Category: News

Jane Goodall has had a long and storied career, studying and working with primates for six decades. She is best known for her work with chimpanzees, and it’s largely thanks to her field research that we understand as much as we do about their behavior and intelligence.

Goodall has undoubtedly had many notable experiences in her career, but there was one moment caught on video that highlights her extraordinary connection with these animals.

Wounda was a chimpanzee rescued from the bushmeat trade, and when she was brought to the Jane Goodall Institute’s Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center in the Republic of Congo, she was half the weight she should have been and near death. (In fact, that’s what “Wounda” means—”close to death.”)

But thanks to Dr. Rebeca Atencia and the staff at Tchimpounga, Wounda recovered. After rehabilitation, chimps can’t go back and live in the wild, but Tchimpounga has some sanctuary islands set aside for rehabbed chimps to live in the forest, safe from attacks and poachers. Wounda was taken to Tchindzoulou island to live with more than a dozen other chimps that had already been released there.

Goodall herself was not part of Wounda’s rehabilitation, but she accompanied the team when it came time to release Wounda. She reassured Wounda with a soft voice and kind words on the way to the island, and the two connected immediately, despite it being the first day they met. And when Wounda was released, her expression of gratitude and affection, not only to Dr. Atencia but to Goodall herself, was a sight to behold.

Watch Wounda’s story and witness the hug heard ’round the world:

Wounda’s Journey: Jane Goodall releases chimpanzee into forest

www.youtube.com

Though we can’t read a chimpanzee’s mind, of course, it almost feels as if Wounda senses that Goodall is the reason she was saved and being given her freedom. That hug seemed to symbolize the gratitude of an entire species to a woman who dedicated her life to their well-being.

Even for Goodall, who has worked with countless chimps, this moment stood out as remarkable. “It was one of the most moving things to ever happen to me,” Goodall told CNN in a follow-up in 2018.

Jane Goodall reflects on hug from rescued chimpanzee

www.youtube.com

And the story got even more extraordinary, as Goodall mentioned in the CNN interview. The female chimps released on Tchindzoulou island are given permanent birth control implants to keep the population under control so they have space for other rescued and rehabbed chimps. But with Wounda, the birth control failed. She ended up giving birth to a baby boy, which the Institute appropriately named Hope. You can see the incredible cuteness here:

From Near Death to New Life: Wounda is a JGI Story of Hope

www.youtube.com

Goodall, now 86 years old, is still actively advocating for animal rights and welfare as well as environmental conservation, and her lifelong dedication and compassion for these incredible animals is worth celebrating.

The Republican party is in tatters right now, and for a good reason: On Wednesday, a claque of Trump supporters led an attempted coup, which failed but still resulted in five deaths. Even many of the more moderate members of the party now have to face the fact that they either egged on a dangerous president or stayed silent as he shredded untold norms. (Those that never liked Trump anyway have been distancing themselves even more.) Some have even tried to demand that Democrats and progressives go easy on them, that the only way to heal a bitterly divided nation is by forgiving and forgetting. But that plea has not been met too kindly either.

On Sunday, Hugh Hewitt — the longtime conservative pundit, who presents himself as a calm, eggheady alternative to, let’s say, Rush Limbaugh — thought he was offering an olive branch to the other side of the aisle. “The president-elect still has the opportunity to begin his Administration with an appeal based on Lincoln’s first administration: ‘We are not enemies, but friends. We cannot be enemies.”

But there was one outspoken Democrat who was particularly appalled that Hewitt would put the onus on the party whose followers didn’t storm the Capitol building, armed with weapons and pull ties: Seth Rogen.

https://twitter.com/classiclib3ral/status/1348331212755120129/photo/1

“We’ve already established that your words are meaningless and you have no set of morals that you consistently abide by, and therefor you should probably just shut up?” Rogen tweeted back at him.

Hewitt replied by inviting him on his radio show, though he quickly dovetailed into accusations. “I don’t think you will want to discuss anything that involves genuine moral choice, such as subservience to the box office demands of the Chinese Communist Party or your beliefs generally,” he wrote. But Rogen wasn’t having that either, replying, “My movies don’t come out in China you moron.”

The pundit kept at it, continuing to invite him on. But Rogen wasn’t having it. After Hewitt said it was “news to me” that the actor and filmmaker had “taken a principled position” against China, Rogen retorted, “Everything is news to you because you’re a f*cking moron.”

Still, Hewitt persisted, eventually leading Rogen to make things extra clear to him. “There might have been a time when your vocabulary could mask the fact that you’re an empty toilet waiting to be filled with s*it, just to give it purpose, but that time has passed.”

Rogen wasn’t the only person who took umbrage with Hewitt’s attempt at conciliation. Some pointed out that maybe Abraham Lincoln is the wrong person to invoke after a deadly conservative attack.

Anyway, a reminder to Hewitt and other conservatives attempting to save face after emboldening a dangerous president: Demanding forgiveness is not how this works.

The fifth game of NFL Wild Card weekend saw the Bears visit the Saints in a game where the expectation was that New Orleans would roll to a win, but for some it was the most anticipated game of the weekend because it was going to be the first time an NFL game was broadcast on Nickelodeon.

The result was rather incredible, as Nate Burleson starred in the booth, providing both entertainment and actual insight as he tried his best to break down the complexities of football in the simplest terms possible. This resulted in the inevitable “what is a catch” discussion, which actually went better than expected on a first quarter review, as it’s one that can confuse even the most diehard NFL fans.

However, the funniest moment early wasn’t anything to do with slime cannons or funny filters, but instead Burleson, at the prodding of fellow Nick analyst Gabrielle Nevaeh Green, having to explain to the kids at home what NFL players do when they have to go to the bathroom in a game.

Kudos to Burleson for handling this with the necessary tact needed for a TV-Y7 broadcast while also offering an almost thorough explanation. He left out the part where sometimes, well, guys will just go as needed (or accidentally) as we heard plenty of stories in the aftermath of Lamar Jackson’s Poopgate scandal earlier this season.

The kids watching (and adults who chose the somewhat wacky shenanigans of the Nick broadcast over the CBS one) certainly got quite the wide array of football education on Sunday, even if they weren’t expecting to learn NFL bathroom etiquette.

In less than a month, the Foo Fighters will share their tenth studio album, Medicine At Midnight. Before the new effort arrives, lead vocalist Dave Grohl took a moment to reflect on performing with his former band, Nirvana.

“I still have dreams that we’re in Nirvana, that we’re still a band,” he said during an interview with Classic Rock. “I still dream there’s an empty arena waiting for us to play.” At another point in the interview, he revealed why he does not perform any Nirvana’s songs by himself.

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable singing a song that Kurt sang. I feel perfectly at home playing those songs on the drums. And I love playing them with Krist and Pat and another vocalist,” he said. “But I don’t sit down at home and run through ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by myself.” He added, “It’s just a reminder that the person who is responsible for those beautiful songs is no longer with us. It’s bittersweet.”

Back in July, Dave Grohl spoke about Nirvana during an interview with Apple Music when he was asked what Foo Fighters song helped him cope with Kurt Cobain’s death. “‘This Is A Call’ is probably the one song that… it had a different feel,” he said. “And especially coming after Kurt’s death, ‘This Is A Call,’ it was like a renewal or a reawakening where I actually found joy in playing and writing.”

Medicine At Midnight is out 2/5 via Roswell/RCA. Pre-order it here.

(via Classic Rock)

The second game of the NBA season to be postponed due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols will be Sunday’s Celtics-Heat game. Boston came in with just eight players available, meeting the minimum requirement but would have been without stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, but an inconclusive test result for Miami will actually be what causes the postponement, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania.

As Charania reports, contact tracing from the inconclusive test has led the Heat to having not enough players eligible to play — this comes after Avery Bradley was ruled out earlier in the morning. It’s the first postponement since the Rockets openers against the Thunder, but Miami and Boston are not the only teams dealing with COVID-19 issues at the moment. The Nets will be getting Kevin Durant back after a 7-day quarantine on Sunday afternoon and the Sixers recently played a game with seven players (the eighth “eligible” player was Mike Scott who did not play) after Seth Curry returned a positive test in the middle of their game in Brooklyn, which he was on the bench but not playing, last week.

The reality of the situation for the NBA is become readily apparent, as they are seeing numerous positives and contact tracing, which to be clear is critical and important to do to limit the spread, is wreaking havoc on rosters and making every night something of a mystery. Still, the league is adamant about pressing forward, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Prior to the season, the league refused to put a set number of cases or define the situation that would lead to an all-out stoppage of the season. One does have to wonder at what point they would have to take that into consideration, but for now they’ll continue just trying to get through as much as they can and postpone games when absolutely necessary, as has become the case in Boston tonight.

In the wake of the failed but still deadly MAGA coup on Wednesday, the Republican party has been in tatters. Those who’ve long supported outgoing president (and social media pariah) Donald J. Trump, or remained silent as he shredded norms, have been jumping ship, suddenly welcoming his successor, Joe Biden, with open arms. One prominent Republican who’s never been fond of Trump — quite the opposite, in fact — is Colin Powell, former secretary of state during George W. Bush’s first term. On Sunday, a visibly vexed Powell went on CNN to announce he was finally done with his longtime party.

Powell was speaking to host Fareed Zakaria, who asked him, bluntly, about the state of the GOP, who have “refused to condemn him,” who have cozied up to him, and allowed the horrors that erupted on Wednesday to grow.

“They did and that’s why I can no longer call myself a fellow Republican,” Powell replied. He continued:

I’m not a fellow of anything right now. I’m just a citizen who has voted Republican, voted Democrat throughout my entire career. And right now I’m just watching my country and not concerned with parties. I do not know how he’s able to attract all these people. They should’ve known better. But they were so taken by their political standing and how none of them wanted to put themselves at political risk, they would not stand up and tell the truth or stand up and criticize him or criticize others. And that’s what we need: We need people who will speak the truth, who will remember that we are here for our fellow citizens, they are here for our country. They are not here simply to be re-elected again. Come on, guys, you can make it in private life if you don’t get re-elected. But right now we need you to be real Americans who we can trust, who will tell the truth, who will argue on the basis of facts and not just argue on the basis of what their primary looks like.

Powell has been critical of Trump from the very start and, as someone who’s been more or less out of politics for the last 15 years, he never had worry about enraging him or his base to keep a job. Still, he’s clearly not sympathetic to those who did just that, and especially those, like Ted Cruz and Matt Gaetz, who contributed to his misinformation about voter fraud, which led to the violence seen on Wednesday.

Of course, it’s not like Powell has exactly been in lockstep with his now formally former party.

Maybe that’s why he’s one of the most respected people who, until the other day, called himself a Republican.

There was a lot of “welcome to the resistance” talk.

And, inevitably, there were reminders that Powell played a key role in the misinformation campaign that erroneously got America into the Iraq War almost two decades ago.

After two straight first round exits from the playoffs, the Ravens looked early on like they might be headed for a third when they fell behind 10-0 to Tennessee in the first quarter on Sunday. The chatter about Lamar Jackson in the postseason was already starting to warm up, but Baltimore’s defense stood strong from that point, allowing just three Titans points in the final three quarters and Jackson got loose on the ground for some big plays to push the Ravens over the line at 20-13 to pick up his first playoff win.

The Titans had a chance to drive down the field and tie the game with four minutes to play after a Ravens field goal, but Kalif Raymond slipped on a post route and Ryan Tannehill’s pass found the waiting arms of Marcus Peters for the game-sealing interception with just under two minutes to play. It was a key play, but what will be most talked about is the celebration, as the Ravens ran onto the field and danced on the Tennessee logo — picking up a 15-yard penalty that actually made things a bit dicey if not for a big Jackson run to seal things.

It was an obvious callback to earlier in the season when the Titans stomped on the Ravens logo in pregame, leading to jawing between Tennessee and the Ravens players and coaches, including John Harbaugh.

After taking the final kneeldown to end the game, Baltimore ensured there would be no funny business or fights by taking off straight to the locker room, with just Harbaugh and a few players going out for handshakes to avoid any brawling.

The Titans and Ravens very clearly don’t like each other and this win will be extra sweet after last year saw Tennessee upset Baltimore as the 1-seed. It also was smart by Harbaugh to send everyone straight to the locker room rather than risk letting Peters or anyone else chirp at the Titans and start something with another game to come.

Over the last few days, the calls to remove Donald Trump from office have come from all corners of the political world. They arrived after the Capitol in Washington D.C. was broken into and vandalized by MAGA rioters last Wednesday. Democrats and even some Republicans are seeking to remove Trump from office, whether it be through impeachment or by invoking the 25th amendment, and some names from the music world have joined in this call to action, one of them being Demi Lovato.

The singer shared an Instagram post that called on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th amendment to remove the president from office.

“We must all come together condemning the mob that stormed the Capitol this week,” Lovato said in the caption alongside a video of The View co-host Meghan McCain asking the vice president to take action. “Donald Trump incited violence against our democratically elected officials and is unfit to lead this country.” Lovato added, “@vp, please invoke the 25th amendment + congress please move forward with impeachment. We must protect the future of our democracy.”

This is not the first time Demi Lovato has condemned the storming of the Capitol. Last Wednesday, she shared a message to fans on Twitter that expressed her disappointment in the event as a whole. “My heart is broken. It makes me to sad to believe how naive I was to think this couldn’t possibly happen, and yet it did. Here we are. For everyone in my comments saying ‘where’s d7’ or wanting me to sing instead of speaking up about what needs to change in this country,” she said in the first of two tweets. “THIS IS WHY I POST AS MUCH AS I DO. THIS IS WHY I CARE. THIS CANNOT HAPPEN ANY FUCKING MORE. I’m angry, embarrassed and ashamed.” She also said fans could expect new music soon. “I’m in the studio working on something special after today’s assault on democracy.”

You can view her Instagram post above.

Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez has spent the days following Wednesday’s attempted coup criticizing Senator Josh Hawley for whining about losing a book deal after helping incite the violence. She’s also supported a second impeachment of Donald Trump if he does not resign, which looks increasingly unlikely as the days pass. But on Sunday she called out Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Twitter for complaining about Twitter follower counts and apparent censorship, noting first and foremost that she’s likely telling on herself in the process.

Conservatives have spent the days following the coup attempt complaining online about dwindling follower counts on social media and sites like Parler getting booted from mobile app stores due to a lack of moderation of hate speech.

On Sunday, AOC retweeted a Huckabee Sanders tweet about her plummeting Twitter follower count and pointed out several things, starting with the fact that those followers disappearing is likely because countless QAnon and conspiracy-filled accounts, like Donald Trump’s, have been suspended.

More than that, though, she tried to point out that Republicans seem far more concerned about an intentionally misleading first amendment argument than actual threats of harm to the nation. Not to mention there’s still an ongoing pandemic that’s killing record numbers of people in the United States every day.

Ocasio-Cortez was far from the only person to call out Sanders and other conservatives tracking follower counts more closely than coronavirus infections, hospitalizations or vaccinations over the weekend, but few politicians can do so more eloquently and succinctly than the Representative from New York.

Meghan McCain has not had a great return on The View, struggling to get support for her claim that Donald Trump supporters should be respected and left to reason with a Trump-incited coup attempt in Washington last week by those same supporters.

McCain, who was on maternity leave until recently, was told on air by a View co-host that she was not missed while she was gone, and she’s clashed with Whoopi Goldberg on air in recent days as well. And this sort of on-air tension has been impossible to miss, and may have the pandemic to blame at least in part.

According to a report from E! the tensions might be high on the show due, at least in part, to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A source exclusively tells E! News that not being able to film the daytime talk show in person is contributing to a sense of increased tension, especially as Meghan McCain returns from maternity leave. The insider explains, “There has always been a sense of family behind the scenes at The View, but it has been harder to maintain that camaraderie amongst the show’s hosts while producing the show remotely.”

As the source explained, the on-air members of the show were not able to “hide” from each other when they were all filming in the same place. So even if things were tense during the show, which features several different hosts of various political persuasions, things were never really allowed to boil up for too long.

“The women typically start their mornings together in hair and make-up before passionately sharing their opinions,” the source continues. “Then once the show goes off the air, the panelists all walk off set together, and there is almost always a post-show meeting—allowing the hosts to smooth over any tension that may have bubbled over during the day’s episode.”

That lack of post-show meeting seems to be contributing to some of the troubles that have showed up on air. Laughing could be heard from somewhere on camera while Chris Murphy was explaining the First Amendment to McCain on Friday. And while there’s always been an “embrace debate” aspect of the show, McCain in particular has seen a lot of animosity since she’s returned.

[via E!]