the rules.”
Affleck co-wrote the script, for which he drew from a deep well of iconic buddy comedies and crime team-ups. As he told Entertainment Weekly, “The inspiration for this was definitely Midnight Run and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” This was fully intentional, since Affleck has “wanted to do a buddy action comedy” for awhile.
From the Apple TV+ synopsis:
[W]hen the heist goes wrong, the two find themselves engulfed in a whirlwind of chaos, pursued not only by police but also by backward bureaucrats and vengeful crime bosses. Completely out of their depth, they convince Rory’s therapist to join their riotous getaway through the city, where they must put aside their differences and work together to evade capture — or worse.
Cast
In addition to the leading duo, this film co-stars Jack Harlow, Ron Perlman, Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, and Toby Jones.
The Dallas Mavericks, fresh off of an appearance in the NBA Finals, are in a position where they need to tweak their roster to remain competitive in the Western Conference moving forward. One of the players who was widely viewed as available on the trade block was Tim Hardaway Jr., the microwave scorer who fell out of the team’s rotation on their run this postseason and has seemingly been dangled as an option on the trade market for years.
On Friday morning, Hardaway finally got dealt to the Detroit Pistons, which received three future second-round picks — one from Toronto in 2025, two in 2028 — for taking him on. In exchange, the Mavericks received an interesting young player in Quentin Grimes, who Detroit acquired from the New York Knicks last season.
Dallas has traded Tim Hardaway Jr. and three second-round picks to Detroit for Quentin Grimes, sources tell ESPN.
Hardaway is about to enter the final year of his contract, which is worth a little more than $16 million. He’s coming off of a season where he averaged 14.4 points per game, appeared in 79 games for Dallas, and finished in ninth place in Sixth Man of the Year voting, so time will tell if Detroit is able to flip him down the road to a team that wants to take on an expiring contract and add someone who can score.
Grimes, the No. 25 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft, is in the final year of his rookie deal before he hits restricted free agency next summer. While he struggled mightily after the Pistons got him last year, the version of him that we saw in 2022-23 with the Knicks was the exact sort of role player you want next to Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, as he’s a capable shooter (he hit 37.9 percent of his threes in 2.5 years in New York) who competes on the defensive end of the floor. Acquiring also frees up some room for Dallas to try and re-sign Derrick Jones Jr. in free agency.
Most Star Wars fans didn’t expect a lot from Andor before it premiered on Disney+ in September 2022. “A prequel about the fourth most interesting character from Rogue One? And there’s no Baby Yoda? Yawn.”
How wrong we were.
Andor ended up being the best Star Wars show — and maybe the best Star Wars production overall, including the movies — since the Disney acquisition in 2012 (it’s number two for me behind The Last Jedi, a take that you either wholeheartedly agree with, or you’re so mad at me that you just threw your laptop into a trash compactor out of disgust). It was even nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series
Can Andor — a.k.a. “Star Wars for grown-ups” — pull off the same trick again? Here’s everything we know about season 2 of the Disney+ series, including the plot, returning and new cast members, and when it’s expected to debut.
Plot
Disney+ hasn’t released an official plot synopsis on the upcoming season yet, but we can piece together some details based on interviews with the cast and creatives.
Diego Luna (Cassian Andor) teased that season 2 will be more Rogue One-heavy (hopefully with a continued aversion to Han Solo’s dice-like fan service) than last season. “I can tell you, Rogue One is coming, so there will be characters there that you will recognize,” he said at ACE Superhero Comic Con. “For those who love Rogue One, this season is going to be very special. It’s going to be fascinating to go straight to Rogue One after watching this second season, because you will see Rogue One from a different perspective.”
To make up the timeline gap between Andor and Rogue One, the 12-episode season will take place over four three-episode blocks. “What we’re doing now for the second season, to finish, is we have four years to cover. Because we break down in these three block chunks, each block of three will be a year; we’re going to jump a year,” creator and showrunner Tony Gilroy explained, according to Screen Rant. “When we come back for the second [season], we’ll come back [and] a year will have evaporated, and it’ll take place over a Friday, Saturday, and a Sunday. Then we’ll jump a year, and we’ll do the same thing again. We’ll do it four times. The last tranche will be the [three] days before Rogue One, and then we’ll walk you into the movie.”
As for our hero, Gilroy told Vulture that season 2 isn’t about Cassian becoming radicalized. Rather, he said, “It is very much about, ‘How difficult is it for the Rebel Alliance to come together with all the outliers and original gangsters? Different agendas and betrayals? The tension of the next four years as things pull together? The effect of time on people?’ But I don’t look past that because my characters don’t know what’s going to happen after that.”
Still, even if the show has greater ambitions than just the guy whose name is in the title, he’s our way into this story of rebellion. “[Cassian] says he wants to be a part of the Rebellion, but I’m not sure if he knows what that means yet. He’s basically saying, ‘I want to speak the language,’ but now he has to learn it,” Luna shared to The Hollywood Reporter. “And so it’s going to take longer. We’re gonna go for four years [in season two], and when we find him, he’s so far away from where we left him at the end of season one. He’s basically the guy to trust for something like that mission.”
Cast
All the heavy hitters are expected to be back, including Diego Luna as hunky Cassian Andor, Stellan Skarsgård as freedom fighter Luthen Rael, Adria Arjona as mechanic Bix Caleen, Genevieve O’Reilly as secret Rebel leader Mon Mothma, Denise Gough as Imperial Security Bureau supervisor Deedra Meero, and Kyle Soller as civil servant Syril Karn, who loves law and order as much as he hates his mother. Forest Whitaker is confirmed to return as Saw Gerrera, while director Alonso Ruizpalacios teased that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story star Ben Mendelsohn is expected to reprise his role as Imperial baddie Orson Krennic. We might even get some more Alan Tudyk as K-2SO!
Release Date
There’s no official premiere date for Andor season 2, but Adria Arjona thinks it’s coming in 2025. “Season 2 of Andor is coming out hopefully next year,” the actress, who was so freaking good in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, told The New York Times earlier this month. “I think people are going to freak when they see it. It’s so much bigger, smarter – Tony [Gilroy] really outdid himself.”
Trailer
How many times have you watched Stellan Skarsgård’s episode 10 monologue about how he’s burning his life to make a sunrise that he knows he’ll never see? There’s no trailer for season 2 yet, so why not one more time!
Carpenter shared a promotional video today, and the ’80s-style, VHS-looking clip begins with a shot of a newspaper with the headline, “She’s getting around!” If you squint, you can also read the text, “She’s Short! She’s Sweet! She’s everywhere! Sabrina Carpenter sure does get around these days…” From there, we get shorts of Carpenter in a smoky room, posing for the camera as tour dates scroll on the screen.
Now is an awesome time for Carpenter to launch a tour, as she’s just days removed from landing her first No. 1 single with “Please Please Please.” Ticket pre-sales started a few days ago, while the general on-sale kicks off today at 10 a.m. local time.
Watch the video above and find Carpenter’s upcoming tour dates below.
Sabrina Carpenter 2024 Tour Dates: The Short N’ Sweet Tour
08/10 — San Francisco, CA @ Outside Lands Festival
09/23 — Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
09/25 — Toronto, Ontario @ Scotiabank Arena
09/26 — Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
09/29 — New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
10/02 — Hartford, CT @ XL Center
10/03 — Boston, MA @ TD Garden
10/05 — Baltimore, MD @ CFG Bank Arena
10/08 — Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
10/11 — Montreal, QC @ Centre Ball
10/13 — Chicago, IL @ United Center
10/14 — Minneapolis, MN @ Target Center
10/16 — Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
10/17 — Saint Louis, MO @ Chaifetz Arena
10/19 — Raleigh, NC @ PNC Arena
10/20 — Charlottesville, VA @ John Paul Jones Arena
10/22 — Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
10/24 — Orlando, FL @ Kia Center
10/25 — Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
10/28 — Austin, TX @ Moody Center
10/30 — Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
11/01 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
11/02 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Delta Center
11/04 — Vancouver, BC @ Pacific Coliseum
11/06 — Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
11/07 — Portland, OR @ Moda Center
11/09 — San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
11/10 — San Diego, CA @ Pechanga Arena
11/13 — Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint Center
11/15 — Los Angeles, CA @ Crypto.com Arena
Short N’ Sweet is out 8/23 via Island Records. Find more information here.
Christie and Wesley Werts have taken the idea of a blended family to the next level. When the couple fell in love five years ago and married, they brought together her children, Megan and Vance, and his children, Austin and Dakota.
As of January, the Ohio family has five children after adopting young Levi, 2. Levi is the son of Wesley’s ex-wife, who passed away four days after the child was born. The ex-wife had the boy prematurely, at 33 weeks, and died soon after from drug addiction and complications of COVID-19.
When Levi was born, he was a ward of the state with no first name or birth certificate.
“When I heard about Levi, without hesitation, I said we should take him,” Christie said, according to The Daily Mail, and her reason went far beyond the fact that the child was the half-brother to two of her recently adopted children. “I myself was a foster kid and, although for the most part, I had a great experience, I did not want him going to foster care,” Christie said.
Replying to @Journey♥️ Yes, they will always know of her and ill be there for every emotion good or bad. But im also mom, ive been to every game, every doctors appt, sat with them if they needed an ear loved unconditional . I am mom also. #adoption #srorytime #siblings #foryou #loveislove
Before the family knew of Levi’s birth, Christie had a recurring dream about a blue-eyed, blonde-haired boy.
“Before Levi, we had wanted to try to have a child of our own,” she told Newsweek. “I’m in my forties, so we knew that we would probably need fertility treatment, so I thought let’s just think about it and what will be will be.”
The problem was that Levi was in Texas, so the family sold their house and moved to the Lone Star State to go through the arduous adoption process. The situation was further complicated because Levi’s biological father had parental rights even though he had substance abuse problems. The family couldn’t move out of Texas until his rights were legally terminated.
But after a 16-month process, in January 2023, Levi became a legal family member. Christie understands that adopting her husband’s ex-wife’s baby may seem unusual to some people. “It’s a lot to process for a lot of people, but honestly, it seems a lot crazier than it was. At the time, it just made sense,” she said.
Our adoption is official !!! after 17 months!!! #adoption #son #loveyou #ourstory#foryou #fyp
Even though Christie knew in her heart that she must adopt Levi, she wasn’t without reservations. “’If I said I did not [have concerns beforehand], that would not be honest,” she told The Daily Mail. “This was different—I was going to walk into a child I never met and was worried the circumstances would hinder this instant love. But […] he stole my heart. I also felt this intense need to protect him.”
These days, Levi fits right in with the family, and the rest of the kids are happy to be back to living an everyday life without any caseworkers or inspections.
“He’s great, he is the king of the house! We are all very close. He won’t understand the journey right now, but someday, I will let him know we fought for him!” Christie said.
People feel very strongly about their condiments. No matter what condiment there is someone either loves it or hates it but one of the biggest debates on the food toppers is how to store them. Yeah, that might sound a bit strange because everyone knows open condiments are stored in the pantry, unless its hot sauce, right? Whoa, calm down. I’m only kidding. I don’t make the rules Heinz does, apparently.
They do make the condiments so it would be assumed that we would look to them to know how to store the products they make. But the people of Twitter are daring to argue with Heinz after the condiment giant posted a controversial tweet that declared ketchup does in fact belong in the fridge. This bold tweet is dividing the internet.
“Heinz don’t even know where their product should be stored,” one person declared. While another claimed, “Never, ever has it gone in my fridge, nor anybody else’s.” Who’s going to tell these people to read the back of the bottle?
It wasn’t Heinz but some hero came with receipts in the form of a photo of the back of a Heinz ketchup bottle that clearly reads, “refrigerate after opening.” You would think this would end the debate but people are very invested in being right about the way they store their condiments with wide ranging arguments.
People made points about cold ketchup making their food cold and restaurants keeping ketchup on the tables. While others argued that it tastes better cold but if you thought Heinz was done antagonizing the internet, you’d be mistaken. They responded to several comments with sassy humor while still asserting the tomato based condiment belongs in the refrigerator.
— N. Malone🏳️🌈| Etani Book 8 coming October 2023! (@NMalone8) June 27, 2023
Someone named Dave asked, “so why is it on the shelves in supermarkets & shops then?” To which Heinz replied, “Where do you keep your soft drinks, Dave?”
I mean, Heinz does have a valid point. Most soft drinks are kept on the shelf in the grocery store but you wouldn’t catch many people drinking a warm can of Coke. But that logic didn’t stop team ketchup belongs in cabinets. A person named Mike responded to the thread with his thoughts on Heinz bringing soft drinks into the conversation.
“I’m not pouring my soft drinks on hot food. Cold ketchup nullifies hot food which some of us like better than cold food. Get your preservative cookbook out and make the stuff safe to keep in the cupboard.”
Where do you keep yours? It has to be… in the fridge!
In an attempt to either continue to antagonize the internet or quell the chaos (it’s hard to tell which), Heinz created a poll asking where ketchup belongs. Currently the Fridge has the cupboard beat by a pretty decent lead but with as heated as this debate has been, there may be room for team cupboard to catch up. Even if they’re wrong. There’s no right and wrong in where to store your ketchup as long as you don’t read the label.
Maybe you’re someone who likes to keep a bottle in their sock drawer for emergency late night snacks, who knows. Tell us, where do you keep your ketchup?
The way we come across long-lasting friendships is often unexpected. But when you’re part of a military family. You learn to grab hold of the good people you meet and carry those friendships across states and oceans. You mark your friendships based off of what base you were stationed at when you met them and know those friendships can withstand just about anything because they’ve been tried.
So for an American family stationed in Japan, there was no doubt at least one lifelong friendship would be made. It just may have been surprising that the friend wasn’t affiliated with the military. Instead, the friend was an older Japanese man who didn’t speak English and lived next door to the young family in Yokosuka, Japan.
But this isn’t the first time this unique story went viral. In 2013, Reddit user Theresa52 posted a picture of a note that she received from her neighbor-turned-friend. People loved the letter and sweet story attached. Theresa explained that after moving to their new neighborhood in Japan, she and her husband passed out beer and chocolate to their neighbors. A few hours later, they met, Hiroshi Yamashita, their new neighbor and one of the recipients of their gift.
When Yamashita knocked on the family’s door, he presented them with gifts of his own—toilet paper, stuffed animals and a note. In the thread Theresa noted, “Things that are consumable and household necessities are popular gifts. We have heard lots of stories about people getting laundry soap,” after someone asked if toilet paper was a common housewarming gift in Japan. The stuffed animals were for their infant daughter at the time.
But the note is what keeps going viral. It starts out, “I can’t speak English. Thank you for the present. My name is Hiroshi Yamashita. I’m 52 years old. [I’m divorced] and I live alone.” Since Yamashita didn’t speak English, the note had some spots that were difficult to understand but the intent was clearly pure.
Theresa wrote in the comments of the post that it appeared that he was asking if her husband was in the Navy. While the sentences are out of order a bit, if you reorganize them a little, it seems Yamashita is attempting to say, “I have stuffed animals and toilet paper. You can use it if you’d like.”
The man concludes the letter with “Thank you for your friend operation.” It seemed that he was thanking the family for their hospitality, but Reddit users surmised that he was referring to Operation Friendship in 2011 when the United States aided Japan after an earthquake. Either way, it was still friendship operation because what says friendship like taking time out of your day to write in a language you don’t speak just to make sure your neighbors feel welcomed?
“It was adorable! We had brought him a six pack and some chocolate and tried to introduce ourselves to him. A couple hours later he brought over this letter with a pack of toilet paper and some stuffed animals for our daughter,” Theresa wrote in the comments while joking that their initial introduction probably amused Yamashita.
Further explaining within comment threads, Theresa said that they used pointing and Google Translate when they initially met Yamashita, and in turn, he used a translator app to write the note.
Theresa shared an update in the comments about six years after the story originally went viral saying, “We all exchanged gifts and food regularly for the four years I lived there. We would go to neighborhood festivals and have dinners together as well. I miss them all and think about them often.”
You never know when being kind will turn into a life long friendship. We certainly hope Yamashita and Theresa are doing just as well today and are continuing to spread their kindness around.
This article originally appeared on 2.23.23
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